Ffynnon Elian — the Cursing Well

Ffynnon Elian: The Cursing Well of North Wales

Most holy wells in Wales heal. This one killed — or so thousands believed. Ffynnon Elian, on the farmland above Llanelian-yn-Rhos near Colwyn Bay, began life as an ordinary healing well, where pilgrims paid a groat, or its value in bread, and tried three times to empty the water to cure a sick child. But from roughly 1743 the well acquired a far darker trade, and became the most notorious cursing well in the Principality.

The mechanism was chillingly simple, and it is described in Francis Jones's The Holy Wells of Wales and by the antiquarian Thomas Pennant, who wrote of it in his History of Whiteford and Holywell (1796). You went to the keeper of the well. Your enemy's name was written on parchment or scratched on a slate and dropped into the water; sometimes a wax effigy was made and stuck with pins. Passages were read from the Bible or Apocrypha; the well-water was given to you thrice, to drink and to pour over your head. For your fee — a shilling or more — the victim would be afflicted with illness, ruin or death. For a higher fee, the keeper could lift a curse. Pennant records that whole farms were said to have been cursed at the well; he himself was once threatened with "the vengeance of St Elian."

This was not merely the superstition of the poor. The last keeper claimed his clients included "the best people in the land in terms of wealth and education," from England and Ireland too. A Nonconformist minister who believed himself cursed at the well took to his bed and became seriously ill. The trade was lucrative — one custodian reputedly earned up to £300 a year.

The most famous keeper was John Evans, "Jac Ffynnon Elian." He inherited the business, elaborated its rituals, and was twice gaoled — for fraud, for charging to lift curses that had never been cast — before finally, publicly, admitting the whole thing was bogus. The local Methodist minister and congregation set out to destroy the well around 1828–29; Jac diverted the water onto his own land to keep trading, but the well was finally choked up and destroyed around 1850. Even then belief lingered: in the 1860s a visitor to the remains found corks stuck with pins floating in the water, and an 1870 commentator confirmed "the ill fame of Ffynnon Elian continues even to this day." An 1925 excavation reportedly recovered a small slate with a wax effigy pinned to it, cursing one "R.F."

Where is the cursing well now, and can you visit it?

The well site lies on private farmland (Cefn-y-ffynnon) north of Llanelian-yn-Rhos village; Coflein records it as filled in, with a cobbled path remaining. There is no public access to the well itself. The visitable, photographable site is the medieval church of St Elian a few hundred yards away.

Was the cursing real, or a con?

The belief was entirely real and had real effects — people sickened from terror. The mechanism was a paid ritual run by keepers, the last of whom (Jac Ffynnon Elian) confessed to fraud. Historians (Richard Suggett, A History of Witchcraft and Magic in Wales; Thomas Waters, Yale) treat it as documented folk magic and social history.

What can I photograph at Llanelian-yn-Rhos?

St Elian's Church — with its remarkable late-medieval painted rood-screen panels (dendro-dated to timber felled 1498–1528) — and the historic White Lion Inn beside the churchyard, in continuous use since roughly the church's own age.

• Where: Ffynnon Elian, Llanelian-yn-Rhos, Conwy (grid SH86077692)
• Cursing phase: c.1743–1850
• Last keeper: John Evans, "Jac Ffynnon Elian" (jailed for fraud)
• Access: well on PRIVATE land, no access; St Elian's Church visitable
• Sources: Thomas Pennant (1796); Francis Jones, Holy Wells of Wales

PHOTOGRAPHY NOTE: The well itself is on private farmland with no public access — do NOT attempt to reach it; photograph St Elian's Church (open, with medieval painted panels) and the White Lion Inn instead. A footpath runs near the well site. RCAHMW holds a Crown-copyright church exterior image (not free-licence). Best visual: the church interior rood-screen panels and the churchyard with the inn sign.

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