In Search Of The Mysterious Fountain Of Youth

A. Sutherland - AncientPages.com - The desire for eternal youth is indeed very old. The myth of a fountain or spring with water that gives – not only youth – but also eternal life has been known in many cultures for millennia and represents a popular motif in various mythologies and religions.

Many say that such a phenomenon has never existed.

However, countless ancient texts are describing a mysterious place with water of magical properties offering a person immortality.

In Norse mythology, the Aesir gods used golden apples of the goddess Idun. These apples kept them young forever. Otherwise, they quickly became old and powerless.

Unfortunately, its location has been eluded by all who have written or heard about it. Frequently, the Water of Life motif is connected with the journey to the end of the world, a special place that belonged to gods, and from this place, every human should turn back.
Herodotus (484 BC to 425 BC) mentioned the fountain of youth or magical springs in his story of the Ethiopians when he spoke of exceptionally long life spans of people called the Macrobians (meaning long-lived), a legendary tribe of Aethiopia.

In his work ‘Histories’, about ancient traditions, geography, and the Greco-Persian War’, Herodotus recounted how the king of Ethiopia, protective of his lands, scoffed at the average life span of a Persian, only 80-year-old.

Most of his people, ‘the long-lived Ethiopians lived to be a hundred and twenty years old, while some even went beyond that age.’

Herodotus’ account of such a place is considered one of the earliest known.

The fountain of youth is also mentioned in the Alexander Romances’ – chronicles of the life and travels of Alexander the Great, who conquered most of the known world before he died around 323 BC., but… was also aware of the realities of aging.

According to Sura 18 in the Koran (and many other ancient records), Alexander searches for the Fountain of Youth (Water of Life) but unfortunately, the water looked forward to life, not backward to youth.
Moreover, he accidentally ascends the Holy Mountain Qaf (in Persian “Gap” which means “Unknown”), a place, which an ‘ordinary human ought not to seek…’ writes Richard Stoneman in his ‘Alexander the Great: A Life in Legend’

During his very short life (died at the age of thirty-two), Alexander sought Paradise on Earth, Youth, and Immortality but found nothing.

The natives of the Caribbean believed that a spring with magical properties existed in a mythical land called Bimini.
Juan Ponce de León, a conqueror from Spain, set off on a long expedition to find the Fountain of Youth in March 1513.

‘…Ferdinand the king of Spain, at once granted Ponce de Leon a Patent of Discovery (dated February 23, 1512), authorizing an expedition from the island of Hispaniola northward. The admiralty was ordered to assist Ponce de Leon and make available to him the best ships and seamen so that he might discover without delay the island of “Beininy” (Bimini)…’

But the discovery of this island was not an easy task because there’s not one island but hundreds of islands in the Bahamas.

The waters of each stream were tasted and drunk— but with no evident effects… On Easter Sunday— Pasca de Flores by its Spanish name— a long coastline was sighted. Ponce de Leon called the “island” – Florida. Sailing along the coast and landing repeatedly, he and his men searched the jungled forests and drank the waters of endless springs. But none seemed to work the expected miracle.

‘…More Indians were questioned. Some seemed unusually young for the old ages claimed by them.
Others repeated legends that confirmed the existence of the Fountain…’

In 1521, Juan Ponce de León set off on yet another great voyage to search for the Fountain of Youth. He became the first European who arrived in America by discovering Florida in 1513, but he did not find what he was looking for.
Instead of Eternal Youth, Ponce de Leon found death by an Indian arrow.

Indian mythology and the earliest Indian literature have many accounts of miraculous water. The great Indian epic, the Mahabharata mentions the water of immortality.

One can say that the very search for the legendary source of water with supernatural qualities continues. Although we live in an enlightened society and have Internet access to extensive knowledge, the desire to find a fountain of youth has remained.

Unfortunately, it most probably does not exist, so the only way to at least slow down the aging process is to use anti-aging products and eat healthy food.

Written by A. Sutherland - AncientPages.com Senior Staff Writer

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