Hawthorn Tree Folklore – The May Tree
The Hawthorn is known as the May Tree as this is the time of year that the gardens and hedgerows light up with its beautiful and aromatic white blossom.
It is loved by birds, who flutter in and out of its protective, spiky branches, eating the flowers and the insects inside them, and later in the year, the nutritious, blood red berries.
Hawthorn is great medicine for the heart and it is said that eating the leaves and flowers can open your heart to welcome in love and fertility. It is also an antioxidant that can stimulate the heart, regulate blood pressure and heal the walls of our blood vessels.
In Ireland, a lone Hawthorn is regarded with respect, as it is thought to be the home of the wee folk or fairies. People wouldn’t dare cut down or damage them to avoid the wrath of their supernatural guardians, as there are many tales over the centuries, of people being invited into the fairy realms, dancing the night away only to discover that many years have passed when they return home!
In 1999, there was a successful campaign to save a lone hawthorn tree from being demolished to make way for the M18 bypass in Latoon, Co Clare.
It gained international attention when local storyteller Eddie Lenihan told The Irish Times about a farmer who said that the bush ‘had a history with the fairies’ and that ‘lumps of green stuff had been seen on the hedges’ indicating fairy battles the night before.
There is an old Celtic tale in the Mabinogion, about Olwyn, the Goddess of Hawthorn. Known as ‘she of the white track’ because white blossom sprang up everywhere she walked, leaving white trails across the land, like hawthorn hedgerows.
King Arthur’s nephew Culhwych fell in love with her, but was set countless impossible tasks by her father Yspadden Pencawr (aka Giant Hawthorn), but with the help of the knights of the round table he managed to win her hand in marriage.
I have a few favourite hawthorn trees that have inspired my composition, from the three in my garden to the ancient ones on the tops of the South Downs that lean to the east, as if being permanently blown over by the west wind, bent over like an old man.
