Holy Wells

In the past wells were important not only for their drinking water but because they were thought to possess certain healing qualities. In Catholic times cults grew up around some wells said to be particularly effective in fighting disease and pilgrimages were organised from far and wide. When the Reformation came the new religious authorities condemned all such practices as idolatrous but, especially in Wales, the pesantry continued to use these healing wells in their efforts to get rid of their illnesses. Right up until the last years of the nineteenth century these wells continued to be used by many. Such holy or healing wells have played a central role in the life of the ordinary people for centuries and examples of the practices they indulged in when visiting these wells have been recorded from the sixteenth and right up to the beginning of the twentieth century. The wells were used to combat rheumatism, eye diseases and complaints associated with scurvy.

Rag Wells

Rag wells were particularly common in Glamorganshire and, in fact, appear to have been a peculiarly Glamorgan phenomenon in South Wales. (In Gwent for instance, no examples of rag wells are recorded.) Rags would be dipped in the water of the well, the affected part of the body would be bathed with the rag, and then the rag hung on a nearby tree. Sometimes the rags were not dipped in the waters of the well but only hung on the tree for luck. At other times pins were thrown into the well.

Taff Wells

At Taffs Well, eight miles from Cardiff, people had to wade through running water to reach the well which was situated practically in the bed of the River Taff. This did not apply in the summer months when the level of water was very low. In the nineteenth century a rude hut of sheet iron had been built over the well which was said to cure rheumatism and other ailments.  A ‘primitive’ custom of the place was that, when women were bathing, they hung out a petticoat or bonnet whilst male bathers hung out a pair of trousers.

Sandford’s Well

At Sandford’s Well, near Newton Church, Porthcawl, people would flagellate themselves in an effort to atone for their past misdeeds. Any running water taken from this well was firmly believed to stay pure and wholesome for the next twelve months. If any was spilled while being carried this was a sure sign of bad luck to come. If two people were standing at the well together they had to make the sign of the cross before washing, no doubt a relic of Roman Catholic rites and practices.

Below is "The Magical Well of Newton" - by Alun Morgan 

The well near the church at Newton was once called Sandford’s Well after a little-known Norman knight, but later, like the church, it was dedicated to St. John, the Baptist. The well’s peculiar property of seeming to be empty when the tide on the nearby beach is in and full when the tide its out, made local people believe that it had magical properties; and the water itself was thought to have healing properties.

The water has been analysed in recent years and found to be no better (even possibly a little less pure) than water elsewhere; and it is now known that the inflow of water from underground springs is affected by subterranean passages with fissures that act like valves. These passages are connected with Newton beach, where the fresh water bubbles out; and the incoming tide forces up the pressure in the fissures. The result is that there is a time lag of some three hours within the well itself making it appear to act contrarily to the tides. For a long time, however, this apparent phenomenon had ‘puzzled all the country and all men of great learning.’ Blackmore himself was intrigued and wrote; ‘It comes and goes,  in a manner, against the coming and going of the sea, which is only half a mile from it: and twice a day it is many feet deep, and again not as many inches. And the water is so crystal clear, that down in the dark it is like a dream. He goes on: ‘The children are all a little afraid of it… partly because f its makers name… and partly on account of its curious ways, and the sand coming out of its “nostrils” when first it begins to flow’.

Many strange events have taken place around this well. People scourged themselves there to atone for their sins; and it was thought that running water taken from the spring would remain pure and fresh the whole year. If water was taken away and spilled this indicated bad luck; and two people were not to wash at the well without first making the sign of the cross.

It was once thought that there had been a church on the site of the well but this had, along with several cottages, been engulfed by the advancing sand. There is a local legend that one day the sea would return to this area and when this took place it would be possible for a ship to be moored near Clevis Hill. To prepare for the forthcoming event a sycamore was planted near a cottage on the top of the hill. Once a very high tide sent the sea rushing in as far as St. John’s well and it was thought that the prophecy was about to be fulfilled. Thankfully Newtonians have been, up to the present, spared the final outcome of such a prophecy.

The Legends of Porthcawl and the Glamorgan Coast
Author:  Alun Morgan 

Illustration by Margaret Wooding

The Folklore of Glamorgan

Author: Alan Roderick

Illustrations by Bozena Roderick 

Sacred Stones

Standing stones, cromlechau, meinhirion (long stones), rocking or logan stones can be in abundance in the fields, hills and valleys of Glamorgan. Once thought to be dumb witnesses to a Druidical past or reminders of an even more ancient civilization  there is a wealth of folklore and folk tale attached to them. Many of them owe their survival to a superstitious awe and a primitive dread of what might befall if they were tampered with in any way. The term standing stone speaks for itself and usually means the great stone standing alone in a field or beside a road. Cromlechau is now used to describe what are thought to have been ancient burial chambers where one large stone is placed across two other upright stones which support it. Rocking or logan stones were stones which were so exquisitely poised that they could be set rocking at the touch of a finger.

The terms cromlechau and meinhirion, now used almost exclusively to describe these stones and stone monuments, are to some extent misnomers and were never used by local people in the past. Instead the great mass of people habitually referred to such stones by the somewhat strange name of Gwal y filast or the lair of t bitch hound (sometimes the stones of the greyhound bitch) whilst in Gwent they were spoken of as the kennel of the greyhound bitch.

The Maen Ceti

At certain times of the year many of these standing stones were thought to takes on a life of their own. The Maen Ceti or Arthur’s Stones in the Gower Peninsula was known to make its way down to Port Eynon a few miles away and drink from the sea on certain nights of the year. This particular cromlech was thought to be somehow associated with ‘a dread female presence which rides it.’ Both King Arthur and St David are said to have partly split it with their swords.

Not content with having tried to split Maen Ceti Arthur is also said to have been responsible for the creation of the stones which, in its English form, bears his name. The great king was on his way to the Battle of Camlan when a pebble lodged in his shoe causing so much discomfort and irritation that Arthur took it and threw it away from him with all the strength he could muster. It fell on Cefn Bryn in West Glamorgan, a full seven miles from where he was standing.

Girls from Swansea district would go to the Maen Ceti or Arthur’s Stone at midnight while the full moon was shining and place upon it a well-kneaded cake made from barley meal and honey, wetted with milk. They then crawled round the stone three times to test the loyalty of their young men. If the lovers were loyal and true they would appear before them; if they did not appear the girls knew that their young lovers were either fickle or else had no intention of marrying them.

Other stones besides the Maen Ceti were known to walk. The large Maenhir or upright stone standing in a field near Ty’n y Seler was thought to visit the sea once every. It would set out very early on Christmas morning before cock crow and head towards the sea at Sker, near Porthcawl, where it would drink. Before anyone had set out for the early morning Plygain service the stone would return to its resting place. If anyone did see the Maenhir on its early morning walk they were well advised to stand clear and leave the stone alone or else dreadful fate would befall them.

The Bodvoc Stone

The Bodvoc Stones, commemorating one Bodvoc who died in the sixth or seventh century, was said to stand over a hoard of hidden gold. Besides guarding the stone itself Bodvoc was said to keep watch over the buried treasure. This stone was sometimes called Y Maen Llwyd (the scared or grey stone) or Y Garreg Llythrenog (the stone of the letters). It was firmly believed of this stone that anyone who succeeded in deciphering correctly its strange inscription would meet with certain death. Around the year 1870 some people did make an attempt to dig up the hidden treasure and stone was overthrown and left covered with water for a long time.

The Buried Grotto

A stone pillar inscribed with the Latin words Marci Caritini Filii Bericii stood for many years on a tumulus, said by the local people to be a fairy ring, a few miles from Neath at a place called Banwau Bryddin. The commemorative stone was taken away by Lady Mackworth to form part of a grotto she intended to build in the grounds of her new estate. An old man, an under gardener working on her estate, claimed to have spoken to the fairies many times and he was convinced no good would come of moving the stone. The guardians who watched over the stone would never allow this act of vandalism and sacrilege to go unpunished. The old gardener had often seen the fairies dancing during the light nights in the rings of Banwau Bryddin where the stone had stood but since the stone had been removed no mortal man had seen them.

The old under gardener stoutly maintained that curious and mysterious words were written on the stone in the fairy language which no one living had ever been able to read, not even her ladyship herself. Needless to say, the removal of the stone to the Gnoll Gardens had indeed angered the fairies intensely, as the old man had always said it would, and the grotto which cost thousands of pounds to build had not been long finished before a thunderstorm of such violence, that its like had never been seen in Glamorganshire before, completely destroyed it in a single night. The hill had collapsed upon it and buried it forever. The old man prophesied doom and destruction to any foolhardly enough to try and clear away the earth covering the fallen grotto. 

The Folklore of Glamorgan

Author: Alan Roderick

Illustrations by Bozena Roderick