Teachings of the Hawthorn (Crataegus)

Heart of the Hedgerow, Unconditional Love, the Nurturing Mother

A guide to the magic, medicine and mystery of Hawthorn Crataegus, the May Tree. Also known as the faerie tree, hawthorn enchants the countryside with its profuse boughs laden with white and blush spring blossom, which give way to blood red berries in autumn. No taller than a pear tree, with branches that spray, drape and hang, terminating in small oaken leaves, hawthorn is underslung, gnarled and unruly – and enduring feature of the landscape.

In the Northern Hemisphere, hawthorn stands sentinel at the thresholds between spring and summer, and autumn and winter. Fiercely protective and wildly generous to creatures of the countryside, hawthorn is a guardian of many realms, and the Otherworld.

For thousands of years, it has been honoured as a faerie portal, central to Beltane rites of fertility and love, for its gifts of life, health and regenerative strength. Its romantic image and presence fuse the English landscape in the cultural imagination, interweaving stories and healing remedies with cultural memory, and seasonal rites and folklore.

The tree is revered by herbalists as a powerful healing tonic for the heart, improving circulation, reducing blood pressure and strengthening the heart muscle.

Hawthorn is a powerful tree of nourishment, healing, protection and enchantment in equal measure. Its spirit may serve as an initiatory guide through the mystical realm of magic and inner transformation, guiding you safely you across boundaries to a place of deeper love, compassion and connection with kin and community; a bridge between the mind and heart. Hawthorn teaches those who wish to access wisdom of love and resilience, resourcefulness, abundance and nurture.

If the oak is the protective father, the hawthorn is the nurturing mother. If you look closely at the hawthorn leaf, you'll notice it resembles a smaller version of the oak leaf’s deeply lobed appearance.

Botanical Snapshot

Latin Name: Crataegus monogyna, Crataegus laevigata
Common Names: Hawthorn Tree, May Tree, Faerie Tree
Family: Rosaceae
Growth Habit: Deciduous, dense, thorny tree or shrub
Habitat: Hedgerows, woodland, and scrub
Flowering Season: May
Pollinators: Supports hundreds of species. A nectar source for bees, flies, and beetles; food plant for moth caterpillars; flowers favoured by dormice.

Ecology Notes

Hawthorn is a deciduous, thorny shrub or small tree with smooth grey bark. It typically reaches heights of 15 to 50 feet. Hawthorn is a dwarf in stature compared to the oak, but in all other aspects, just as monumental. A cornerstone of the hedgerows, hawthorn has long been used to mark field boundaries and contain livestock, to provide shelter and give structure to the countryside.

A crucial habitat for many creatures, it's dense branches house nesting blackbirds, thrushes, and bullfinches; its trunk shelters creatures like wood mice and slow worms. The flowers provide nectar for bees, hoverflies, beetles, and eggar moths. Birds like thrushes and waxwings feast on the autumn berries and spread the seeds in their droppings.

Hawthorn is such an important tree in the ecology of the British countryside, that should this tree disappear due to disease or climate change, it's believed that a devastating collapse of biodiversity would follow, affecting fifty percent of wildlife.

It blossoms profusely in May, bursting into boughs of white florets with blush pink flowers. You just need to tap the branches to make it rain down its petals. The spring thorns are first soft and supple, but become harder and sharper as the season progresses. It’s best to forage hawthorn tops early in May when there are still buds on the florets.

The leaves are lobed and oaky and turn yellow, before dropping. Hawthorn berries (haws), ripen to a deep, wine-red colour in the autumn.

To cut a haw in half reveals a five-pointed star. This star-shaped core indicates hawthorn is in the Malinae (apple) tribe of the rose family. Its five-petalled bloom also hint at its lineage in the family Rosaceae. With fibrous roots and hardy growth, hawthorn is extraordinarily resilient. It's able to thrive in poor soils and grow in on hills and in places exposed to strong wind, making it a prolific presence in the landscape.

Folklore, Myth & Imagination

Hawthorn is steeped in myth, magic and memory. In the British Isles, especially in Ireland, it’s a sacred tree ingrained in the Celtic lore of Beltane, May Day and Faerie folklore.

It’s blossom in May is celebrated as a herald of summer, and the arrival of animus viridis, the green spirit of nature's fertility. The blossom has long been associated with love, fertility and the marrying maiden. The Ancient Greeks adorned altars with hawthorn for the god of marriage, Hymenaios, and used it in wedding processions. In rural Britain, it was said:

A fair maid who, the first of May
Goes to the fields at break of day
And washes in dew from the hawthorn tree
Will ever after handsome be

Christianity & Superstition in the Middle Ages

Hawthorn has also borne the weight of caution. It was considered bad luck to bring its flowers indoors except during Beltane, due to its association with death and decay. The musky, slightly carrion-like scent of its blossoms contains trimethylamine, a compound present in decaying tissue, which likely contributed to beliefs it should be kept out of the house! These superstitious beliefs only grew darker and weirder...

In the Middle Ages, as Christianity spread, hawthorn's association with pagan nature worship gave the tree a more sinister and even diabolical image. The lone hawthorn on a footpath, for example, became a feared presence that local people would deliberately avoid; afraid to pass it on foot, and afraid to cut it down, lest they disturb the menacing faerie spirits who reside there. Yet to cunning folk and healers, hawthorn was a source of medicine, wisdom and protection.

Hawthorn as Forest Food

Hawthorn berries, flowers and leaves are all edible, if under-appreciated. The tender spring leaves and buds, known as ‘bread and cheese’, offer a source of substantial micronutrients which you can mix into salads, soups or herbal infusions. The ripe berries can be used to make sweet or savoury jelly, syrup, sauce and homemade wine.

Hawthorn foliage is best eaten in spring when the leaves are still young; they become tougher throughout summer and autumn, but still make good herbal tea.

Medicine & Remedies

Hawthorn is one of the most valued and trusted herbal medicines for heart health. It’s also a potent botanical for skin, with anti-aging, hydrating, and anti-inflammatory (calming) effects. Hawthorn pairs especially well with its cousins rose, apple blossom and also soothing greens, such as plantain and mint. It should be used in topical balms, oils and creams for the hands and face, and in tinctures and teas to support a healthy heart and clear complexion.

Hawthorn can be infused in alcohol, oil and hot water to extract its therapeutic compounds.

Herbal Actions

Cardiac tonic, calmative, mood balancing, anti-inflammatory, astringent, antimicrobial, antioxidant

Phytochemicals

Flavonoids, tannins, oligomeric proanthocyanidins (OPCs), phenolic acids

Nutrients

Vitamin C, fibre, pectin, organic acids, carbohydrates, micronutrients

Safety considerations

Hawthorn is generally safe, but it lowers blood pressure and can interact with cardiac medications (e.g. digoxin), blood thinners, and blood pressure medications. Consult a medical herbalist and a doctor about taking hawthorn regularly alongside medication.

Qualia & Sensory Experience of Hawthorn

Hawthorn is a fountain of life. Encountering hawthorn in spring is like meeting a surrogate mother, home and sanctuary to many creatures. With its willowy branches weighed down by great boughs of leaves and blossom, perhaps more than any other blossoming tree, hawthorn gives out so much goodness.

The scent is almondy, musty, and slightly sickly, not fresh and fragrant like elderflower or rose. The scent is associated with death, yet to say hawthorn smells like decay is way out: the aroma is not unpleasant or intolerable, like the corpse flower (Titan Arum), for example, it’s just not an especially pretty floral.

There’s nothing posh or noble about hawthorn. Shaggy, loose and wild, hawthorn messily spills over neighbouring shrubs and walls. This isn't an ornamental tree, there to be admired. Hawthorn's beauty is untamed and her value is vital ecology. In the landscape, she’s strong, reliable and enduring: solving problems that no one else but a nurturing mother can, simultaneously ensuring the evolutionary advantage of her species.

Hawthorn tastes better than her scent: soft and smooth lending a herbaceous heart note to floral spring blends. Her medicine is soothing, softening, calming and settling.

Hawthorn is the nurturing mother tree, an aspect of the divine feminine. She is a habitat, providing shelter and throughout spring and summer; in autumn, she is nourishment and medicine. Her spirit is soft and nurturing, but also thorny and protective. Her spring expression is creamy, cool and tender; in autumn, she is tough and thorny, deep and rich.

Her wisdom is of endurance and unconditional love, rooting deeply, protecting wisely and giving generously.

Magical Uses

Hawthorn magic aids strength and resilience, abundance, boundary setting and crossing, and inner transformation and manifestation. It matters what season you're using hawthorn in spell and ritual work.

Hawthorn may be used with these magical intentions:

~ Emotional healing and resilience
~ Unconditional love
~ Fertility and abundance
~ Protection and boundaries

Pair hawthorn with Venusian herbs in spells or potions to heal with love, to access deep wells of compassion and heal relationships. Pair autumn hawthorn with Saturnian herbs to invoke Crone wisdom, abundance and access wisdom.