Throughout history, explorers ventured into uncharted territories to source a body of water
that could turn back biological clocks, but how seriously did they take their quests for curing
waters? Here is the perplexing, sometimes tragic history of the search for the Fountain of Youth.
Across many cultural origins, the mythical Fountain of Youth is said to possess the power to
cure sickness or restore the youth of those who bathe in or drink from its waters. It has been
represented as a spring, waterfall, well, or a pool. And these eternal waters are floral-scented
in some stories, or described as sulfuric from their mineral-rich contents in others.
Water iconography often represents restoration or awakening. In Christianity, baptism is a spiritual
rebirth, and in Hinduism, bathing in the Ganges River cleanses the soul and washes away sins.
It seems almost natural then that sources of water, like a fountain for instance,
became symbols for rebirth and immortality. Even today, you can find people touting miracle
cures from blessed or magically imbued waters. Interpretations of the Fountain of Youth have made
appearances in art through the centuries. French ivory carvings from the 14th century depict an
old bearded man entering magical waters where young, amorous couples bathe. A 1546 painting
by Lucas Cranach the Elder portrays a fountain in which the aged enter on the left and exit,
lithe and young on the right. These images were taken from European romance literature during
the medieval period and spread throughout the age of colonization and exploration.
The Greek historian Herodotus, in his 425 BCE history of the Greco-Persian War,
was the first to mention a Fountain of Youth. Herodotus wrote of Persian spies visiting an
African people called the Macrobians, likely referring to ancient Ethiopians or Somalis.
The king of the Macrobians attributed his people's strength to their diet of boiled meat and milk.
But when the Persians marveled that many Ethiopians lived to the age of
120, the African king led the spies to a fountain. After bathing in the fountain,
the Persians discovered that their skin had become smooth and glossy. They also noticed
a scent from the spring that smelled like violets. Later in 1165, the forged "Letter of Prester John"
document began circulating around Europe. The letter claimed to be from a Christianized African
king, Prester John, written to the leader of the Byzantine empire. It provided details
about the African monarch’s kingdom located somewhere in India or Ethiopia. The letter
also contained an account of a magical fountain that returned people back to the age of 32.
The immortal Prestor John, and the magical fountain he ruled, became an
incentive for the European exploration of the African coast. In 1497, the Portuguese throne
sent Vasco de Gama around the Cape of Good Hope. In 1520, another Portuguese explorer,
Don Rodrigo da Lima finally reached Ethiopia. There they discovered the
Ethiopian ruler Lebna Dengel, but no sign of Prester John or a violet-scented spring.
An account of the life of King Alexander III of Macedon was collected in Greek around 338 CE.
The Alexander Romance, as these exploits came to be known, is part history, part oral tradition,
and part mythology. Versions of it were translated into French,
German, Middle English, Persian, Arabic, and Latin. Medieval Europeans knew these tales well,
serving as the bestselling adventure epics of the day.
It is said that Alexander the Great, who died in approximately 323 BCE, sought a river that
would heal the effects of aging on his body. In later Eastern versions of The Alexander Romance,
Alexander searched for this water within the Land of Darkness, a place of eternal night.
In another tale, after traveling within Africa, Alexander and his army reached an idyllic river
and camped out. His men hunted birds and fish for dinner, but when they cleaned the animals off in
a nearby river, the water miraculously brought the animals back to life. Alexander believed this must
be water flowing from the Garden of Eden, bringing with it the ability to grant eternal life.
In yet another version translated from French, Alexander comes across a fountain with sweet
water that rejuvenates four times a day. Once his elderly soldiers bathed in it,
they all emerged unrecognizable, having transformed into brawny 30-year-olds.
In 1898, Lafcadio Hearn collected a series of Japanese fairy tales into a volume that
included a story called The Fountain of Youth. In stark contrast to the European
and Middle Eastern legends that preceded it, in these folktales, the spring of life
is not something one deliberately seeks. In Hearn's collection, an old woodcutter
happens upon a cool, clear stream in the forest. Drinking from it, the woodcutter
is astonished to find he is young again. His bald head is covered in hair, his wrinkles disappear.
The now young woodcutter tells his wife to drink from the magical spring. He waits for his wife to
return, but she never does. The story reveals that,
"The old woman had drunk too deeply of the magical water;
she had drunk herself far back beyond the time of youth into the period of speechless infancy."
This story serves as a cautionary tale encouraging moderation.
Another Japanese Fountain of Youth story comes from the eighth century in Yoro Falls. A young
man piously cares for his ailing father day after day. Too poor to get his father his favorite sake,
the young man instead prays for his sick father's favorite drink.
Magically, the nearby Yoro waterfalls turn to sake, which the young man collects in a gourd.
When the old man drinks it, he becomes instantly well and young. Empress Gensho
renamed her period of reign "Yoro" after this tale of miraculous recovery.
The fantastic powers of the Fountain of Youth are both curative and restorative.
The Travels of Sir John Mandeville was a travel memoir dating between 1357 and 1371,
with an unknown author, first appearing in French. In the tale, Sir John visits a land in Polombe,
thought to be modern-day Kollam, India. At the foot of the mountain which towers over the city
is a great well that has the scent of many spices. And every hour, the well takes on the aroma of a
different spice. The citizens of the region claim that those who fast and drink from the well three
times will be cured of all sickness. And that men who drink often from the well never grow ill
and always seem young. The Travels says,
"They that often drink thereof seem always young-like, and live without sickness."
In Polombe, this magical spring was called the Well of Youth, and was thought to have
its restorative powers because it flowed from the waters of Paradise itself.
No other name is as synonymous with the Fountain of Youth as Juan Ponce de León.
It’s rumored that during his time in North America during the 16th century
he sought this mystical place of rejuvenation. Juan Ponce de León was born into Spanish nobility
around 1473. Since his first voyage alongside Christopher Columbus in 1493 to the New World,
Ponce de León tied his financial prospects to colonization. He made a name for himself, first
by taking part in the massacre of the Taíno people during their rebellion in 1504. Then, in 1508,
King Ferdinand II gave Ponce de León permission to colonize the island of San Juan Bautista, known
today as Puerto Rico, and he became its governor. But his governorship became vulnerable after Ponce
de León clashed with Christopher Columbus's heir, Diego Columbus, who was vying for power
in the West Indies. As a sort of consolation, the king gave Ponce de León a contract in
1512 to explore an island called Beimeni. Interestingly, there were no mentions of
the Fountain of Youth anywhere within this original contract. Most likely, what he was
looking for were more islands that he could make profitable, and add as a part of his new rule.
Ponce de León never found the fabled Beimeni to lord over and exploit for himself.
Instead, personally financed three ships and 200 men in March of 1513,
only to find Florida. It's estimated that Ponce de León docked in Florida around April 2,
1513. He dubbed it "La Florida," as it was the Easter season or,
as it's called in Spanish, "Pascua Florida." While many claim he docked somewhere near St.
Augustine, historians think it's more likely that he docked 140 miles south in what is now
Melbourne, Florida. On that voyage, Ponce de León sailed through the Florida Keys,
fought with the Native populations, and eventually returned to Puerto Rico.
Ponce de León still had his sights on a new colony. In 1521, he returned once again to
the Florida coast, sending correspondence to both King Charles V and Pope Adrian VI.
Those letters detailed his desire to settle the land, albeit with absolutely no mention
of the Fountain of Youth. It was here that, in a skirmish with the indigenous peoples of Florida,
Ponce de León was shot in the thigh by an arrow. He died shortly after in Cuba after
the wound became infected. Naturally, Ponce de León never found a river of immortality.
If Ponce de León never expressed interest in a Fountain of Youth in his writings,
letters, or contracts, how did he become so well-known for his thirst for vitality?
As it turns out, it was Gonzalo Fernández Oviedo y Valdés, a Spanish court chronicler, who was
the first person to make an explicit connection between Ponce de León and the Fountain of Youth.
The link wasn't made until 14 years after Ponce de León's death. In his 1535 Historia General,
Oviedo portrays Ponce de León as an old man trying to cure impotence via drinking from
youth-restoring waters. Oviedo's family hated Ponce de León, and it was a story crafted to
posthumously embarrass his political rival. It seems as if there was a concerted effort
to brand Ponce de León as weak. These character assassinations were common in the machismo culture
of Spain at the height of the Counter-Reformation. It would seem that everything we were taught
about Juan Ponce de León was most likely just a long-lasting insult about his performance in bed.
From Oviedo’s initial story, the tale picked up steam. Hernando de Escalante Fontaneda,
who lived with the indigenous peoples in Florida after being shipwrecked there, wrote about Ponce
de León's search for the Fountain of Youth in his 1575 memoir. After that, Antonio de
Herrera y Tordesillas, the chief historian of the Indies wrote in 1596 about Ponce de León's efforts
to find the fountain. None of these accounts used any primary sources to substantiate their claims.
The legend of the Fountain of Youth continued to gain momentum after Spain ceded Florida in 1819.
In 1849, the American author Washington Irving wrote a fictionalized version
of the famous explorer, which leaned heavily on his quest for the Fountain of Youth.
Painters like Thomas Moran depicted Ponce de León with the indigenous peoples of Florida,
which also helped keep the story alive in the public imagination.
Many historians believe that the tale has remained relevant, less for the Fountain itself, and more
for the thrill of the hunt, and the excitement and adventure that comes with the journey.
To this day, the island of South Bimini in the Bahamas touts a Fountain of Youth tourist
destination. This attraction is a well carved from limestone by groundwater thousands of years ago.
Bimini claims that Ponce de León learned about this well in the 1500s from the Native people
there, and that it was the true location of the Fountain of Youth. -- Arawaks of Hispaniola,
Cuba and from Puerto Rico told tales of a restorative river to the Spanish explorers
they encountered. However, there is no evidence that the Fountain of Youth is
actually located anywhere within the Bahamas. So, how did this rumor get started? Peter Martyr
of Angleria, an Italian historian during the Age of Exploration, first published an
account of the Fountain of Youth while writing about Juan de Solís, a 16th-century navigator.
As Martyr described it, "[It was] an island called by us
Boinca, and by others Aganeo; it is celebrated for a spring whose waters restore youth to old men."
Martyr wrote that this magical spring was located approximately in the Bay of Honduras.
Through a game of historical telephone, somehow the name Boinca became Bimini.
Then came the apocryphal claims that Ponce de León was looking for a fabled land of Bimini.
No magical, spice-scented waters flowing from Paradise, with the power to restore youth, have
ever been found on Earth. But while no lands of eternal youth may actually exist, U.S. researchers
have found five locations that have the highest concentration of centenarians in the world.
Anthropologists have identified Ikaria, Greece, Okinawa, Japan, the Ogliastra Region of Sardinia,
Loma Linda, California, and the Nicoya Peninsula of Costa Rica as places where
residents are most likely to live to 100. They don't have rivers magically bestowing
youth in these places. Instead, researchers have attributed the health and age of the
populations to their moderate, plant-heavy diet, limited sugar and alcohol, active lifestyle,
close-knit communities, and regular de-stressing practices. The data doesn't lie. In Okinawa,
where the practice is to eat something from the land and sea daily, about 6.5 per 10,000
people live to be 100, compared to the 1.73 in 10,000 people in most of the United States.
The Fountain of Youth is a fable that has seduced explorers for centuries in
search of eternal youth, but the true key to longevity might have already been discovered.
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