St.Bertram’s Well

Bunster Hill, Ilam

https://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=14731

A holy well bonanza day starting off with a very frosty early walk up to St.Bertram’s. He was apparently an Anglo-Saxon prince who became a hermit after his wife was eaten by wolves. He was said to have performed some miracles and was sainted and is buried in the nearby church.

I packed up and headed on to Dovedale which was busy and the stepping stones were flooded so I didn’t hang around. I tried, with some difficulty, to imagine what it might have been like when Wordsworth came through on his visits. 

I pressed on to Tissington which is well known for its well dressing on Ascension Day. It’s believed this began as a thanksgiving for surviving the Black Death and it was thought to be due to the purity of the water.

https://insearchofholywellsandhealingsprings.wordpress.com/2012/05/21/blessing-the-wells-at-tissington-well-dressing/

The collage in extras shows (clockwise from top left) Town Well, Hands Well, Children’s Well, Dovedale, Yew Well, and Hall, or St.Helen’s, Well.

As I headed for home I was wondering about the Lucy poems and the river Dove that WW refers to … real or metaphor, Dovedale?, Dovey/Dyfi?… and Lucy … real, imaginary, amalgam, symbolic, or metaphor.
By strange coincidence (another one) I had downloaded the Neil Hannon edition of Private Passions to listen to on my journey. So here, fittingly, is my favourite rendition of the poems … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4OvQlTwsHs

Home and knackered now.