You can help expand this article with text translated from
the corresponding article in French. (June 2014) Click [show] for important translation instructions.
View a machine-translated version of the French article.
Machine translation, like
DeepL or
Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia.
Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 6,158 articles in the
main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization.
Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article.
You must provide
copyright attribution in the
edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an
interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing French Wikipedia article at [[:fr:Fontaines à dévotion]]; see its history for attribution.
You should also add the template {{Translated|fr|Fontaines à dévotion}} to the
talk page.
A holy well or sacred spring is a
well,
spring or small pool of water revered either in a
Christian or
pagan context, sometimes both. The water of holy wells is often thought to have healing qualities, through the
numinous presence of its guardian spirit or Christian
saint. They often have local
legends associated with them; for example in
Christian legends, the water is often said to have been made to flow by the action of a saint. Holy wells are often also places of
ritual and
pilgrimage, where people
pray and leave
votive offerings. In
Celtic regions, strips of cloth are often tied to trees at holy wells, known as
clootie wells.
Names
The term haeligewielle is in origin an
Anglo-Saxon toponym attached to specific springs in the landscape;[1] its current use has arisen through folklore scholars,
antiquarians, and other writers generalising from those actual 'Holy Wells', which survived into the modern era. The term 'holy-hole' is sometimes employed.[2]
Culture and representation
Holy wells in different forms occur in such a wide variety of cultures, religious environments, and historical periods that it seems to be a universal human instinct to revere water sources.[3] However, the fragmentary nature of the evidence, and the historical differences among cultures and nations, make it very hard to generalize. While there are a few national studies of holy well lore and history, mainly concentrating on
Ireland and the
British Isles, there is a need for more work examining other regions.
The earliest work specifically devoted to holy wells is
Philip Dixon Hardy's Holy Wells of Ireland (1836), a
Protestant attack on
Catholic observances at Irish wells bearing the names of Christian
saints, or otherwise considered sacred. By the later 19th century, the term had acquired its current usage: Robert Charles Hope's The Legendary Lore of the Holy Wells of England (1893), the first general survey of its kind, included a number of named wells which were not dedicated to saints (as well as some rivers and lakes with associated folklore, as Hope mentioned in his subtitle).
In England, examples of reverence for wells and springs occur at a variety of historical periods. The medieval traveller
William of Worcester saw a 'holy-hole, or well' within the cave at
Wookey (
Somerset), a site of human habitation in the
Palaeolithic era and the source of a river which had been the site of ritual activity.[2] The proximity of named springs to
Neolithic or
Iron Age monuments, such as the Swallowhead Springs, close to
Silbury Hill (
Wiltshire) or the Holy Well near Tadmarton Hill (
Oxfordshire), suggests that reverence for such sites continued without a break. There is abundant evidence for the importance of wells and springs in the
Roman and
sub-Roman period, not just at temple complexes such as
Bath (Somerset),
Chedworth (
Gloucestershire),[5] and Blunsdon Ridge (
Wiltshire)[6] which have medicinal springs at their centre, but a variety of smaller sites, and at wells and ritual shafts used for
superstitious and sub-religious rituals.[7]
Christianity strongly affected the development of holy wells in
Europe and the
Middle East. Aside from the spring that issued from the staff of Moses and the Well of
Beersheba, there were already a number of sites mentioned in Jewish and Christian folklore, including
Moses' well near
Mount Nebo, visited by the fourth-century nun
Egeria and many other pilgrims. St
Athanasius' Life of St
Antony, written about 356–62, mentions the well created by the desert hermit Antony. It is unclear how many Christian holy wells there may have been, as records are very fragmentary and often a well appears only once, making it impossible to tell when reverence for it began and when it ceased, but by the
Reformation England, for instance, probably possessed some hundreds. As they were closely linked with the cults of the saints, many wells in countries that converted to Protestant forms of Christianity fell into disuse and were lost, the Holy Well at
Walsingham (
Norfolk) being a good example, which, having been an integral element of the pilgrimage to the shrine of the
Virgin Mary in the village, vanished completely. Nevertheless, this particular holy well at the
Anglican Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham was restored nearby the original site and its water is known for its
healing properties, thus making it a popular site of Christian
religious pilgrimage.[8] Visiting of wells for therapeutic and entertainment purposes did not completely die out, however, as
spas became fashionable in the 17th century and later. Eventually,
antiquarians (from the 17th century) and folklorists (from the 19th) began to take notice of holy wells and record their surviving traditions.[9]
More than a hundred holy wells exist in
Cornwall, each associated with a particular saint, though not always the same one as the dedication of the church.[10][11]
The
Protestant Reformers of the 16th century often assumed that medieval Catholic practices embodied lingering remains of
pagan religious practices and thought of holy wells in that way.[13] This affected the outlook of those who came to study holy well traditions later. The pioneers of folklore study took the view that the customs and legends they were recording were debased versions of pagan rites and myths. Thus it became standard to begin any account of holy wells with the statement that the Christian church had adopted them from the pagans and replaced the heathen gods with Christian saints, in order to win people over to the new religion more smoothly.
Among the earliest enthusiasts for holy wells in modern times was the
Neopagan movement, for whom wells formed part of '
earth mysteries' study along with
ley lines and ancient sites; the view that the Christians had 'stolen' holy wells from the pagan religions fitted in well with their position.[14] The magazines Wood and Water and Meyn Mamvro, among others, helped shape this approach. During the early and mid-1990s, this viewpoint was under increasing attack crowned by the publication of
Ronald Hutton's The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles (1991) which argued that the evidence for what constituted pre-Christian British religious practices, certainly outside Romano-British times, was next to nil.[15] As far as wells themselves were concerned, the controversy emerged in the pages of Source, the holy wells journal edited by Roy Fry and former
Benedictinemonk Tristan Gray-Hulse. A number of articles in the journal challenged long-standing myths about holy well history, and the editors published an exchange between the authors and Cheryl Straffon, editor of Cornish earth mysteries magazine Meyn Mamvro, about the evidence for a particular Cornish well's supposed association with the Irish goddess
Brigid.[16] The eco-pagan movement has largely accepted the new historiographical approach,[citation needed] but occasionally rather more old-fashioned accounts of holy wells are published, for instance, Gary Varner's Sacred Springs (2002).
A related argument was over the nature of the influence of the
Celts on the well cult. The late Francine Nicholson, an independent student of Celtica, argued forcefully and controversially that the Celts had a unique sensitivity to sacred wells, but never elaborated this in any published work.[17]
More recently, radically minded scholars have begun questioning the unity of concepts imposed by the term 'holy well'. In a paper in the Living Spring Journal, Jeremy Harte distinguishes between early Anglo-Saxon 'holy wells' and those Christianised in the
Late Middle Ages, and argues 'apart from being venerated and being wet, they have little in common'; Harte has also stressed that limited evidence may mean scholars are considerably overestimating the number of holy wells which were active at any one time.[18]
Modern revival
In a sense, the restoration of holy wells began almost as soon as they were in decline, as a number became the subject of antiquarian interest and some were turned into garden features and put to other decorative uses. However, in more modern times wells have been restored as an expression of interest in the past, sometimes from
romantic or religious motives, but mostly as a statement of continuity with the history of a particular community. A good example is St Osyth's Well at
Bierton (
Buckinghamshire), 'restored' (and in the process rebuilt completely) by the Parish Council as part of a project marking
Millennium Year in 2000.[19]
The most active holy wells in Britain are those linked to Christian
pilgrimages, at Walsingham,
Fernyhalgh (
Lancashire) and
Holywell (
Wales), or popular tourist sites (Bath, Somerset). The
Chalice Well at
Glastonbury (Somerset) is at the centre of a
modern pagan- and
New Age-orientated spirituality and retreat centre. Other wells, however, are often visited on an informal basis for religious or sightseeing reasons. New forms of holy well reverence continue to emerge now and again, notoriously the so-called Well of the
Triple Goddess at
Minster-in-Sheppey (
Kent).[20] In 2001 Channel 4's archaeological television programme Time Team was responsible for exposing the infamous archaeological fraud of
Llygadwy, a site which included an alleged holy well.[21]
Historiographically, the publication of Janet and Colin Bord's Sacred Waters (1985) was influential in reviving interest in the history and folklore of holy wells in Britain. The same year saw the foundation of the journal Source by Mark Valentine. Attempts to maintain a regular journal for the study of holy wells have been erratic (Source enjoyed two runs from 1985 to 1989 and 1994 to 1998, and the web-based Living Spring has had only two issues to date).
Preservation
Often unmarked on maps and undistinguished by archaeological features, holy wells are a uniquely vulnerable category of ancient site. They continue to be lost to
farming, drainage work, development or neglect. Recent instances include:
the
desecration of St Bridget's Well at Rosepark,
Balrothery (County
Dublin,
Ireland), destroyed by building work in 2003 despite being a protected monument[22]
^Merrifield, R. (1987) The Archaeology of Ritual and Magic. London: Batsford; pp. 23–50.
^Barnes, Philip (2017). Streams of Healing Grace. Walsingham Review. pp. 12–13.
^Rattue, J. (1995) The Living Stream Woodbridge: Boydell, chapters 7, 8, and 9.
^Jenner, Henry (1925) "The Holy Wells of Cornwall". In: Cornish Church Guide. Truro: Blackford; pp. 249-257.
^Quiller-Couch, Mabel & Lilian (1894) Ancient and Holy Wells of Cornwall. London: Chas. J. Clark.
^Wall, J. Charles (1912), Porches & Fonts. London: Wells Gardner & Darton; p. 180.
^Carroll, Michael P. (29 December 2010). American Catholics in the Protestant Imagination: Rethinking the Academic Study of Religion. JHU Press. p. 1878.
ISBN9781421401997.
^J. Rattue, The Living Stream (Woodbridge: Boydell), 1995, Chapter 9.
^Skyvova, P. Fingallian Holy Wells. Swords, Dublin: Fingal County Libraries, 2005, pp. 62-63.
Further reading
Bord, J. & C. 1985. Sacred Waters. London: Granada.
Dumézil, Georges. 1970. Archaic Roman Religion, I. Transl. by Krapp P. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Harte, J. 2000. Holey Wells and other Holey Places. Living Spring Journal 1.
Lefèvre, Eckard. 1988. Plinius-Studien : IV : Die Naturauffassung in den Beschreibungen der Quelle am Lacus Larius (4,30), des Clitumnus (8,8) und des Lacus Vadimo (8,20). Gymnasium 95: 236–269.
Ninck, M. 1960. Die Bedeutung des Wassers im Kult und Leben der Alten. Eine symbolgeschichtliche Untersuchung. Darmstadt : Wiss. Buchgesellschaft.
Stoddart, John. 1800. Remarks on Local Scenery and Manners in Scotland. London: William Miller.
Varner, Gary R. 2009. Sacred Wells: A Study in the History, Meaning, and Mythology of Holy Wells and Waters. 2nd ed. New York: Algora Publishing.
ISBN9780875867182.