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Paper short abstract

Contrasting a successful and a failed attempt of gaining ecclesiastic recognition to Marian apparitions at healing springs in 18th-century South Hungary, the paper presents the narrative place-lore that have been accumulated around some of the holy wells since the second half of the 1700s.

Paper long abstract

Marian apparitions have long been associated with natural landmarks, such as hilltops, grottoes or even springs. As the supernatural encounters vest the natural settings with new meanings, these natural locations start to act as spiritual magnets. As such they soon become important nodal points in the local story webs. The accumulation of new beliefs, local and historical legends, personal experience stories and true stories indicate the creative meaning-making process, which gradually transforms the apparition sites from everyday space to remarkable and significant place.

Contrasting a successful and a failed attempt of gaining ecclesiastic recognition to Marian apparitions at healing springs in 18th-century South Hungary, the paper presents the rich and diverse narrative place-lore that have been accumulated around some of the holy wells since the second half of the 1700s. The careful exploration of the place-related narrative traditions reflects the close bonds between humans and their environment. It also reveals the stratification of places in a historical sense and the processes how these natural sites become abandoned and then again reloaded with “sacred” significance by narrative folklore.

The paper draws both on long term ethnographic fieldwork and extended historical and archival research.