S9 Ep 3 Hawthorn's History： Folklore, Myths & Magic

Hello there, welcome to the My Slice of Life podcast. I'm Sharon O'Neill, your Highland host, and this is the place where we look at all sorts of things in life which we find interesting, from mysteries to motivation, productivity to poltergeists. It all gets talked about right here. This season is all about the folklore of various trees and plants which we all know, or may even have, growing in our own gardens. So far in this we've looked at elder, rosemary, stinging nettle and the rowan tree. So this week we're going to take a look at one particular tree which could be both a bringer of luck or a symbol of doom, depending on where you live and what you believe in. But just before we take a deep dive into this amazing tree's folklore, I just want to remind you all to like the episode, subscribe and share the podcast. Please feel free to leave a comment and don't forget to use the links in the description. That's why I put them there for you. They will take you to wonderful places like my blog, the main YouTube channel and the Buy Me A Coffee page, where you can get some lovely downloads as a thank you for being here. And if you were able to, you can also buy me a coffee as a little tip for all my efforts. I also want to give a big shout out to the lovely people at Budget Seeds who were kind enough to give me a code to pass on to my UK listeners, so you can get 10% off when you buy from them. Use the link below for budgetseeds.co.uk. Use the code soneil10 to get your 10% off. There aren't many companies who support a channel as small as mine, so I am very grateful to them for doing that. So Budget Seeds, thank you. Now let's get back to the tree of the week. I should have a jingle for that. I don't. And this week we are taking a very close look at the folklore of the Hawthorn tree. If you saw the thumbnail, that gave it away. It's also known as the May, the Fairy Thorn or White Thorn and the Crataegus. I think the Crataegus. The Hawthorn has long been a tree of contradictions. In some traditions, it's seen as a protector, offering blessings and safeguarding against evil. In others, it's feared, a tree that should never be cut down or brought indoors, lest misfortune befall you. For this episode, I'm using information that I found online, as well as a couple of great books I've come across. So I'll leave a few links in the description for you, so you can go and check them all out for yourself as well. Hawthorn trees are native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere, including Europe, Asia, North Africa and North America. It is one of the native trees of the UK and can grow as a little shrub or right up to 10 meters tall. And considering they can grow for over 700 years, it's not surprising that it has so much folklore attached to it. But it's known for more than just its folklore. Hawthorn has long been associated with heart health. And in ancient Greece, the physician, good luck with this, Dias Kouroudis, I think, Dias Kouroudis, I'll go with that. He said the Hawthorn is an effective treatment for improving the strength of the heart and to increase the blood flow to the heart. And today, in the herbal remedy world, Hawthorn is used for heart health. And now there are studies being done which actually back up this use of Hawthorn when it comes to heart health. One study, which was done on more than 850 people, came to the conclusion that taking Hawthorn extract alongside the heart meds showed an improvement in exercise tolerance, a decrease in shortness of breath and fatigue. And many other studies have also been done, and they too are showing that the humble Hawthorn may just be what our hearts are needing to keep healthy and help prevent disease. As with all these things, of course, more research needs to be done. And I'm not telling you to go and use Hawthorn. I am not a herbalist. Disclaimer. But it may be something you want to do more research on for yourself. I did come across a video on YouTube on a channel called Denu's Irish Herb Garden. I think it's Denu or Danu. And this video was all about the Hawthorn. Now, the lady who runs the channel is called Terry. And I don't think she says she's a pagan on the description, but she does talk a lot about, you know, the mother goddess. And she does a lot of the kind of pagan things or things that I would associate with paganism. And although that isn't my thing, I do find her information and herbal remedies and recipes to be really interesting and helpful. Now, why am I telling you all this? Well, in the video I watched on her channel, she talks about Hawthorn. And she says it's not just good for the heart in relation to heart disease, but she says it's also good for things like bereavement, where the heart has been hurt, and also to give your heart courage, you know, if you're needing to do something difficult or challenging. And I thought that was interesting how Hawthorn is seen as good for the heart physically, but emotionally too. And in the old days, I found out that people would actually carry Hawthorn charms for just this type of thing. Now, when it comes to the folklore of the Hawthorn, there are quite a few well-known tales and beliefs. Hawthorn has long been associated with May Day and the ancient Celtic festival of Bealtaine. And I know now that I have been saying that completely wrong before when I called it Beltane. It isn't Beltane, it's Bealtaine, Irish. But because Hawthorn blooms in May, it became a symbol of fertility, love, and new beginnings. That time of spring, everything's coming back to life. Maples were sometimes made from Hawthorn wood, and people would decorate their homes with Hawthorn blossoms, except in areas where this was considered to be bad luck. For some, it was considered good luck if May boughs were cut on May Day eve, or very early on the morning of May Day. This isn't the first time Bealtaine has been mentioned with regards to the trees and plants that I've talked about here. If you caught last week's episode, you'll have heard it mentioned there too, when I talked about the stinging nettle. And in case you aren't familiar with Bealtaine, it's a pagan festival held on May Day, the first day of May, and it has a lot of folklore attached to it. I have a feeling we'll be hearing a lot more about Bealtaine as the season progresses, and I will do my best to try and remember to say it correctly. But on May Day, there is the bringing home the May, which is thought to date back to the Roman times, when they honoured Flora, the goddess of flowering plants. Now the first of May is when the May Queen and May King are dressed from head to foot in blooms and leaves. The prettiest girl in the village got to be the May Queen and was to sit near the May Pole, and she'd be wearing clothes adorned with flowers, especially hawthorn blossom. The May King would be covered in greenery, especially oak and hawthorn, and only his face would be visible. Now when I was looking this up online, I wanted to find out if the May King and the Green Man are the same thing, and it does get a little bit confusing. Well, to me anyway, as some do call the May King the Green Man, amongst other names, there's lots of different names, but I did find a few sites which said they're not the same thing at all, and to stop confusing them with each other, they're not related. They said the Green Man is an architectural design, which you can see on many churches and have seen that, and there is, as you would imagine, a lot of debate about whether it's a pagan sign taken on by Christianity, as well as what he actually symbolises, and many see him as a symbol of rebirth, resurrection and creation. But despite this, I found out that the Green Man was actually on the bottom of the invitation sent out for the coronation of King Charles, and it caused quite a stink, so I'm going to put a link in the description for that, so you can go and take a look at it yourself. Right at the bottom of the invitation is a big graphic of the Green Man, so go and take a look at that and see what you think. The hawthorn is a tree which seems to bring good or bad luck, depending on what you do with it and where you live. For example, in some places, it's thought to be bad luck if you cut a bow and bring it into your home, and this has nothing to do with witches or anything like that. It's believed this notion came about because of the strong odour of the May blossoms, which were said to smell like the plague. Children, especially, were discouraged from picking the flowers of the hawthorn and bringing them indoors, being told it would kill off their mothers. Now, research has shown that the hawthorn blossoms contain trimethylamine, but it's a chemical also present in decaying flesh, which might explain why people associated them with death and the plague. However, not all regions feared the hawthorn. In some places, people would hang hawthorn branches over doorways to keep evil spirits away. It was also believed that planting a hawthorn hedge around a home would protect it from malevolent spirits. The Greeks, on the other hand, believed the May was the flower of fortune, and it was a symbol of luck for newlyweds. May blossoms were held over a couple as they were married, with the bride wearing a headdress which was also covered in the delicate flowers of the May. They would even have hawthorn blossoms on the altar, and then later, after the ceremony, torches which had been made with hawthorn wood were lit to guide the pair to their barital bedchamber. One very big belief held even to this day is the connection the hawthorn tree has with fairy world. This is a belief which has been around for a very long time, and according to Celtic mythology, hawthorn trees were believed to mark the entrance to the other world, a realm inhabited by spirits, deities and fairies. These mystical beings, though, were not the friendly fairies of modern times. In modern stories, we get no tinkerbells here. These were powerful and sometimes dangerous spirits. The Celts considered the hawthorn one of the most magical trees alongside the oak and the ash, and together these three formed the sacred triad of trees. Cutting down hawthorn, especially one standing alone, was thought to bring terrible misfortune. They considered the hawthorn a tree of transformation and protection, often using its leaves and flowers in ceremonies. This connection with the fae was held very strongly in Ireland and Scotland. Hawthorn trees, particularly the solitary ones standing alone in fields, were believed to be sacred to the fairies, the fae, and according to tradition, anyone who dares to cut down a fairy tree might suffer bad luck, illness or even death. It was believed that the fae would live either under or in those solitary trees, so if you cut one down, you were harming the fae, and they would have their revenge. The hawthorn in hedgerows, however, were fine and you could pick from them pretty much no problem, just be respectful, but you really were best not to bother picking anything from those lone ones, just stay away from them. Now you might think that this is all a lot of nonsense, but even today a lone hawthorn tree in a field will be left alone by most people, and it doesn't stop at farmers and gardeners. Some roads and buildings in Ireland and Scotland have been rerouted to avoid cutting down a lone hawthorn tree. One famous example of this belief occurred in Ireland in 1999, so not that long ago. A motorway near Limerick was actually rerouted to avoid disturbing a lone hawthorn tree, as the workers feared the wrath of the fairies. There are many stories online about people suffering misfortune after cutting down a hawthorn tree, and many more stories have been passed down from generation to generation, so it's a really firmly held belief, particularly in Ireland and Scotland, you do not touch the lone hawthorn tree, and you'll often see them in a farmer's fields, just that one tree, they'll go around it, we don't cut them down. People often leave offerings at hawthorn trees, small bits of cloth, ribbons or even coins as a way to appease the fairies and ask for blessings. These trees are often found near holy wells and thought to hold magical healing properties, and this practice is still seen today at clutty wells in Scotland and Ireland, where people tie rags to trees as part of a healing or wishing ritual. Some people believe this practice has its roots in ancient druid rituals, where offerings were made to nature spirits. However it started, it is still done today, and we actually have one not too far away from us, and it is known as the clutty well, where you can go and tie a rag on while asking for someone you know to get well. Again with all these things, it's believed that when the rag rots away, the blessing will be fulfilled, although there is a belief that it's the tree itself that bears the weight of the people's illness, and that's what cures them. The clut is just another word for cloth, and it's also used in the well-known saying which is still used today, ne'er cast a clut till May is out. Now some people believe this means you don't put away your warm clothes until May is over, but others argue that it actually refers to the hawthorn being in bloom, meaning that spring isn't truly here until the hawthorn flowers appear. So never cast clothing until May is out, that's what it's telling you. There's also belief that if you plant a hawthorn near your home, it will protect you from lightning, evil spirits and bad luck. Just don't cut it down or there will be a disaster. And it's another tree which young women could use by placing hawthorn flowers under their pillows. They could dream of their future husbands. I don't know if anybody still does that, but I think it sounds nice if you don't mind the stench of death coming from your pillow apparently. And in some English villages, hawthorn branches were hung above barn doors to protect the livestock from witchcraft. In medieval times, hawthorn was sometimes planted near graveyards to keep restless spirits from escaping. So as you can see, lots of contradictory uses. But there is one more thing I wanted to tell you about concerning the hawthorn tree and that's its use as a divining rod. These are traditionally made from branch of hazel or hawthorn and are used now to find things like water. But back in the day, they were used to find and drive out devils. Now according to Ruth Binney in her book, Plant Lore and Legend, the diviner cuts a forked branch about 18 inches long. They would grasp the prongs firmly between the thumb and the first two fingers of each hand and then with the joint pointing downwards, they would walk over the ground and where there's water, the joint in the branch will rise of its own accord. Now when it's exactly over a spring, it will turn or bend a twig and can actually turn over completely. The force of the twig's movement is thought to relate exactly to the depth of the spring but it does come at the cost of profound mental exhaustion. I've never done it so I can't say if that's true or not but apparently that's what happens. But for maximum potency, the rod should be cut between sunset and sunrise on a holy day or at the new moon. If cut in the morning, it should be the branch that the sun first shines on. So now you know. So get yourself out there and get divining. Good luck. So would you dare cut down a fairy tree? Do you have any other stories or traditions associated with the hawthorn? If you do, I would love to hear them so either leave a comment below or get in touch. The email address is in the description. And with that, I'll say a very big thank you for joining me this week. I really do appreciate your time. Join me next Monday for another fabulous folklore episode but until then, you take care of you wee self.