Is the Fountain of Youth real?
The Fountain of Youth is most associated with the Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de León, but people have believed in magical waters that bring everlasting life since antiquity
Some stories in myth and legend have a habit of resurfacing time and again, carrying symbolism and ideas that endure across cultures and centuries. One such recurring motif is that of miraculous elixirs of life or sacred places that promise rejuvenation — from the philosopher’s stone and the Holy Grail to various enchanted springs. Archetypal among these is the Fountain of Youth, a mythical source said to restore vitality to all who drink from it.
What is the Fountain of Youth?
Legend says that anyone who located the mythical spring known as the Fountain of Youth would be bestowed with long life or renewed youth by drinking or bathing in its waters.
Is the Fountain of Youth real?
There is no single Fountain of Youth in legend.
The notion is a very human one: to believe in something beyond our understanding that preserves life, and then to regard water – something on which every civilisation has been utterly dependent – as the vessel of that power. As such, there has never been a definitive Fountain of Youth.
Water – whether in the form of springs, rivers or lakes – have been considered sacred by numerous cultures around the world, and imbued with divine powers.
To this day, people flock to the pilgrimage site of Lourdes in France, where the waters flowing from a grotto are revered for their miraculous abilities to heal the sick and infirm.
Could the Fountain of Youth be under the Great Pyramid of Giza?
There is no legend that links the Fountain of Youth to the Great Pyramid of Giza, as is suggested in Apple TV+’s Indiana Jones-esque movie Fountain of Youth.
Likewise the legend has no link to the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, any of the world’s most famous paintings, or the ‘Wicked Bible’ misprint of the King James bible (so named after James VI and I, who commissioned it).
Where is the Fountain of Youth?
The Fountain of Youth is most closely associated with the New World today, but it has also been spoken of in Africa and Asia Minor.
In the fifth century BC, the Greek historian Herodotus wrote of the Macrobians, an African people with unnaturally long lifespans, supposedly thanks to the water they drank. A century later, Alexander the Great is said to have gone looking for a youth-restoring and healing river.
Millenia later, in medieval times, there was widespread belief in Europe of a Christian king in a land somewhere in Asia, sometimes Africa, named Prester John, who was said to have a Fountain of Youth of his own.
Then in the 14th-century fantastical travelogue, The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, the author claimed to have drunk from a magical spring in India.
What does Juan Ponce de León have to do with the Fountain of Youth?
In the 16th century, the Fountain of Youth legend became inextricably linked with the exploration of the New World and the Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de León.
After founding the first European settlement on Puerto Rico, Ponce de León led an expedition in 1513 that reached modern-day Florida, US. It has long been claimed that he was driven by an obsession to discover magical waters believed to be on the island of Bimini (in the Bahamas).
Except, there is no evidence to suggest that this was Ponce de León’s aim at all, even from his own letters. Like many other Spanish explorers, he was there for riches and glory, and he certainly did not find anything that brought everlasting life: he would be dead less than a decade later, having been wounded during an attack by native Americans during his attempt to colonise the land in Florida.
Is the Fountain of Youth in Florida?
The connection between the Fountain of Youth and Ponce de León was made after his death by another Spaniard, Gonzalo Fernàndez de Oviedo y Valdés.
A friend of one of Ponce de León’s rivals, he had reason to undermine the 1513 voyage and make its leader look a fool. In his Historia general y natural de las Indias, he wrote witheringly of Ponce de León, having been duped by the native peoples, plunging deeper into the unknown on a deranged quest for a magical fountain.
The story stuck, and the Fountain of Youth has forevermore been associated with Florida – not that the people there have minded perpetuating the myth. In the town of St Augustine, the Fountain of Youth Archaeological Park is advertised as featuring the very waters ‘found’ by Ponce de León – despite the fact that he may not have ever been there.
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Authors
Jonny Wilkes is a former staff writer for BBC History Revealed, and he continues to write for both the magazine and HistoryExtra. He has BA in History from the University of York.