Fig. 10.1. Seepage spring.
Seepage springs occur when water infiltrating the
ground (positive temperature gradient)
encountering an impervious layer, seeps down this
slope emerging where it meets the ground surface.
The amount of the infiltrations determines the
outflow rate and its temperature that of the
surrounding area, seldom very cold.
Natural springs would be valued also because the quality and
reliability of the water flow in times of drought might make the dif-
ference between life and death. It is not hard to see why people
invested these sites with magical powers, or seeing them as inhab-
ited by a living spirit who was the guardian of the waters. It is likely
that many of our forebears would empathize with Viktor
Schauberger's vision of water as 'the blood of the Earth' when they
saw the pure, cold, nourishing liquid issuing mysteriously from the
womb of the Earth.
Rivers frequently have their source at a spring.^1 The source of a
great holy river is regarded as particularly sacred. Many churches
and monastic institutions are associated with springs, the churches
using the water for baptism. The monasteries pioneered the capping
of the springs to deliver the water through wooden or stone 'con-
duits.' These proved to be the salvation of growing urban popula-
tions in England who, after the dissolution of the monasteries in the
sixteenth century, would take 'feathers,' or branch pipes, off these
monastic conduits. Like the springs from which they derived, in
some localities these conduits were often venerated and adorned
with flowers and gilded branches.HIDDEN NATURE