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OT: Wells and folklore
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Branwen
824 posts

Edited Sep 26, 2009, 04:20
Re: OT: Wells and folklore
Sep 26, 2009, 04:11
I clarified my earlier posts, the whole threaded and flat view were confusing for a while there, sorry, and I posted twice too.

I found a copy of the well at the worlds end, (which was called the weary well at the worlds end in some tales) at sacred texts, it's supposed to be the version of the tale before it was retold a different way in Scotland, and resembles the Cuthildorie tales (goblin replaces the frog prince).

The false knight stories I added to the site about the wells o wearie are too disimilar to be an extrapolation of the same tale, but the idea of the weary well at the worlds end, or life's end maybe, are a common thread. Any well might be a weary well, if it's the one where you are to be killed, as in the tales of the false knight. The place where you lay down life's weary burden. The maiden being taken to the weary well in the land of fairy in the Cuthilldorie tale might mean she was taken to the otherworld, where you drink from the well o weary, or waters of the afterlife.

https://sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/eft/eft42.htm

I should clarify that most people think the World End pub near the Weary Well of Edinburgh relates to the fact it was at the city wall, where the civilised world ended, and not because of the well stories, though that might be a theory that became popular and not the real reason.
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