Devonshire | Durham
HERE is a spring or well at Upwey, a few miles from Weymouth; it is a wishing well. There is always a person near with glasses from which to drink the waters, wish, and throw the remainder over the shoulder. It is really the source of the Wey, a fine spring of clear water coming out of the ground, and. flows on until it becomes the river at Weymouth. There is a church a few yards higher up.--[George Bailey, Derby], Antiquary.
At the north side of the churchyard is a spring which bursts out of the rock dedicated to St. Eustachius. It is locally called Stachy's Well, or the Waterpond.--Hutchins' History of Dorset, iv. 361.
On a certain day every year the young women of Abbotsbury used to go up to the Norman chapel of St. Catharine, Melton Abbey, where, after drinking the water of the Saint's well, they made use of the following invocations:
A husband, St. Catharine.
A handsome one, St. Catharine.
A rich one, St. Catharine.
A nice one, St. Catharine.
And soon, St. Catharine.
It has been the custom in the tithing of Motcombe, time out of mind, on the Sunday next after Holy Rood Day, in May every year, for each parish within the borough of Shaston to come down that day to Elmore, or Enmore Green, at one o'clock in the afternoon, with their minstrels, and play with games, and from one to two o'clock-one whole hour to dance. The Mayor of Shaston was to see that the Queen's Bailiff had a penny loaf, a gallon of ale, and a calf s head, with a pair, of gloves; to see the order of the dance that day, and if the dance failed any day and the bailiff had not his due, the bailiff and his men stopped the water from the four wells at Elmore which supplied the borough.
A slightly different account of this is given in Dyer's Brit. Pop. Customs, pp. 205-6.
St. Augustine destroyed the idol Heil or Heile, or, according to Leland, Helith, the Saxon Æsculapius, or preserver of health, who was worshipped here at that time. This saint's company being weary and thirsty, he stuck his staff in the ground, and fetched out a crystal fountain, whence this Place was called Cernel, from Cerno and El. Fuller thinks it should be Cerneswell, behold the fountain, or Cerne Heal, i.e., see the destruction of the idol.-- [68] Author of Flores Sanctorum in Life of St. Augustine (pp. 515, 516) ; Fuller's Ch. Hist. (pp. 66, 67) ; Dugdale (ii. 621).
This well, of miraculous virtue, is said to have sprung up on the spot where St. Edward the Martyr, King of England, died 979.