Good day everyone! Today’s addition to the Artifact series will be the fabled Fountain of Youth! Probably one of the more prominent of the artifacts to appear in pop culture. I was torn about adding this one to the artifact series because I couldn’t decide if it should be described as an object or a location. Regardless, the topic is fascinating to me, and I wanted to share it! 😀
photo:
The Fountain of Youth, 1546 painting by Lucas Cranach the Elder.
The Fountain of Youth is a mythical spring that can supposedly restore the youth of anyone who drinks from the fountain or bathes in its waters. Variations of the spring have appeared throughout many of the indigenous people of the Caribbean. Some natives have said it to be located north of the Bahamas, and others have said it was located in the Gulf of Honduras.
Now I firmly believe something like this is possible, but I would like to bring up a common myth I found while researching the fountain. One of the most common names associated with the search for the fountain is a Spanish Explorer and ex Governor of Puerto Rico, Juan Ponce de León. Ponce was eventually removed from governship (is that a word?) after a power struggle and was granted a contract in 1512 by the king at the time, to explore and settle a a land called Bimini.
Ponce actually ended up discovering Florida and returned a few years later to settle the land, thought he met his end at a native’s arrow. So far, after reading through Ponce’s letters and various documents from that time, no reference to the fountain was made until after Ponce de León’s death in 1521.
Surprisingly, legends very similar to this turn up all over history, dating back as far as the 4th century. Alexander the Great supposedly came across a “healing river” quite similar in description to the fountain during his travels. As cool as that is, I was actually more surprised to read that to reach this river, Alexander the Great had to cross a “Land of Darkness”, a place of perpetual night.
Stories like this interest me so much. It’s easy for a myth or legend to pop up in a single location and be written off as superstition, but when the same thing continues to pop up in other cultures throughout history, it makes you wonder if such an amazing thing really exists. Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed and I’ll definitely post on this again once I’ve discovered the fountain for myself!
~Emrys
Wild Knights 