Category Archives: Merseyside
Mysterious creatures of wells and springs: Jenny Greenteeth
One of the frequently encountered mysterious creatures near springs and wells, as well as other bodies is called Jenny Greenteeth. In an article in the Transactions and proceedings of the American Philological Association in 1895, Charles P.G. Scott notes in the Devil and his imps remarks:
“Jenny Green-teeth, in the vernacular Jinny Green-teeth, is the pretty name of a female goblin who inhabits wells or ponds.”
The name Jinny Green-Teeth is recorded in the Folk-speech of South Cheshire (1887) and A Glossary of Words Used in the County of Chester (1886) stating that:
“Children are often deterred from approaching such places [as wells or ponds] by the threat that “Jinny Green-Teeth will have them.”
Edwin Waugh notes in 1857 Sketches of Lancashire life and localities
“ lurking in the streams and pools, like ‘Green-Teeth,’ and ‘Jenny Long Arms,’ waiting, with skinny claws and secret dart, for an opportunity to clutch the unwary wanderer upon the bank into the water.”
Often description is given of this goblin and it appears to be restricted to the west of the country, with references made in the Notes and queries around Manchester, Birmingham and as far east as Shropshire. Roy Vickery in a piece on his excellent Plant-Lore blog reports an account from Bebington Merseyside in the 1980s:
“Although Jenny Greenteeth was usually unseen, in about 1920 the bogey which inhabited two pools beside Moss Pitts Lane in Fazakerley, ‘had pale green skin, green teeth, very long green locks of hair, long green fingers with long nails, and she was very thin with pointed chin and very big eyes.”
Moreover it is possible that in Lincolnshire the same goblin is encountered as Jenny Hearn, Hurn or Yonde. This name is found associated with a bend of the Trent at Owston Ferry was haunted by Jenny Hearn or Hurn or Jenny Yonde. Unlike Jenny Greenteeth the creature is described. In Lincolnshire folklore Ethel Rudkin reports:
“The pygmy propels the dish rapidly across the stream by means of a minute pair of oars, the size of teaspoons. It is said, that having reached shore this being crosses the road and proceeds to browse in the field. ‘Or again it is said that a ‘thing’ is known to come crawling out of the water, having large eyes, and long hair, and tusks a walrus. It goes into the fields to feed. The river bank here curves in the shape of a horse-shoe, consequently a short-cut footpath has been used for years to counteract this bend.”
A possible ancient origin of this creature is suggested by another Lincolnshire location: Jenny Stanny Well a site has appeared to have passed through a number of name changes. Abraham de la Pryme discussed it in his 1680 discussion of Lincolnshire described the well as Julian’s Stony Well and now it is called Stanniwell. The name is suggestive of a Roman heritage.
Here interestingly, the name Jenny Stanny well has been supported by the suggestion that the site is haunted by a ghost presumably of that girl who carries her head under her arm. She is said to have drowned in the water. Is this a confusion of the Jenny Greenteeth tradition?
Interestingly in Preston the goblin is associated with a holy well. In the anonymous 1852 piece A Prestonian, ‘Preston More than Forty Years Ago’ in the Preston Chronicle:
“Near Friargate, and not far from the houses now called Mount Pleasant, was ‘Lady well’, about which the superstitious old women used to tell strange tales of one ‘Jenny Greenteeth’, who was said to be occasionally seen riding on a broomstick, cutting wonderful capers.”
The association of drowning with Jenny Greenteeth is significant as it would seem that the folklore probably developed as a way to warn children off playing in dangerous areas of water. This being done by associating the goblin with algae and duckweed. A note in an 1820s version of Notes and queries records Jenny Greenteeth being a name for duckweed in Birmingham. In A Glossary of the Words and Phrases of Furness (North Lancashire) (1869) she is called
“Jinny-green-Teeth — green conversa on pools.
“green scum on ponds, but supposed to imply the presence of a water-sprite or “boggart”, a terror to children as they pass the pond on which the appearance is seen.”
This is emphasised by an article by A.R. Vickery, Lemna minor and Jenny Greenteeth, in Folklore 94: 247-50, 1983. whose correspondent noted:
“ I was brought up in the Upton/Crenton area of the west side of Widnes in Lancashire (now Cheshire) …It was and still is…a farming area and many of the fields contained contained pits – some of them have quite steep sides Jinny was well known to me and my contemporaries and was simply the green weed Duckweed, which covered the surface of stagnant water.”
Finally, it is interesting the correspondent also notes
“Children who strayed too close to the edge…would be warned to watch out of Jinny Greenteeth, but it was the weed itself which was believed to hold children under water. There was never any suggestion there was a witch of any kind there!”
And such does a folk tradition become diminished! However, it was a clever way to use a common plant of stagnant water to signify dangerous waters – pity it wasn’t used in 1970s Public information films – Dark and dangerous water!
Spring among the tombstones – St James’s chalybeate spring, Liverpool
Christian reader view in me,
An emblem of true charity,
Who freely what I have bestow,
Though neither heard nor seen to flow,
And I have full return from heaven,
For every cup of water given.
Cuthbert Bridgewater on a plaque above the spring
Overlooked by Liverpool’s august Anglican Cathedral rising amongst the dead of its rock cut cemetery, the spring arising there could easily be confused as a holy well. But of course, the Cathedral is Victorian in date and the spring was only discovered when the quarry was being made!. This was 1773 and a local surgeon, James Worthington was quick to identify its possible benefits. In his paper about the site he said the water was good for
“loss of appetite, nervous disorders, Lowness of spirit, headache is proceeding from crudities of the stomach, Ricketts and weak eyes.”
Similarly, a Dr. Houston identified the site as important and gave it the name ‘Liverpool Spa’ stating that the water was cool and refreshing to taste but ‘warmed the stomach and gave a cordial and inebriating sensation’ In an article called Virtues of the Liverpool Spa he records that:
“This water then contains, without a doubt, iron dissolved, both by fixed air, and by vitriolic acid: in this latter circumstance having the advantage over Tunbridge, and most of our other chalybeates. This renders it not liable, like them, to deposit its metallic principle by keeping. Yet the mineral vitriol is so very much diluted and so minutely divided, as to render it at once extremely beneficial, perfectly innocent and accepted even to weak stomachs. There is also a small proportion of muriatic and earthly salt, mentioned above, but not in such proportion as to claim any share in the medicinal effects.”
The account states that:
“It is particularly adapted to promote appetite and digestion, and to strengthen the tone of the stomach, impaired by excess or other causes. It gradually strengthens the whole habit, and hence is excellent in that weakness, which remains after acute diseases, and for those who, without any apparent cause, lose their strength, fall away, and are generally said to be going into weakness. It is useful in the first stage, or beginning of consumptions, and may be used with advantage, even in the more advanced stages, if the matter spit up be good pus and there be no considerable degree of fever.
It is of great service in nervous diseases, and in such as arise from weakness of the system, and reciprocally serve to increase it as in the beginning of a dropsy, in the Pluor albus or other feminal weaknesses, Diarrhoea and Diabetes. It is good to prevent the gout in the stomach and bowels, may be useful in rheumatisms, and in some bodies may remove the cause of barrenness or imbecility. In general it will be serviceable in a relaxed state of the solids arising from luxury, or excess or inaction, or a sedentary life, or consequent on iome d sease: it will correct a bad habit of body, and promote good suppuration and granulation in ulcers; and its frequent use will render a person less liable to be affected by cold, damp or putrid air, epidemical or other causes of diseases. It will provide an efficacious medicine in all the cases which were mention’d under the article of iron.”
After a length discourse on who should not take it the account the author talks about the method of using the water
“The best time for drinking this water is when the stomach is empty, in a morning, or an hour or two before dinner. It is proper to begin with half a pint, or a pint, and gradually to increase the dose, so as to take in some cases four or five pints a day, or even to use it for common drink at meals. The use of it should be continued for a pretty long time to reap the benefit of it, and where the quantity drank has been gradually increased, as soon as the end proposed is obtained, it shou’d be gradually decreased though not perhaps entirely left off. The summer season is best for drinking it, although the chief reason for this is that the fittest for exercise and bathing which greatly promote the good effects of the water, especially in nervous cases: this is also one motive for advising its being drank at the spring rather than at home. Moderate exercise, regularity, temperance, a light simple diet, not flatulent, using but little animal food, malt liquor, tea or coffee and relaxation of the mind also contribute much to assist its operation; as does, in obstructions, the warm bath.”
Another local surgeon, a Dr. James Worthington, also attempted to promote the spring in a pamphlet called Experiments on the Spa at Mount Zion, Near Liverpool in it he said it was good for:
“Loss of appetite, nervous disorders, lowness of spirit, headache, crudities of the stomach, rickets and weak eyes.”
However, the spring was largely ignored possibly due to its location in the cemetery and indeed within twenty years of its discovery it was overgrown by bushes. In the 1800s it was restored and surrounded by railings and filled a large pool. Despite the lack of interest for its medicinal water it did have a rather unusual effect on the graveyards its nearby occupants. In 1894, the copse of Captain David Gwin who died in 1813 was found to be completely petrified and turned to stone due to mineral water from the spring entering the grave. Today the spring flows continuously its water largely ignored by passersby but certainly still visited as shown by the presence of the leaf inserted into its flow.
The Devil in the Well…The Monk’s Well Wavertree
“ Qui non dat quod habet, Dæmon infra vide 1414.”
“He who here does nought bestow, The Devil laughs at him below”.
So reads the inscription on the Monk’s Well, a very surprising survival of an ancient well in the urban sprawl of Liverpool. The well consists of a sandstone structure surmounted by a cross. The well although dry and the pipe very worn, it
has been converted into a flower bed, which has probably hidden the steps down under the arch to the water.
The name Monk’s Well derives according to Moss’s Liverpool Guide (1796) because there was:
“an old monastic looking house…inhabited by some religious order, who might thus request alms towards their support”.
The 1768 Wavertree Enclosure Act notes that the owner of Lake House was annoyed that villagers were crossing his land to reach the water and such that a:
“through tunnel, channel or stone gutter, lately laid and made … to carry and convey water from the said well or basin into another … lately also made, erected and built, in the highway or road adjoining”.
This improvement may have lead to the local belief of secret tunnels, significantly leading to Childwall Abbey or Priory. The name is significant of course ‘child’ probably deriving from Old Norse keld for spring and may have been an earlier name for the spring.
Baines’s 1825 Lancashire Directory of 1825 states that:
“Here is a well at which charitable contributions were anciently collected, bearing the following monkish inscription in antique letters.”
Of that legend it was a belief locally that all visitors should on taking its waters, give alms. If they did not the Devil who was chained to the bottom of the well laughed and presumably some misfortune befell the person although that is not stated. The well was also said to be a pin well so perhaps pins were given as an alm once the monks moved away?
Interestingly, when Hope (1893) with his Legendary lore of holy wells visited not only was the cross lost, but only the following inscription was visible ‘Deus dedit, homo bibit’. Which means ‘God gives and man drinks’. This was apparently, was added at that time and can be seen above the original inscription.
A pump was installed in 1835 by the Select Vestry and they also ordered the constable to lock it up during church services on Sundays so that gossiping women would not visit the well instead. When piped water arrived in the 1850s the well fell into disuse. The site was at risk when a local building firm demolished nearby Monkswell House but happily its importance was recognised and it did not disappear under some semis! In 1952, the structure became one of the first of Liverpool’s Listed ‘Buildings’ and is easily found following the road which leads off to the left near the old lock up ( itself worth a visit and another remarkable survival ) off the B1578 road out of Liverpool. Turn the corner from North Drive into Mill Lane and you will see it.
holyandhealingwells 