The Hawthorn Tree – Magic and Ritual
The hawthorn is one of the first plants to awaken in early spring. By late March, its leaves begin to unfurl from bare, spiky branches, creating a shimmering green haze along country lanes. Full leafing often waits until late April, but already the hedgerows are alive with birdsong. Small birds favour hawthorn for nesting—its dense, thorny tangle offers a natural fortress from predators, creating noisy, bustling sanctuaries.
Plants that weave their way into daily life often gather the most folklore, becoming layered with myths, meanings, and contradictory tales. The hawthorn, native to many regions, is no exception. It carries a rich and paradoxical folk history—at once a symbol of love and death, beauty and danger.
A Tree of Contradictions
At the heart of hawthorn lore lies its dual nature. Come May, its branches burst into frothy white blossoms—sweetly scented, yet laced with triethylamine, a chemical linked to both sexual arousal and the stench of decay. Soft petals and sharp thorns; attraction and repulsion. These contrasts are the perfect canvas for mythology.
Fear, Death, and the Fair Folk
In Celtic tradition, hawthorn trees are deeply associated with fairies—not the gentle sprites of modern tales, but capricious, often dangerous spirits. Sleeping beneath a hawthorn could lead to being spirited away to the underworld. The reasons are many: perhaps because hawthorn trees often move without wind, said to be a sign of fairy presence, or maybe just the all-too-memorable pain of stumbling into their thorns on a dark path.
Fairies in these traditions are not to be trifled with. They are unpredictable and must be appeased. Illnesses, vanished people, failed crops, and dead livestock were often blamed on their wrath. To avoid offending them, offerings of food and water were left outside homes, and their name was rarely spoken. Instead, hawthorns were called “lonely trees” or “gentle trees”—euphemisms for “fairy trees.”
Felling a lone hawthorn, especially one standing alone in a field, was said to bring death. Many such trees still stand, gnarled and wind-swept, spared during land enclosures and field reordering—likely due to lingering superstition. Sadly, this respect did not extend to the vast miles of hawthorn hedgerows that were destroyed in the last century.
The association with death deepens through the hawthorn’s scent. Triethylamine, the compound that lures flies to pollinate the flowers, is also one of the first emitted by decaying flesh. In a time before refrigeration and modern embalming, people would have recognized the smell immediately.
During the Great Plague of 1665, hawthorn’s bloom—coinciding with a spike in death tolls—cemented its morbid symbolism. As the elite fled a plague-ridden London, passing heaps of corpses and breathing in that cloying scent through carriage windows, the association stuck. From this point forward, bringing hawthorn blossoms indoors became a strict taboo in English folk tradition. In a time when fragrant herbs like rosemary were thought to ward off disease, hawthorn’s scent was considered a threat.
Love, Fertility, and Spring
Yet the hawthorn is not only a harbinger of death—it is also a tree of hope, romance, and renewal. For those not repelled by the scent, hawthorn blossoms have long symbolized fertility and love. In ancient Greece, the tree was sacred to Hymen, the god of marriage, with hawthorn torches lighting wedding altars as early as the 5th century BCE.
This symbolism endured. In medieval Europe, hawthorn was considered a tree of joy, new beginnings, and romantic union. Blossoming in May, it inspired the naming of many ships “Mayflower”—a nod to optimism and abundance. In 17th-century London alone, there were 26 vessels by that name when the most famous Mayflower carried the Pilgrims to America.
Traditionally, branches of hawthorn were hung above doorways to bring fertility and ward off evil. Young women would wear flower crowns to attract lovers. Original maypoles—once crafted from hawthorn—were central to May Day festivities, entwined with ribbons and flowers in fertility rites celebrating the union of masculine and feminine energies. The explicit symbolism of these dances led the Puritan government to ban May Day celebrations in 1644.
Before the Gregorian calendar reform in 1752, May Day occurred later in the year, aligning more closely with the hawthorn’s natural bloom. When 13 days were added to the calendar, the date changed—but the trees did not adjust. Thus, older texts speak of hawthorn flowering right on May Day, a timing that now comes too early in most parts of the UK.
Offerings and Modern Rituals
From fairy folklore to contemporary Neo-Paganism, one tradition endures: tying fabric strips to the hawthorn’s thorns. In Celtic practice, these “clooties” were offerings—tokens requesting healing or change, left to decay naturally as the ailment faded. Today, many continue this ritual on May Day or during Beltane. Ribbons, often colour-coded and inscribed with wishes or intentions, are tied to trees or maypoles and left fluttering in the breeze.
If you’re inspired to join this tradition, choose natural fibers—cotton, wool, or linen—so your offering returns gently to the earth.