Note 25 — Chapter VI · The Folklore of the Wells

In these stories the reader will have noticed that the foremost punishment on any intruder who looked into the forbidden well was the instant ruin of his two eyes. One naturally asks why the eyes are made the special objects of the punishment, and I am inclined to think the meaning to have originally been that the well or spring was regarded as the eye of the divinity of the water. Should this prove well founded it looks natural that the eyes, which transgressed by gazing into the eye of the divinity, should be the first objects of that divinity’s vengeance. This is suggested to me by the fact that the regular Welsh word for the source of a river is ỻygad, Old Welsh licat, ‘eye,’ as for instance in the case of Licat Amir mentioned by Nennius, § 73; of Ỻygad Ỻychwr, ‘the source of the Loughor river’ in the hills behind Carreg Cennen Castle; and of the weird lake in which the Rheidol25 rises near the top of Plinlimmon: it is called Ỻyn Ỻygad y Rheidol, ‘the Lake of the Rheidol’s Eye.’ By the way, the Rheidol is not wholly without its folklore, for I used to be told in my childhood, that she and the Wye and the Severn sallied forth simultaneously from Plinlimmon one fine morning to run a race to the sea. The result was, one was told, that the Rheidol won great honour by reaching the sea three weeks before her bigger sisters. Somebody has alluded to the legend in the following lines:—