Spring in a Shropshire Abbey. Gaskell Catherine Henrietta Milnes

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СКАЧАТЬ if you wandered abroad, to have at hand the protecting influence of an umbrella. I walked up the back drive, till I stood before the well of our patron saint.

THE “HOLY ONE OF WENLOCK”

      Long centuries ago the holy and beautiful daughter of Merewald, King of Hereford, according to old tradition, came here and founded a nunnery. The story runs that St. Milburgha, pursued by the importunities of a Welsh prince, found a refuge at Wenlock, and gathered round her a community of devoted women.

      Tradition tells the story of how the saint fled on one occasion to Stoke, a hamlet in the Clee Hills. The legend says that she fell fainting from her milk-white steed as she neared a spring there. As she did so she struck her head against a stone, causing blood to flow freely from the wound. At that time, about the middle of February, some countrymen were occupied in sowing barley in a field which was called the Placks, and seeing the lovely lady in so sad a plight, they ran to her assistance.

      “Water,” she wailed, but none seemed at hand. Then St. Milburgha bade her steed strike his hoof against the rock, and, believed the hagiologists, water, clear, wonderful and blessed, leapt forth at her command. As it flowed, the lady is reported to have said: “Holy water, flow now, and from all time.” Then she stretched forth her hands and blessed the fields where the barley had been sown, and immediately, before the astonished eyes of all beholders, the grain burst forth into tender blades of grass. Then St. Milburgha turned to the countrymen.

      “The wicked prince,” she said, “and his pack of bloodhounds are close upon me, therefore I must fly.” And she bade them adieu, but not till she had told them to sharpen their scythes, for the reaping of the barley should take place that night.

      All came to pass as the Blessed One had foretold, for as the countrymen were busy reaping their grain, the heathen prince and his followers arrived on the scene.

      But the labourers were true and faithful hearts, and neither threats nor promises could extract from them in what direction the Lady Milburgha had fled.

      When the prince saw that the peasants had begun to reap the grain that had been sown the self-same day, a great awe fell upon him and his lords, and he vowed that it was a vain and foolish thing to fight against the Lord, and his anointed.

      Other old writers tell how the river Corve, at the voice of God, saved Lady Milburgha; and how, as soon as she had passed over its waters, from an insignificant little brooklet it swelled into a mighty flood which effectually barred the prince’s progress. Amongst other incidents mentioned by Saxon chroniclers, we hear that St. Milburgha drove away the wild geese from the plots of the poor. Many are the legends of the beautiful Shropshire saint that are still cherished in the wild country between the Severn and the Clee. She was as fair as she was good, it was said, and old writers told how, when a veil once fell from her head in the early morning sunshine, it remained suspended in the air until replaced by her own hand, and how she wrought a miracle by prayer and brought back to life the son of a poor widow; while all the while, a mystic and sacred flame burnt beside her, a visible manifestation of her sanctity, for all to see.

THE SAINT’S WELL

      I thought of all these beautiful old legends, fairy-stories of grace, they seemed to me, as I wandered up the back lane and paused before the saint’s well at Wenlock, which is still said to cure sore eyes.

      As I stopped to gaze down upon the deep well below, I noticed that the little wicket gate was open, and that a child with a little jug was about to descend the stairs to fetch what she termed in the Shropshire tongue, “a spot o’ water.”

      “Have you no water at home, my child, that you come here?” I asked.

      “Oh yes,” replied the little maiden, Fanny Milner by name, “there be a hougy drop in our well after the rains; but grandam says I must get some from here, or she’ll never be able to read her chapter come Sunday afternoon, with glasses or no glasses. Grandam says as it have a greater power of healin’ than ever lies in doctor’s messes, or than in bought stuffs neither. It be a blessed water, grandam says, and was washed in by a saint – and when saints meddle with water, they makes, grandam says, a better job of it than any doctor, let him be fit to burst with learning.”

      I smiled at the apple-cheeked little lass’s quaint talk, and helped her to fill her jar. The belief in the healing powers of the old well lingers on, and many of the inhabitants of Much Wenlock are still of opinion that water fetched from St. Milburgha’s well can cure many diseases, and particularly all malign affections of the eyes.

      In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the holy wells of many Welsh and Shropshire wells degenerated into Wishing wells. They then lost their sacred character, and became centres of rural festivities.

      It is said that at Much Wenlock on “Holy Thursday,” high revels were held formerly at St. Milburgha’s well; that the young men after service in the church bore green branches round the town, and that they stopped at last before St. Milburgha’s well. There, it is alleged, the young maidens threw in crooked pins and “wished” for sweethearts. Round the well, young men drank toasts in beer brewed from water collected from the church roof, whilst the women sipped sugar and water, and ate cakes. After many songs and much merriment, the day ended with games such as “Pop the Green Man down,” “Sally Water,” and “The Bull in the Ring,” which games were followed by country dances, such as “The Merry Millers of Ludlow,” “John, come and kiss me,” “Tom Tizler,” “Put on your smock o’ Monday,” and “Sellingers all.”

      Such was the custom at Chirbury, at Churchstoke, and at many of the Hill wakes, and from lonely cottage and village hamlets the boys and girls gathered together, and danced and played in village and town.

      After shopping in the town, I entered the little old red-walled garden where my annuals blossom in the lovely long June days. All looked sad and brown, and “packed by” for rest, as Burbidge calls it. I noticed, however, a few signs of returning life. The snowdrops had little green noses, which peered above the ground, and here and there the winter aconites had bubbled up into blossom. What funny little prim things they were with their bonnets of gold, and their frills of emerald green. I noted, also, that the “Mezeron-tree,” as Bacon calls it, was budding. How sweet would be its fragrance a few weeks later, I thought, under the glow of a warm March sun.

      I passed along, and looked at a line of yellow crocuses. The most beautiful of all crocuses, veritable lamps of fire in a garden, are those known as the Cloth of Gold. The golden thread was full of promise, but as yet no blossom was expanded. How glorious they would be when they opened to the sunshine. There is indeed almost heat in their colour, it is so warm and splendid.

MANY-COLOURED STARLINGS FLIT

      As I stood before these signs of dawning life, two starlings flitted across the garden. How gay they were in their brilliant iridescent plumage! The sun, as they passed me, struck the sheen of their backs, and they seemed to shine a hundred colours, all at once. I tried to count the colours that the sun brought forth in them, gold, red, green, blue, gray and black with silver lights; but as I named the colours, words seemed bald and inadequate to describe the beauty and mutability of their hundred tints, for, as they moved, each colour changed, dissolved, reappeared and vanished, to grow afresh in some more wonderful and even more exquisite tint. And then suddenly the sun was obscured behind a cloud, and my starlings, that seemed a minute ago to hold in their plumage the beauty of the sun and the moon and of the stars, became in a twinkling poor brown, everyday, common little creatures. Like Ashputtel when the charm was gone, they looked common little vulgar creatures, and as they flew over the wall into the depths of the ivy on the ruined church, I wondered why I had ever admired them.

      Starlings, some fifty years ago, were often kept as pets. Burbidge has told me that they are the cleverest mimics that breathe, being “born apes,” so to speak. Now, however, my old friend declares, “none will do with them, for nobody cares for СКАЧАТЬ