The Hawthorn Archive
Elder folklore belongs to a familiar British tree that often attracts little attention until it comes into flower. Its reputation, however, is unusually complicated: householders valued the plant for its flowers and fruit while repeating warnings about cutting its branches or burning…
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Rowan folklore is easiest to understand when the living tree and the protective customs attached to it are kept together. Rowan is often slender rather than imposing, but its clusters of orange-red or scarlet fruit can make it one of the brightest…
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Blackthorn folklore is easier to recognise in autumn and winter than in a May hedgerow. Its blue-black sloes, hard thorny wood and association with cold snaps give it a cultural life quite different from hawthorn. The same shrub can still surprise in…
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Hawthorn blossom looks as though it ought to belong in a vase. To understand hawthorn blossom indoors, it helps to begin with an old contradiction. The same flowering branches that belonged comfortably to May weather and outdoor celebration could acquire a very…
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Few British trees are as ordinary in the landscape and as complicated in folklore as hawthorn. To understand hawthorn in British folklore, it helps to begin with the hedge itself: practical, thorned, seasonal and impossible to separate from the places where people…
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