38 WOMAN AS WITCH 



feast at night. May-Day baths are frequently mentioned 

 in the old chronicles, as well as special Midsummer-Day 

 baths. They seem to have frequently preceded the 

 dancing round the sacred well. Near Burgeis is the 

 Zerzerbrunnen, a well of three wild maidens. Alongside 

 it there used to be an altar to which shepherds and 

 huntsmen brought their firstlings. The altar is now 

 replaced by a chapel. Such wells which legend attri- 

 butes to a well-maiden, or three sisters, or wild maidens, 

 are very frequent. Often the maidens come out from 

 the well, and join in the peasant dances of the neigh- 

 bourhood ; this occurs especially on St. John's night. 



The wilde Frauen thus associated with wells are not 

 exactly witches, but, like witches, they come to weddings 

 and births, and are accompanied by dogs. They are the 

 three sisters to whom so many mediaeval charms and in- 

 cantations are addressed, and to whom men go for counsel 

 and aid. They are rather the legendary form of an old 

 triune goddess of fertility than the degenerate form which 

 her priestess has taken as a witch. They are goddesses 

 of fertility, but also of disease and death, as well as of 

 medicine and life. For pest and death are in early times 

 represented as women, not as men. The healing goddess 

 is related to the " great virgin " of Esslingen, who, we 

 are told, outwitted all men, priests and laymen, even the 

 most famous physicians, with her magic. That these 

 spring or well goddesses had a side in dark contrast to 

 their dancing, singing, and healing characteristics is 

 clearly enough evidenced by the traces we have of human 

 sacrifices to wells and springs, and of licentious gather- 

 ings in their neighbourhood. As goddesses they are 



