SC - Treacle Well?

[harper at idt.net]

> Maggie MacDonald wrote:
> > Just what the heck is a treacle well that I have seen references to?

And 'Lainie replied:
> It is likely English (they seem especially fascinated by treacle) and it
> may well be something Lewis Carroll, but there's also a story by (I
> think) Edward Lear that has four children who go to sea in a teakettle
> with a quangle-wangle and they kept landing places that had weird things
> like that.

The treacle well is from Lewis Carroll,in the mad tea-party chapter of "Alice's 
Adventures in Wonderland.  The Dormouse tells a story about three sisters named 
Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie; who lived at the bottom of a treacle well.

What I didn't know, until I went looking on the web for a copy of the text, was 
that there *is* a treacle well.  It doesn't contain real treacle, of course, 
but it is called the treacle well.  It is beside a small English church near 
Oxford, is associated with St. Frideswide, and is reputed to have healing 
powers.  And Lewis Carroll is known to have seen it.
http://www.bath.ac.uk/~liskmj/wellsweb/wellsmsc/well1999.htm

I'm less familiar with Edward Lear, but he did write a poem called "The 
Jumblies", who went to sea in a sieve.  No treacle in that one, though.  
Cranberry tarts and Stilton cheese, and yeast dumplings, but no treacle.


Brighid, .sigless in VT, but still fully equipped with trivia



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