IT is strange to think that, for centuries, something so seemingly ordinary and so apparently inanimate as a tree could captivate people across the world and embody the hopes and fears of diverse cultures. Yet that is precisely what has happened with the humble rowan, a tree so steeped in folklore and legend that it is hard to think of it as simply a thing of Nature. From driving back witches to saving gods from certain death, it has been no mere plant, but a symbol of safety and agent of protection.
Across the British Isles, the rowan's association with magic is as old as our most ancient legends. The old Celtic name for it, fid nandruad, means 'the wizard's tree' and one of its common English names is 'witchwood', a link that probably derives from its fruit. Every autumn, rowans produce clusters of gleaming scarlet berries, redder and more vibrant than a maiden's blushing cheeks. Each one bears a pentagram. In folklore, these five-pointed stars were believed to ward off evil. Traditionally, red was considered the colour best suited to repelling witches and the pentagram, a magic sigil, offered security to honest folk-perhaps the rowan was always intended for more than fruit for birds and beasts or lining supermarket car parks and golf courses.
People certainly believed that in medieval Ireland, where the trees were planted outside houses to protect against evil spirits; their flair for repelling the supernatural is also why they were grown in or near churchyards, particularly in Wales. In Scotland, rowans thrive in the wilds of the Highlands, often at altitudes too great for other British trees. Emerging from clefts in rocky hillsides, they acquired the name 'mountain ash' on account of their habitat and a similarity of leaf structure between the two trees, although the ash is, in fact, a different and unrelated species.
This story is from the {{IssueName}} edition of {{MagazineName}}.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the {{IssueName}} edition of {{MagazineName}}.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
