Thought for the day: "I saw a sign that said 'Falling Rocks' . It lied !! Trust me - I've tried it !!"
I saw a post today which intrigued me - not only because there was no May 13th, but also because some periods are attributed to more than one tree..
And since I have the option to have a blog - it seems like a good place to store for future reference.
But that just leads to a few more searches..
and Wiki shows some information ...
Almost all kinds of tree found in the Celtic countries have been thought to have special powers or to serve as the abode of the fairies, especially the magical trio of oak, ash, and thorn. Next in rank are the fruit-bearing trees apple and hazel, followed by the alder, elder, holly, and willow. The esteem given different trees varies in different parts of the Celtic world; on the Isle of Man, the phrase ‘fairy tree’ denotes the tramman elder. The medieval Welsh poem
Cad Goddeu (The Battle of the Trees) has been interpreted as a remnant of Druidic lore, possibly relating to the Celtic tree alphabet
ogham found across northwestern Europe.
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| The Druid Grove 1845 |
and some of the trees are here..
Oak
The mighty deciduous hardwood of the oak
has played a prominent role in the Celtic imagination from ancient to
modern times. The English word ‘druid’ (from the Latin plural druidae)
derives in part from the root dru- ‘oak;’ Celtic words for oak, e.g. Old
Irish and Modern Irish. dair, Welsh derwen, share the same root.
The ancient geographer Strabo (1st century AD) reported that the important sacred grove and meeting-place of the Galatian Celts of Asia Minor, Drunemeton, was filled with oaks. In an often-cited passage from Historia Naturalis (1st century AD), Pliny the Elder
describes a festival on the sixth day of the moon where the druids
climbed an oak tree, cut a bough of mistletoe, and sacrificed two white
bulls as part of a fertility rite.
Elsewhere druids made their wands
from only three woods: yew, oak, and apple. In Mediterranean culture the oak was sacred to both Zeus and Jupiter,
some aspects of which were no doubt transferred to the worship of
Gaulish Jupiter. Britons under Roman occupation worshipped a goddess of
the oak tree, Daron, whose name is commemorated in a rivulet in Gwynedd.
According to the pseudo-history Lebor Gabála
‘Book of Invasions,’ the sacred oak of early Ireland was that of Mugna,
probably located at or near Dunmanogoe, south Co. Kildare.
Sacred
associations of oaks survived Christianization, so that St Brigit's monastic foundation was at Cill Dara, ‘church of (the) oak,’ i.e. Kildare, and St Colum Cille favoured Doire Calgaich ‘Calgach's oak grove,’ i.e. Derry; see also Durrow, darú, from dair magh, ‘oak plain.’
In Welsh tradition Gwydion and Math use the flower of oak with broom to fashion the beautiful Blodeuwedd. When Lleu Llaw Gyffes is about to be killed by Gronw Pebyr, his wife's lover, he escapes in eagle form onto a magic oak tree.
A sacred oak tree protects the Breton city of Ys
until the feckless boy Kristof removes it, allowing Ys to be engulfed.
The Arthurian figure Merlin is imprisoned in an oak tree in the Breton
forest of Brocéliande by Viviane/Nimiane (the Lady of the Lake). In both
British and Irish fairy lore, the oak is one of three magical woods,
along with ash and thorn. Old Irish and Modern Irish is dair; Scots Gaelic, darach; Manx, daragh; Welsh, derwen, dâr; Cornish derowen; Breton, dervenn.
Ash
The ash tree was a tree regarded with awe in Celtic countries, especially Ireland. The mountain ash, rowan, or quicken tree, a smaller tree of the variety Sorbus aucuparia, is usually considered separately in the Celtic imagination.
There are several recorded instances in Irish history in which people
refused to cut an ash, even when wood was scarce, for fear of having
their own cabins consumed with flame. The ash tree itself might be used
in May Day ( Beltaine) rites.
Under the Old Irish word nin, the ash also gives its name to the letter N in the ogham alphabet. Together with the oak and thorn, the ash is part of a magical trilogy in fairy lore. Ash seedpods may be used in divination,
and the wood has the power to ward off fairies, especially on the Isle
of Man.
In Gaelic Scotland children were given the astringent sap of the
tree as a medicine and as a protection against witch-craft. Some famous
ash trees were the Tree of Uisnech, the Bough of Dathí, and the Tree of Tortu.
The French poet who used Breton sources, Marie de France (late 12th century), wrote a lai
about an ash tree. The Old Irish for ‘ash’ is nin; Irish, fuinseog;
Scots Gaelic, fuinnseann; Manx, unjin; Welsh, onnen; Cornish, onnen;
Breton, onnenn.
Apple
The pome fruit and tree of the apple
is celebrated in numerous functions in Celtic mythology, legend, and
folklore; it is an emblem of fruitfulness and sometimes a means to
immortality. Wands of druids were made from wood either of the yew or of the apple.
The Brythonic Avalon in Arthurian tradition in certain medieval narratives, attributing Welsh origin, is translated as
Insula Pomorum; ‘The Isle of Apples’. One gloss of the name for the magical Irish island Emain Ablach is ‘Emain of the Apples’. In the Ulster Cycle the soul of Cú Roí was confined in an apple that lay in the stomach of a salmon which appeared once every seven years. Cúchulainn once gained his escape by following the path of a rolled apple. An apple-tree grew from the grave of the tragic lover Ailinn. In the Irish tale Echtrae Conli (The Adventure of Connla), Connla the son of Conn is fed an apple by a fairy lover,
which sustains him with food and drink for a month without diminishing;
but it also makes him long for the woman and the beautiful country of
women to which his lover is enticing him.
In the Irish story from the Mythological Cycle, Oidheadh Chlainne Tuireann, the first task given the Children of Tuireann is to retrieve the Apples of the Hesperides (or Hisbernia).
Afallennau (Welsh, ‘apple trees’) is a 12th-century Welsh narrative poem dealing with Myrddin Wyllt. The Breton pseudosaint Konorin
was reborn by means of an apple.
The Old Irish word is uball, ubull;
Modern Irish. ubhal, úll; Scots Gaelic ubhall; Manx, ooyl; Welsh, afal;
Corn. aval; Bret. Aval.
Hazel
Both the wood and the edible nuts of the hazel
have played important roles in Irish and Welsh traditions. Hazel leaves
and nuts are found in early British burial mounds and shaft-wells,
especially at Ashill, Norfolk.
The place-name story for Fordruim, an early name for Tara, describes it
as a pleasant hazel wood. In the ogham alphabet of early Ireland, the
letter C was represented by hazel [OIr. coll]. According to Robert
Graves, it also represented the ninth month on the Old Irish calendar, 6
August to 2 September.
Initiate members of the Fianna had to defend themselves armed only with a hazel stick and a shield; yet in the Fenian
legends the hazel without leaves was thought evil, dripping poisonous
milk, and the home of vultures. Thought a fairy tree in both Ireland and
Wales, wood from the hazel was sacred to poets and was thus a taboo
fuel on any hearth.
Heralds carried hazel wands as badges of office.
Witches' wands are often made of hazel, as are divining rods, used to
find underground water. In Cornwall the hazel was used in the millpreve, the magical adder stones. In Wales a twig of hazel would be given to a rejected lover.
Even more esteemed than the hazel's wood were its nuts, often
described as the ‘nuts of wisdom’, e.g. esoteric or occult knowledge.
Hazels of wisdom grew at the heads of the seven chief rivers of Ireland,
and nine grew over both Connla's Well and the Well of Segais, the legendary common source of the Boyne and the Shannon. The nuts would fall into the water, causing bubbles of mystic inspiration to form, or were eaten by salmon.
The number of spots on a salmon's back were thought to indicate the
number of nuts it had consumed. The salmon of wisdom caught by Fionn mac Cumhaill had eaten hazel nuts. Very similar tales related by Taliessin
are retained in the Brythonic tradition. Traces of hazelnuts have been
found in a 'Celtic' style three-chained suspension bowl discovered in a
post-Roman burial dated to 650 CE in London.
The name of the Irish hero Mac Cuill means ‘son of the hazel’. W. B. Yeats thought the hazel was the common Irish form of the tree of life.
Old Irish and Modern Irish is coll; Scots Gaelic, calltunn, calltuinn;
Manx, coull; Welsh, collen; Cornish, collwedhen; Breton, kraoñklevezenn.
Alder
The alder,
a shrub or tree of the birch family has special implications in Celtic
tradition. The alder usually grows in wet ground, with small, pendulous
catkins. Alders are especially associated with Bran; at Cad Goddeu, ‘The Battle of the Trees’, Gwydion guessed Bran's name from the alder twigs in his hand. The answer to an old Taliesin
riddle ‘Why is the alder purple?’ is ‘Because Bran wore purple’. Bran's
alder may be a symbol of resurrection. The name for the boy Gwern, son of Matholwch and Branwen, means ‘alder’. The place-name Fernmag (ang. Farney) means ‘plain of the alder’
In Ireland the alder was regarded with awe apparently because when
cut the wood turns from white to red. At one time the felling of an
alder was punishable, and it is still avoided. The alder was thought to
have power of divination, especially in the diagnosing of diseases.
Alder or yew might be used in the fé, a rod for measuring corpses and graves in pre-Christian Ireland. The letter F, third consonant in the ogham
alphabet, was named after the alder. The Old Irish is fern;. Modern
Irish is fearnóg; Scots Gaelic, feàrna; Manx, farney; Welsh, gwernen;
Cornish, gwernen; Breton, gwernenn.
Elder
The elder, having clusters of white flowers and red or blackish berry-like fruit, has many associations with the fairy world in oral traditions of recent centuries in Celtic countries. On the Isle of Man, where elder grows abundantly and is called tramman, it is commonly thought of as the ‘ fairy tree’. In Ireland many individual elder trees were thought haunted by fairies or demons. Old Irish is tromm; Modern Irish is trom; Scots Gaelic, troman, droman; Welsh, ysgawen; Cornish, scawen; Breton, skavenn.
Yew
The evergreen yew
with dark green, needle-like leaves and red berries has commonly
symbolized immortality in the Indo-European imagination as it is the
longest-lived entity, often lasting more than 1,000 years, to be found
in the European environment. It is still commonly planted in Christian
churchyards and cemeteries. The druids preferred yew for wand-making over their other favourite woods, apple and oak.
The name of the Eburones,
a Gaulish people residing between the Main and Rhine, means ‘people of
the yew’, while several Irish and Scottish place-names allude to the
yew, notably Youghall [Eochaill, yew wood] in County Cork. The Irish personal name Eógan means ‘born of the yew’, so that the great Munster dynasty could be glossed as ‘people of the yew’.
According to the foundation story of Cashel, the Eóganacht capital, Corc mac Luigthig has a vision of a yew bush, with angels dancing over it, before settling on the site. One of Conchobar mac Nessa's residences at Emain Macha, Cráebruad, has nine rooms lined with red yew. Suibne Geilt in Buile Shuibhne (The Frenzy of Suibne) rests on yew trees during his flight. When Eógan and Lugaid mac Con are disputing they hear the magical music of the yew tree over a waterfall; the musician is revealed to be Fer Í (man of yew), the son of Eogabal.
Wielders of the spear Gáe Assail are sure to kill their victims if they utter the word “ibar” (yew) as they cast. The agnomen of Cáer, the swan maiden, is Ibormeith [yew berry]. In oral variants of the Deirdre story, King Conchobar mac Nessa
drives yew stakes through the hearts of the dead lovers, which later
grow and intertwine near a church.
Yet not all stories of the yew imply
power or vitality. A rod named fé, made of yew or alder, was used to measure corpses and graves. And Fergus, the hapless brother of Niall Noígiallach (of the Nine Hostages) in Echtra Mac nEchach Muigmedóin
(The Adventure of the Sons of Eochaid Mugmedón), signals his sterility
when he rescues from a burning forge only the ‘withered wood’ of yew,
which will not burn. Old Irish is ibar; Modern Irish, iúr; Scots Gaelic,
iubhar; Manx, euar; Welsh, ywen; Cornish, ewen; Breton, ivinenn.
So there we have it !! Getting to the roots of the matter... Cheers!!
-o0o-
