Hiied vee veerel. Pärimuse ja maastiku kujundikeelest looduslikes pühapaikades

In addition to religious content layers, the word hiis (holy grove) seems to express also certain features of a natural landscape. The article discusses the issues concerned with the location of hiis areas as well as their meaning. There are signs of links between ‘holy’ and ‘hiis’ that can be traced in the toponymy observed in both lore and maps, although it is not always that place lore or placenames have survived in written form until today. The main emphasis in the article is placed on the water element related to holy groves, waterbodies and springs as well as wetlands. Often the holy grove is situated at a watershed or headspring, next to springs, the mouth of a river or a stream, a (former) larger waterbody or karst area. Water connects many places, and holy places can often be found in the marginal areas or junctions of waterbodies. In the case of water and presumably also holy places, place lore seems to consider as essential the ability to move in different ways and change the shape – this is reflected, for example, in legends about travelling nature objects as indicators of holiness. On occasion, the hiis areas mark natural reservoirs of clean groundwater; this is essential to acknowledge as the issue of water still occupies a crucial role among other environmental problems. So the stereotype of hiis as a holy grove, so-called Taara oak grove, embodies remarkably broader possibilities for interpreting the holiness of places in today’s context, for valuing these places and protecting them both culturally and environmentally.