Plans for community to care for ‘clootie’ well after offerings cleared away by well-meaning stranger
At the end of a steep woodland trail, surrounded by sturdy beech and ash trees, a freshwater spring bubbles into a basic stone well, rippling in the low winter sunlight.
On nearby branches and around the mouth of the well colourful cloth rags – or cloots – have been hung by visitors, as an offering to a water spirit or local saint and an entreaty to be healed.
The clootie well near Munlochy, a village on the Black Isle peninsula across the Beauly Firth from Inverness, is a place of traditional pilgrimage and modern curiosity. It is also now a cause of community consternation, after a well-meaning stranger cleared away many of the offerings.
“I’m sure the person who cleared up thought they were doing something good,” says Claire Mackay, a herbalist who lives on the Black Isle, “but the fact they took it upon themselves, weren’t a local and did it without the permission of Forestry and Land Scotland [which manages the site] has upset a lot of people.”
More at
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jan/30/upset-a-lot-of-people-outrage-tidy-up-of-scottish-sacred-well-clootie-offerings
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