Saint Decuman part 2

Saint Decumans well, Watchet - http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1398519,  © Copyright Sarah Charlesworth and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

"...It is said also that he had a cow, by the milk of which he was more kept alive than nourished, especially upon certain festival days. When the fore (This word fore, in the very old original MS., evidently means aforesaid.) happy Decuman had flourished in virtues of every kind, a certain man, but he, a man of Belial, enjoying the holiness of so great a Father, drunk with passion, rushed on, and in a brutish manner met him : and as he spoke and prayed, he sent the Saint to Heaven by cutting off his head.

But this also is not to be passed by in silence, for when he was beheaded with a certain sort of crooked hook, as 'tis reported, his body rose itself up and begun with its dangling arms to carry his head from the place where it was cut off even to a very clear well of water, in which he washed his head with his own hands as he was used to do ; which well, even to this day, in memory and reverence of the Saint, is called the pleasant well of St. Decuman, useful and well for the inhabitants to drink. In which place his head together with his body being afterwards sought for by the faithful and found, was delivered to be honourably buried. Father Cressy, in his Church History, Ixxi, places his martyrdom in the reign of King Ina, A.D. 706, from the authority of Capgrave and the English Martyrology."

Hewett 1900

Map - Saint Decuman's Well