Sacred natural sites in Estonia a mix of national romanticism and old folklore

Some of Estonia's natural sacred sites have been in use since the time when people believed in supernatural forces. Others were established or adopted after the rise of scientific worldviews and the spread of national romantic literature, an Estonian folklore researcher points out.
"It may be difficult for people today to understand, but an important part of the tradition surrounding natural sacred sites lies in what is not done there," says Ott Heinapuu, editor for cultural studies and folkloristics at the journal Keel ja Kirjandus. A natural sacred site might be a patch of forest where cutting down trees is forbidden, or a spring, stone, hollow or hill where farming and other economic activities are restricted. "Traditionally, these places have been associated with supernatural forces with whom it was possible to make contact," he adds.
Estonia is home to both natural sacred sites that predate modern thinking and others that came into use later. According to Heinapuu, people interpret these sites through both older and more recent perspectives. In a recent academic article, he compiled a typology of Estonia's natural sacred sites as a thought experiment based on all of these interpretations. "Traditional sites have at times come to be associated with the national discourse of the Awakening era — for instance, people go to sacred groves with flags to celebrate the Anniversary of the Republic. That's where the two layers come together," the folklorist explains.
New and old
In his typology, Ott Heinapuu distinguishes between older and newer sacred sites, as well as between older, newer and blended traditions. To understand older customs, he says, one must consider how Estonians lived just over two hundred years ago. "Serfdom was abolished about two centuries ago, and before that, people were tied to the land. They couldn't move beyond their parish," he explains. This rootedness meant that communities were relatively stable and so too were people's relationships with their landscape and environment.
"The traditions surrounding natural sacred sites partly reflect how people made sense of their surroundings: what falls within human activity, what lies outside it and where those boundaries are," Heinapuu points out. Centuries ago, Estonians held a worldview that was largely traditional and included a belief in supernatural forces. According to the folklorist, peasants made no distinction between nature and culture or between the natural and the supernatural. "Some of the customs and ideas about how one behaves in a sacred grove stem from that mindset," he notes.
The second set of understandings — more recent ones — emerged after concepts like "nature" and "the supernatural" became part of public consciousness through formal education. In other words, the scientific worldview that originated in Western Europe in the 17th century became dominant. "This is a fundamentally different perspective on the world, one in which the human role is much larger and ever-expanding. Estonian written culture also generally aligns with this newer, so-called modern worldview," Heinapuu observes.
Taara Oak forest as a new symbol
Old and new elements can mix in unexpected ways within a natural sacred site. According to Heinapuu, it's typical of human thinking that anything can become a symbol or metaphor, and thus a symbol rooted in the natural environment can move freely beyond it. A person may never have seen a sacred grove or a Taara oak forest, yet still be able to describe one — and even imagine a landscape that fits that mental image. "It's a bit like how Lottemaa was created based on Heiki Ernits' illustrations," the folklorist says, drawing a comparison.
Following the example of ecosemiotician Timo Maran, Heinapuu notes that at times, a description of nature can diverge so far from the actual environment it describes that, once it becomes a symbol, it may start to influence that environment in unexpected and even harmful ways. "If someone reads national romantic descriptions of Taara oak forests and then sees an alder grove that's been designated as a sacred site, they might feel compelled to start planting oaks there. But doing so would transform the original grove into something very different from what it has traditionally been," the folklorist explains.
It can also happen that people hold certain attitudes about natural sacred sites without being familiar with any specific location. In such cases, they may have encountered older traditions through archival sources and their publications, without ever having visited the sites themselves, or they may have adopted more recent attitudes through reading Western literature. "In the imagination of German Romantics, an oak grove is a sacred place. That idea has a long history in Europe: the oak was sacred to Zeus, Jupiter and the Germanic god of thunder," Heinapuu notes.
Under the influence of this European notion, Estonian national romantic literature recast Taara as a god of thunder and war, associated with the oak. During the War of Independence and World War II, the Taara oak forest gained even greater symbolic power. According to Heinapuu, a particularly influential image came from F. R. Kreutzwald's national epic "Kalevipoeg," where the hero Kalevipoeg, acting as a commander and king, summoned his troops to the Taara oak forest, delivered a rousing speech and gave the order to fight. "This is an idea that spread through literature. And when such a powerful symbol exists in people's minds, it shapes their perception of the real environment," the folklorist explains.

Dance as a kind of consecration
But what do people actually do in natural sacred sites? According to Ott Heinapuu, these places have traditionally been defined more by prohibitions than by prescribed actions. "Don't put a plow in the ground, don't cut down trees, don't strike with iron," he recites. In older traditions, sacred sites were considered potentially dangerous — something reflected, for example, in the folklore surrounding the sacred forest in Maardu. On the island of Hiiumaa, people believed that sacred dogs lived in the Kassari sacred forest and that one had to sing the right song to appease them.
"A sacred grove can also be understood as a place where some kind of agreement exists between humans and supernatural beings," Heinapuu continues. Local people know that the grove belongs to the sacred dogs, sacred maidens or other spirits of the grove, with whom contact can be made at the site. Through this understanding, people make sense of the rules and taboos related to the sacred grove. "We know that if we don't cut down trees there, then our livestock won't die because of it," the folklorist illustrates.
At the same time, people have also held Midsummer bonfires in natural sacred sites or danced in specific spots within a sacred forest. According to Heinapuu, these too can be understood as fulfilling religious customs and seeking favor from supernatural forces. "Dancing and celebrating are also ways of observing religious holidays. Even on Midsummer's Eve, people follow various traditions meant to ensure livestock fertility. For instance, walking your animals through the smoke of a bonfire might somehow benefit them," he notes.
At the other end of the spectrum, people have begun practicing entirely new customs in old sacred sites. Some might visit a sacred grove on the Anniversary of the Republic. In Võru County, a local school near the Tamme-Lauri oak organizes celebrations for milestones in its academic year. "There are also cases where a movement from the New Spirituality scene, whose ideological roots differ significantly from those of the traditional peasant society, has discovered these old sites and started practicing its own rituals there," the folklorist adds.

New way of thinking becomes old
Natural sacred sites in Estonia include both old and new ones. According to Ott Heinapuu, the newest are the oak trees and groves planted to mark the 100th anniversary of the Republic of Estonia. However, he believes that the largest number of sacred sites in Estonia are those that have been forgotten entirely. "There may not even be an archival record of these forgotten places. And then there are many sites for which a note does exist in the archives, but we can no longer say exactly where they were located," he explains.
Today, people's attitudes toward natural sacred sites are, broadly speaking, relatively flexible. "The same place can hold significance for many different people in many different ways," Heinapuu notes.
Compared to a century ago, old and new ways of thinking have also blended more fully. A hundred years ago, there were more people still living who had grown up in one place and who understood how the local landscape was traditionally interpreted. Later generations encountered ideas about Taara oak forests and other national symbols primarily through schoolbooks. This blending is reflected in the stories folklorists have collected. "Often, when people talk about old natural sacred sites, they'll mention how there might have been ancient Taara oaks there. For many, these two ways of speaking about sacred sites are no longer clearly distinguishable," Heinapuu says.
Another factor shaping how people understand natural sacred sites is the fact that old folklore has been widely collected and published for over a century. For example, the story of the Kassari sacred forest is freely available online, and from time to time, local newspapers republish it. "There's a whole body of books that people have been reading ever since Matthias Johann Eisen first published them. Some of those stories have taken on new life and become part of mainstream culture," he points out.
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Editor: Marcus Turovski