Episode 46 - Wishing Wells

You were moving. Leaving behind the town and people you knew to go somewhere new. To see someplace different, far away from everything you’d known before. Maybe there was a better reason than restlessness, than the desire to discover. It was time to go.

So you packed up the things that were important to you, loaded them into your car, and left. You hit the road and knew that wherever you ended up, wherever you landed, you would be somewhere you’d never been, and so you couldn’t help but be excited.

It took a few days, rolling into new towns, staying for a few hours, or a day, and then moving on; before you found the place.

It was a small town, built along a small set of hills. A set of old brick buildings lined the main streets, and homes stretched out along private ways, hillside roads, and country-side lanes. It was a strange and sprawling town, so different from the place you’d left behind. But somehow, already, it felt vaguely comfortable.

So you found a place to rent, a small house, along a brick road, and moved in. Getting to know the whole town would take time, but already, you could tell this would be an adventure you were glad to have embarked on.

It wasn’t until a few weeks later that you’d really notice the large house atop a nearby hill.

Wishing Wells show up time and time again in the folklore of Europe. Wells were markers of significant importance. They were a place for the people of an area to draw water for all their needs. It was the lifeblood of their towns, where they claimed water for drinking, for washing and bathing. The well was the place where a community could gather. They were central to important decisions, to the community’s growth and well-being.

And out of this widely established importance, they became the heart of superstition. They became wishing wells, where people would toss coins and mutter wishes, verbalizing their intention and hopes so that perhaps they may come true.

Wishes fill folk lore and myth. Wishes are powerful and dangerous. They often come with unforeseen consequences, hidden costs, or misinterpretations. No matter how carefully worded they are, it is common that they are taken out of context by whatever force is fulfilling the wish.

The sources of wishes vary wildly across the world and across time. Sometimes they are attributed to particular rituals, sometimes to spirits or gods who can be prayed to or called upon. And sometimes, wishes come from something that would once have held great importance to a community, a well.

I am Andrew Eagle, and I’m excited to invite you to join me as I pass Through the Veil and explore the stories of the wishing wells of European folklore.

The House was more a mansion than anything. Far larger than most of the buildings in town. A towering thing with a corner tower, like something out of a movie.

It was all wood and stone, and overgrowth of ivy. It was old, but in a way that gave it a certain gravity, rather than feeling run down like some parts of the town. The dark glass of the windows stared downward at the town like empty eyes, watching.

You alternated between thinking the house was like a haunting thing, watching the town with hunger; and a grim guardian, overlooking all of the rest of the town so it could be aware of everything that occurred in its sight. It didn’t take long for you to start thinking of that particular place, that strange home, as The House.

The Hill it sat upon was the largest in the area by a small margin. But unlike the other hills upon which the town was built, the House sat solitary on the Hill. Others had neighborhoods, clusters of buildings, a few roads up and around… This one just had the long winding road that led to the House, the large grounds that surrounded the House, and were almost certainly owned by the resident or residents of the House.

One day, you decided to go for a walk. Leaving the center of town, you made your way out along a few of the long roads. Treading along the curves and dirt of the side paths. You cut through a small forest, making your own way and eventually break through to the other side to realize you are at the foot of the Hill, and towering above you, an easy walk’s distance… The House.

You find you are curious. Curious about the House, its grounds, its residents. So you go that way, taking the switch-backs and sloping road all the way to the grounds.

The line between the hillside and the curated grounds is subtle, and you nearly miss it. The grounds have been allowed, in general, to grow fairly wild, mixing landscape with the area surrounding it: wild, local plants growing nearly to the House itself.

You circle, just at the edge of the grounds, not sure if you should tread closer. There is a small copse of trees, a bench that is beginning to rust, and a pond in the front, and you begin to circle toward the back of the House.

Wishing Wells emerged in the folklore of several regions of Europe. While there are specific differences between regions, most wishing well stories began in the stories of water deities who would choose a particular pool or well to inhabit. Alternatively, wishing wells were thought to be a gift of a god, rather than the home of one.

In either case, these blessed places were generally scarce, but offered the powerful opportunity to affect ones own fortune.

Germanic and Celtic traditions marked many waters as sacred places, and this extended to springs and wells that were used to provide water to the community. They would often construct wooden markers, statues of the deities that were meant to inhabit the waters. It was believed that water had healing properties, and so communities grew around wells, with many people drinking, bathing, and wishing over the waters and its godly inhabitant. It became tradition that you had better chances of the god taking notice of your wish if you paid a price first, so people began dropping coins into the waters as part of their wishing well tradition, and soon that spread and took hold. In some regions, Germanic people would throw the weapons and armor of defeated enemies into pools and wet-lands as offerings, which may have been the origin of the coin-throwing tradition.

Depending on how the coin landed, the deity in the water would grant the wish. If the coin fell to the bottom and was heads-side up, the wish would be granted. Otherwise, it would be ignored.

In Nordic myth, there is one particular well of note. Mimir’s Well, or the Well of Wisdom, features in the story of the Eddas and the Volsung Saga of Norse myth.

In these stories, Mimir, the god of Wisdom, lives at a pool, his well. Which could grant infinite wisdom and understanding if you sacrificed something you held dear. In the stories, Odin sacrifices his own right eye to be granted wisdom and understanding. Some folklorists and classicists believe the story of Mimir’s Well may have been one of the earliest recorded wishing well stories, and it may be one of the sources of the folk traditions that would later emerge across much of Europe.

You circled slowly, taking in the detail of the place. The ivy and other vines were creeping up the sides of the House in a few places. Grasping and climbing along the stone and wood. You noticed that well much of the grounds looked unkempt, the vines were trimmed away from the windows, keeping the view clear from the house of the area around it. You saw a small clump of wild berry bushes that had pushed valiantly into the shorter grass and plant-life of the grounds, each partially filled with colorful berries.

The back of the yard, overgrown like the rest of it. A small covered porch looked out over a groomed path that cut, clean and maintained, through the wildness of the rest of the yard. It stretched the short distance from the porch to a low, stone well with a wooden roof. Complete with a rope and bucket.

Anywhere else in the town proper, the well probably would have felt out of place as something too old, too long ago replaced. But here, somehow, it felt right. The well was beautiful. And you didn’t even think about it before you had stepped into the yard and crossed to it. The well was deep, and its water reflected dark and clear.

And there, under the water, something caught your eye. The glinting of light against metal. Coins. Dozens, maybe hundreds of them, tossed into the waters.

You had found a wishing well.

With a smile, and a moment’s hesitation you drew forth a coin from your pocket and held it for a short while, eyes shut and thinking. Thinking and deciding.

Then, you knew what you wanted. Your eyes opened and you flipped the coin through the air, spinning end-over-end, and into the water. Speaking your wish aloud…

While there are certainly countless wishing wells throughout the world, some have risen to particular prominence across the span of time.

Mimir’s Well, although perhaps the well with the most mythological significance, has never been associated with any physical location. Remaining, instead, lost and hidden beyond the fog of myth.

Other wells, more grounded in our, physical, world have risen to prominence.

The Trevi Fountain situated in Rome, Italy, is perhaps the most famous wishing well in the world. It marks the junction of three roads that were the heart of ancient Rome, and served as a central source for pure water, delivered via lengthy aqueduct.

Established sometime around 20 BC, the fountain has long been a place of great importance to the city, and empire, of Rome.

It is said that a coin, tossed over the right shoulder with the left hand, can grant a wish. In general, it is said that someone who throws such a coin is guaranteed to see Rome again, thus it became common for soldiers or travelers to visit the fountain before they left to ensure a positive result.

Another famous fountain is the Covadonga Sanctuary in Cangas de Onis, Spain. A small cave houses a beautiful chapel. And hidden beneath the chapel is a wishing pool, the Covadonga Sanctuary. A place where the dropping of coins ensures the fulfillment of wishes.

Wells held great importance in history, so it makes perfect sense that they would also hold significance in folklore. While they provide vitality and health to our physical world, they provide power and magic to our supernatural stories.

So whether the tale requires the sacrifice of an eye, a coin, or nothing at all, we have long equated wells with wisdom, knowledge, and the granting of wishes.

Thank you for joining me for this episode of Through the Veil. I hope you enjoyed. I encourage you to subscribe to receive new episodes weekly wherever you listen as we continue our exploration of folklore, myth, and magic.

Music this week was: Safety - Town Theme by Reccy

If you are enjoying the show, and have subjects you would like to hear covered, please email me at throughtheveilpodcast@gmail.com or reach out on Twitter, you can find me @ThroughVeil.

As always, thank you, for listening.