The Well Maidens and the Waters of Wisdom in Celtic Myth

Essay | I am very interested in the holy elixirs and ritual beverages that appear throughout myth and religious traditions around the world and that were believed to carry transformative qualities.

When there were no depths, I was brought forth;

when there were no fountains abounding with water.

Sophia in Book of Proverbs

Maiden at the Well (Lilian Greuze). Photogravures by Léopold-Émile Reutlinger, early 1900s.

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Hello on this frosty Sunday morning. I’ve got the fire going and have made a nest out of cushions and furs to read today’s piece to you. This one is on the waters of wisdom and the holy women that were its custodians in Celtic myth.

I am very interested in the holy elixirs and ritual beverages that appear throughout myth and religious traditions around the world and that were believed to carry transformative qualities. A fortnight ago I shared some of my research on the wine of Dionysus and its relationship to divine inspiration and ecstasy in the context of Greek myth. In this essay I am looking at water and its association to Wisdom

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within the Celtic framework. Welsh and Irish stories tell us that water originates in the Otherworld. It rises up to this world through streams bearing particular gifts that can be accessed in liminal places where the two worlds were believed to meet, such as wells.

I’m tracking three primary areas of interest here: the connection between water and the Celtic Otherworld, the women who were believed to act as gatekeepers of the wells, and the lineage of Wisdom as an age-old inheritance that saw Wisdom as a Goddess, known as Sovereignty in Ireland, or Sophia in Hellenistic Philosophy and Gnosticism.

The first section offers an overview of the Otherworld of the Celts and its mythic association with wells as liminal places between this world and the other. Because the Irish and the Welsh accounts are the only sources that survived into the medieval period, I look to them for accounts on the earlier Celtic Otherworld. I will then present some of the stories relating to holy women who served these otherworldly realms, with a particular focus on the all-important notion of Sovereignty. And in the final section, I will share some of my findings on the Goddess Sovereignty as being a Celtic version of a much older Goddess of Wisdom, and consider how this ultimate gift of great knowledge from the Otherworld might reveal more on the grail mystery through the sacred marriage of the masculine on the quest and the feminine as a representative of Sovereignty.

I am careful to avoid over-simplification in this study as much information on the Celts has been lost over time and self-serving alterations were made by the Church during the process of transcribing the oral tradition. As such, perhaps the task – or quest – here is ultimately to draw on the imaginal for the purpose of arriving at a deeper symbolic understanding. In this light, my methodology has been to engage with the symbols of water and the otherworldly figures in the stories (Sovereignty and the Well Maidens) whilst gathering experiential knowledge via fieldwork. Because stories are symbolic narratives, and there is much beneath the surface that they invite us to draw out, I include here some key stories that contain fascinating insights into the relationship between water, Wisdom and the Otherworld.

Since the first round of lockdowns in the UK, I would go to holy wells. First in Cornwall where I used to live, and now in Devon. Pictured here is the well near my current home. I have been going to it almost every day since the late winter with offerings - always pollen, sometimes flowers, song, prayer or silence. I have cried at that well, and I have loved there. I have welcomed the changing seasons, the equinoxes and solstices, and the dimpsy time of dusk. Sometimes there is a robin. Rarer still a lady blackbird. More often than not, I am alone. This well is still very much fed by the village here. There are prayer ribbons and offerings that depend on the season - the summer’s acorns or autumn chestnuts. In the spring the walls are covered in a veil of lilac flowers that grow in vines up the stone walls. And just as the stories tell us, it is a mysterious place. At the wells we can meet the gods.

Leechwell, thirteenth century well, Devon.

The Celtic Otherworld

Much of the confusion on the nature of the Celtic Otherworld comes from the binary system of opposites imposed on it by the Catholic Church, notably the duality of Heaven and Hell, good and evil. These Christian interpretations of the Otherworld no doubt influence our understanding of it and can be misleading. Though much about the Celtic Otherworld is shrouded in mystery, we do have sufficient evidence from Irish and Welsh medieval sources to deduce certain conclusions. For instance, in most cases, the Otherworld was understood to be chthonic, or subterranean. In other words, it existed or was accessed through lower dwellings, beneath hills, under Neolithic burial mounds, or – as is of particular interest here - below bodies of water. These elements in nature often acted as shrines or otherworldly doorways and were often surrounded by traditional lore.

One of the early Welsh names for the Otherworld was annwfn. According to Russian Celtologist Victor Kalygin - who has explored linguistic evidence for the Celtic cosmos – the term annwfn derives from ande-dubno, denoting either “under, below, beneath, lower, deep and dark,” and referring to a lower, or underworld realm.

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This suggests that in Celtic cultures, unlike the Indo-European cosmology that venerated deities in the skies, the gods lived below. Perhaps this was a remnant of the prehistoric worldview in which the religious focus was on the lower world. There is evidence for ancient offerings into bodies of water and caves, all the seeming entry points into the chthonic realms. This animistic belief survived all the way into the cosmology of the Iron Age Celts whose primary focus remained on the lower world and its otherworldly inhabitants. In the Welsh word annwfn, ‘an’ is an intensive (the act of intensifying something) and ‘dwfn’ means “deep” or “world.” So to experience the Otherworld of the Welsh could perhaps be understood as a deepening of this reality, an experience that was both esoteric and exoteric, accessible to all like the awen (poetic inspiration) that fills the bards.

Perhaps the earthly paradise of the Celts was not like the hortus conclusus of courtly lovers or the Judeo-Christian Eden. It was often pictured as the landscape itself – rugged, awesome and wild. And though usually depicted as analogous with its natural terrain, it is often described to be more beautiful and numinous. The Celtic worldview was animistic and nature-reverencing. As such, there is little, if any, differentiation between the natural world and the sacred, or in other words, that which is holy and that which is not. This is of particular interest when we consider water as a holy substance.

Waters of Wisdom

Celtic myth and folklore often speak of sacred springs or wells, and a cup or chalice from which a drink of its waters provides access to the Otherworld and its gifts. Oftentimes, these bodies of water are presented as liminal places where the two worlds meet, and drinking from them is symbolic of receiving direct revelation from the abode of the gods.

Water was understood to originate in the Otherworld, and wells were considered extremely venerable. When approached by those seeking insight, sometimes magical fish would appear to them, often in the form of a salmon known most commonly as the salmon of wisdom. In the Welsh story about Mabon Son of Modron, Gwrhyr, the salmon of wisdom says, “as much as I know, I will tell.”

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Irish medieval manuscripts also contain further clues about the relationship between water and wisdom. Wells are described as the places where wisdom originates, and they are referred to via the word topar/tobar, which denotes a “source.” In her study on the Celtic Otherworld, Celticist Sharon P. MacLeod argues that wells were perceived as sources of wisdom, and the flowing rivers were the method of conveying that wisdom.

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One of the most well-known accounts of such a well appears in the Dindshenchas poems about Sinnan (a creation myth of the River Shannon). In the tale, Sinnan, a woman of the Tuatha De Dannan, follows a stream that issues from a well in her pursuit of knowledge. This well became known as Connla’s Well, or the “well of wisdom” and was believed to be located in the Otherworld under the sea. It had seven streams emerging from it and contained immus na Segsa (the great knowledge of Segais). From the seven streams came a “whispering” or musical wisdom or inspiration, known as ceol-eicse (some of the relevant translations of the word eicse are divination, wisdom, revelation, and learning, particularly the poetic arts).

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Wells were dedicated to the goddess of the land, known as Sovereignty.

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It was believed that Sovereignty had many representatives on Earth, usually in female form, and the well-being of the kingdom and its inhabitants was dependent upon a harmonious relationship between Sovereignty and the sovereign, or king. This relationship was crucial throughout the Grail legends, and when severed, the land becomes a wasteland. In the old stories, wells were the primary locations that ensured the fertility and health of the land. This seems reasonable, if we think of water as the life-giving, creative, fructifying and re-generative power of life.

Celtic myth often positions women as guardians and protectors of the land.

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Similarly, Eurasian shamanic traditions often allocated female custodians to their liminal locales, and this mythic image of women as custodians of the Otherworld can be excavated throughout Europe.

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Next, we will see how wells were guarded and tended by these otherworldly women. We will look at the well maidens as representatives of Sovereignty, and consider what it may have meant to bear the cup of the waters of wisdom.

Stewards and Custodians

We first hear about the well maidens in a curious short tale in the Elucidation, a 13th century Old French poem written anonymously as a prologue to Chretien de Troyes’ Perceval, the Story of the Grail. The story describes the coming of the Wasteland, and in large part attributes it to the loss of these Otherworldly female stewards of holy wells and springs. The medieval manuscript warns of the consequences of not attending to the wellsprings or cherishing the women who serve them.

Here is my brief retelling of the story:

There was once a rich and fecund kingdom known as Logres. It was ruled by the Fisherking. The source of its life came from the sacred waters of the wells, which flowed up from the depths of the Otherworld. And the wells were tended to by maidens. These maidens were the voices of the Otherworld. In service to the land, they offered the food each visitant liked best, and a drink of well-water from a golden cup.

But these customs were broken by a later king Amangons, who raped one of the damsels and stole her cup for himself. His actions were followed by his vassals, until the maidens were said to retreat entirely from the land, withdrawing back into the wells and the Otherworld, and taking the waters with them. Without the holy waters, the world began to wither and the land was laid waste.

The Well Maidens can be understood to have been mediators of the Otherworld. When they were driven underground, so too were the qualities that are seen as feminine, such as creativity, openness, nurturing, dreaming, community, and all that is wild and instinctual. The unknown author of The Elucidation foretells the coming of this Wasteland as such: ‘The Kingdom turned to loss, the land was dead and desert in suchwise as that it was scarce worth a couple of hazel-nuts. For they lost the voices of the wells and the damsels that were therein.’

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As expert on Celtic lore Caitlyn Matthews suggests, this mysterious tale very much reads as a gnostic parable of the fall of humanity from innocence.

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It alludes to the loss of the creative, otherworldly realms and the redemptive hallow or cup that may be the Grail itself.

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This story is perhaps the clearest example of Sovereignty’s association with the Grail, it being perhaps a symbol of the wombic feminine that carries the elixir of Wisdom.

It is worth mentioning that the court of the Fisherking was also known as the Court of Joy in the text, and can be understood to be analogous with the Otherworld paradise. In the Grail romances, the one who finds the Court of Joy becomes the Grail winner and re-establishes a communion with the Otherworld. The Wasteland that ensued as a result of the retreat of the life-giving waters and its maiden stewards can perhaps be understood as the loss of the land’s spiritual heart. And so the role of the Well Maidens and their holy cups certainly places them in the terrain of Sovereignty.

As I have mentioned, Sovereignty is often personified into female form. This tells us a bit more about how the Celts viewed the stewardship of the land. The well maiden is perhaps most clearly alluded to as Sovereignty in the Mabinogion’s tale the Adventures of Eochai Muigmedon’s Sons. In her guardianship of the well, she gives her cup only to he who is rightful. This brings us to Wisdom as the ultimate gift from the Otherworld; one that appears throughout the ages and is often sought in the grail romances by the hero on a quest.

The Lineage of Wisdom

Sophia of the Sacred Wisdom, 1670, St. Nicholas Mokry Church, Yaroslavl Russia.

Whilst studying the notions of Sovereignty and Wisdom, I discovered a Wisdom tradition that can be traced all the way back to the Bronze Age. Jules Cashford contextualises this notion of Wisdom as a Goddess by following her roots all the way back to the Neolithic era. Much like archaeologist Marija Gimbutas, she discovered that the Goddess was seen as the Whole from whom life emerged and returned, and was conceived as ‘the door or gateway to a hidden dimension of being that was her womb, the eternal source and regenerator of life.’

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She chronologically traced the appearance of the Goddess from the Mesopotamian Bronze Age in her forms of Nammu and Inanna in Sumeria,

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Maat and Isis in Egypt, Demeter and Athena in Greece, and finally, Sophia in the Old Testament.

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However, we come to a profound shift in the Christian era when this archetypal image of the Goddess as Wisdom becomes replaced with Christ as Logos, the Word of God, and the old relationship between wisdom and the Goddess was lost.

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Just like the Celtic tales, much of the Wisdom literature that was once in the sacred texts of Israel has been lost, destroyed predominantly by the crusades during an epoch of brutal persecution. Fortunately, after an interlude, the notion of Sophia reappears in the Medieval period with the emergence of the Grail legends, the Knights Templar, Alchemy, the troubadours and troubiaritz, the Order of the Cathars, and the Jewish Kabbalists and Islamic philosophers, poets and mystics of Andalusian Spain. For the most part, these gnostic ideas were spread by the legends of the quest for the Holy Grail and by travelling troubadours - whose chivalric ideal made women into the personification of Sophia and offered devotion to her in a language reminiscent of the Song of Songs. Once more, Sophia, or Wisdom, became the inspiration and purpose for the spiritual quest.

The motif that wisdom has to be earned – be it through a quest or an exchange of some kind – is a core principle within many spiritual traditions. In the Nordic-Germanic myth, the price that the wandering truth-seeker Odin has to pay for wisdom, divination and poetry is one of his eyes. Only then does he get to drink from the Well of Remembrance at the foot of the great Tree of Worlds. Similarly, in one version of the Greek myth, the seer Teiresias is blinded by Athena when she catches him watching her bathe. Feeling merciful, in compensation she sends her serpent to clear out his ears so he can understand the prophetic language of birds.

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This inner vision is known as the “second sight” within Celtic tradition, and alludes to the ability to orient attention inwardly and outwardly simultaneously.

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This form of Wisdom was known by the Irish as imbas forasnai, “knowledge that illuminates,” and was understood to be a type of specialized power stemming from intuitive knowledge. The attainment of such knowledge would have perhaps engendered a form of self-transformation.

The role of Sophia - or Sovereignty - within Celtic lore is often to offer herself to a hero on a quest. This may reveal an attempt to restore balance between the masculine and the feminine principles, and allude to the sacred marriage of opposites apparent in spiritual traditions cross-culturally. This inner union, or hieros gamos, can be understood as the ultimate experience of Wisdom.

To thirst for something beyond oneself speaks to a longing as old as time. And bursting forth from that dawn of human consciousness came the spring of magical elixirs with its gifts and its secrets. Sovereignty, or Wisdom, meets us at the well that quenches our spiritual thirst and offers a renewal that can only come from the life-giving waters. Her lineage of wisdom is like a stream, constantly flowing, oozing through the cracks in our historical memory and surviving, even, through the coming of the Wasteland.

1. I will be capitalising the word ‘wisdom’ and using it in reference to both the personification of the Goddess as well as her gift of sacred knowledge contained within the waters, much like the notion of the wine of Dionysus carrying both the essence of the God and his gifts.

2. As quoted by Macleod S. P. (2018) Celtic Cosmology and the Otherworld, p. 14

3. As quoted by Layard J. (1975) A Celtic Quest, p. 111

4. Macleod S. P., p. 218

5. Ibid., p. 219

6. Sovereignty is the common translation for the Irish title of the Goddess of the land flaitheas.

7. Blackie S. (2019) If Women Rose Rooted, p. 55

8. Some examples would be the three norns who determine destiny at the foot of the Nordic World Tree (by which there is often a well), and the Greek moirai - along with their Roman equivalent as parcae - who ensured human beings carried out their fate.

9. As quoted by Blackie S., p.32

10. Matthews C. (2002) King Arthur and the Goddess of the Land, p.272

11. The hallows are the otherworldly totemic elements that appear in the Grail legends. Though they take many variations, they are most commonly formalised into a spear, a sword, a cauldron, a ring and a cup.

12. Cashford J. & Baring A. (1991) The Myth of the Goddess, p. 610

13. It is worth mentioning here that the Sumerians identified Wisdom with the Mother Goddess and the female counterpart of the masculine deity.

14. Some scholars argue that the Biblical body of literature often called “wisdom literature” went as far as placing the goddess of Wisdom, Sophia, as its mythic representative.

15. Cashford J. & Baring A., p. 611

16. Metzner R. (1994) The Well of Remembrance, p223

17. The notion of “inner vision” is beautifully illustrated by the symbolism of Odin’s one missing eye, and one open eye, observing both internal and external worlds.