Trees with cloth ornaments are common in the southwest of England, an area with a celtic background. Much of what I've heard is already written down in the Wikipedia page for Clootie_Well . Usually they are small stand out trees, in a woodland setting near a spring or well. I've heard them named as "fairy trees", but also cloutie trees. The explanation I've heard several times is due to celtic tradition. A fundamental celtic belief that water sources were home to spirits(?). A person with an infliction would wash themselves down with water from the spring and tie it to a nearby tree. The ailment would be trapped in the cloth and gradually rot away.
The explanation implies that there once would have been more emphasis on the water body, but it feels (at least in Cornwall & Devon) that there is now more emphasis on the tree. In Devon & Cornwall I've often heard the trees referred to as Fairy trees. I'd accept the number has increased since the 60's with an increase in different beliefs. Definitely worth mapping, and would be nice to see if they are common in areas associated with Celtic culture. Don't mind about the tagging, and happy with rag_tree if the wiki page mentions the other names (eg clootie tree, fairy tree, etc) When I was a child in Ireland on our farm we had a creepy looking Hawthorn Tree locally named the "Fairy Tree". It was next to spring/pond, at the edge of a small raised ring fort. No rags on that one, but a local tradition that the "fairies" owned that bit of land, and you'd be a fool to be there after dark. I was often there after dark (standing behind a big protective dog) but never saw any fairies. Sadly, my uncle cleared the area and filled in the pond during the 90's to modernise the land and access some EU grants. And worth mentioning that in the southwest of England there is confusingly a clearly separate tradition that can lead to ribbons & objects in trees. This is the tradition of Wassailing <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wassailing>. A tradition linked to the 12 Night and celebrating Orchards. Found nice blog post when looking for information about a tree near me https://www.terriwindling.com/blog/2015/06/the-blessings-of-the-trees.html Jass On Sun, 3 Mar 2024 at 20:53, Anne-Karoline Distel via Tagging < tagging@openstreetmap.org> wrote: > Hello there, > > does anyone have any opinions about how to map what is called clootie/ > cloughtie/ cloutie trees in Scotland and rag trees or raggedy bushes in > Ireland? I have used place_of_worship=rag_tree (to avoid the many > different spellings) in combination with natural=tree, but there is also > a category on Wikimedia called "Prayer trees". But for some prayer trees, > you stick coins in the bark instead of tying rags or ribbons (or other > votive offerings) to the branches, so I think rag trees should be mapped > different to coin ones. They're not historic, but still very much in use in > Ireland, the UK (by Neo-Pagans and Christians alike), and I believe there > are other cultures like Hinduism who use them. > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clootie_well > > To my knowledge, "clootie tree" is not used in Ireland at all and wasn't > in the past either (only in the wikimedia category). In Ireland, the tree > is also usually not necessarily connected to a well. There is one at the > Hill of Tara, for example. > > If you like fairy tales, I think there is one in Cinderella, at least in > the Brothers Grimm version. As far as I remember, the dress for the ball > appeared in the tree. > > Anne aka b-unicycling > _______________________________________________ > Tagging mailing list > Tagging@openstreetmap.org > https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging >
_______________________________________________ Tagging mailing list Tagging@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/tagging
