A coin or wishing tree🪙🌳🪙
Unique to the UK & Ireland, coin trees may have been used for healing purposes in previous centuries.
I found this tree – with its mix of Victorian pennies and more recent coins – in #Oxfordshire #folklorethursday pic.twitter.com/NFyzu2Chis— Beatrice Groves (@beatricegroves1) October 17, 2024
Ceri Houlbrook hat ihre Dissertation und ein Buch zur Geschichte der Coin Trees verfasst: „The Magic of Coin-Trees from Religion to Recreation.The Roots of a Ritual„. Sie führt die Geschichte zumindest bis ins 18. Jahrhundert zurück: „The first reference to a tree’s employment in a folkloric custom on Isle Maree comes from Thomas Pennant’s A Tour in Scotland and Voyage to the Hebrides, in which he describes a holy well located on the island, consecrated by Saint Maelrubha (or Maree) in the eighth century and widely purported to cure insanity“.1 Maolrubha/Maelrubha/Maree war ein irischer Missionar, der die Pikten zum Christentum bekehrte.
„Beside the well was a tree that, at the time Pennant was writing in the 1770s, was being utilized as an ‚altar‘; pilgrims who sought a cure from the holy well would deposit their tokens of thanks to Saint Maree on this particular tree“.1 Diese Zeichen des Dankes waren zunächst Textilien, die mit Nägeln und Nadeln befestigt wurden. Dann wurden diese Nägel und Nadeln selbst zu den Opfergaben. Im späten 19. Jahrhundert wiederum wurden am häufigsten Münzen verwendet.
Wurden früher meistens Baumstümpfe oder Baumstämme dazu verwendet, wurden es in letzter Zeit oft lebende Bäume, die darunter leiden. Der National Trust of Scotland rief in Folge dazu auf, mit diesem wiederbelebten Ritual aufzuhören: „Tree coins mean a mountain of trouble in our woodlands. More people have been hammering coins into trees and stumps at Dollar Glen and The Hermitage due to a growing ‘fashion’ to make votive offerings for wishes. We wish you wouldn’t do it – especially to live trees as its harmful. Instead, why not donate the coins to the Trust so we can use them to conserve woodland and wildland“2.
Quellen
1 Ceri Houlbrook: „The Mutability of Meaning: Contextualizing the Cumbrian Coin-Tree„. In: Folklore 125 (2014) 1 , S. 40-59
2 National Trust for Scotland: „Tree coins mean a mountain of trouble in our woodlands„. In. Facebook, 30. August 2019
Zum Weiterlesen
- Ceri Houlbrook: The Magic of Coin-Trees from Religion to Recreation. The Roots of a Ritual. Palgrave 2018 (= Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic)
- Ceri Houlbrook / Natalie Armitage: „The wishing-tree of Isle Maree: The evolution of a Scottish folkloric practice“. In: The Materiality of Magic: An Artifactual Investigation into Ritual Practices and Popular Beliefs. Oxford: Oxbow Books, S. 123-142
- Ceri Houlbrook: „The penny’s dropped: Renegotiating the contemporary coin deposit„. In: Journal of Material Culture 20 (2015) 2, S. 173-189
- Wikipedia: Coin Tree (DE), Wish Tree (EN)