Wild, wild water......

Wild, wild, enchanted water …

Lou Hart

They come here for healing, from all of their ills

A draught of well water is better than pills.

We help with both childbirth, and eye complaints

With seizures, convulsions and all sorts of faints.

(Song of the Water)

Have you ever heard singing in a waterfall or in a stream or the sea?  Who are the singers? Ancestors? Spirits? Forgotten gods?  In streams, rivers and waterfalls if you listen (absently rather than closely) you can sometimes hear music; calling and singing, sometimes the same three notes over and over.  And you will not be the only one. The singers are quite often referenced in local myths and stories and are known in many places including Rostherne Mere in Cheshire, on the Mermaid’s Rock in Lamorna at the far end of Cornwall, and at Llanllwchaiarn in Ceredigion, West Wales.  Are the voices related to some mythical, legendary, historical event or people, or to something more natively intrinsic, to water itself?

Have you ever washed your hands of something you no longer wanted to be involved with?  Have you ever put coins in a fountain and made a wish or thrown them into a well or river? Have you ever purified yourself with water? If so you are part of a long tradition of sacred interaction with water.

(image: St Nectan's Glen by Anthony Cox)