Scottish healing wells or stroopie wells hold a deep and long history. Stroopie comes from the Gaelic word tobar-shrùbaidh meaning healing well the last word shrùbaidh sounds like stroopie. We know from archaeology and other deposits throwing of gifts and offerings into bodies of water, wells, bogs, lochs, rivers and springs has been going on for a very long time and its still present in some living traditions today. Water is also part of the ideas of Scottish Cosmology and deep reverance in our myths and lore.
In Scotland a lot of wells once associated with healing have been associated with folk’ deils, and witchcraft and have fallen out of use. We can thank King James for that Demonisation amongst other players. Those springs and wells sanctified under the church, for whatever reason, have continued in their purpose. So have the demonised wells in different ways – most of them local and associated with spirits. Sadly, a lot of the traditions around them have been lost coded into folk stories some of which I will share here.
According to Roney Foley in their book Healing waters: Therapeutic Landscapes (2010) there are a few indications we need to look for or protocols on how we approach the wells and what we do there to “Activate” its magic or blessing so to speak.
Series of embodied practices –
- Drinking the actual water
- Rounding rituals – circular movements around the well (usually deosil)
- Prayer or other penitential practices – known as “stations” or in Scottish Gaelic as “turas” a journey carried out prior to the drinking water.
- Usually carried out on specific ‘pattern’ days a modified form of the word pàtran-naomh (patron saint day)
- Other days associated with a deep-rooted temporality or seasonality are often used if there is no clear saint like Bealtainn for example. These point to an older providence.
- These wells are often found in the dinnseachas or place name stories in Scotland and our folklore. Suggesting a much older providence than they have.
NB : For those that don’t know we have ancient names of places attested to in stories and the Dinnseachas (place name stories) and these are still in our landscape today. Our Gaelic landscape still hold the names of these stories relating to place and marking their significance and sacredness to our traditions but not knowing the Gaelic language ( or for that matter old English in parts of Scotland) it can be hard to trace them back to their origins. For example Annascaul is from abhainn na scáil – river of the phantom or Drumarraght from dorm arracht – ridge of the apparition.
Embodied Healing well practices in Scotland
Evidence of embodied healing well practices are found in our regional, and township folk lore mad folk practices but also in books. For example in the Statistical Account of Scotland, parish of Kenethmont, Aberdeenshire, we read:
‘A spring in the Moss of Melshach, of the chalybeate kind, is still in great reputation among the common people. Its sanative qualities extend even to brutes. As this spring probably obtained vogue at first in days of ignorance and superstition, it would appear that it became customary to leave at the well part of the clothes of the sick and diseased, and harness of the cattle, as an offering of gratitude to the divinity who bestowed healing virtues on its waters. And now, even though the superstitious principle no longer exists, the accustomed offerings are still presented.’
This is an example of a clootie or rag well-being much maligned by the writer of these words and our traditional cultural working-class/folk practices being frowned upon mostly by an educated intelligentsia.
These wells still exist today as do the practices. It’s a living tradition in Scotland. That’s important to note – a lot of our localised and land-based practices attached to local landscape are starting to suffer from a kind of Anglo-American “westernised” spiritual colonising. Where there is dogma – aka only one way of things or folk seem to think one practice should happen at every site. It’s just not the case. Our local folklore and folk magic is being overwritten by popular modern day ideas driven mostly by trends on social media and other sources. Its a worrying trend and one reason why we started the woven land Network in Scotland.
To highlight this, I’d like to introduce you to a recording I gathered just before COVID at the Munlochy well in the highlands. Speaking to one of the older residents there who was helping us clean up as part of the volunteer work we do in the Woven Land Network as we attempt to collectively try to conserve these places and their traditions.
Listen out for some of the points I raised above.
You’ll notice our informant mentions May day Bealtainn as the day people would traditionally leave cloots and at no other time.
Clooties have become a massive issue at this site due to tourism, folks always leave things all oo’er the place all through the year and its was at the time of our clear up pretty grim, as you can see from the pictures. I highlight this as we can do better. The older local traditions and stories and ways of relating if known can help us manage what has become just magical pollution encouraged by tourist companies and well meaning but misguided others.
Sanctified Scottish Healing Wells
An example of a sanctified healing well that isn’t a rag well is the Balm well, or St Catherine’s well in Edinburgh, who My friend Jane Mather local story teller is a Custodian of sorts for. Jane is a great storyteller bringing the stories of the place back to the well. It was classified holy by King James, you know the one who wrote the demonologie … originally called the balm well, it was renamed St Catherines well and King James bathed here.
Tradition suggests the well originated through the spilling of a phial of healing oil brought to Queen Margaret (c.1045-93) from St. Catherine’s Monastery on Mount Sinai, where the oil was said to emanate from the saint’s corpse. The well-house bears the date 1563, but this is most-likely erroneous because it was built in 1617, on the orders of King James VI (1566 – 1625), to permit easier access. This original structure was demolished in 1650 by Oliver Cromwell’s invading troops, who were encamped nearby, and was observed to be dilapidated in 1861. The well-house was rebuilt in the 1880s, which is probably when the wrongly-dated lintel was installed.
“Unholy” Scottish Healing wells and water
“In all that water does, the poet’s fancy can discern its personality of life. It gives fish to the fisher and crops to the husbandman, it swells in fury and lays waste the land, it grips the bather with chill and cramp and holds with inexorable grasp its drowning victim.”
We have so far steered clear of the more haunting aspects of Scottish water lore and I wouldn’t be doing our lore and folk beliefs justice if I didn’t share a wee bit of their other characteristics.
We have a saying near me about the Tweed River who meanders through the Scottish border marches:
"Tweed said to Till,
'What gars ye rin sae still'
Till said to Tweed,
'Though ye riu wi' speed,
An' I rin slaw,
Yet whare ye droon no man,
I droon twa.'
Some Aberdeenshire lines have the same theme:
"Bloodthirsty Dee
Each year needs three;
But bonny Don,
She needs none."
We have many stories in Scotland about the uncanny animistic nature of Lochs and rivers and healing wells and springs and their attendant spirits. Too many to share in totallity but I wanted to provide a few examples.
In Strathspey for example, is a sheet of water bearing the Gaelic name of Loch-nan-Spoiradan or the Lake of Spirits – harking back to the mention of Gaelic place names and their importance in our spiritual and cultural understanding of ourselves and practice. John Brand in his Observation on popular antiquities (1725) suggests ‘Two spirits frequently make their appearance – the horse and the bull of the water.
The mermaid is another:
‘Before the rivers are swelled by heavy rains she is frequently seen and is always considered as a sure prognostication of drowning. In mythology, to the above named is a fourth spirit added. When the waters are agitated by a violent current of wind, and streams are swept from their surface and driven before the blast, or whirled in circling eddies aloft in the air, the vulgar, to this day, consider this phenomenon as the effect of the angry spirit operating upon that element. They call it by a very expressive name, the Mariach Shine, or the Rider of the Storm.’
Lochan-nan-Deaan, close to the old military road between Corgarif and Tomintoul is guarded by another spirit. The appearance of this spirit is described by Rev. Dr. Gregor’s article on “Guardian Spirits of Wells and Lochs” in “Folklore” for March 1892.
After describing the loch, he notes:
“It was believed to be bottomless, and to be the abode of a water-spirit that delighted in human sacrifice. Notwithstanding this blood-thirsty spirit, the men of Strathdon and Corgarff resolved to try to draw the water from the loch, in hope of finding the remains of those that had perished in it. On a fixed day a number of them met with spades and picks to cut a way for the outflow of the water through the road. When all were ready to begin work, a terrific yell came from the loch, and there arose from its waters a diminutive creature in shape of a man with a red cap on his head. The men fled in terror, leaving their picks and spades behind them. The spirit seized them and threw them into the loch. Then, with a gesture of defiance at the fleeing men, and a roar that shook the hills, he plunged into the loch and disappeared amidst the water that boiled and heaved as red as blood.”
Another blood thirsty Lochan (a lochan is a small loch) and our final example – Near the boundary, between the shires of Aberdeen and Banff, is a small sheet of water called Lochan-wan, i.e., Lamb’s Loch. The tenants around had the privilege of pasturing a certain number of sheep on the common.
Dr. Gregor says:
“Each one that sent sheep to this common had to offer in sacrifice, to the spirit of the loch, the first lamb of his flock dropped on the common. The omission of this sacrifice brought disaster; for unless the sacrifice was made, half of his flock would be drowned before the end of the grazing season.”
The district Dr Gregor refers to is a deer forest now. A change from common land able to be accessed by anyone to land used by the gentry/wealthy to hunt deer but employing some locals. Land use in Scotland and ownership is a massive issue. If you care about our sacred sites you will rub up against this often. We should note the fact the common land was brought up (maybe just even taken) by the gentry or land owner from common folk use. This is a travesty in my opinion. Though we still have common funds in some of Scotland these are few and far between. These land grabs have happened all to often in Scotland (clearances are a massive example of this) and id like to use this opportunity to point out how our folk practices, spiritual beliefs, politics and current cultural milieu are linked together. I find you cant explore one without falling into all the other places these issues raise and are still being played out.
It’s no wonder then when it comes to our folk magic practice – Scottish healing wells and other watery places were held in awe. Utilised for cures to draw on these animistic spirits of place and power. A place where folks could annoy and bother the spirits so much, they would torment you, follow you home at home with wasting sickness and eventual death or madness.
If you are unsure how to manoeuvre in these spaces a collective I have worked alongside has made a series of guidelines you can explore. I hope beyond hope as future generations come and go we can pay more heed to these special liminal places and bring back, or create new practices where the tradition has died off, that speak to the lore and legends of place once more and connects us with our environment and animistic ways of life.
1 comment
Fascinating! Thank you.