# Sacred Sites - [[doorways-gateways]] - [[buildings]] like [[temples]] & [[halls]] - [[groves]], [[gardens]] - [[healing-wells-springs-pools]] - [[stones-rocks]], [[rock-art]] ## Estonian Parallel to churches and chapels there co-existed also a third group of holy sites - sacred natural sites of non-Christian character. These sites preserved their importance as offering and healing places until the nineteenth century….[they are] well remembered in oral tradition.  Types 1. High status & General ○ Trees, groves, and stones ○ Grant luck/success/welfare and protection against misfortune ○ Offerings § Making them was a duty, neglecting the site might bring about supernatural punishment. The sites "were subject to detailing mutual responsibilities" ○ Subject to taboos, consequences of destroying or damaging them were supposed to be accidents, diseases and even death. ○ Weakly represented in oral tradition ○ Have a (secondary) function of healing 2. "Lower" status & Healing ○ Springs especially; but also trees, groves, and stones ○ Healed: skin diseases, abscesses, scabs, and aching ○ Method: § Transfer magic (the aching place was pressed against the healing object, or items which had been in contact with it were offered.) § Spring water was drunk/used-for-washing § Offerings: small gifts (this was a means for creating a connection between man and the supernatural) ○ Visited in cases of emergency ○ Numerous in western Estonia ○ Strongly represented in oral tradition and outlasted the more General sites (due to Christianity) ○ Less demanding than High-status/General sites, oral tradition expresses no need for permanent contact or communication, no indications that there were penalties for neglecting them. Not as subject to taboos. Sources *Christianization in Estonia: A Process of Dual-Faith and Syncretism by Heiki Valk In: The Cross Goes North ed. Martin Carver