Whether Well or Cauldron, the Goddess' vessel contains the transformative essence. The Cauldron of Rebirth is a recurring theme in Celtic tales. In the Welsh story-cycle, the Mabinogi, warriors slain in battle are put into it and emerge alive. In old Welsh Arthurian material, Arthur goes to the Underworld, Annwfn, to retrieve the same magic cauldron -- this is probably the origin of the Grail Quest, since the cauldron of Annwfn is also an inexhaustible source of food, as is the Grail.

Irish tradition has a story quite similar to that of Ceridwen and Gwion. It may even have originated from the same story, since the hero of this tale is named Fionn, which is the same word in Irish as Gwion in Welsh, only with a consonant shift (quite common between Welsh and Irish: the word for "white" in Irish is finn and in Welsh is gwyn).

Fionn apprentices himself to an old wizard-bard, who sends Fionn to fish for a miraculous salmon in a pool. Because the salmon feeds on magical hazel-nuts which fall into the pool, anyone who eats the salmon will receive great wisdom. Fionn catches the salmon, and the prophet directs him to cook it. The fish spits hot fat as it roasts, burning Fionn's thumb. He sucks it to ease the pain, and immediately gets all the benefit of the salmon's magic. For some reason, he does not then need to flee the magus' wrath, perhaps because the initiatory aspect of Fionn's story was lost. Yet, in true initiatory fashion, the wizard gives Fionn a new name to go with his new life. He was Demne; the wizard renames him Fionn.

Irish legend mentions another such well, called "Connla's Well" or "the Well of Segais", with nine ancient hazels growing over it; nuts dropped into the well and caused bubbles of mystic inspiration to form on the streams that flowed from it. Those who ate the nuts became visionaries and poets.

Brigid's connection with wells and apples makes it seem likely that apples had the same property. The fact that European art and myth commonly portrayed Eve's "fruit of knowledge" as the apple -- Eve's fruit is never named in the Biblical account nor are apples native to the Middle East -- only makes sense if there was an already-existing European tradition of apples as a fruit of knowledge.

All over Britain and Ireland, dozens of sacred springs are named for Brigid; Janet and Colin Bord's Earth Rites (1982) contains a whole chapter on customs surrounding holy wells and fresh-water springs. They say: "Even when Christianity ostensibly ousted the pagan cults in Britain, water worship survived. The sacred wells became 'holy' wells, and the goddesses who had presided over them became nymphs and guardians of wells, or saints to whom the wells were dedicated."

The hot spring at Bath, a sacred site known for its healing waters, was called Aquae Sulis by the Romans. It was also the location of a temple dedicated to "Sulis Minerva" -- Minerva being the Roman name for Brigid. Once again we see the healing aspect of Brigid, such as the Reeses described, and in the context of a well; not only does Brigid's spring transform men into kings, it transforms sick people into "well" people.

It was at one time thought that the isle of Avalon was a hill in Glastonbury, and indeed there is a well at its foot, the Chalice Well, which is said to have restorative waters. The draught of the Grail was said to heal all ills; it is likely, given the theory that the Grail was once the Cauldron, that the Cauldron not only revived the dead but healed the sick. Ceridwen lives beside a lake and is the keeper of the Cauldron of Rebirth; Morgan is the Lady of the Lake and takes the dying Arthur away to Avalon, for the healing of his wounds.

Such springs often had trees associated with them, to which pilgrims attached their votive offerings. Brigid's temple in Ireland was "the Church of the Oak"; the Oak was the World Tree for the Celts, the indestructible tree which is the gateway to other worlds where one may seek knowledge. In other shamanic cultures, too, we see this idea of all the worlds of "non-ordinary reality" in the branches of a great tree, reachable by the shaman who climbs it.

One wonders if Merlin's ordeal at the hands of Viviane (another name of the Lady of the Lake), binding him inside a tree, might originally have had to do with the World Tree and initiation by the Goddess. The Goddess is the soul-leader here, the psychopomp. She causes the living to be reborn through initiation, and the dead to be reborn into new life -- the Irish said the "Summerland" of the dead was across the sea westward, as was Avalon in some of the British legends. Halifax, too, mentions "the well at the end of the world", to which the shaman-bird flies, and the Bords mention that "Bronze Age people and the early Celts saw wells as entrances to the underworld..."