Another Glastonbury Tale-Isle of Wight Festival

When I last spoke about Glastonbury. I didn't speak some what of some of the more colourful people who lived there. I would like to tell you the tale of Gollum and the Chalice Well. Gollum I first met at the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival along with Chicky,Tree Beard,Legolas and Gandalf. There were others , well you get the idea. Each and every night on Desolation Road we used to read from the Lord of the Rings. (Isle of Wight will be another story). There is a great web site on the 1970 concert with loads of photo's and stories form the concert. I am including a photo of Desolation road as it has pictures of some of the gang; I just mentioned and I am in the back ground, some of the arms or legs that are shown. I think my old friend Larry i was there as well but put his hands up so you would be able to see his face for some reason or is the chap laying down.. That is pretty weird, seeing myself in a purple haze after almost 38 years.

To return to the story. As you are well aware of the Gollum character was rather repulsive,dirty,smelly etc., the Gollum at Glastonbury resembled the literary creature to a tee.

Every day we went to the Chalice Well to get our Drinking water and cooking water for the day as the only water we had down the lane was what ran in several ditches and it was fine for bathing but not for drinking. Anyway's this day a group of older ladies( Nuns) from somewhere were going on a pilgrimage to the Chalice well for some of the healing properties from the well water. As it was supposed to be the Chalice that Christ and his Disciples drank from at the Last supper. It was also known as the Holy Grail.

The water was always clean and pure and the Well never run dry, according to the legend. We used to get our water from a Lion's Head Fountain.

The ladies went in to the Chalice Well and were shocked to see a naked Gollum bathing in the Well itself, complete with bubble bath and his clothes were drying on the rock wall. None of us for several days drank from the Well as we were certain that there was a evil looking slime on the water as it flowed out of the lion's head.

After that a wall and door was built so a repeat of the sort would not happen again. We still called him Gollum, but we did
not need to get up wind of him anymore. My Preciousssssssssssss.