Faerie Lore and Legends

The Magical Mineral Springs of Manitou
~ 354 Manitou Ave, Manitou Springs, Colorado ~
Article by Thomas Baurley, Leaf McGowan, Techno Tink Research

The little touristy village of Manitou Springs is most famous for its mineral springs, which well up through eight fonts (previously ten fonts, upwards of 50 springs) peppered throughout the town. These springs are free to visit, and each holds its own variation of minerals, magic, folklore, and healing properties that visitors have sought throughout the ages. Each has its unique flavor, natural carbonation, and effervescence.

This valley was originally heavily frequented by various Native American tribes who visited Fountain Creek and its natural springs for their healing magic, offering homage and great respect to the spiritual powers that dwell here. They believed these magical springs were the gift of the Great Spirit Manitou, after which the town and valley were named. They brought their sick here for healing. The aboriginal inhabitants and visitors of the area called the “Great Spirit” as “Manitou”, and felt these mineral springs was its breath, as the source of the bubbles in the spring water. This made the waters and grounds extremely sacred.

The Ute, Arapaho, Cheyenne, and many other tribes came here to partake of the great spirit’s breath. They would heal their sick here, collect the waters, stay for winters, and share in the waters as an area of peace where no conflict was allowed. There were believed to have been ten natural springs in the valley. The Euro-Americans caused conflicts and skirmishes with the Natives, pushing them out so they could utilize the valley for business, resort, tourism, and commerce. It is said that after the Natives left, they cursed the area for the Whites and that no company would ever succeed there. Some believe Manitou Springs has since been an ever-changing valley with businesses coming and going, failing and closing, and new ones coming in and replacing those that left.

Stephen Harriman Long was one of the first white explorers to record the waters in 1820. The expedition’s botanist and geologist, Edwin James, detailed the healing nature of the waters. The explorer George Frederick Ruxton wrote in his travel about these “boiling waters” as well that “… the basin of the spring was filled with beads and wampum, pieces of red cloth and knives, while the surrounding trees were hung with strips of deer skin, cloth, and moccasins”. Throughout the world, it is a common practice to leave similar objects, items, and cultural artifacts around the world at magical and healing springs, wells, and bodies of water.

Nearly 50 years later, Dr. William Abraham Bell and General William Jackson Palmer made plans to develop a health resort here during the Civil War with “a vision of dreamy summer villas nestled in the mountains with grand hotels and landscaped parks clustered around the springs” that they called “Fountain Colony” and “La Font.” It became Colorado’s first resort town. By 1871, white settlers had begun developing the area for tourism, health care, and profit.

A resort was soon developed here, taking advantage of the waters and incorporating them into medicinal and healing water therapies. This brought great prosperity to the region. By 1873, a developer named Henry McAllister, who worked for Palmer, spread the news about the medicinal benefits of the Springs and pushed for it to become a spa resort with an “incomparable climate and scenery” as its backdrop.

Then came various medicinal practitioners, such as Doctor Edwin Solly, who pushed the area as a resort for healing and therapy. They preached that the combined waters to drink, soak in, and breathe pure air mixed with the sunny climate would be the most effective prescription to treat tuberculosis. The commercial businesses began to claim the various springs, enclosing some of them as the village grew.

The first was the Cheyenne Spring House, established as a red sandstone brick, conical-roof structure. Immediately after, over 50 wells and springs were drilled, many enclosed. Once popularity disappeared and “dried up,” many of these springs were capped, paved, and closed. However, as the fad died, medical centers and hospitals around the United States improved.

Manitou became forgotten and suffered abandonment. The Mineral Springs Foundation was formed in 1987 as an all-volunteer 501(c)3 non-profit to protect, improve, maintain, and manage the springs. It targets the restoration of some springs and promotes their popularity once again. The Foundation hosts walking tours called “Springabouts” every Saturday from Memorial Day to Labor Day, beginning downtown. Tours can be arranged by visiting the Tourist center or calling 719-685-5089.

Upon request, the visitor center will provide maps, brochures, detailed content charts, and sampling cups. They can also be found on their website at http://www.manitoumineralsprings.org. The series of springs has been developed as a National Register of Historic Places district and is located in one of the country’s largest districts of its kind. It was initially called the “Saratoga of the West” and established as a resort community within a spectacular setting at the edge of the Rocky Mountains along the base of Pikes Peak. Numerous bottling companies moved into the area, making a profit on the waters, the most famous of which was “Manitou Springs water” and was sold globally.

Geology: The waters come from two sources in the Rampart Range and Ute Pass: “deep-seated waters” that travel through limestone caverns and drainage systems created by karst aquifers. The water dissolves the limestone and absorbs carbonic acid, carbon dioxide, and other minerals, making it “effervescent” or slightly naturally carbonated. Volcanic and inner core processes heat it. Through time, the waters return to the surface naturally using an artesian process rising to the surface, collecting soda, minerals, and sodium bicarbonate upwards. The other sources of water are Fountain Creek and Williams Canyon, snow melt, rainwater, and surface waters.

The warm water then flows into a limestone cavern, where it becomes carbonated and springs forth to the surface in natural and human-drilled locations. Most of these waters take thousands of years to complete their voyage from the mountain snow-capped peaks down to the inner earth and back up to the surface, freeing their content and solutions from being affected by industry, development, and atmospheric contamination.

The Springs of Manitou:
https://wells.naiads.org/the-magic-and-minerals-of-manitou-springs/

• Cheyenne Spring – This natural sweet soda spring comes from limestone aquifers and is believed to be over 20,000 years old.
• Iron Spring – The Iron Spring is named after its harsh, foul, iron-tasting flavor and content. It was a man-made spring drilled in the 1800s and prescribed to patients for iron deficiency.
• Lithia / Twin Spring – This is a combined location of two man-made drilled springs—Twin Springs and Lithia Springs. It is popular for its Lithium content and sweet taste, calcium, lithium, and potassium content. It’s popular to mix it in lemonade.
• Navajo Spring is a natural soda spring over which commercial development was built. It is now within and beneath the popcorn and candy store. This was the most popular spring, frequented by Native Americans and early Euro-American settlers, and was the founding spring for the village. It originally fed a large bathhouse and bottling plant, bringing fame to the town.
• Old Ute Chief Spring – is a defunct spring outside the old Manitou Springs bottling plant.
• Seven Minute Spring – A man-made spring drilled in 1909 to enhance the neighboring hotel’s tourist attraction. Its unique carbonization caused it to erupt like a geyser every 7 minutes. It became dormant until the 1990s, when it was re-drilled, and the surrounding park was established.
• Shoshone Spring—This natural spring had sulfur content and was prescribed by various physicians for curative powers before modern medicine became popular and effective.
• Soda Spring – located in the spa stores next to the arcade.
• Stratton Spring—The Stratton Foundation created this man-made drilled spring as a service to Manitou Springs village, where tourists could come and partake of its waters. It is dedicated to early Native American Trails.
• Wheeler Spring—This is another man-made drilled spring donated to the city by settler Jerome Wheeler of the New York Macy’s. Wheeler resided and banked in the town during the mining and railroad period. His former home is located where the current post office is today.

References:

• Gazette 2015 “List Manitou Springs”. Website referenced 12/21/16 at http://gazette.com/list-the-springs-of-manitou-springs/article/1565225.
• Harrison, Deborah 2003 “Manitou Springs”. Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7385-2856-4.
• Manitou Springs Chamber of Commerce 2012 “The History of Manitou Springs”.
• Mineral Springs Foundation 2013 “Mineral Springs”. Website referenced 12/21/16 at http://www.manitoumineralsprings.org
• Manitou Mineral Springs 2015 “7 Minute Spring”. Website referenced 12/21/16 at http://manitoumineralsprings.org/7-minute-spring.html
• National Register 2013 “American Dreams – National Register of Historic Places in El Paso County, Colorado.
• Visit Colorado Springs 2016 “Manitou Mineral Springs”. Website referenced 12/21/16 at http://www.visitcos.com/manitou-mineral-springs.
• Wikipedia 2016 “Manitou Springs Mineral Springs”. Website referenced 12/21/16 at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manitou_Mineral_Springs

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White Spring
~ Wellhouse Lane, Glastonbury, England BA6 8BL, UK +44 7340 288392 * https://www.whitespring.org.uk/ ~

While backpacking Europe during the Summer of 2011 this was one of my favorite sacred spaces to visit, even more so than the infamous Chalice Well. The White Spring is a free-to-visit spring welling up in a Victorian pump house that has been converted to a temple and pilgrimage site. It offers calcium-rich spring water to all for free unlike the Chalice Well that charges high admission to enter their sacred garden.

It was the concept and dedication to the well that strengthened the birthing of my decision to be a Water Protector and Springs Guardian for the remainder of my life. This space was monumental for this change from a Protector of the Ancestors (Archaeologist) to Water Guardian as my life’s purpose.

 

Within a few feet from one another, the two Isle of Avalon mysteries wells forth from the Earth bestowing blessings, magic, and healing to its visitors and pilgrims. Each offers different healing properties, the Chalice Well being the Red spring rich with iron, the other white with calcite, both from the magical caverns beneath Glastonbury Tor, with rumors of Merlin’s magic. There is actually a third Blue Spring that has since vanished.

A temple has been built here at the White Spring offering the gift of pure water that is cavernous, mysterious, dark, Gothic, and magical as contrary to the Chalice Well in a well lit open-aired garden. The interior has three domed vaults standing at 16 feet height with beautiful bowed floors some say mimic the illusion of a hull of a boat moored at the portal to the Otherworld.

The pools within were designed and constructed based on sacred geometry following the Michael ley line that flows through space with shrines added honoring ancient energies and the Spirits of Avalon.

A company of volunteers watch over the Spring and temple who designed it, built it, and care for it on a daily basis. The site sees pilgrimages and visitors daily. Group ceremonies and meditations are also conducted daily during opening hours, including celebrations of the turning of the seasons, the full moon, and the new moon. Private ceremonies can be arranged. There is no charge or expectation of donations and all caretakers do not get paid.

 

 

The sanctuary is candle-lit and dark, the sound of the water flowing can meditatively be heard and is a guide for ceremony and contemplation. Talking or conversations is strictly discouraged as silence other than the Spring is desired, though songs are welcome and check with the well keeper if wanting to play musical instruments. No Cameras, mobile phones, or electronic equipment is permitted in the sanctuary.

Legend has it that Glastonbury is England’s most sacred site and is where the foundations of the earliest church in Britain was formed and may be the site of the earliest church in the world second to Jerusalem and was dedicated to Mary. (There is no archaeological evidence to support this legend)

The Glastonbury Tor or the Holy Hill of Albion is also believed to be England’s most sacred mountain and a place of Ancient Goddess worship. The Tor and its caverns beneath host numerous aquifers and springs that well forth from its base. Many of the springs have dried up except the Red Spring (Chalice Well) and the White Spring.

There is evidence of a monastic site at the summit of the Tor and archaeological excavations revealed it is likely that early Celtic Christian hermits once lived on the sacred site of the White Spring. In 1872 a well house was constructed over the spring creating a reservoir that was used by townsfolk who were suffering from cholera and therefore destroyed the beautiful combe that once was there.

A historic document by George Wright in 1896 stated “And what was Glastonbury like then? One thing that clings to me was the beautiful Well House Lane of those days before it had been spoilt by the erection of the reservoir. There was a small copse of bushes on the right hand running up the hill, and through it could be, not seen, but heard, the rush of running water, which made itself visible as it poured into the lane. But the lane itself was beautiful, for the whole bank was a series of fairy dropping wells – little caverns clothed with moss and vedure, and each small twig and leaf was a medium for the water to flow, drop, drop, drop into a small basin below. This water contained lime, and pieces of wood or leaves subject to this dropping became encrusted with a covering of lime. For a long time, I attended those pretty caverns with affectionate care, and Well House Lane was an object of interest to all our visitors”

 

The reservoir fell into disuse as the high calciferous waters often blocked the pipes and by the 19th-century water was piped into Glastonbury from out of town, the well house falling into disuse and forgotten. In the 1980’s it was re-opened and reconstructed being used for drinking water for the town. The walls, floors, water pipes, and chemical paint added in the ’80s was removed.

The high ceilings bowed floors, and original stone walls were uncovered unveiling the cathedral-like structure you see today. By 2004 a new owner took over the building and erected the sacred space you can visit now. The temple was consecrated in 2005. In October 2009 various pools were built inside based on sacred geometry. Its design and layout are always changing. The seasonal altar changes at each turn of the wheel. The bower that forms the Brigid shrine is rebuilt with fresh hazel for Imbolc and a February 1st celebration held in conjunction with Chalice Well and Bride’s Mound.

The White Spring is dedicated to the Goddess Brigid – the Celtic Fire Goddess and Guardian of the Sacred Springs within, and a perpetually burning Brigid Flame flickers her magic. A shrine in honor of the Lady of Avalon is within as well as a shrine in honor of the King of the World of Faerie at the portal to the Otherworld. Legend has it that the nun named Brigid who was said to be a child in 525 C.E. filled with the spirit of the Goddess Brigid who was born in Ireland from a Druidic father named Dubtach and a Christian slave mother named Brocessa. She was raised in both traditions and chose to enter a monastery – making her an Abbess as well as a nun. Legend states she lived and learned at the Beckery in Glastonbury before founding her abbey Cill Dara in Kildare Ireland.

The Lady of Avalon is seen at the White Spring as the Lady of ancient feminine primary power as Mother, Earth Mother, Mother of God, and Mother of us all. She is forever conceiving and birthing yet remains unchanged as herself self-fulfilled as the Virgin Mother. She is a dark lady like the earth – dark, womb-like, safe, hidden, mysterious, vast, abstract, and protective. She is also called the Black Madonna.

The King of the Faeries represents nature as wild, beautiful, majestic, diverse, interdependent, and powerful. He represents the Fae, the Otherworld, and is King of the World of Faerie as well as all the nature spirits of this world. He represents the unity of both worlds.

It is said that the White Spring is a portal to the Celtic Otherworld. It is said that Gwyn Ap Nudd was said to ride through here.

More Information: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-white-spring-glastonbury-england

 

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