Buza Péter: Spring and Fountains - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1994)
The excavated ruins of the one-time building around Illés Fountain In his application the farmer refers to a certain “royal pleasure house”, which he would like to use for storing hay. The court report which sums up these developments goes on to add that the water of the Illés Fountain had been taken to the town through a pipeline “a long time ago”. All this leads to some unmistakeable conclusions. It is certain that the water of the spring had been led to the town before Turkish times, as the Turks did not build such systems. If that was the case, then no other contribution can be thought of than King Mátyás’, and his hunting-seat, a long searched-for building, can also be identified with the building known as the “royal pleasure house” in 1696, which was suitable for the purposes of storing hay, and therefore in a more or less useable state of repair. It is also a fact that the spring was discovered by the Serb community almost directly after their arrival in Pest. As the place seemed a suitable location for the last stop of the procession during the Illés [Elias] day water consecrating festivities, they named the previously anonymous well lllyna Voda or Elias’ Water, which name was to be the only one by which the well was later referred to. The word “well” is used, even though strictly speaking it is not a well, as the ones on Sváb Hill are not wells either. They are edge water springs tapped-controlled-in the form of a well. This particular spring is between the limestone and the sandstone layers, a structure which has emerged near the surface in this region. (Today, too, it is in this high position, except that the water itself has sunk into layers deeper down; it has been overused at the other “end" through the wells belonging to the Kőbánya 22
