Holy Wells - Culture and Representation

Culture and Representation

Holy wells in different forms occur in such a wide variety of cultures, religious environments, and historical periods that it is usually held that it is a universal human instinct to revere sources of water. 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).