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[voluptuarian]

13 days of witches: witch of the holy spring

"…a still, bright pool. To men I may not tell / The secrets that its heart of water knows… / Yet this I say to cliff and close-leaved dell: / A fitful spirit haunts yon limpid well." — Henry Kendall

Culture after culture has found the spring, faith after faith, recognizing its power in a thousand dialects and by a hundred titles, time and again declaring it sacred, divinely touched. One after another those cultures pass from the land, those faiths fade into memory, yet the spring remains. Time alters its outlines, changes the notes of its bubbling music, but it is never erased. Just as constant is the spring's attendant witch. Some have called her a fairy, others a ghost, some even believed her the spirit of the spring itself. She is part guardian, part caretaker, part priestess, called to serve and protect the spring until the end of her life when another will take her place. In return the spring grants its keeper a share in its power, an ever-renewing spark of energy from which the witch may always draw. Invigorated with its power the witch serves the spring, the land, and its people for ages beyond her own paltry mortal span. Her days are spent in purification and healing, easing pain, fostering the life of forest and field, and tending to the many pilgrims who come to her for aid or to partake in the spring's life-giving waters-- and in denying all such offerings to any who would threaten the spring or hoard its gifts.