The Well
The spring
The deep source, and the way down.
The Well: what does it mean in analytical psychology?
The well is the source in the depths, where the water of life rises, and a way down into another world. Jung counted it among the symbols of the mother, and it is where the fairy tale’s heroine falls into the underworld of Mother Holle.
The Well: where does it appear in myth and tradition?
Mimir’s well, for a drink of which Odin gave an eye, Jacob’s well, the fountain of youth, and the holy wells of the Symbolarium.
From the Sources
Jung quotes Pausanias on the sacred well at the Amphiaraion of Oropos, into which those healed threw gold and silver, and suggests that the well was also the place of Amphiaraos's descent into the lower world.
““If any one is healed of a sickness through a saying of the oracle, then it is customary to throw a silver or gold coin into the well; because here Amphiaraos has ascended as a god.” It is probable that this oropic well is also the place of his “Katabasis” (descent into the lower world).”
Dr. C. G. Jung, Psychology of the Unconscious: A Study of the Transformations and Symbolisms of the Libido, Part II, Chapter VII, "The Dual Mother Rôle". Authorized translation, with introduction, by Beatrice M. Hinkle, M.D.; New York: Moffat, Yard and Company, 1916. The text, read in part
In the Grimms' "Mother Holle", a girl who has let her spindle fall into a well jumps in after it and wakes in a sunlit meadow full of flowers, the beginning of her adventures in the world below.
“The girl went back to the well not knowing what to do, and at last in her distress she jumped into the water after the spindle. She remembered nothing more until she awoke and found herself in a beautiful meadow, full of sunshine, and with countless flowers blooming in every direction.”
Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm, Grimms' Fairy Tales, "Mother Holle". Text based on translations from the Grimms' Kinder und Hausmärchen by Edgar Taylor and Marian Edwardes. The text, read in part
Each passage is quoted from the text named, which the press fetched and read, and was checked word for word against a fresh copy of it; the link opens that copy. Passages are given as printed, without the editors’ footnote numbers, and with words broken across lines joined.
Where to Read
- “Psychological Aspects of the Mother Archetype,” CW 9i
Jung’s writings are cited by the volume of the Collected Works (CW), Bollingen Series / Princeton, 1953–79.
Related Symbols
Also among The Land
“Learn as much as you can about symbolism; then forget it all when you are analysing a dream.”
Cite This Entry
“The Well.” In Symbols of the Psyche, the Symbolarium. The Thinking Press, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/symbolarium/psyche/well.
Nearby in the alphabet: The Wasteland: The barren land of a wounded king. The Whale: The monster of the deep that swallows. The Wheel: Turning time, fortune, and the round of birth and death.