Saint
Milburga's Spring
Ask the reapers when she passed. They'll say: at sowing.
Stand where it happened
- What's there
- Village spring linked to a Saxon abbess
- Legend from
- Saxon saint's legend
- Tone
- Curious
Her horse struck the rock and water came. In the field beside it, barley grew in a day.
Milburga, daughter of a Mercian sub-king, was the second abbess of the double monastery at Wenlock and died in 715. At Stoke St. Milborough, a well bears her name. The legend says she fled from enemies for two days on a white horse, fell and struck her head on a stone. With no water to bathe the wound, she made her horse strike the rock, and a spring gushed out. Barley that men were sowing that morning sprang up and ripened by evening, so when her pursuers asked when she had passed, the reapers said 'when we sowed this barley', and the hunt gave up.