Hawthorn
From Traditional Witchcraft Wiki Project
The common Hawthorn ,Crataegus monogyna, is a species of hawthorn native to Europe, northwest Africa and western Asia. Other common names include May, Maythorn, Quickthorn, Whitethorn, Haegthorn, and Haw. The name hawthorn is from the Old English hæguþorn, which is a composite word deriving from the now obsolete haw, meaning "hedge or encompassing fence", and thorn; this refers to its common use in the laying of hedges in the countryside.
It is a broadly spreading shrub or small tree 5-14 m tall, with a dense crown. The bark is dull brown with vertical orange cracks. The leaves are 2-4 cm long, obovate and deeply lobed, sometimes almost to the midrib, with the lobes spreading at a wide angle. The upper surface is dark green above and paler underneath.
The flowers are produced in late spring (May to early June in its native area) in corymbs of 5-25 together; each flower is about 1 cm diameter, and has five white petals, numerous red stamens, and a single style; they are moderately fragrant. Later in the year they bear numerous small, oval dark red fruit about 1 cm long, berry-like, but structurally a pome containing a single seed. They are important for wildlife in winter, particularly thrushes and waxwings; these birds eat the berries and disperse the seeds in their droppings.
It is distinguished from the related but less widespread Midland Hawthorn C. laevigata in the leaves being deeply lobed, with spreading lobes, and in the flowers having just one style, not two or three. However they are inter-fertile and hybrids occur frequently; they are only entirely distinct in their more typical forms.
>== Hawthorn in Folklore ==
In Gaelic folklore, Hawthorn (in Scottish Gaelic, Sgitheach) 'marks the entrance to the otherworld' and is strongly associated with the fairies. As late as the 1920s in Wales the tree was being used in May day celebrations. One Chepstow resident's father used to put some of the tree into each seed bed to make witch's spells null and void, this was related to one of my sources in 1974. In 1978 a Dubliner related that "Hawthorn among your hedging plants wards off bad fairies".
Hawthorn's connection with May Day was weakened after the changes of calender in 1752, but any Suffolk servant who could bring in some Hawthorn on May Day was rewarded with a dish of cream. This would be very expensive today as it's April 25th today and the Hawthorn is most definately out.
Many marriages took place in May as the church would not marry people during Lent, so the Hawthorn was used during marriages. Chaucer wrote : "Mark the fair blooming of the Hawthorn Tree, Who, finely clothed in a robe of white, Fills the wanton eye with May's delight."
"Harvest follows thirteen weeks after whitethorn scents the air" is a Scottish farmer's belief.
At Greek weddings brides wore Hawthorn.
In 1923 Missouri legislature named the Hawthorn or Redhaw, as it is called there, as the state flower, but many people were not happy with this as they regard the tree as dangerous to touch especially when in bloom.
In England Henry VII claimed Hawthorn as the badge of the House of Tudor because at the battle of Bosworth Field the crown of England was stolen from Richard III and hidden in a Hawthorn bush. It was found by Lord Stanley, who placed it upon Henry's head and made him king. From this comes the old proverb "Cleve to thy crown, though it hangs on a bush".
"Hawthorn blooms and Elder flowers fill the house with evil power" is a rhyme which relates the belief that either will bring a death in the family if in the house. Some say that the flowers' scent is that of plague victims. However, various charms could be said to make the flowers safe. One such one was : "under the thorn the Saviour was born" to be said while gathering it.
A Hawthorn sprig in the hatband protected the wearer against a lightning strike, a piece picked at midnight on Twelfth Night and kept in the house brings luck. The link with the Crown of Thorns is said to give the tree healing virtue. A Somerset charm for a festering wound required that a thorn be passed over the wound while saying "Christ was of the Virgin born, he was pricked by a thorn, it never did bell and swell, I trust in Jesus this never will!"
Farm stock are said to flourish in a field with a hawthorn bush and May blossom on the cowshed on May morning safeguards the milk supply. In Cambridgeshire a Hawthorn branch adorned the last rick completed at harvest "for luck".
In England solitary Hawthorns marked former places of administrative meetings, such as moots or manorial courts, but in Ireland a "sentry thorn" or "lone bush" was a fairy trysting place, demanding the greatest respect and especially dangerous on May Day, midsummer or Halloween, when fairy power is said to be it's greatest.
No-one would cut down such trees for fear of fairy retribution. In 1968 there was local opposition to moving a tree on the Ballintra-Rossnowlaugh road in Donegal and eventually at great expense the road was moved. There are many stories of retribution from the tree, although if a prayer was said first the tree could be cut down without retribution.
Professor Estyn Evans wrote of the Hawthorn that flowered outside his room in Belfast University. No-one would trim or plant it. When new buildings were planned, it was said that their alignment had to be changed to spare the tree.
In Ireland some such trees became "mass trees" dedicated to saints, associated with holy wells or used in burial customs. Stones laid at fairy thorns by burial parties grew into cairns.
In England the Glastonbury Thorn is believed to have come from when St Joseph of Arimathea struck his staff into Wearyall hill where it immediately rooted and took leaf, to bloom on Christmas Day. In 1753 "The Gentleman's Magazine" noted that people were disappointed when it did not bloom on Christmas Day, but on 5th of January (Christmas Day in the old calender) it bloomed. There is a descendant of this tree in the National Cathedral, Washington D.C. (crataegus monogyna "Biflora") which blooms in winter and summer.
It is recorded that a soldier in Cromwell's day went to cut The Glastonbury Thorn down and a splinter flew off and blinded him. In the reign of James I of England large sums of money were paid for a cutting of the tree and to this day a blossoming twig is annually sent to the Queen at Christmas. The present tree is not more that 90 years old.
There is a Wish Tree which survives to this day in Argyll, Scotland where people have pressed coins into the bark and made a wish. The photo I have shows every available space bristling with money. Unfortunately this tree has succumbed to the elements and is now lying down in it's enclosure. No-one knows why this particular tree is a Wishing Tree and I do not know if only Hawthorns were used for Wishing Trees. See also Glastonbury Thorn.
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Hawthorn and Blackthorn
Christian myths state that either blackthorn or hawthorn made The Crown of Thorns. There is supposed to be a rivalry between the trees: it is said that a hawthorn would destroy a blackthorn growing near it.
In Herefordshire and Worcestershire they used to use blackthorn or sometimes hawthorn in a burning charm on New Year's morning. A globe of the twigs would be burned in the furrows and the ashes scattered over the earliest wheat and people would say "the devil has been driven from the fields". The women would then make a new globe. This would ensure the farm's fertility and fortune.
When Blackthorn was used in the May Day celebrations, it topped the maypole entwined in a Hawthorn garland and was called the "Mother of Woods".
