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WATEK. HEILAWAC. 585
the ground,, and water bubbles up. But there are two theories
even more generally received : that the water of sacred brooks
and rivers is in the first instance poured by gods and superior
beings out of bowls or urns; and that springs and wells are
guarded by snakes or dragons lying near them (see SuppL).
Water drawn at a holy season, at midnight, before sunrise,
and in solemn silence, bore till a recent time the name of heilawdc,
heilwdcj heilwcege. The first form, retaining the connecting
vowel after a long syllable, proves the antiquity of the word,
whose sacred meaning secured it against change. MS. 2, 149 b :
I man seit (saith) von heilawdge uns vil, wie heil, wie guot ez si,
wie gar vollekomen der eren spil, wie gar sin kraft verheilet swaz
wundes an dem man verseret ist/ how good for healing wounds,
etc. Martina 116: Grot, du froude fliizzic heilawdc/ and in a
like sense 248. 283. Applied to Christ and his cross, Mar. 224 :
f
der bourn ist gemeizzen, da daz heilwce.ge von bechumet, daz aller
werlte gefrumet/ the tree whence cometh h. And more gener
ein heilwdge, Diut. 1, 352; much later, in Anshelm s
ally, f
Chron. of Bern 1,
t
308, h&ilwag }
among other charms and magic
appliances. Lastly, in Phil, von Sittewald (Strasb. 1677) 1,
483 : running spring-water, gathered on holy Christmas night,
while the clock strikes twelve, and named heilwag, is good for
pain of the navel/ Superst. 804. In this heilawac we discover
a very early mingling of heathen customs with Christian. The
common people believe to this very day, that at 12, or between
II and 12, on Christmas or Easter night, spring-water changes
into wine (Superst. 54. 792), 1
Wieselgren p. 412; and this belief
rests on the supposition that the first manifestation of the
Saviour s divinity took place at the marriage in Cana, where he
turned water into wine. Now at Christmas they celebrated both
his birth (epiphany, theophany, p. 281) and his baptism, and
combined with these the memory of that miracle, to which was
fontis Dura medusae! quern praepetis ungula rupit, Ov. Met. 5, 257 seq. So the
vein of gold in a hill is laid open by a blow from a hoof. Rhea opens a spring in
Arcadia with her staff :
5 gx<*v V-h -
Qea /j,tyav vtybdi.
aK-tiTTTpy TO 5e 01
X^/"a. Callimach. hy. Jov. 28.
1 Zehn ehen eines weibes (her ten marriages), Leipz. 1735, p. 235.