Have you ever stood with a solitary tree and felt your shared presence in the vastness of a windswept landscape? Or marvelled at the serpentine roots of a eucalypt that clings to a rock, with branches twisting skywards? Whenever you see grass forcing through a crack in the pavement, do you feel, in that small moment, connected by an exchange that underpins life?

Do you feel insignificant? A single node within a web of interdependence that exists on a galactic scale. Or do you allow yourself a small moment of inspiration, to let your imagination draw inspiration from the mythology and folklore of trees, like the hawthorn?

The Hawthorn: Feared and Revered in Irish Folklore and Myth

A solitary Hawthorn (also known as Whitethorn), or a wild clump of knotted bushes is a common sight across the Irish landscape. The Hawthorn is intertwined in many hedgerows and borders, partly because its thorny branches are well suited to containing livestock and keeping marauders out. The other reasons are much darker.

The hawthorn is long associated with ‘The Other Folk’, the Fae or the Faeries, or the Sidhe (pronounced as ‘Shee’). They are also the Leprechauns, mischievous tricksters that are best left to their own devices. They are said to live underground in fairy forts, or in an invisible world that co-exists with the world of humans, as a parallel universe. It was believed that they would convene at Hawthorn trees. Stories abound of passers-by who, tempted by ethereal, seductive music and hypnotic glowing lights, found themselves transported to other realms. Sometimes as guests. Often as prisoners.

The Hawthorn is a liminal space, a gateway between worlds

The veil that separates the ‘living’ and ‘spirit’ worlds thins at certain times of the year. This happens on 1 May for the Springtime festival of Bealtaine (bee-owl-tin-uh) in the Northern Hemisphere and at Samhain (Sow-win) on November 1, which is the first day of Winter. Samhain is the precursor to Halloween.

The Hawthorn and its resident spirits were treated especially cautiously at these times of the year but the wariness went beyond that. To damage or remove a lone Hawthorn, especially one growing within an ancient fort or a sacred site was a provocation that would bring bad luck to the instigator. Folk tales of violent ‘mishaps’ that befell the wielder of a disrespectful axe abound. Superstitions linger. Hawthorn is not ‘an inside plant’. To bring it into the home is to invite bad luck across the threshold.

The Hawthorn as protector, a symbol of birth and renewal

Hawthorns are also associated with fertility. The flowers have a musk-like scent and they are incredibly hardy. They are also associated with death and rebirth, perhaps because their flowering marks the start of Spring and they bear fruit in time for Halloween.

So they are a protector, a symbol of birth, death and renewal and a liminal space, where exchanges occur between the human and spirit worlds.

Irish poets have drawn inspiration from the Hawthorn

The poet Eavan Boland wrote of the Hawthorn as a threshold, on a journey from the suburban into the wilderness.

Under low skies, past splashes of coltsfoot,
I assumed
the hard shyness of Atlantic light
and the superstitious aura of hawthorn.

White Hawthorn In The West Of Ireland, Eavan Boland

Seamus Heaney, in his poem ‘Field of Vision’, celebrates his aging Aunt’s ability to take solace from the view of the landscape through her window. She looked deeply at the same vista every day and seemed to see something new in it every time. She looks ‘past the TV’, taking in the hawthorn, the livestock and the hills beyond.

Straight out past the TV in the corner,
The stunted, agitated hawthorn bush,
The same small calves with their backs to wind and rain,
The same acre of ragwort, the same mountain.

Field of Vision, Seamus Heaney

We have a mutual relationship with trees

Mutualism is a relationship between two organisms where both benefit, without harm. Examples of mutualistic relationships between trees and other organisms include:

• Epiphytes: plants that grow on trees. They do not harm the tree they grow on, and they may even benefit the tree by providing shade or by helping to break down nutrients in the air.
• Mycorrhizal fungi: these fungi form a relationship with the roots of trees, helping them to absorb water and nutrients from the soil. The tree provides the fungi with the sugars that they need.

Our lives and well-being depend on mutualism. Think of the countless tiny exchanges happening around you, as you read this. Feel grateful for them.

Mutualism / Comharaíocht, a drawing in Pen and Ink

This artwork is called ‘Mutualism / Comharaíocht’. Comharaíocht is the Irish word that means ‘mutualism’ or ‘reciprocity’ and is pronounced as ‘Co-ree-oct’. This drawing reflects themes such as;
Life and death: A gnarled but regal Hawthorn tree gives life to a youngling, a seedling.

• Resilience and hope: The ancient, knotted tree has the strength and ability to grow to an old age. It gifts life to the seedling that it offers to the world. It carries the story of its past and looks to the future of the seedling.
• Peaceful solitude: perhaps the Hawthorn is alone in the world, somehow separated from others of its kind. Maybe it grieves the release of the seedling into the wilderness. Or it is content, drawing strength from it’s deep roots.
• Mutualism: two organisms grow, one from the other, or in hte palm of the other. The lesser is protected by the greater. Both are mighty.

Related articles

If you enjoyed this work, you might enjoy more of my works featuring similar themes.

• The Other World is an artwork of blurred realities
• Cultivating Hope includes an example of the Ogham ‘tree alphabet’
• Mad King Sweeney explores surveillance capitalism and solitude
• A Walk in That Forest is another hawthorn-influenced artwork
• January Sketchbook see new art (including some ideas for this drawing) emerge in my sketchbook

Further reading on the folklore of the Hawthorn tree

Death, Sex, Superstition and Fear: The Hawthorn Tree in Ireland is an excellent and entertaining study of superstition and folklore by Dr Marrion McGarry. Dr McGarry is an art historian, author, independent researcher and lecturer at the Atlantic Technological University. Her writing is well researched, informative and engaging.

What do you see in this drawing?

The Hawthorn and seedling share a common visual element (it’s very subtle). Look for a shape defined by ‘negative space’ shared by both organisms. Enjoy a small moment of reward if you find it. Let me know if you can’t.