Wishing Well

Where did the idea of throwing money into a well full of water or any body of water come from?   People throw money into fountains everywhere and don’t even know why or how it started.  Researchers will tell you that water was scarce so people gave money to the gods in order for the gods to keep giving water to the people.  If this tradition is European then that’s not the reason.  You could kick a rock over anywhere and find water under it.  This tradition goes back to Egypt.  With the worship of Isis.  

Isis was known as the Goddess with ten thousand appellations. All the goddesses have their origin in Isis.  The ancients just took an aspect of her and made a goddess of their own.  Apuleius in the Golden Ass writes this about Isis:  “Behold, I, moved by thy prayers, am present with thee; I, who am Nature, the parent of things, the queen of all the elements, the primordial progeny of ages, the supreme of Divinities, the sovereign of the spirits of the dead, the first of the celestials, and the uniform resemblance of Gods and Goddesses. I, who rule by my nod the luminous summits of the heavens, the salubrious breezes of the sea, and the deplorable silences of the realms beneath, and whose one divinity the whole orb of the earth venerates under a manifold form, by different rites and a variety of appellations. Hence the primogenial Phrygians call me Pessinuntica, the mother of the Gods, the Attic Aborigines, Cecropian Minerva; the floating Cyprians, Paphian Venus; the arrow-bearing Cretans, Diana Dictynna; the three-tongued Sicilians, Stygian Proserpine; and the Eleusinians, the ancient Goddess Ceres. Some also call me Juno, others Bellona, others Hecate, and others Rhamnusia. And those who are illuminated by the incipient rays of that divinity the Sun, when he rises, viz. the Ethiopians, the Arii, and the Egyptians skilled in ancient learning, worshipping me by ceremonies perfectly appropriate, call me by my true name, Queen Isis.”

In the Scandinavian and Gothic languages ‘Isa’ means water.   Water is feminine.  Springs, wells, streams and all water were guarded served and honored by sacred women.  Every body of water had a resident Water-goddess.  All of these goddesses were forms of Isis.  The Star of Isis was Sirius.  Sirius is also known as the Dog star and is where we get the term ‘dog days of summer’ from.  In late July Sirius can be seen on the horizon just before dawn.  When the farmers in Egypt saw Sirius in the sky they knew it was the time of the annual  inundation of the Nile river.  The flooding gave Egypt the water it needed for its crops in order to feed itself.  Egypt also marked this as the New Year.  Written in the Pyramid Texts about this time of year is : “Your sister Isis comes to you rejoicing for love of you”.  This was speaking to the Pharaoh who was always considered a form of Osiris.  

The Coffin Text spell 473 says, “It is Isis who will give me water”.  At Philae it is stated that ‘Isis is the rain clouds that makes green the field when it descends’.  In the Rhind Mathematical Papyrus it states that at the Birth of Isis the heavens rained.   Greek writer Pausanias, after traveling to Egypt, wrote that “it was the tears of Isis that caused the waters of the Nile to rise”.  He also calls her Iset-Meheyet or ‘Isis the Flood’ and says that Isis is herself the holy inundation.  

It was at this time the people had a festival called The Night of the Tear Drop and it was a celebration of Isis.  People would come to the banks of the Nile and thrown in coins, mostly silver.   Silver is the color of the goddess.  The moon and stars were considered to be silver and they were always represented by a goddess.  Throwing the silver coin in the water represented the movement of the stars and moon.  It wasn’t until the change towards patriarchy that copper, brass and gold were used. 

The people of Egypt knew that when they threw coins, gold, jewelry and other precious gifts into the Nile that it was to appease the goddess Isis.  This custom was taken out of Egypt to Ireland, Scotland and Britain and spread from there. I have shown in several previous writings how Scotland was named after a princess from Egypt called Scota, but in all ancient societies water was the place of the goddess.  Water births and enables life.  Water is a life-giving and generative force and it can heal or destroy.  This patriarch world has done its best to destroy the goddess and make gods in her place.  They have pushed the goddess to the realm of wishing, when in fact she is the key to this realm.  Every great performer, athlete, dancer, artist, actor etc. are using the inner goddess.    Next time you are at a wishing well, fountain, spring, pool, lake, river, ocean or any other body of water, know that it is the goddess you are calling on and thanking.  It does not matter which goddess.  Pick out your favorite.  There is no dogma with the goddess, just learning and experiencing.