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Updated: June 1, 2025
It is full of pictures of her. It stands where the old beech-tree, 'Fair May, used to grow. There she heard the voices and saw the saints who sent her on her mission. And this is the Gooseberry Spring, the Well of the Good Fairies. Here she came with the other children, at the festival of the well-dressing, to spread their garlands around it, and sing, and eat their supper on the green.
It is full of pictures of her. It stands where the old beech-tree, 'Fair May, used to grow. There she heard the voices and saw the saints who sent her on her mission. And this is the Gooseberry Spring, the Well of the Good Fairies. Here she came with the other children, at the festival of the well-dressing, to spread their garlands around it, and sing, and cat their supper on the green.
A pretty survival of this festival has long been observed in the well-dressing of Tissington on Ascension Day, when the wells are most beautifully decorated with leaves and flowers, arranged in fanciful devices, interwoven into certain symbols and texts. This floral rite is thus described in "The Fleece":
Many folk-customs linger around wells and springs, the haunts of nymphs and sylvan deities who must be propitiated by votive offerings and are revengeful when neglected. Pins, nails, and rags are still offered, and the custom of "well-dressing," shorn of its pagan associations and adapted to Christian usage, exists in all its glory at Tissington, Youlgrave, Derby, and several other places.
In our own country may be mentioned the well-dressing of Tissington, near Dovedale, in Derbyshire, the wells in the village having for years past been most artistically decorated with the choicest flowers. Formerly, on St. Hence, the harebell being in bloom, was assigned to the saint: "On St. George's Day, when blue is worn, The blue harebells the fields adorn."
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