vi: Foraging Through Folklore
The Quickthorn and the Dead Ella Leith Hawthorn (Crataegus monogynaI) is a tree that sits on borders— spatial, temporal and supernatural. In terms of spatial borders, Hawthorn hedges criss-cross the landscape, particularly in England where, during the large-scale enclosure of common land in the 18th Century, over 200,000 miles worth were planted (Mabey 1996:210). But Hawthorn has been used to mark parish and county bounds for over a thousand years; indeed, it is the most frequently mentioned tree in Anglo-Saxon boundary charters (Mabey 1996:209). Its fast rate of growth explains its suitability for hedging— no wonder, perhaps, that one of its bynames is Quickthorn. But Quickthorn— or the Quicken tree, a name it shares with the Rowan (Sorbus aucuparia) —does not refer to the speed at which it grows. Instead, it alludes to its position on a temporal border: the cusp of Spring and Summer, when its white flowers— called May —blossom in abundance. The Middle English verb ‘to quick’ or ‘to quicken’ means ‘to come to life, receive life; … return to life from the dead’— even to ‘to give life to’ (Etymonline), and the Maythorn (as Hawthorn is also known) has long been
associated with the pan-European festival of life and growth that we call May Day or Beltane. This is the quarter day between the Spring Equinox and the Summer Solstice which marks the first day of Summer, and traditional customs include folk rising early on May Day morning ‘to fetch may or green boughs to deck their doors and mantelpieces in testimony of their joy at the revival of vegetation’, as recorded by a Northumbrian antiquarian in 1825 (in Brown 1959:416). Decoration was not confined to houses. People too were decorated, mostly with garlands, for the May Day celebrations— including dancing around a bedecked May Pole or, in the more distant past, a Maythorn bush. Garlands were not enough for some rituals; the Jack-in-the-Green tradition involves decking a man with a wooden frame structure to create a a walking pyramid of leaves and flowers). Although originally a generic term for any green foliage, the word ‘May’ had become synonymous Hawthorn by the 17th Century (Brown 1959:416), and the proliferation of Hawthorn blossoms around May Day made it the go-to plant for the celebrations— with some ill effects:
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