The way they burnt steadily together or flying apart, foretold the course of their relationship in the coming year. Until quite recently young lovers roasted hazel-nuts over fires at Hallowe’en, which was also known as ‘Nut-crack Night’.
Druidic wands were made from the wood, and it has always been the preferred wood for water divining and dowsing. In the north of England, the hazel-tree guardian was called ‘Melsh Dick’ and in Yorkshire ‘Chum-milk Peg’ ancient protectors of the unripe nuts.Īs might be expected from their legendary reputation for bestowing prophetic powers, hazels have been used for divination throughout the centuries. Till up started the Hynde Etin, Says Lady, let thae alone She had na p’ud a nut, a nut, A nut but barely ane,
The May Margret goes to the wood for nuts, and unwisely gathers his nuts: In the Scots ballad, Hind Etin, the title is the name of a spirit who guards the hazels of a sacred tree. In legend and folklore, the hazel, along with the apple and hawthorn, is a tree often found at the border between the worlds where magical things may happen. Moreover archaeologists have found an early Celtic shaft-well in Norfolk, England which contains offerings of alms, placed in layers and embedded in hazel leaves and nuts. The hazel’s connection with the Well of Wisdom is visibly recalled by the tree’s frequent presence at holy wells throughout Britain and Ireland, where pilgrims still continue to festoon its branches with votive offerings in the form of pieces of cloth. Joseph of Arimathea built the original abbey of Glastonbury from hurdles of hazel branches. In Scotland, a hazel grove was calltuin, (modern Scots Gaelic calltainn) and various places called Calton are associated with entrances to the Otherworld, one being the famous Calton Hill between Leith and Edinburgh, which was probably still being used for magical gatherings in the 17th century. Tara, the chief seat of the kingship in Ireland was built near a hazel wood, and the great monastery of Clonord was established in what must once have been a sacred pagan place known as The Wood of the White Hazel: Ross-FinnchuilI.
In Ireland, hazel is coll, and the early triad of gods of the Tuatha Dé Danaan, MacCuill, (son of HazeI), MacCecht (Son of the Plough) and MacGréine (Son of the Sun) supposedly divided the island into three so that the country was said to be under the plough, the sun or the hazel, for ‘these were the things they put above all other’. Hazel woods frequently figure in the sacred landscape. As to this theory, there are numerous references to drinking ‘hazelmead’ in early Irish literature and many references to Scottish druids eating hazel-nuts to gain prophetic powers.
#HAZEL TREE HOW TO#
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