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53.276921,-3.709656 If you go to google maps and paste in the reference above (and click on 'satellite'), it should show you where St Elian's ffynnon or spring emerges from the ground. The spring drains into the stream which is masked by the thick line of trees immediately to the south of it. The farm called cefn y ffynnon is a couple of hundred yards to the north. RH -----Original Message----- From: stephen buckley <[log in to unmask]> To: [log in to unmask] Sent: Sun, 29 Nov 2009 10:17 Subject: Llanelian Maddy's Cistercian Way website has some good photos and a brief explanation at http://cistercian-way.newport.ac.uk/place.asp?PlaceID=248 I've been trying to pinpoint the well on Streetmap, etc. The stream running below Cefn-y-ffynnon, the location of the well, is named Nant-y-ffynnon (surprise, surprise), but the spring from which it flows is quite a distance back. Higher up, it's labelled Nant Meifod. There are clearly a number of springs to the south of Llanelian, near the top of the hillside. There's a boggy patch marked on the stream quite near the farmhouse of Cefn-y-ffynnon, but the stream, originating elsewhere, passes through it. It tends to bother me when there's no obvious spring to attach a saint's well dedication to. Distance isn't a problem - at Stow-on-the-Wold, St Edward's Well is several hundred yards south of the village (church dedicated to St Edward, which has to be Edward the Martyr originally, though now Ed Conf; manor held by Evesham Abbey in the medieval period). Shaft wells are pretty unlikely to have any pre-Christian origin, although pre-Christian customs can be transferred to them. I'm also bothered (as I'm not likely to get access to the thesis, unfortunately) by the idea that a 'cursing' function might have persisted through the medieval period in a well presided over by the church. Do we know the form of the shrine, or location? I found a piece by S[abine] Baring-Gould (1834-1924) on the Net, called 'The White Flag' (1904), referring to the Llanelian well. It's fictional; an on-line biog shows that he was interested in folklore, including ghost stories, as well as hagiography. His synthetic approach to versions of saints' legends make it difficult to disentangle the historical development of certain legends, and I wonder to what extent he's muddied the waters (!) in this case. Or maybe he just made use of what was already in print. The well shrine at Holywell, just along the N Wales coast from Llanelian, certainly continued in use by recusants during 17th C (Antonia Fraser's 'Gunpowder Plot' describes a pilgrimage to Holywell by the plotters in mid 1605). Christine B = 53.276921,-3.70965653.276921,-3.709656