Queen of the May

Hawthorn, Whitethorn & Thornapple

Long-thorned hawthorn, Crataegus succulenta, May 8, 2015

In times gone, and maybe still in places where they pay attention, they call this one Queen of the May, under the protection of the faeries.

Hawthorn holds more charisma in one wild, crooked branch than does the whole hillside of uniform apple cultivars. Of all the hawthorn varieties at the arboretum, she was the only one blooming as early as the crabapples, five-petalled flowers and stamens flaming white against deep green leaves and piercing thorns.

She, my Bealtaine fire.

Hawthorn’s fragrance once upon a time deemed deathly,¹ with a scent equal parts narcotic sweetness and fermenting flesh. Despite or because of this, her branches hum with small, darting wild bees and honeybees and syrphid flies, all dizzy with nectar amid glowing clusters of flowers and thorns.

This complex, heady fragrance reflects the intensely mortal beauty of May, that tender Luna Moth of summer. Where does the scent dwell, in the bloom? Or in the senses of she who inhales it?

Hawthorn holds the power of duality. Beauty and death. Seductive sweetness amid sharp thorns both dangerous and protective. Medicine and flesh wounds.

Now a twisting glamour cast upon me and the bees by these densely branching boughs, arrayed in finest green and white like a glittering Faerie Queen.

Sacred in ancient Brehon law, hawthorn lives in two worlds at once: the mortal world of living and dying, and the immortal world of myth and story. She marks a threshold to the Otherworld, as does the cross-quarter day Bealtaine, when the tree traditionally flowered in Celtic lands.

In the Old World, they told this tale of hawthorn:

On your life, do not cut down the sacred tree.

Take care not to interfere with the lone bush growing in the open, for a temper dwells within this tree.

Ask permission before gathering her flowers. Always leave an offering in return.

Hang the May boughs over doors and windows for protection from witches and Unseelie spirits.

Do not bring the blossoms inside! For ill luck or death may follow.²

I have a witch sister who once planted a hawthorn outside her window. She was put off by the flowers’ sweet-decomposing scent, and later removed the tree.

Did she ask permission, I wonder? Hawthorns seem unusually testy….

American Robin nesting in hawthorn, May 28, 2017

See now the small soft-feathered mother, American Robin, who has made her nest amid a bower of hawthorn’s protective thorns; where the flowers will soon flutter to the ground and the tree will set fruit, growing red haws beloved of thrushes and waxwings.

In the way of kinship, songbirds and other animals eat these fruits, then plant their seeds without even knowing that they do, so that more hawthorns can protect more songbirds.

In the way of life and death, Loggerhead Shrike, the songbird who behaves like a raptor, also prefers to nest in hawthorns — the better to impale his prey upon the tree’s long spines.

Especially formidable species grow thorns branching from thorns, spines poking from their trunks. Wise animals know to back through hawthorn thickets.

Hawthorn cultivar, May 28, 2017

Hawthorn, of the genus Crataegus, lives in the family Rosaceae, cousin to rose, apple, juneberry, plum, cherry, rowan: Rosa, Malus, Amelanchier, Prunus, Sorbus.

In the Northern Hemisphere, many thousands of years of lore and legend about hawthorns grew up like wild hedgerows. About their gloriously witchy branches hovers a magical aura of folk tales, few of which seem to belong to North America and its 150 species of native hawthorns.³

Years ago in Ireland I photographed sheep grazing under whitethorns in the Wicklow Mountains. The tree grew scattered or in hedges along roadsides, open-grown canopies in full flower nearly touching the ground. Lines of wind-scoured shapes divided fields, silhouetted against the sky. Sometimes, what the Irish call “the lone bush” was the only visible tree, aside from pine plantations. Thus these small, shrubby, tough trees featured prominently on the land, and larger than life in the imagination.

Indigenous people of North America and other places have long been in relationship with Crataegus. Where I live, the Dakota people’s name for hawthorn is thaspáŋhu, very close to the name for apple (thaspáŋ), recognizing their kinship.⁴ Traditional peoples used extracts from hawthorn berries, leaves and flowers as beneficial to the heart, as well as for food in many forms. The long, strong thorns were useful as awls that effortlessly pierce hides and leather.

The Anishinaabe people of Northern Minnesota and Canada have a legend that porcupine got his sharp quills from hawthorn, which the hero-trickster Nanabozho first stuck to porcupine’s back with mud (much to the dismay of hunting bears and wolves).

Thorns

As a tree both useful and beautiful, this species must have been valued by European settlers and farmers, who named it thornapple and quickthorn. They planted these shrubby trees as hedges in farm fields and made jellies, teas and liqueurs from their haws.

Now wild hawthorns are relatively uncommon in Minnesota, found mostly in abandoned farmsteads, rural parks, brushy ravines and woodland edges. Nor are native hawthorns often planted, neither their broad-branching forms nor their thorny habits lending themselves to living in the close domestic quarters of cities and suburbs.

As hawthorn’s presence on the land has declined, its niches diminished, it seems to have become ever more invisible to our eyes and irrelevant to our lives — as with so many native plants with whom we have lost a cultural and personal relationship.

Yet, hawthorns persist, and though we cannot change our culture, what we can do is learn about the lands where we live. We can begin to create our own relationships with the plants of our homelands.

How might we go about this? We could discover their stories, learn how to identify them, observe their ways. We could plant them where we live, or ask permission to forage some of their fruits, offering water in return. We could thank them for all the lives they support, care for them, let them inspire our creations.

We could simply sit with them, and extend our awareness to sense the sacred spirits that inspired such stories.

These seem to be the same ways in which we mend or deepen relationships with any of our kin.

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In the book of holy days, now thrum the first hours of summer, beginning with the great pagan fire festival of Bealtaine.  

The first of May brings changeable skies with a strong south wind that has blown in the earliest warblers, who nibble at tender linden buds.

In my garden, wild Mayapple begins to unfurl tall, shining umbrellas, Virginia bluebells nod, golden wood poppies burst and Amelanchier petals drift.

In the wildlands, the calls of red-winged blackbirds ring through the cattails, claiming each moment of this fast-slipping life for their own.

On the cross-quarter day, I will seek out the hawthorns I know, and breathe in their life-death fragrance, and sing to them a song of rain and sun, of thornapple and whitethorn, of the May Tree, so long feared and revered.

Bright may your fire burn.

Carmine

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1. “Crataegus monogyna / Sceach gheal / Whitethorn. [Represented by] The Ogham letter H, Uath. An important field hedge. Lone bushes are treated with superstitious respect. Often associated with holy wells. Because of their deathly scent the flowers were not brought into the house.” Hawthorn identification signage at Brú na Bóinne Visitor Centre, County Meath, Ireland.

2. “A widespread belief in Ireland, and elsewhere, was that hawthorn blossom was unlucky. A recent survey carried out by the Folklore Society in Britain found that hawthorn flowers were considered to be the most unlucky of plants, with death resulting if brought into a house. Recently it has been shown that a chemical present in the early stages of tissue decay is found in hawthorn blossoms, so perhaps an association with the smell of death is the cause.” Irish Trees: Myths, Legends & Folklore by Niall Mac Coitir ©2003. 

3. The ten Minnesota species include: Douglas hawthorn (Crataegus douglasii); Downy hawthorn (Crataegus mollis); Eastern hawthorn (Crataegus macrosperma); Fireberry hawthorn (Crataegus chrysocarpa); Great Plains hawthorn (Crataegus sheridana); Large-thorned hawthorn (Crataegus succulenta); Late hawthorn (Crataegus calpodendron); Quebec hawthorn (Crataegus submollis); Red haw (Crataegus chrysocarpa); White haw (Crataegus punctata). Trees and Shrubs of Minnesota by Welby R. Smith ©2008.

4. Translation from Dakhód Iápi Wičhóie Wówapi, the Dakota language app.