Living
Pilgrimages: Britain’s Holy Wells and Baths
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Siobhan Ball invites readers on a tour of three sacred waters in the United Kingdom: the Aquae Arnemetiae of Buxton, Aquae Sulis of Bath, and the Red and White Springs of Glastonbury.
Paganism
Column: Red and White
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The water in the Chalice Garden stains the rocks red. It falls from a tap in the shape of a lion’s head down onto a stone dais, and flows from there down a series of channels down the hill – and it runs red for the whole length of its course. Someone has left a glass beneath the tap, and so I take a drink, and then another. The flavor, a strange iron musk, overtakes me. I restrain myself from a third glass – in part because I imagine the iron I’ve already drunk will cause me problems on an empty stomach, and in part because, as I realize only after the second glass, I have no idea how many other lips have touched that glass since it last saw soap.