Sacred Wells and Bent Pin Offerings

[Bec_W]

I've been reading a bit about sacred water and holy wells recently and keep coming across pins, or bent pins being used as offerings. Does anyone know what's meant to pins? A brooch maybe? A hair pin? Or something different?

[TYRRHENUS]

Guiseppe Pitré documented a Sicilian folk remedy requiring the insertion of pins into a lemon. A variation of which would later appear in Charles Leland's Aradia. But I haven't heard anything about bending them or holy wells.
Sounds interesting though.

[Fideal]

I've been reading a bit about sacred water and holy wells recently and keep coming across pins, or bent pins being used as offerings. Does anyone know what's meant to pins? A brooch maybe? A hair pin? Or something different?


Ive heard of this before too. I always assumed they meant sewing pins, like small needles without eyes and a little cap at the top.

[Faeawyn]

There's quite a bit of info on wells here http://www.bath.ac.uk/lispring/sourcearchive/ns4/ns4jcb1.htm

The use of pins in the cursing ritual was widespread: for example, people cursing their enemies at the holy well close to Llanllawer churchyard would throw bent pins into the water, while straight pins were used if the wishes were good ones. Pins were also offered by people cursing their enemies.

[Bec_W]

Thanks Fae, I'd never heard of cursing wells until yesterday. I have to say that it made me giggle a little that you pay the person at the well to put a curse on some one, but if you want one lifted you've got to pay more :)

[PAGANFILES]

I've been reading a bit about sacred water and holy wells recently and keep coming across pins, or bent pins being used as offerings. Does anyone know what's meant to pins? A brooch maybe? A hair pin? Or something different?

Here's an excerpt from the Aradia of relevancy.

Terry

THE CONJURATION OF THE LEMON AND PINS

Sacred to Diana

A lemon stuck full of pins of different colours always brings good
fortune.

If you receive as a gift a lemon full of pins of divers colours,
without any black ones among them, it signifies that your life will be
perfectly happy and prosperous and joyful.

But if some black pins are among them, you may enjoy good fortune and
health, yet mingled with troubles which may be of small account.
[However, to lessen their influence, you must perform the following
ceremony, and pronounce this incantation, wherein all is also described.]

At the instant when the midnight came,
I have picked a lemon in the garden,
I have picked a lemon, and with it
An orange and a (fragrant) mandarin.
Gathering with care these (precious) things,
And while gathering I said with care:
"Thou who art Queen of the sun and of the moon
And of the stars - lo! here I call to thee!
And with what power I have I conjure thee
To grant to me the favour I implore!
Three things I've gathered in the garden here:
A lemon, orange, and a mandarin;
I've gathered them to bring good luck to me.
Two of them I do grasp here in my hand,
And that which is to serve me for my fate,
Queen of the stars!
Then make that fruit remain firm in my grasp.

[StephanieAine]

Well, I can only speak to the subject from my own understanding - and I'm a Celtic Christian who focuses primarily on the Irish tradition. The "bent pins" you speak of are *literally* bent pins - like the straight pins from clothing, or the ones people keep in pin cushions when sewing, for example. They're easy to come by and cost next to nothing, so people would toss them into the wells if they couldn't afford to part with a coin. The idea is to make some sort of gesture, so the pin may be seemingly small, but it's something that the person can do.

[malltynos]

yeh, actually some of my family used to own a cursing well - back about 40/50 years ago... folk would go to their well and pay a 'silver' coin (probably an old style sixpence) to throw a bent pin into the well and 'cast their curse'. The really funny thing is, people who believed they had been cursed would pay sixpence to get 'their' pin out of the well! In some cases of course they were right, in which case it was money well spent!

[Bec_W]

Thank you Stephanie Aine and Malltynos! There are so many different kinds of pins I never would have thought it was just a normal dress pin!