The Cursed Well

Even though the town has a well right in the middle of the marketplace, many of its finest people use river water that they have to carry from the edge of the town half a mile away. The river water is from the cistern—it is muddy and smells bad, whereas the well water is crystal clear.

You must be wondering why people drink bad river water when they could drink clean well water. I will tell you, word-for-word, the story of the well as I had heard it straight from Reb Eliezer the Beadle’s mouth. He told the story with great terror, but at the same with great pride. The story is indeed terrible, and yet he is proud of it, proud of his town where such stories can happen. “You may travel through half the world,” he says, “and won’t hear another story like this.”

The story began in the year . . .

But he forgot which year it was, so you must make do without it.

“It happened towards the end of Elul, when people say slikhes, penitential prayers. A town is a town, as we all know—it has some fine young people, fine lads, and there are rascals, too.

As they go early in the morning to say the penitential prayers, still in the dark, they must make some mischief . . . and who will they tease if not the town’s first-born ox.¹ The first-born ox at the time was quite unique, a real champion! With one jump, he could turn everything and everyone in town upside down.

To tease the ox, the kids first started to chase him, throw stones at him. At first the ox would resist, but the troublemakers were a large group, so he would run away. They ran after him with stones and sticks; the ox runs and runs quickly, up and down, back and forth.

As fate would have it, the well was damaged at the time, and it had to be repaired. A little while earlier, the village mayor made an offer, drummed up the money, and, as a first step, removed the planks covering the well. The well stands open.

The well is uncovered, and, God help us, the first-born ox of the town falls into the open well. The pranksters didn’t understand where he had disappeared to, so they all went their separate ways.

It is slikhes time, we are all in the synagogue, Reb Yoyne had just begun to say the penitential prayers passionately, when we suddenly hear a scream from the street, a wailing sound, God save us!

What can it be? Maybe one of the women is in labor, or, God forbid, some other trouble . . .

We quickly finish up the prayer and people start running around, listening—the wailing comes from the well.

Had the troublemakers told anyone that they were fooling around with the first-born ox we might have suspected that it was him inside the well. But they were afraid of their parents and didn’t say a word. And we couldn’t think of anything other than that it must be a ghost, or a demon . . .

Whether it was because we were so terrified or because the voice of the ox really sounded like it, it doesn’t matter—we were sure that it was the voice of a human. And, since no one was missing from the town and no visitors came from elsewhere, either, it must be an evil spirit. People stood around shivering, teeth chattering, as if they had the fever, may God have mercy upon us. . . .

The great clamor woke up the chief policeman and several other non-Jews, and they all came out to the street and stood around gaping. But they are no cowards—they run to the village mayor, bring a bucket and a rope (they keep those locked up overnight locked so people don’t steal them); they bring it, they lower it down into the well, and they bring up the first-born ox, dead. Oh, the way he looks! Broken horns, broken legs, and holes in his sides. Oh!”

And Reb Eliezer covers his face with his hands so he won’t see the horrible picture that emerges in front of his eyes.

“And since then you don’t drink well water?” I asked.

“You think we are such fools?” he answered with disdain. “Just listen how the story continues.”