Tied Up in Tradition: The Fabric of Folk Belief

This blog post sheds light on an unassuming group of early 20th-century objects deliberately left at holy wells, revealing magical traces of folk belief practices in the British Isles.

Authors Photo, Clooties hung on branches at Madron Holy Well, Cornwall April 2023

During a walk in the countryside have you ever stumbled upon a trinketized tree, brimming with hundreds of wild flapping ribbons and objects?

You may have witnessed the material legacy of many contemporary individual ritual acts of votive deposition rooted in folk healing and spiritual belief. These are distantly related to the traditional and evocative practice of tying fabric strips, known as clooties, onto tree branches next to holy wells.

Deliberately leaving objects next to a holy well is referred to as ‘ritual deposition’ and is rooted in centuries-old customs in Celtic areas. Springs are considered to many as mysterious and sacred, even portals to another world. Traditionally, ‘clooties’, (cloot meaning rag in Scottish) are hung on branches near to a spring as part of healing rituals. Cloth would be torn from a garment worn close to the body, rubbed on the afflicted area, dipped into the water, and then tied to a branch. As the cloth decayed, the illness was believed to fade along with it, healing the participant in turn.

The medical nature of this ritual is especially evident in images of Doon Holy Well in Ireland from 1939, where assemblages of bandages, crutches, and rags amassed into eerie forms.

In 1884 Reverend John Healey remarked, “there is no other country in the world where there are so many of these truly holy wells in Ireland, or where they were still so much reverenced by the people”. The vast majority of these were lauded with curing eye conditions. Interestingly, Irish mythological tradition associates the eyes with wisdom, in the sense of "seeing" into the meaning of things. This period saw a decline in mainstream religion and a folkloric revival, with growing interest in local and national customs. Although biomedicine and technology were more prominent there was still a deep attraction from the people to traditional customs of healing rooted in belief and superstition.

A95426, Piece of cotton rag wrapped around a conifer twig a votive offering hung at St. Kieran’s Well

A section of branch removed from the conifer tree next to St Kieran’s holy well in Clareen, Offaly Ireland (1900-30) is a part of the Wellcome Collection, housed at the National Collections Centre. Although incredibly every day in its materiality, the social life of this object is remarkable. First the thread was spun, the cloth woven and sewn into a garment. Worn, torn, and tied, it transformed into an agent of ritual. Removed from its original context, could the very fact it never decayed mean the participant of the ritual was never healed?

The clootie holds similarities to votive offerings found at sacred places in other cultures and religions to ask for or express gratitude for healing. For example, in Ancient Rome a popular custom was to leave an object in the shape of the diseased body part to the healing deity. These were made of clay, wax, or tin and are also prevalent in many other belief systems even today.

However, the clootie ritual is thought to be more magical in nature. The rag, instead of an offering, symbolising the transactional vow, becomes the vehicle of the disease itself. In other words, the fabric absorbs the illness itself. This is categorised as ‘sympathetic magic’.

Author’s Photograph, anatomical votive offerings at The Faith, Hope, and Fear permanent exhibition in Medicine: The Wellcome Galleries, Science Museum, South Kensington

But who or what was responsible for the source of this magic? Well, in the first millennium AD Europe the early Christian church objected to “pagan” well side rituals which venerated the spirit of the well, possibly as part of a nature-based religion. Sacred springs became the “holy wells” we know today, each with an associated saint accredited with the cure.

Traditional engagement with an Irish holy well involves ‘paying the rounds,’ simply put, walking around clockwise, saying prayers, and leaving a votive offering. One of such offerings, also taken from St Kieran’s well between 1900-30 included is an assemblage of twig, a clootie and a rosary with a lead crucifix. This object is symbolic of the blending of various belief systems at such sites, such as Catholicism, Paganism, and magic.

A95427, Rag on twig votive offering, Ireland, 1900-1930 

James MacPherson said in 1929 that ‘the last stage in the story of the holy well is when it is regarded merely as a “wishing well,” a place of resort for holiday makers[6] ,’ when talking about “primitive” belief in Northeast Scotland. Evidence of deposition veering away from healing purposes is a quartz pebble from the Wellcome Collection. It is said to have been dropped into the water after ‘making a wish’ at St Mungo’s well in Ayrshire, Scotland, found in 1931.

‘Divination’ at a holy well, or in other words discovering the future by supernatural means was commonplace with pins deposited. For example, the collection holds thirteen rusty pins thrown into a well in Brittany by those who wished to be married during the year, it is said that if the wish was to be granted the pins would fall straight to the bottom. The popularity of clootie trees today may prove half of James’s statement false, but it is undeniable that ritual depositions often shift with time and the prevailing religious or spiritual trends.

A138029, Quartz pebble, dropped into the water after making a wish, from Mungo’s Well,  Alloway, Aryshire, Scottish, found in 1931

However odd or superstitious these rituals at holy wells may look to our modern eyes, each object whether it is simply a stone, a twig, or a rag, holds real meaning, a symbol and even agent of a person’s hope, wish, or spiritual belief.[WS7]