Proposal talk:Holy well

Holy but no worship

Some of the holy wells I've mapped do not appear to have ever been places of organized worship as such, merely sources of water that supposedly have special powers. Granted, most people who visited such places in the past would probably have said a prayer as they collected the water, but you can pray anywhere.

That said, since we don't have a tag meaning "place of religious significance" then amenity=place_of_worship is probably as good as it gets. But I think the implication of (semi) organized worship needs to be toned down a little and the fact that it's a place of religious significance mentioned.

Or maybe we do need a tag for places of religious significance that are not formal places of worship or religious ceremony. But that would be a lot of work so I'm willing to stretch a point. (Brian de Ford according to email)

I agree that they are not "as holy as a church" or not used for worship as often as churches, but I couldn't think of any better tag and I wanted to avoid the very controversial (as seen with earlier proposals) historic tag.B-unicycling (talk) 15:00, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Celtic pagan and other animist religious traditions often have less formal methods of religious devotion, that is, there are not necessarily scheduled religious services at a certain time and date, but if a place is used for veneration of spirits, deities or holy objects which are considered worthy of worship in a particular religious tradition, that should be equivalent to a place of worship. --Jeisenbe (talk) 17:36, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

I don't think these should be mapped as places of worship, which in many organised christian churches must be consecrated. We already have tags for some other sites of religious significance (wayside & historic crosses specifically) albeit rather scattered about in terms of keys. Rather these are places of pilgrimage or private devotion. We should avoid extending the general semantic meaning of the current amenity=place_of_worship of being a place where I can attend religious services to a more generic one which refers much more loosely to places which *some* people in a given faith regard as holy. SK53 (talk) 13:15, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

After more discussion, I now agree that using amenity=place_of_worship + religion=christian + denomination=roman_catholic would be misleading, since this is normally interpreted as a Roman Catholic church where Mass is celebrated at least some times. If the Holy Well is a location used for Mass or other Catholic religous services then the tag would be appropriate, but it appears that in most cases that does not happen. Instead, these features are more similar to historic=wayside_shrine in that they are a place for individuals to pray or leave votive offerings such as candles, but not a location for communal religious worship. This reminds me of the frequent outdoor stone shrines found at homes and business in Bali: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balinese_Hinduism#/media/File:Altar_in_Ubud.JPG where incense, flowers and fruits are places on a daily basis.

So I would agree with using a different tag for most holy wells. I don't see any problem with historic=holy_well since we have historic=wayside_shrine. --Jeisenbe (talk)

As I have said a couple of times, I'm trying to avoid the controversial historic tag, especially in this case, when the sites are still used for their intended use (apart from as a daily source of water).B-unicycling (talk) 09:41, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

I fully agree with Jeisenbe, for me historic=holy_well would be the best solution and perfectly fits to wayside_cross/shrine. "historic" has not much to do with being no longer in use. wayside crosses are also tagged as "historic" and are still in use. Even if they are modern and newly built, you tag them as historic. vademecum 21:54, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

historic=wayside_cross is already controversial; I wouldn't want to add to that controversy by using historic=* for something that is still part of some people's everyday life.B-unicycling (talk) 19:43, 10 March 2021 (UTC)

Holy well vs wishing well

It has come up in the mailing list that wells where tourists leave coins (and make a wish), might not qualify, because there is no religion per se attached to them. Maybe drinking water needs to be a qualifier for holy wells. B-unicycling (talk) 16:52, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Song of the Sea

I support any proposal where we can post relevant links to Song of the Sea:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjPuWPAaI7M

thumb|left

--Jeisenbe (talk) 17:32, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

To make this more clearly relevant, here's the production blog from the film, where the writers talk about how Irish holy wells are similar to Japanese Shinto shrines: http://songoftheseamovie.blogspot.com/2012/09/holy-wells.html --Jeisenbe (talk) 17:40, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

The Kilkenny mafia strikes again. ;-) B-unicycling (talk) 17:52, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Kilkenny is a mythical land with wolfwalkers, right? --Jeisenbe (talk) 18:01, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Be careful with additional tags

The 'Tagging' table proposes several new tags in addition to the main tag:

• saint:name
• saint:wikidata
• feast_date
• The date format used in 'feast_date'

These should either be clearly defined in the proposal text, or be removed. --Mueschel (talk) 18:40, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

Resolved: added to rationaleB-unicycling (talk) 10:49, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

feast date is a property of the saint, not of the well, so probably should not be tagged (can be found from wikipedia/data). A more universal approach would be to use a tag like dedicatee or even subject=* although the latter is slightly inaccurate. SK53 (talk) 13:08, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

But the Patron Day being celebrated at the well on that day does affect the site and the number of visitors. If that is not clear from the proposal, I will try to make it clearer.B-unicycling (talk) 10:33, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Only Catholic sites?

I think the proposed definition might be to narrow. I remember visiting a "sacred spring" inside the grotto of St. Thekla in Maaloula, Syria. That grotto is on the grounds of a Greek Orthodox monastery, and is visited by pilgrims from different Christian denominations as well as Muslim pilgrims. Another example would be a spring inside the former monastery church at Heilsbronn (meaning: "well of salvation"), Germany, though that monastery was dissolved following the reformation and the building is now a protestant church, with no specific religious significance attached to the spring anymore AFAIK. Couldn't one or maybe even both of these examples be a candidate for the proposed tagging? --Lyx (talk) 21:40, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

I had it broader, but I was told I couldn't use "deity" instead of "saint", because Christianity is allegedly monotheistic, so it is now a Christian proposal. If you have a short word for the venerated entity, let me know and I can change it back.B-unicycling (talk) 10:31, 22 February 2021 (UTC)