Welcome back to White Rose of Avalon, my Darlings.   For this week’s Femme Fatale Friday blog post, I have decided to write about the Lady of the Fountain and how she blesses the Land with fertility!   In fact, the energy of the blessings that a Lady of the Fountain, or a Well Maiden, can be forfeited if they are betrayed.   That is where we get the Wasteland occurring in Arthurian legends in the poem The Elucidation after the famed rape of the Well Maidens!

Other than The Elucidation, other references to a Lady of the Fountain (or Well Maiden) include Laudine and Melusine.    Laudine appears in The Lady of the Fountain from The Mabinogion and Yvain, or the Knight of the Lion by Chretien de Troyes.    She is the Faery Queen tending the Well (or Fountain) in the woodland who married Yvain (or Owain in The Mabinogion) after he killed her former husband, who had been the protector of Laundine and her Faery Court!   Melusine first meets her husband Raymond when she is tending the Fountain of Thirst in a woodland.   Melusine saw Raymond’s pain and guilt, as he had just seen his beloved Uncle (who was a Count) die in an accident which was technically his fault!   It would be Melusine who instructed Raymond on how to gain lands as an inheritance, and then they would marry, ending her role as a Lady of the Fountain.

Now, how do these three examples of Ladies of the Fountain (or Well Maidens) relate to blessing the land with fertility, you may wonder.   When we look at Melusine, she is quite literally a Faery Queen who builds many buildings in the town of Lusignan and also births ten sons to Raymond!   So, for her, the blessings of fertility are very plainly seen.   Laudine, in her role as Lady of the Fountain, is also the Queen of a Faery Court, and her main purpose is to make sure her people are protected.   Her marriage to the most powerful Knight is what cements that protection, putting an interesting spin on a Lady of the Fountain, as she is moreso blessing her own Land with Protection, but I feel the energy is still similar, and that the human Land is still reaping benefits from her Fountain.   

However, The Elucidation also includes the description of how the rape of the Well Maidens led to the whole land becoming a Wasteland!   The Well Maidens, literally Faery Women who represented the bounty of the Land and the abundance of Nature, were abused by men (representing humans’ repeated abuse of Nature), and their blessings to the Land were lost.   This story of The Elucidation tells how the Land became a Wasteland as a prelude to Chretien de Troyes’ Conte du Graal.   That story is about Percival seeking the Grail, but was left unfinished by Chretien de Troyes, with later authors seeking to complete the story.   Essentially, this story told how the Wasteland would be healed after the Well Maidens had been abused.   Percival, in becoming the Grail Knight and finding the Grail, would go on to heal the Wasteland!   

We can see that the works of Chretien de Troyes, The Mabinogion, and the legend of Melusine all share themes of Well Maidens and Ladies of the Fountain who are deeply tied to the cycles of Nature and are healers, blessing the Land and people with fertility.   When these important Faery Women and Faery Queens are betrayed by the humans living on the Land, their blessings are lost, and it is through the Quests of a new generation of humans that this trauma can be healed!   I think it is such an important thing to remember as we move forward as Spiritual and Magickal Practitioners, as well as residents of the Earth.   We need to remember to protect the Earth and her natural resources, as well as have a deeply held respect for the Divine Feminine who protects, defends, and heals the Earth!

    I hope you have enjoyed this look at the power of the Lady of the Fountain and the Well Maidens and their connection to the fertility of the land.    What is your favorite aspect of these water-tending Faery Women?   Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!

Note on Image: The image at the top of the post is the painting Girl by a Fountain by Henri Martin.   I found the art on https://www.wikiart.org/en/henri-martin/girl-by-a-fountain-1896.         

LINK TO AVALONIAN ROSE FAERY MYSTERIES PATREON: patreon.com/AvalonianRoseFaeryMysteries 

Further Reading

• The Mabinogion translated by Sioned Davies
• Arthurian Romances by Chretien de Troyes
• Melusine by Jean d’Arras
• https://d.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/text/elucidation.html
• https://www.patheos.com/blogs/allergicpagan/2014/10/03/the-maidens-of-the-wells-an-ecological-myth/