Just wondering if anyone could give me more information on "Fairy trees".
In Ireland we refer to a hawthorn tree that stands alone in a field as a “Fairy tree”. It was considered bad luck to cut them down. Nowadays we are less an agricultural society, so land is valued in terms of sites and building potential, many of these trees are cut.
There is a “Fairy tree” at Tara Hill, Co Meath. It is considered sacred and on occasion ribbons, charms, coins and even crystals (not many) are placed on the tree. These offerings are meant to bring good fortune. But I am not sure who the offering is for?

This type of treatment happens at trees near “holy” wells too.

Anyway I was wondering if similar traditions occur in your area?
Also does anyone know the true history of these trees and the offerings?
I would really love to find out more.

I too would love to find out more, I would really like to visit one and get some pictures,.....

There's a ton of mythology surrounding hawthorns - a lot of it can be found here, on English Plants . I'm not sure anyone knows the 'true' reason behind fairy trees being known as such. One reason I've heard suggested is that an old hawthorn (and those trees can live a very long time) when split reveals hundreds of little holes and 'passageways' in the wood, ideal roads and paths for fairies. As to the offerings, I'm guessing it was at least in part because fairies were not seen to be the benevolent, twinkly-toed little gossamer creatures that we see a lot of pictures of today. Fairies were often malevolent tricksters, prone to plaguing those who did not leave offerings for them or who insulted them in some way by switching their children for 'changelings', harassing their cattle so that their milk dried up, racing their plough-horses through the night and exhausting them and many other unpleasant tricks.

The importance of a local fairy tree was so great that rival tribes were known to ride into 'enemy' territory and cut down a fairy tree standing on their land either as a challenge or a response to a threat or insult.

There is a book called "TREE WISDOM the definative guide" by Jacqueline Memory Paterson. ISBN 0-7225-3408-6 £ 12.99 rrp
check out the web site
www.thorsonselements.com

Hope this was of help

RS

thanks for that Ragged-Staff shall have to see if I can borrow or buy it off ebay .... sounds very interesting tho

one thought is also that fey werent seen as twee victorian fluttery things but big vengefull buggers if you upset them , which is why an irish motorway was moved a hundred yards as no one would cut down one of those trees, some exist in most countries under different names, some have folklore all of their own, some are special trees for an area considered to be where strange and miraculous happenings occur, others can be quite intimidating at times it depends on the spirit of the tree and what protects them, some trees mark gateways between worlds and can be considered special for that reason , today there are less of them but they exist theere are well known ones but the majority just look like any other tree in a wood. an offering could be left as a sign of respect for the tree and the fey , for safe passage through a wood or to propitiate to the spirits.

hmmm funny, I was listening to the Tomorrow People t'other day and they had a pub called The Fairy Tree and the 'fairies' concerned were definatly not the little fluttery types

Hi, I beleive Hawthorns are regularly referred too as being associated with Sidhe and such, certainly they are nearly always growing near Ancient Sites in Cornwall!
Especially at Holy Wells & Springs! In Cornwall these trees are often decorated with 'Clouties', these are usually a piece of bio degradable cloth hung on the tree, the idea is that as the cloth dissolves so does the illness associated with it!
Unfortunatelly it does have a down side! Tourists often visit the best known sites, come across these cloth covered trees and decide to add their own offering, often this will be a crisp packet or occassionally a used dog poo bag!
Not so nice!
Thankfully these sites are cleared annually now and all the unacceptable items are removed!

As far as I recall, I think where oak, ash and hawthron grow together, is supposed to be special to the faeries.

The Glastonbury thorn stands alone in a field, I wonder if the legends which surround it have more to do with local tradition than Xianity.

Hi Patricia, Hawthorn and Elder are "fairy" trees, in that they are associated with strong plant spirits and, well, you climb a wild place and what kind of tree do you find eking out a tough existence where other trees have gone kaput? Those are the kind of trees you find with particularly strong virtue.
There are a set of 9 trees including oak, ash, (black)thorn, described in "The White Goddess" by Robert Graves.
The tying of a ribbon or cloutie to a tree was originally done to pass an illness or problem into the cloth and then tie to the tree to disperse.
Coins I think originally were a symbolic offering of a head to a well (in place of a real head/sacrifice). People place them at trees by misunderstanding (imo) but whatever floats yer boat.

Regards, Peter

I've been searching for a Photo-Essay an internet acquaintance made of Holy Wells in Ireland. Sorry, I couldn't find it. There were masses of ribbons and brightly coloured strips of cloth attached to the trees (usually hawthorns) beside the holy wells. You might like to have a look on Flickr. There are a few Pagan Groups there. If you join one and ask for Well pictures, you will be delighted, I'm sure.

You might want to look up Well-dressing in the Peak District. It's the Xianised version of Pagan practices.

As an Irishman living in England, I still venerate Hawthorns. I was shocked when I heard a witchy friend describing eating the hawthorn buds as bread-and-cheese. I still haven't brought myself to taste them. And you should not cut a bough from a Hawthorn other than on Bealtaine.

I am surprised at your shock Fred In The Green. Presumably, following the same logic, you would also eschew the consumption of Elderberries (as wine or medicine) Elderflowers, and mead too?

And the notion of tying rags on trees etc is not only hideous; it is about as "Pagan" as Uncle Kev's red dressing gown.

The practice may stem from a memory of the things our truly Pagan ancestors hung on trees - namely blood sacrifices.

*points at self*

Also Irish (as in from the Isle of) but wouldnt have a problem eating them. Would NEVER dig one up... would rather cut off my own arm, would never harm one, but eating its "fruit" not a problem. Respect is the important thing.

No, not at all. Hawthorn is the Fairy Tree, and eating the "bread-and-cheese" is not only sacriligious, but also dangerous. Elder trees I'm familiar with - and I have two in my garden. As well as a few Hazel trees and one or two Hawthorns. But the Elder tree is a medicine tree, from my point of view - hence the elderflowers and elderberries. Eating buds (any buds) is just plain wrong to my way of thinking. Don't let me stop you, but don't wait for me to do it. The nervousness with which people view the Elder is down to people using the stuff as firewood from times before chimneys, when the smoke just percolated through the thatch. Elder smoke contains cyanide and is liable to kill you if it's in an enclosed space.

And why would I not drink mead? I don't get that one. You'll have to explain it.



Hmmm. Have you ever seen it? It's stunningly pretty. The wells in my friends photo-essay had dozens - maybe hundreds - of tiny strips of cloth of all different colours tied by dozens of votaries. It's not like seeing a plastic bag caught in a tree. It's really something quite magical.



Maybe, maybe not. I'd say that was jumping to conclusions. It's more like a Tibetan Prayer Flag. It's a visible and tangible evidence of your prayer, and its fluttering in the breeze is as if the strip of fabric is signalling for the prayer to be answered. These are not large trees with tree-trunks. They are shrub-like trees, like very large bushes with many many small twigs and thorns. You would be hard put to hang anything bigger than a rat from one of these - if that was what you wanted.

Um...Im not sure where you get the dangerous bit from. Hawthorn has been eaten for years.



And..



Clearly not sacriligious. Cutting it down.. yes... eating from it... Not as far as I can gather.

And you a Belfastian!

All those sources are English!

If it's sacriligious to me, and I say so, do you contradict me?
Fair enough, it's not sacriligious to you.
It's dangerous because the good folk will not take it kindly. But they seem to be more subdued and apathetic in most parts of England.

Belfastian!

No I totally respect that it is sacriligious to you, really, and I should have made that clearer.

Doesnt matter if they are English sites or not! Theres a lot of good sassenach sites out there!

Again, regarding the eating of the "fruits" of the tree.. I cant recal ever being warned regarding not eating from the tree. I was told to respect it, adn I was told never, ever, ever dig one up.. but to me.. eating from the tree is respecting it. I suppose its one of those things, we agree in principal, just not in the detail.