Автор: Тигра
Дата: 04-02-05 20:17
The legend tells us that the well was called forth in the eighth century by St. Margaret in answer to prayers from St. Frideswide who needed healing water to restore the sight of Aelfgar, King of Mercia. It was indeed a generous act on the part of Frideswide as she had been forced to flee from her convent at Oxford to escape the unwelcome attentions of the King. As he pursued her into the forest he was struck by sudden blindness, but far from taking advantage of his plight to further her escape, the saint apparently stayed to help him. Her charitable act appears to have both healed and converted her unwanted lover for he molested her no more. Aelfgar became a Christian and Frideswide returned to her convent to spend her remaining years in peace. She reputedly built a chapel by the well, the forerunner of the present parish church.
The story may have become confused over the centuries but St. Frideswide is still honoured as the patron saint of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, where the remains of her shrine can be seen, and the water from St. Margaret's well at Binsey has been sought by countless pilgrims as a cure for eye complaints and other bodily disorders.
In the last century the well was difficult to locate as earth and tangled undergrowth had choked up the spring which feeds it. In fact a visitor to Binsey in the 1850s recorded that the spring was lost and the neighbouring peasantry knew nothing of the well. Fortunately this situation was remedied by the Vicar, the Reverend Thomas Prout, a Christ Church don, who rediscovered the spring in 1857 and fully restored the yell in 1874. A protective archway was built, and suitably inscribed, and stone steps gave access to the water so that pilgrims could once again seek the healing qualities of St. Margaret's well, but Oxford undergraduates could not resist the temptation to send gullible tourists in search of Binsey's treacle well, and treacle mines. The two must not be confused according to the older residents of the village for whereas the `treacle' well is the healing well, the `treacle mines' were a different proposition. They were shallow ponds, covered in summer with a thick yellow slime which resembled nice sticky treacle.
http://ox18.myhosting.net/talesoxbinsey.htm
То есть, был источник. Потом либо он ушел под землю и его пришлось заново разрывать, либо вокруг земли наросло - и его пять-таки пришлось заново разрывать. Помню, например, башню в Таллине, землю вокруг которой отрыли археологи. Средневековая входная дверь в эту башню располагается, с современного уровня города глядя, примерно на глубине второго подземного этажа.
Ну и построили ступени и стены. По-английски слово well означает не только колодец, но и родник, ключ. Так что это скорее целебный источник, чем целебный колодец.
Вот тут больше фотографий: http://www.pd49.dial.pipex.com/places/wells/binsey.html
This is a classic arrangement of a christianised well, sunk into the ground and surrounded by trees (if so few trees can really be said to surround something). It was restored some time during the last century, if my Latin serves me correctly, using money provided or raised by the then vicar, Reverend Prout, one of Charles Dodgson's friends. In fact, this really is a "treacle well". In mediæval times the term "treacle" meant an antidote to poison, so a treacle well was a healing well.
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