Sacred Springs

Text: Martin Poul Gangelhoff 

Foto: Anders beier

First there is the sound. The gurgling sound only running water can make. The peasant girl stops and listens once again. It is early morning, and the bluish glow of dawn provides little light in the woods. Although the young girl knows the way, she still sighs with relief upon hearing the babbling brook. Because it means that the spring is close by. That’s good, too, because she must return before the overseer gets up and discovers that his milkmaid is missing. She points herself towards the sound of trickling water and runs through the cover of wild garlic carpeting the forest floor. The dew from the leaves moistens and darkens the hem of her blue-striped trousers. 

The sound suddenly intensifies. As she catches sight of the spring, she comes to a halt. The crush of anxiety in her stomach holds her back and in half-hearted frustration she runs both hands through her long blonde hair. What if someone comes? At worst, they will call her a witch. She hesitates, but not for long, because she has already made the decision. Her brother is lying in bed at home with sharp pains and can no longer attend to his chores. If he loses his job, he risks ending up as a beggar. The very thought breaks her heart. 

She kneels before the gushing spring, unfolds a white piece of fabric, revealing a charred wooden figure: a grandmotherly, well-endowed woman. She places the figure against her heart, bends over and chants a prayer to the spring’s water. Then she buries the figure in the moist soil with her weathered milkmaid hands. She reaches into her trousers and pulls out the family’s old wineskin and fills it with the sacred, healing water. When the wineskin is full, she laces up the opening, runs homeward and leaves the spring to its eternal gurgling.

To modern, privileged people, the sound of water is just nature’s background music for us to enjoy on outdoor walks. But to our ancestors, it was the sound of life, mysticism and hope. A primeval song one should listen to for survival. An entire symphony of springs are scattered across the Bornholm countryside and have been the source of life-giving water welling forth from Bornholm’s subterranean reservoirs for millennia. Today, we know that these springs arise when rainwater forces its way up through layers of soil and bedrock and collects in subterranean waterways, and the springs are found where these waterways emerge through the earth’s surface. People did not know this in antiquity, however. Instead, they explained these sites with superstitious beliefs.

If you visit one of Bornholm’s springs today, you can sit in the shade of a tree and imagine how the various scenarios might have played out around it. How people from the Stone Age to the Iron Age flocked to sacred springs – from Vikings worshipping the Norse gods, to Christian peasants in the Middle Ages. One some occasions, visiting the spring was a festive occasion filled with rituals and singing, but at other times a visit was more subdued, such as in the imagined example of the peasant girl above, when a visit to the spring had to be kept secret for fear of reprisals or being shamed.

A common feature of our ancestors’ fascination with the springs is the purity of the water. Clean water is something we take for granted today. Modern parents in Denmark don’t have to worry about letting their children drink a glass of tap water, whereas drinking something as vital as water used to be laden with risks. It was far from certain that all sources of water were safe. Invisible bacteria could easily contaminate the water. All it took was one dead rat falling into a waterhole to make the water toxic. This is still reported by people in less fortunate countries around the world. Even now, water-borne diseases such as cholera and Legionnaires’ disease claim human lives every single day.

Bornholm’s springs are protected and perfectly preserved underground from where clean water has continuously welled forth for millennia. This important fact is behind the myth that spring water does not spread illness. And when people experienced this about spring water, it could easily lead them to believe that the water had healing properties, too, and that the springs must be sacred.

Clean water filtered by the soil and infused with minerals has certainly had a soothing effect on certain common ailments, and the water was also the best alternative in the past for cleaning wounds and boils.

The ‘sacred’ status of the springs must be seen in both Christian and pagan contexts. The pagan idea dates all the way back to the age when Bornholm was first settled by people who had to learn how to live off the land. The springs undoubtedly played a key role in the mythological narratives of Stone Age people, on an equal footing with worshipping sun, sea and springtime. The myths changed as the culture and religion of Bornholm transitioned, but the belief that many of the springs also had healing properties has presumably continued all the way through to the modern era.

Worship of springs was still widespread in Denmark in the early Middle Ages. Based on the Catholic Church’s general tendency to appropriate pre-Christian religious customs and iconography and turn them into its own, churches were sometimes built near several of the springs, and some springs were even named after a saint. This is clearly seen in the names of the island’s nine sacred springs, six of which are associated with the church: Solomon’s spring on the Hammer peninsula, St Hans (St John’s) spring in Svaneke, Bishop’s spring near Bukkegaard farm, St Joseph’s spring in Tejn, Helligdoms spring at Rø, Priest’s spring in Ibsker, Stokke spring in Aakirkeby, Kolle spring in Almindingen Forest and Trolde spring in Klemensker.

Historic documents report that whereas sacred springs played a key role in church theology before the Reformation in 1536, only a century later many had lost their significance for the by now Protestant church. The lesson of the Reformation – in its departure from Catholicism – meant that the Christian faith was first and foremost about the individual’s inner spiritual life, not least his/her relationship with God. This left little space for cultivating Christianity other than through prayer and in church. Quite the contrary: it is easy to imagine how, post-Reformation, the religious rituals that had been handed down, such as worshipping sacred springs, were at best disparaged as primitive superstition and at worst demonised as witchcraft and sorcery. The myths of popular belief that had been appropriated by the Catholic church were now ridiculed and put to shame by the Protestant church in marketplace gossip and in the minister’s sermons during church services.

But within the walls of Bornholm’s homes, stories of the sacred springs continued to be told, and lived on as old wives’ tales and fairy tales. Whatever the church’s stance on the springs, clergymen could not ignore the fact that the water from the springs was clean, nutritious and in many instances had healing or soothing effects on the sick. Therefore, the populace continued to seek them out and many have also secretly worshipped them.

Popular beliefs about sacred springs met new opposition when ideas emerging from the Age of Enlightenment swept Denmark in the mid-1700s. The Enlightenment had little respect for miracles or magic. Superstition had to yield to reason, and accordingly science was now called upon to explain natural phenomena. It is debatable whether the Enlightenment killed off the widespread popular belief in sacred springs. But as the Enlightenment formed the basis for our secular, modern, rational society today, over time and for most people, it was instrumental in relegating the ancient worship of sacred springs to a mere curiosity. 

In modern times, sacred springs have undergone two renaissances, however. The first was a backlash against rationalism, when artists and enthusiasts of Romanticism (1800–1870) rediscovered nature as something to be sensed, not explained. The second renaissance followed immediately in the wake of Romanticism, but for other reasons. This time it was brought about by science when a theory emerged in the early 1900s that water containing radium was good for treating various illnesses. Due to its bedrock, Bornholm springs contain more radium than springs in many other parts of Denmark, which attracted what we would now call ‘wellness tourists’ to the island. In 1920, a mineral water factory was even built next to Rosenkilden spring on the Hammer peninsula with a product named “Radium Apollinaris”. It contained minimal amounts of radioactive substances, however, and these were neither harmful nor curative. It wasn’t a viable business model either, so when interest in radium faded, the factory closed.

But spring water still gurgles through the Bornholm countryside. Cold, clear streams of clean water emerge from underground on Bornholm through the primeval depressions in the landscape. Sacred springs are still ‘flowing strong’, but quietly. They are a slice of living history and have been a gathering point for the people of Bornholm since time immemorial. It is this very quality that makes them worth visiting. But by contrast with the historical objects in museums or ruins in the landscape, the sacred springs are an unfinished narrative that you can take part in yourself. Because if you visit one of the island’s nine springs, this is tantamount to having heard the call of the trickling water, and you will find yourself standing where thousands of our forebears have stood before. Standing there, you can give thanks to the spring for its life-giving water, take a sip to find out whether it truly does have special powers, or just enjoy the sound of gurgling water and let your thoughts flow back in time. The ancient springs are definitely worth visiting.

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