Why Tie a Rag to a Tree by a Spring? Water With a Reputation
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Springs credited with healing or protective properties are among the most persistent religious sites anywhere, frequently outlasting the beliefs that named them. The practices at them recur across regions with no contact.
What makes a well holy
A holy well is a spring or a small body of water credited with properties beyond supplying water, most often healing of particular conditions, and frequently associated with a named saint, deity or figure. The association usually involves a story explaining the water's origin, commonly that a figure struck the ground, was martyred at the spot or established it. The site typically acquires physical structure over time, including a basin, a surrounding wall, steps down to the water and sometimes a chapel. Attendance concentrates on particular days, usually a saint's day or a seasonal festival, and the practices performed follow a recognisable pattern that varies less between regions than the beliefs attached to them do.
What people do there
The observances recur across Britain, Ireland, continental Europe and well beyond:
- •Drinking the water or washing in it, frequently with a specified number of repetitions
- •Circling the well a prescribed number of times in a prescribed direction
- •Leaving a rag or ribbon tied to an adjacent tree, intended to rot as the ailment fades
- •Dropping a pin, a coin or a pebble into the water
- •Leaving crutches, images of afflicted body parts or personal items
- •Visiting at a particular time, frequently before sunrise on a particular day
Why they outlast religions
These sites persist through changes of religion more reliably than almost any other kind, and the reasons are worth setting out. The water itself does not change, so the site remains identifiable regardless of who administers it. Local attachment is strong and practice is domestic rather than institutional, so it continues without clergy. Incoming religions have repeatedly absorbed such sites rather than suppressing them, rededicating a spring to a saint and building a chapel, which is documented in explicit instructions from church authorities advising exactly that approach. And the practices are performed by individuals for personal reasons, which makes them resistant to prohibition, since there is nothing to close down and nobody to arrest. Several sites show archaeological evidence of continuous use across a change of religion.
The evidence of what was left
Objects deposited at these sites over long periods make them archaeologically productive and confirm continuity. Excavation of springs and pools across Europe has recovered coins in enormous quantities spanning centuries, including at Roman spa sites where the deposits run continuously across the period. Metal objects, brooches, weapons and personal items appear in deposits from prehistory onwards at the same locations, which is what establishes continuity of practice rather than mere coincidence of place. Written curses on lead tablets thrown into water at some sites record the concerns of ordinary people in remarkable detail, generally about stolen property. Models of body parts in metal or wax indicate what people came to have healed, and the same categories recur from antiquity into the present.
Whether the water does anything
The question of efficacy has several honest answers. Some springs carry genuinely unusual mineral content, and a few have measurable properties including antiseptic mineral concentrations, which is the basis of the spa tradition and which accounts for a small number of specific cases. Clean flowing spring water was frequently safer than the alternative in periods when wells and rivers were contaminated, which is a real benefit unrelated to anything supernatural. Beyond that, the reported improvements have the characteristics of any unblinded intervention, including regression from a bad episode, the natural course of conditions that resolve anyway and the effects of expectation. Contamination is also a real risk at heavily visited sites, and several have been closed on public health grounds.
The takeaway
A spring credited with healing acquires a story, a structure and a calendar of visits, and the practices recur across unconnected regions, including circling, drinking and tying rags to a nearby tree. The sites outlast changes of religion because the water stays put, the practice is domestic and incoming religions absorbed rather than suppressed them.