Protection, witchcraft, red berries, and the folklore of an ordinary tree
The rowan trees on my street are weighed down with berries right now.
They are hard to miss. Heavy clusters of orange-red fruit hang among long, feathered leaves, changing colors as summer fades into autumn. These tress spend most of the year blending in to the thick tangle of woods, but their fall display makes them the center of attention.
Maybe that’s fitting for a tree connected with centuries of history, folklore and legend.
Rowan (Sorbus aucuparia), sometimes called mountain ash, is native across cooler parts of the Northern Hemisphere and is particularly associated with northern and western Britain. But despite the name, it isn't a true ash. It produces clusters of small cream-colored flowers every spring, followed by the scarlet berries in the fall.
Those berries are important to wildlife, especially birds and bugs. Rowan flowers are a source of pollen and nectar for insects, and several moth species live in the foliage. In the fall, blackbirds, thrushes, fieldfares and waxwings perform various acrobatics to pluck the large berries from the hanging clumps.
And throughout history, human’s relationship, use and understanding of the tree has grown. Like the Hawthorne, believed to be the threshold to the fairy realm, Rowan has been known as a tree of charms, spirits, witches and protection.
The Protective Rowan
Rowan accumulated particularly strong protective associations in the folklore of Britain and Ireland.
Trees were planted near houses in Ireland as protection against spirits. Rowan appeared in Welsh churchyards, while in Scotland cutting down a rowan could itself be considered taboo. Sprigs were hung above doors and stables to keep harmful spirits away, and rowan wood found its way into protective charms and divining rods. This practice was so common, mature Rowans can help identify long abandoned home sites, wells, and livestock enclosures.
It carried a longstanding and contradictory connection to beliefs around witchcraft.
Rowan became associated with magic and witches, but was also used as protection against witchcraft and enchantment. One English folk name is witchwood, while the Woodland Trust records the old name fid na ndruad, translated as “wizard's tree.”
Like many of the plants in the Studio Henbane world, the rowan tree historically rests in both the supernatural world while simultaneously guarding the boundary against it.
A tree at the threshold.
Red Berries and Old Magic
The rowan’s unique fruit might help explain some of that reputation.
The color red itself carried protective significance in British folk tradition, and the rowan's bunches of brilliant scarlet berries made the tree a natural candidate for protective symbolism. The Woodland Trust connects this belief directly with customs such as planting rowan near the threshold of homes, wells and barns, and hanging its branches around doors and stables.
When we read about history, archeology and folklore in books and research, its easy to think about it in abstract terms. We read about protective plants, old charms and plants associated with service magicians, cunningfolk and healers as though they belong to a distant landscape populated by people fundamentally different from ourselves.
And then you walk outside and find those same trees and plants thriving. Continuing the seasonal cycles our ancestors observed and relied on centuries ago.
From Landscape to Workbench
This relationship between the natural world, seasonal cycles, and our understanding of them is something I return to repeatedly in my work.
I am fascinated by the way the natural materials around us accumulate meaning. A unique stone becomes a talisman. A shell becomes currency or adornment. A plant becomes medicine, poison, food or cordage. Metals are extracted from stone and become ornaments and tools.
Historically, talismans and protective items from the natural world provided a sense of continuity, community, and security in an environment that must have been a source of frequent hardship. The rowan tree became a symbol of home and family protection in a time when life was frequently at risk from forces that weren't fully understood; weather, violence, natural disasters, famine.
Rowan has already found its way into Studio Henbane.
The Rowan earrings from the Nocturne Collection draw from the darker botanical vocabulary I've been developing in that body of work: etched copper, shadowed surfaces, natural forms and the suggestion of something old without reproducing a particular historical object.
They belong to the larger Nocturne Collection, where copper, dark stones, botanical forms and iridescent beadwork come together in pieces inspired by the landscape after the light begins to disappear.
Explore the Nocturne Collection →
The Nocturne Collection bridges older visual and symbolic vocabulary through contemporary design: protection, thresholds, plants, darkness, metal and symbols of protection.
Into the Darker Season
We are in the final days of September, and the forest is exploding into a burst of rich color.
The berries are red. The evenings are arriving earlier. Seed pods, dried by the sun, are going to seed, leaves are beginning to change, and the studio is moving toward the part of the year when I inevitably find myself returning to the stories from the time when the moon was the only light.
As we step into October, Studio Henbane will be exploring the plants of the Poison Garden, and the history and symbolism of Samhain, through jewelry, hand-pulled prints, and modern relics.
I've been digging through stories of protective plants, old symbols, accusations of witchcraft, seasonal practices, mythical creatures and the objects people once carried or placed around their homes to protect themselves from the unseen.
Some pieces are finished, some are on the workbench, others are still scribbled in notebooks.
More from the Samhain Collection is coming to Studio Henbane throughout October.
Explore the Nocturne Collection →
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Further Reading
Woodland Trust. “British Trees: Folklore and Mythology.” 2021 Woodland Trust: British Trees, Folklore and Mythology
Thomas A. Vickery's A Dictionary of Plant-Lore (Oxford University Press, 1995)
Richard Mabey's Flora Britannica (1996)
William Milliken and Sam Bridgewater's Flora Celtica
Plants and People in Scotland (Birlinn, 2004)
Tess Darwin's The Scots Herbal: The Plant Lore of Scotland (Mercat Press, 1996)
