Saint
Oswald's Raven
A raven, a king's arm and a spring.
Stand where it happened
- What's there
- Holy spring on the edge of town
- Legend from
- Saxon; Bede and local legend
- Tone
- Dark history
A raven flew off with the dead king's arm. Where it let go, water sprang.
Oswald, Christian king of Northumbria, was killed by the pagan Penda of Mercia at Maserfield on 5 August 642. Penda had his body cut up and his head and arm set on a stake. Legend says a raven carried one arm to an ash tree, which became Oswald's Tree, giving Oswestry its name, and a spring rose where the bird dropped it. The well's water was thought to cure eye trouble. Burne calls it Shropshire's most famous wishing well and records Bede's tale of a sick horse and a paralysed woman cured by the ground where the king fell. One historian suggests the spring was sacred before Oswald.