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Nowadays, the bitter water of this spring is no longer drinkable, but once upon a time, there was oil, the finest, not water, flowing from the spring. In Girona, the people were unable to make use of it, since close to the spring there lived a huge serpent which devoured everything which came near it. One day, a farmer from Saint Daniel, passing by the place, saw the frightful guardian close up. The snake, terribly long and horrible, slithered along up to the oil fount and stopped to put down a precious stone it was carrying in its mouth and which shone dazzlingly. When it had finished drinking, it picked up the shining stone in its mouth and left. The farmer left, deep in thought and wondering how to get hold of the jewel and, thinking and thinking, he finally had a thought. The next day, after a night spent striking hammers, nails and working saws, he went back to the spring. He had made a wine barrel, holed with sharpened nails and which looked like a hedgehog. On the lid he had made a hole through which he could put his arm out. The fearful farmer waited inside the barrel, near to where the serpent left the stone to drink at the
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spring. When the serpent went to drink the oil, the farmer stretched out his arm and took the stone. Now it was his! When the huge snake realised that it had been robbed, it lifted its head, blowing out so heavily that it made the trees and stones tremble. It threw itself onto the false hedgehog, winding its immune body round, squeezing, biting and shrieking. They rolled up the path, and down the verges. Now the farmer saw that his last hour was coming and called on Mary, Mother of God. The snake gripped the barrel and the nails stuck into it, until, they rolled all the way down hill to the River Galligans, where the barrel smashed against a stone. The half dizzy farmer saw that the snake was dead from the nails sticking through it, and he ran to offer the precious stone to the Mother of God. They say that this stone decorated the great golden crown that was over The Mother of God’s bed, which was taken up to the cathedral every year on Assumption Day. This was one of the most important processions in Girona and it took place from 1574 onwards. We hear about two beds of the Mother of God: one from the 17th Century and the other from the 18th Century; of the mysterious stone, however, we know nothing at all.
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