Free Oxfordshire Folktales by Kevan Manwaring

Aelfgar’s eyes and he doubled over in agony. ‘Aargh! What witchery is this?’ Aelfgar raised his hands before him. The woods, the woods were dark… 
    The gods deemed fit to punish him in his lusty pursuit, striking him blind! He howled with rage as he stumbled over roots and bumped painfully into branches and trunks.
    Rather than take advantage of this stroke of divine luck, Frideswide took pity on the afflicted King and turned back to help him. She prayed to Saint Margaret – and miraculously a spring bubbled up. Frideswide cupped some of the clear water in her hand and bathed the eyes of the King. Suddenly, his sight was restored by this ‘treacle’; this healing fluid.
    Aelfgar was a changed man – the scales, as they say, fell from his eyes and he saw the error of his ways, renouncing any designs on Frideswide and his heathen faith. The King turned to the God of Christ and Frideswide was allowed to return to her convent, her chastity intact. She dwelled there in peace for the remainder of her days, building a small chapel by the well, which would one day become the present church of the parish.
    The legend of Binsey’s treacle well grew over the centuries as the dreaming spires of Oxford became a venerable seat of learning. Yet, even in such a place, folly persisted. Waggish Oxford undergraduates would send gullible tourists to search for the village’s famous treacle well and treacle mines. At least the former had some credence – it was Frideswide’s healing well. The latter could perhaps be imagined to be the nearby shallow ponds in the summer, covered with a thick yellow slime.
    The treacle well became neglected through time, its source choked with weeds. This dismal state of affairs continued to the point when, in 1850, a visitor declared that the well had been lost. Local folk claimed to know nothing about it.
    Fortunately, in 1857, a local vicar, Reverend Thomas Prout, a don of Christ Church, rediscovered it and restored it by 1874, with a protective archway and stone steps, with a clear inscription dedicating it to St Margaret.
    Countless pilgrims have sought it ever since as a cure for eye complaints and other bodily disorders, yet it has also been a source of inspiration – an Oxfordshire Mimir. If this seems fanciful, then consider its mythic status in English literature…
    One idyllic afternoon in 1862, the Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson rowed towards Godstow with his friend Robinson Duckworth and three guests – Lorina, Alice and Edith Liddell, the young daughters of the Dean of Christchurch. To pass the time, the girls asked for a story and Dodgson happily obliged, conjuring a tale of three children – Elsie, Lacie and Tillie – who lived at the bottom of the treacle well.
    The story so delighted the girls that the Reverend was encouraged to write it down – which he did under his pen name, Lewis Carroll – and Alice in Wonderland was born. Frideswide’s treacle well became a rabbit hole and its magical properties took on a completely different dimension.

    The well has gained an extra significance now, as the inspiration for Lewis Carrol’s children’s classic. Near the well, within the peaceful churchyard, there is a grave decorated with stone roses dedicated to Mary Ann Prickett. The governess of Dean Liddell’s children, she was the inspiration for the Red Queen (nicknamed ‘Pricks’ by the children). It is a curious coincidence that Thornbury is the old Saxon name for the site.
    When I went to visit the famous well, it took some finding – I had to ask directions at the local inn, The Perch. The friendly French barman was very helpful and said that the well was ‘very special’ and that the best time to see it was during an eclipse, when the water became ‘thicker’. Finally locating it, I was delighted by the picturesque setting – a small isolated chapel with a congregation of goats. There was evidence of veneration: withered flowers; a card; and a little fairy