The Fountain of Youth
The
Fountain of Youth is a legendary spring that reputedly restores the youth of anyone
who drinks of its waters. Florida is said to be its location, and stories of the
fountain are some of the most persistent stories associated with the state.
The Fountain of Youth
A long standing story is that Spanish
explorer Juan Ponce de León was searching for the Fountain of Youth when
he travelled to present-day Florida in 1513, but the story did not start with
him, nor was it unique to the New World. Tales of healing waters date to at least
the time of the Alexander Romance, and were popular right up to the European Age
of Exploration. The later legend derives from the "Water of Life" tale
in the Eastern versions of the Alexander Romance, where Alexander and his servant
cross the Land of Darkness to find the restorative spring. The servant in that
story is in turn derived from Middle Eastern legends of Al-Khidr, a sage who appears
also in the Qur'an. Arabic and Aljamiado versions of the Alexander Romance were
very popular in Spain during and after the period of Moorish rule, and would have
been known to the explorers who journeyed to America.
Of course, there are countless indirect sources for the tale as well. Immortality is a gift frequently sought in legend, and stories of things like the philosopher's stone, universal panaceas and the elixir of life are common throughout Eurasia and elsewhere. An additional hint may have been taken from the account of the Pool of Bethesda in the Gospel of John, in which Jesus heals a man at the pool in Jerusalem.
The
Arawaks and the land of Bimini
The native stories about the curative spring
were related to the mythical land of "Beemeenee", or Bimini, a land
of wealth and prosperity located somewhere to the north, possibly in the location
of the Bahamas. According to legend, the Spanish heard of Bimini from the Arawaks
in Hispaniola, Cuba, and Puerto Rico. Sequene, an Arawak chief from Cuba, had
purportedly been unable to resist the lure of Bimini and its restorative fountain.
He gathered a troup of adventurers and sailed north, never to return. Word spread
among Sequene's more optimistic tribesmen that he and his followers had located
the Fountain of Youth and were living in luxury in Bimini.
Bimini and its curative waters were widespread subjects in the Caribbean. Italian-born chronicler Pietro Martire Vermigli (Peter Martyr) told of them in a letter to the pope in 1513, though he didn't believe the stories and was dismayed that so many others did.
Ponce de León and Florida
The story continues that
Juan Ponce de León heard of the fountain from the people of Puerto Rico
when he conquered the island. Growing dissatisfied with his material wealth, he
launched an expedition to locate it, and in the process discovered Florida. Though
he was one of the first Europeans to set foot on the American mainland, he never
found the Fountain of Youth.
The story is apocryphal. While Ponce de León may well have heard of the Fountain and believed in it, his name was not associated with the legend in writing until after his death. That connection appears in the Memoir of Hernando D'Escalante Fontaneda in 1575,[1] and in Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas' history of the Spanish in the New World, based on Fontaneda. Fontaneda had spent 17 years as an Indian captive after being shipwrecked in Florida as a boy. In his Memoir he tells of the curative waters of a lost river he calls "Jordan" and refers to de León looking for them. However, Fontaneda makes it clear he is skeptical about these stories he includes, and says he doubts de León was actually looking for the fabled stream when he came to Florida.
It is Herrera who makes that connection definite in the romanticized version of Fontaneda's story included in his Historia general de los hechos de los Castellanos en las islas y tierra firme del Mar Oceano. Herrera states that local caciques paid regular visits to the fountain. A frail old man could become so completely restored that he could resume "all manly exercises… take a new wife and beget more children." Herrera adds that the Spaniards had unsuccessfully searched every "river, brook, lagoon or pool" along the Florida coast for the legendary fountain.[2] It would appear the Sequene story is likewise based on a garbling of Fontaneda.
Earlier versions of the legend
The concept of a Fountain
of Youth was not new to Europeans when they heard of it in the Caribbean. A Fountain
or Well of Youth had appeared in the Alexander Romance, the Travels of Sir John
Mandeville and writings related to Prester John long before the Old World became
old. Explorers of the time had a habit of projecting onto newly-found places what
they had read in books of fantastic travels, as demonstrated by the naming of
Amazonia, the insistence that Ethiopia's king was Prester John, and the speculation
that the Earthly Paradise was to be found in Asia, the Americas, or wherever its
seekers happened to be looking. When the Spanish heard native American stories
of a youth-rendering spring in a land of plenty, they could not help but believe
they had found the wonderful Fountain of Youth at last. Unfortunately, earlier
native versions of the legend are not known outside of what snippets Spanish chroniclers
managed to preserve of what is sure to have been a rich tradition.
The
Fountain of Youth today
The city of St. Augustine, Florida is home to
the Fountain of Youth National Archaeological Park, created as a tribute to the
city's illustrious history at the spot where Ponce de León is traditionally
said to have landed. Though the fountain situated there is not "the"
Fountain, this does not stop tourists from drinking its water. The park exhibits
native and colonial artifacts to celebrate St. Augustine's Timucuan and Spanish
heritage.
Humour filled ideas about the Yeti,
Fake Pics of the Yeti in many situations, and some more subjects associated with the Yeti
A
game I created where you are chased by a Monster from a loch in the Highlands
What
the Abominable Snowman's autograph would look like, never buy it, I made it up.