Tag: Thomas the Rhymer

Quert (Apple)

“Apple. The Pome fruit and tree bearing this fruit is celebrated in numerous functions in Celtic mythology, legend and folklore; it is an emblem of fruitfulness and sometimes a means to immortality.”  – James MacKillop (Oxford Dictionary of Celtic Mythology)

The Roots:

The apple represents the allure of the Otherworld.

Quert is the tenth letter of the Ogham. References to things beyond the number nine are found throughout Celtic myth. The Tuatha De Danann try to keep the Milesians beyond the ninth wave of the ocean for example, so that they would not be able to land on the shores of Ireland in the Book of Invasions. Brigit is attended by nine virgins, so she herself is the other that makes ten. Ten is the perfect number because all of the other numbers exist within it, yet it is the return to singularity (Cooper).

There are many Celtic tales, too many to mention here, that have connections to the apple. Yns Avallach, or Avalon, is the final resting place of Arthur and is usually called the Isle of Apples. Cuchulainn follows a rolling wheel and apple to find a great female warrior teacher[i]. One of the Irish names for the Otherworld was Eamhain Ablach, the realm of apples (Laurie). In Irish legend there is even a magical Silver Bough that carries nine apples which sing people to sleep (Paterson) – again that nine plus one. Thomas the Rhymer, who we have also spoken of before, was given an apple by the queen of the fairies that gave him the gift of prophecy. Many other legends associate Merlin, Olwen, Gwen, the romance of Diarmuid and Grainne, and the Tree of Mugna to the apple. Cu Roi is a hero that is only killed after his wife has betrayed him and revealed the secret hiding place of his soul, which is within an apple in the belly of a salmon.

Erynn Rowan Laurie[ii] associates the Ogham letter with madness and insanity. Although Laurie does not associate these letters with trees – but sees them more akin to the Norse runes[iii] -the symbolism of the apple does seem to support her position in some of the myths regardless.  Merlin is often associated to the apple grove which he could bring forth with him from place to place. Sabine Heinz[iv] reminds us that Merlin hid in the treetops when he became insane after a battle. Those that were considered too strange or “touched in the head” were often, even in relatively recent times, said to have been “taken by the fairies” so perhaps there is a connection to those such as Thomas the Rhymer as well to the concept of madness?

With the introduction of Christianity to the Isles, the apple also became synonymous with temptation and evil. The apple, or quert, is often also associated to romantic love and sex.

The Trunk:

The Otherworld can be described as a place that is elusive yet nearby. It seems to exist alongside us. It is a place where time and age do not matter, the otherworldly women and men are beautiful, animals can talk, the sun always shines, the birds always sing and beauty is amplified.

It is in this land that the gods seem to reside and sometimes the ancestors. The Otherworld is a place of heroic deeds, never ending banquets, whimsical love affairs, and items of great power that can be brought back to the land of the living.

Although the Otherworld is often associated with things made of glass, it is more often than not stumbled upon in the most mundane of manners.

A hero is walking through the wood and follows a white animal or becomes lost and finds him or herself in a completely foreign land. This may take place after there is a storm, fog, or mist.

The Otherworld is where the Sidhe, also known as the Tuatha De Danann, reside in Ireland. It is the land of the fairy, the fair folk, or of great lords that reside over the dead.

There is a story of Connla son of Conn Cetchathach of the Hundred Battles. In the story Connla is approached by a beautiful fairy woman who tempts him to come with her to the other side. She offers him an apple and promises him the relief from old age and even death. He leaves with her, but will not return even with the allure of his father’s kingdom and is never seen again.

(Childhood’s Favourites and Fairy Stories, Project Gutenberg)

Those superstitious of the fairies still warn us today to avoid eating the food of the fair folk… lest one never be able to return to the land of the living. There is a suggestion that this is because the food either tastes so good or intoxicates one to never want to return to the land of men again.

The Otherworld is found far away from the trappings of civilization. It is found on the sea by accident when sailors stumble upon unknown islands, or it is found deep within the wilderness.

The Otherworld is found when the hero is out hunting. It is found when the heroine is minding her own business. It is found when an item, usually food or drink, is found unattended and is unassumingly consumed.

It is likely that the Otherworld is a metaphor for the lands that are seen when one’s perception is shifted. This may happen through trance (perhaps shamanic like percussion), drug induced states (maybe aminita muscaria or possibly wine), dreaming, meditation or even enlightenment.

We must remember though that those that seek the Otherworld rarely find it, while those that do not – similar to Taliesin or Amairgin’s acquirement of wisdom– often find themselves on the other side altogether.

Some do not return.

The Foliage:

The apple, as we know it, has only been around since the classical age. The crab apple of the Americas was never cultivated but the small tart apple was used as a food source by the native people nonetheless[v].

According to Jared Diamond[vi], the apple tree was one of the later plants to be cultivated by ancient peoples. The art of cultivation in which the apple tree was domesticated was a complicated and difficult process that is known as grafting today. Grafting was discovered and developed in ancient China. The grafting, and growing of apple orchards, spread across the known world of the time, through Greece and Rome, and eventually into the lands of the Celts themselves.

This was thousands of years after the cultivation of such plants as the olive, grape or fig.

While it is interesting to note that the oak has never been domesticated as a food source, it is also interesting to recognize that the apple tree will quickly become wild once more. According to Hageneder[vii], the orchard apple is sweeter and bigger than the crab apple and the tree has lost its thorns. Trees that naturalize and leave the orchard, however, are often found to grow thorns once more.

The apple, Quert, has a long list of health benefits and even medicinal properties that continue to be studied in awe. The fruit absorbs contaminants from its environment however, so one should try to eat the organic fruit whenever it is possible.

“In the 19th century in Lower Saxony, Germany, the first bath water used by a newborn baby was poured over the roots of an apple tree to ensure that the child would have red cheeks, and, if it was a girl, large breasts too.” – Fred Hageneder  (The Meaning of Trees)

[i] This seems to be a type of divination.

[ii] Ogam: Weaving Word Wisdom

[iii] The Ogham is often seen as a tree alphabet but, as I have discussed in previous posts, this is not entirely accurate. I choose to use the Ogham as a tree alphabet on my own path. In my opinion Erynn Rowan Laurie’s book has the most accurate perception of the Ogham.

[iv] Celtic Symbols

[v] Tree Book: Learning to Recognize Trees of British Columbia

[vi] Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies

[vii] The Meaning of Trees

[Image] http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19993

Huathe (Hawthorn)

“The druids knew about many medicinal plants and were skilled fortune tellers… Furthermore, they preferred to teach their hand-selected pupils in the forest because they were convinced that the essentials of life could be learned from trees.” Franjo Terhart (Beyond Death)

The Roots:

Hawthorn is the first tree of the second aicme, group of five, in the Ogham.

Huathe, the hawthorn, is the tree of the otherworld. It is one of the three trees that make up the “fairy triad”, along with the ash and the oak. It is believed that the fairy realm can be directly accessed through this tree, especially when it is flowering and with greatest of ease at Beltane, which is the beginning of the light half of the year.

Huathe, hawthorn or whitethorn, is the tree of May, which is the month of chastity and restraint. So it is that the Otherworld can be accessed more easily by those who are pure of heart, which are those who can access a childlike nature of open mindedness and playfulness.

Many people associate Huathe with ill fortune and bad luck. It is a tree of great potential and has the power to unlock the mysteries of other kingdoms. It is more likely that the hawthorn has a nature that reeks of caution to the uninitiated than it is actually “bad luck”. It is still believed in many parts of the old country that chopping down a hawthorn will bring one ruin, as the protective spirits can be vindictive and vengeful. For this reason it is also a tree that is sometimes sought out by those who practice the darker arts.

Like the birch, the hawthorn’s meanings and associations are agreed upon to a large degree[i]. Its powers however seem to defy explanation and are left for the practitioner to experience for themselves, with a thinly veiled warning from those that have gone before.

The Trunk:

Ballyvadlea Ireland set the stage for a grim series of events in March of 1895. It had been reported to the local constabulary that Bridget Cleary, wife to Michael Cleary, was missing by a concerned friend. An inquiry became an investigation, which eventually revealed a burnt body in a shallow grave.

Nine people were initially charged for the murder while other people in the village were later revealed to have been aware of the events that had transpired, or to have been participants in the actual killing. This included Bridget’s husband, her father, her cousins, and her neighbours.

The motive for the crime-which is sometimes inaccurately described as the last witch burning of Ireland- was found to have been one in which the townsfolk believed that they were torturing a changeling (a shapeshifting fairy imposter) and were only trying to retrieve Bridget back from the fairies.

Michael Cleary is said to have stated that his wife was two inches too tall and much too fair or beautiful to have been her at all. The rest of the townsfolk seemed to agree in his assessment as they either participated in, or were accomplices to, the murder. Eventually Michael Cleary served 15 years for the killing.

The case at the time was highly political. The English used the murder as proof that the Irish could not govern themselves because of their whimsical and uncivilized beliefs. The murder became international news, is said to have influenced Gerald Gardner – the modern father of Wiccanism- and has since been the source of several books and movies[ii].

Fairy abduction has been reported in myth and legend since the earliest of times. A well documented case in 1646 was that of Anne Jefferies in St. Teath England. After her reported abduction – which she did not like to talk about- she apparently had the powers of clairvoyance, did not need to eat, and had the power to heal.

Thomas the Rhymer who lived from 1220-1298 in Scotland was also said to have disappeared for a time and to have returned with powers. This was later explained away as him having been with the fairies, most especially one which was his “fairy bride”. He became a noted bard and also had prophetic skills, even accurately predicting events such as the death of Alexander the 3rd.

Katherine Mary Briggs’ Encyclopedia of Fairies is a good place to start exploring the phenomena of fairy encounters. This well researched text references over one hundred books and historical documents and discusses the two cases above alongside many others. While there are many different theories as to the source of these encounters-from mental illness to communion with demons- Briggs suggests that fairies may be categorized as either “diminished gods or the dead”.

It is easy to dismiss these early encounters as fanciful and unlikely but the phenomenon continues to exist today only in an altered form. Alien abductions are believed to occur by many people. It is a common belief today that we are visited by beings from other planets for a variety of theorized reasons. Whatever one chooses to believe, whether it is a type of mental illness or a genuine phenomenon, perhaps the beings involved are one and the same.

The Anne Jefferies account of 1646 describes her being approached by small humanoids, a pricking sensation before everything went black, and a sensation of being taken through the air. When she awoke the humanoids were her size and a fight ensued between the being who wanted to keep her (with the red feather) and the others who decided she could not stay. When it was determined that she had to be returned there was a pricking sensation once more before darkness returned and she was brought back to the land of the living.

The fairies of Ireland are the Sidhe, or the Tuatha De Danann. The Tuatha De Danaan are often described as having arrived in “flying ships” to take Ireland by force from its previous owners the Fir Bolg. Ireland was then taken away from them by the ancestors of present Ireland, the Milesians, led by the great poet Amergin. The Tuatha De Danann went underground and became the Sidhe, or fairies.

Let us consider that many common UFO sightings describe lights that come out of mountaintops or sometimes even out of lakes. Whether or not we believe in the idea of aliens, fairies, or inter dimensional beings there are many mysteries from our past that seem to prohibit scepticism. Consider the following…

Construction by “stone tool” ancients of buildings we are still unable to reconstruct with today’s technologies. 1400 ton building blocks, precision cuts of blocks that even lasers cannot duplicate, structures that align perfectly with constellations, and various marvels across the globe. We are supposed to believe that these structures, such as the great pyramids, were constructed with stone tools before the invention of the wheel?[iii]

Even today there are crop circles found around the globe that self proclaimed hoaxers are unable to duplicate, scientists are unable to explain, and that continue to defy logic. Although the most common theory seems to be alien communication, some call these findings “fairy circles”[iv]. Perhaps, whatever they are, even if there is a simple psychological explanation, aliens and fairies are the same thing.

It is the hawthorn -and its association with the fairies- that makes us pause and consider these possibilities-and perhaps many more- during our symbolic journey.   

The hawthorn is also associated with the mythical goddess figure of Olwen who is found in the Mabinogion[v]. She is the daughter of Yspaddaden Penkawr, the chief giant hawthorn[vi]. It is said that her footprints produce white trefoil, or sometimes hawthorn flower petals, and that this is the origin of the Milky Way (Hageneder).    

Diminished gods, the dead, or something else altogether? 

The Foliage:

The wolf is often associated with the hawthorn. The Ogham Tract found in the Book of Ballymote says that a pack of wolves is like the thorns of the hawthorn. “A terror to anyone is a pack of wolves”.

Like the hawthorn and the fairy, the wolf is a creature that we cannot decide if we love or hate. In folklore and mythology it is either noble, or a menace. Like the alleged changeling of Bridget Cleary or the beautiful bride of Thomas the Rhymer the wolf is also seen as either a powerful enemy or a beneficial and otherworldly friend.

The hawthorn with her beautiful and mystical flower masks a thorn with wound inflicting capabilities. The fairy with its magical allure and gifts of power, also promises madness and even death.

The wolf offers us faithfulness, intuition, community, monogamy, strength, night vision, and the instinctual ability to hunt and to survive [vii]. It also can be viciously savage, steal livestock and has been known in times of hunger – although rare- to attack humans.

While it is easy to see anything as either good or bad the truth is that there is nothing in nature that is so black or white. The fears of our ancestors hunted the wolf to extinction in many places. The last wolf in Scotland was killed in 1743 and the wolf was killed out of fear to the point of being endangered-and sometimes extinct- in many parts of North America.

The reintroduction of wolves in Yellowstone Park and the recolonization of wolves in Glacier Park has been closely monitored and studied by scientists. It has been observed that elk and coyote populations dropped as elk herds were forced to stay on the move and the coyote suddenly had a natural enemy, vegetation stabilized on shorelines, aspen and willow trees thrived, many insect eating birds returned, overhanging branches of stabilized trees fed trout-which returned-, eagles and ravens also flourished and beavers returned. The entire watershed became healthier in just a couple of decades all from the reintroduction of a single-often villainized- species[viii].

We cannot afford to minimize or glorify any species on our journey through the forest. A clear perception is needed, braided with a healthy dose of respect.

The fairy folk are seen as beautiful as they are terrible but perhaps they are something in between.

The wolf is wild, intelligent and free, yet it is the bringer of nightmares and often associated with evil. It is believed by the Nordic ancestors that the Fenris wolf, the devourer of worlds, will bring about the destruction of all there is.

The truth is that the wolf too is more likely to exist somewhere between the two extremes of good and evil.

The hawthorn, or Huathe, is the bringer both of good luck and of bad. Hawthorn is the beauty with the thorns. She reminds us that perceptions can shift, and that awareness- with a healthy dose of caution- can make her an ally, as opposed to a tree that should be feared by the weak of heart.

 “Marie-Louise Sjoestedt makes an important point in this regard, namely, that in the wilderness ‘the conditions of the mythological period still prevail’. These conditions include the close familiarity that humans, animals, and spirits enjoyed with each other. The wildwood bears the mark of the earliest paradisal stages of creation, hence the earliest mark of the Creator.” Tom Cowan (Fire in the Head)

 

[i] The exception may be Erynn Rowan Laurie who links the concepts of loneliness, misfortune, nightmares, war, anxiety and many others to Huathe. Laurie reminds us that behind challenge is growth, or opportunity, however. She relates the Ogham letters as concepts or energies – akin to the Norse runes- and not necessarily representative of particular trees which accounts largely for her differing interpretation of the huathe from Graves, Pennick, Liz and Colin Murray, Greer, Hageneder, Cooper, and Farmer-Knowles.

[ii] Rossell Robbin’s Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology. See also the archived New York Times article from October 2000 entitled the Fairy Defense by David McCullough http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/08/books/the-fairy-defense.html

[iii] For references to the above statements, and one theory shared by some, see the documentary series Ancient Aliens on the History Channel. The series contains many thought provoking statements from various scientists and scholars that cannot be easily dismissed. It seems to lack counter arguments for many of the points discussed however.

[v] A well known collection of 11 medieval Welsh prose stories

[vi] Yspaddaden is often believed to be a corruption of Ysbydd, hawthorn.

[vii] The Druid Animal Oracle. Phillip and Stephanie Carr Gomm.

[viii] Most recently Mother Earth News June/July 2011