Note 228.1 — Chapter XI · SACRED WELLS AND TREES.

Our examination of the practices of throwing pins into wells, of tying rags on bushes and trees, of driving nails into trees and stocks, of throwing stones and sticks on cairns, and the analogous practices throughout the world, leads to the conclusion that they are to be interpreted as acts of ceremonial union with the spirit identified with well, with tree, or stock, or cairn. In course of time, as the real intention of the rite has been forgotten, it has been resorted to (in Christian countries at least) chiefly for the cure of diseases, and the meaning has been overlaid by the idea of the transfer of the disease. This idea belongs to the same category as that of the union by means of the nail or the rag with divinity, but apparently to a somewhat later stratum of thought. Since the spread of Christianity the reason for the sacredness of many trees or wells has passed from memory; and it has consequently been natural to substitute any tree or any well for a particular one. The substitution has favoured the idea of transfer of disease, which has thus become the ordinary intention of the rite in later times.228.1