Saved at St Mungo's Well

This summer I called at St Mungo’s well within the Cumberland parish of Bromfield. This is an old, 'holy well', from the early days of Christianity, or older still. Above it, on a Victorian encasement, are the words:

WITH JOY YOU WILL DRAW WATER FROM THE WELLS OF SALVATION

-which is a quotation from Isaiah 12:3.

Alas, I was not able to meditate upon this for long as it was some immediate salvation of my own I sought. The cattle of the field in which the well was located had gathered and began to approach me, en masse. The ground was boggy and my walking uneven, but they came within six feet, at which point I clapped and yelled, waved my arms and made a din, from which they backed off. But as soon as I walked again, their confidence returned, and they got within three feet of me. I could feel their breath and see my reflection in their large, brown eyes. I repeated the procedure several times until I finally managed to reach the kissing gate. Had they made contact, they might only have sniffed and licked. Then again, it might have been worse. Between 1997-2017, there were 54 reported attacks by cattle on people in Britain (though another source claims 74 between 2000 and 2017), with a quarter being fatal. Whatever salvation St Mungo’s well was describing, I was quietly praying to Mungo's God that He would persuade these young bulls to mind their own business, or at least give me enough time to escape their field. This was achieved and the photographs, below, were taken from a safe elevation. I know I must eventually die of something, but I did not fancy dying on that day, mobbed, kicked and trampled by cattle.

My photographs of the well are poor, taken by an unsteady hand in a hurried fashion, but better ones can be enjoyed here. Unbelievers understand 'salvation' as deliverance from immediate problems and pressing dangers. Certainly, I needed saving from thirty head of cattle, and so I was. Biblical salvation, however, is most concerned with saving us from the just condemnation which are many sins deserve, at the final Judgement. For that salvation, many are called but few receive.