Is this a statement of fact? Largely so, if the reference is to the
river gods, the Naiads, and water sprites, of classical
mythology. But not true if the vaguer belief in spirits who
preside over mossy wells and bubbling springs be taken into
account, or if the faith in the healing or other virtues of the
waters that issue from them be included in the underlying idea.
No, not even in the most Christian countries of to-day is such
faith extinct. One has but to remember the famous well at
Auray, or the sacred fountain in the crypt of the church at St.
Melars, to which whole crowds of pilgrims still resort, to realise
how far this is from being the case. Scotland herself, for all her
centuries of Puritanism, has not wiped her slate quite clean; still
less the countries like Ireland and Brittany, which are so
retentive of the past. Nay, the present age is not content with its
liberal supply of sacred springs, it must be adding new ones of
its own! Let Lourdes be witness. And who shall say how many
more are yet to come?

Very remarkable, both as illustrating Milton's Ode, and also the
persistency of this particular form of superstition, is the story of
the only real spring close to Jerusalem--Enrogel. It is identified
by high authorities with the Dragon's Well, mentioned in a
romantic passage of the book of the patriot, Nehemiah.
Assuming the validity of this identification, we have a glimpse
of times far earlier than the Hebrew occupation of the land.
Primitive peoples often associated serpents with springs and
wells, as incarnations of the spirit of the waters. A link is thus
supplied which carries back the history to the animistic and
mythological periods, in this case, prehistoric.