THE CHRISTMAS WELL
THE CHRISTMAS WELL
BY JOHN TUFT
The town of Rachel, Pennsylvania is a small hamlet deep in the Allegheny National Forest, an over 100-year-old federal designation, which covers over a half million acres in the northwest corner of the state. It includes wilderness areas, it is home to the Northern goshawk, through it flow two wild and scenic rivers, and it has its own legends and folklore, such as the Goblin Scarecrow. Rachel has about 649 residents, give or take depending on the season of the year. They are not unlike you or me. People wonder about certain things, people accept certain things, people fret and worry about certain things, people are afraid of certain things and uncertain things. And people worship certain things, known and unknown. Seasons come and go, although in the forest they can seem more marked, more intense. Forests have that effect.
Such it is with the Christmas season in Rachel. They celebrate the season a bit differently. At the founding of the town as the Revolutionary War was being waged, William Coopersmith brought his family and a few friends to this wilderness to start a logging and trapping company. It was a hostile and forbidding environment. The forest is rich with life and promise. But sustaining ones own life takes work and vigilance. Survival took skill in hunting and working together as a community. Then there was the threat from the original inhabitants, Native Americans. Regardless of your view of this history, it is the history. Native Americans fought back to protect their resources and the needs of their own people. It was a period fraught with danger and threats to life and livelihood.
So as the dark days of winter approached, Josiah Butternam and William Coopersmith declared that the Christmas celebration would be big and extravagant and meaningful. The night of Christmas Eve needed to be a demonstration of faith and endurance, hopes for fertility and determination to persevere. All desirable goals, in their own right. The night of Christmas Eve the settlement gathered around the well in the middle of town and one by one filled the bucket with small tokens, seeds, charms, fruit and bread. At the stroke of midnight, the youngest member of the town, an infant, was laid on top of the bucket. It was lowered into the cold darkness in the fervent hope that this gesture demonstrated their humility and willingness to do whatever it took to thrive. If the infant did not cry until it felt the cold water that meant the efforts of the people would be rewarded many fold because they showed willingness to spare nothing for progress.
That first year, the infant did not cry. No one knows why but it was taken as a sure sign of the righteousness of the people’s desire to progress. This was taken as a sure, albeit self-serving, sign of the rightness of the act. In subsequent years, this Christmas well tradition was observed. It was considered a great honor to have your child chosen for the descent into the darkness, the hopes and dreams of the village resting on your most cherished of gifts. After a few generations, it was just considered the right thing to do. Stories and legends grew up around the practice. At one point, a lottery was used to select the Christmas well child. And later, realizing money was to made from this, people were allowed to buy all the chances they wanted for their child to have the honor.
It became a great Christmas Well Festival. The forest still stood but the people had progressed beyond their dependence on its bounty and grace. The terrors and fears seemed quaint. The lottery produced its own form of bounty, and a shrine was erected around the well and only a select few could enter for this sacred observance. But it was the pride and joy of Rachel, PA. Decades and generations came and went. Wars were fought here and abroad. Political passions ebbed and flowed but the Christmas Well Festival continued. Every Christmas Eve people gathered at the shrine to offer their gifts to the darkness. Joyous singing, much good food, gifts exchanged. Right before midnight candles are lit and held in reverence. Then the crowd grows silent as the infant is presented. “Giving the darkness a precious gift will keep it away,” proclaims a person of spiritual persuasion. The crowd nods in assurance. “From darkness we came and to darkness we return” they repeat. “But the darkness will not win.”
The infant is placed atop the revered relic of the original bucket, all light is extinguished and in the enveloping darkness the descent begins. All ears strain to hear the cry, the people holding their breath, straining, leaning forward until they are holding each other up in the collective act of desire. This aching desire for hope. Will the baby cry before it feels the touch of life, of our own origins? Everything is riding on that child…
Everything. For without light, there is no darkness.
Words are magic and writers are wizards.
