To Walk a Pagan Path: Practical Spirituality for Every Day (20 page)

out fear of human interference. Birds nest in the trees and

shrubs. That is the outer realm, and it is not mine to use. It

is the home of elves, hobs and moss-wives. It is within my

inner realm where I grow corn, squash, pumpkins and toma-

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toes; where frogs greet me in the morning and red-breasted

robins search for bugs in the garden.

When we really touch the earth, our Pagan spirituality

comes alive.

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In the last chapter we mentioned trees as nesting sites for

some birds, but trees are much more than habitats for wild-

life. Whether due to their longevity or size, trees are often

accorded a status higher than other botanical species. “Save

a Tree” is the environmental battlecry. You are unlikely to

hear anyone saying “Save a Dandelion”, even though dande-

lions provide food for honeybees, discourage army worms

and help break up hardened soil. Dandelions and most other

plants just do not command the same degree of respect that

we have for trees.

Admittedly, it takes longer to replace a tree than a dande-

lion, but our arboreal veneration arises from a deeper, spiri-

tual association we have with trees that is often reflected in

Pagan myths and folklore. From a Saxon perspective, every

wooded grove is the domain of the
wudu-elfen
, the spirits who nurture and sustain forest ecology. Larger woodlands

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are home to satyr-like spirit beings known as
woodwoses
. To senselessly pollute or destroy these wild places is no less an

offense than vandalizing a neighbor’s house. The trees them-

selves, for the Saxon Pagan, embody sacred mysteries. No

less than five of these trees—the oak, ash, hawthorn, yew

and birch—are described in the Old English Rune Poem, a

tenth century document recording the mystic lore associat-

ed with twenty nine runic symbols known as the Futhorc

(Albertsson, pp. 89–107).

The Saxons’ veneration of trees was passed from one

generation to the next, long after Christianity became the

dominant religion in England. Perhaps the most revered of

trees is the oak. Simpson and Roud say that the oak tree rep-

resents “steadfast courage, royalty and England” (p. 264). In

Pagan times, the oak was sacred to Thunor, a god of thun-

der and fertility. For this reason it was commonly believed

(although this is not true) that oak trees can never be struck

by lightning.

The restoration of the English monarchy is celebrated on

May 29th, which is known as Royal Oak Day. King Charles

II is said to have hidden to have hidden in the hollow of an

oak tree, thus evading capture during the Battle of Worces-

ter. After his return to London in 1660 it became a custom to

wear an oak leaf every May 29th. The original oak that shel-

tered King Charles is now gone, but a descendant called “Son

of Oak” still stands in Boscobel Wood.

Son of Oak is the tree most associated with Charles’

escape during the English Civil War, but other trees along the

route of his exodus are also said to have hidden him from the

Roundheads: an oak tree in Gloucestershire, an elm in Sus-

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sex. Charles II seems to have had a very good relationship

with the wood spirits!

The Parliament Oak in Nottinghamshire is so called

because King John (or King Edward, depending on who you

ask) is said to have convened a Parliament there.

The grandest of England’s notable oaks must surely be

the Major Oak, in Sherwood Forest. According to legend,

this tree is where Robin Hood convened his Merry Men. The

Major Oak is certainly old enough for this distinction. Hav-

ing stood for more than a thousand years, it now has a trunk

circumference of 35 feet. The Major Oak’s heavier limbs are

held in place by wooden poles installed by dedicated caretak-

ers to ensure that the limbs do not collapse under their own

weight.

The hawthorn, in England, is a tree with a mixed repu-

tation. Bringing hawthorn blossoms into the house suppos-

edly invites ill fortune. On the other hand, the Holy Thorn

of Glastonbury was considered a sacred tree. It was believed

that the tree had grown from a single thorn taken from

Christ’s “crown of thorns”. You would think that would

have negative connotations rather than positive; and appar-

ently the Puritans thought the whole story was evil, because

a Roundhead (one of the Puritan rebels who opposed the

monarchy) eventually destroyed the tree. However by that

time many cuttings had been taken from the Glastonbury

Thorn, and its descendants are held in respect to this day.

In some parts of England the hawthorn was believed to

have protective powers. Hawthorn branches were tradition-

ally burned in Herefordshire on New Year’s Day to protect

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the future crop from evil spirits as well as from a disease

known as “smut”.

The rowan, or mountain ash, was credited as a protection

against negative magic. In Yorkshire rowan twigs were hung

over doors and beds, and replaced with fresh twigs every year

to replenish the protection. In Lancashire rowan twigs were

hung over beds specifically to repel the mare (MAR-eh), a

malicious spirit that attacks a person while he or she is sleeping. In some places the staff of a butter churn was made of

rowan to ward against spells intended to spoil the butter.

Specific to Germanic cultures is the belief in multiple

planes of existence connected through the roots and branch-

es of a vast World Tree that was known to the Norse as Ygg-

drasil. This World Tree was often described as an ash tree,

but occasionally as an elm. Its roots descended down to the

realm of the dead, while its highest branches touched the

celestial world of the gods.

The Maypole is most likely a representation of the World

Tree. The pole is often said to be a phallic symbol, but I

think this is a post-Freudian belief. The traditional Europe-

an Maypole often displayed symbols of a village’s trades on

side “branches”, and would be ceremoniously decorated at

the top with garlands and a leafy tree branch (Jones and Pen-

nick, p. 113). None of these adornments suggest a phallus,

but they do suggest the image of a great tree. The trade sym-

bols and garlands would interfere with the plaited ribbons we

associate with modern Maypole dances, but ribbons did not

come into use with Maypole dancing until the 1830’s (Simp-

son and Roud, p. 230). Before then—and in some parts of

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Europe today—people either joined hands as they danced

around the Maypole or danced solo.

Tree veneration is not unique to northern Europe. The

Greeks told a tale of the goddess Athena and the god Posei-

don having an argument about the possession of Attica. Both

deities wanted to be sovereign over the region. To settle the

issue, they each produced a gift and asked a mortal king,

Cecrops, to judge which of the gifts was most worthy. Pose-

idon struck a rock with his trident and a salt water spring

appeared. (Or a horse, depending on which version of the

story you hear. I think the horse makes more sense. What

use is a salt water spring?) Clever Athena created an olive

tree. King Cecrops judged the olive tree to be the more wor-

thy gift, and so Athena became the patron of Attica.

From a Hellenic perspective, forests and woodlands are

the home of dryads, or wood nymphs. The woodlands are

also home to the satyr, a wild spirit similar to the Anglo-Sax-

on woodwose.

The Religio Romana, the religion of Pagan Rome, has

a god named Silvanus who presides specifically over forests

and trees. This forest god is a patron not only of wild wood-

lands, but of all arboriculture, including orchards.

Kemetic (Egyptian) Pagans are familiar with the story

of the god Set murdering his brother Osiris. Set tricked

Osiris into lying down inside a chest. Set and his accomplic-

es then nailed the chest closed and threw it into the Nile. The chest floated down the river and out to sea until it eventually reached Phoenicia. There it rested against a tamarisk tree

which grew rapidly and enclosed the entire chest until the

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goddess Isis (who is Osiris’ wife) later claimed her husband’s

corpse.

Slavic Pagans have the Leshy, a green-bearded spirit of

the woodlands who stands as tall as the tallest trees in the

depths of a forest, but becomes a tiny creature at the forest’s edge. The Leshy is a mischievous spirit who often leads mortals astray if they venture too far into a forest, however he is generally considered to be good-natured.

Forest gods and woodland spirits are common to many

Pagan paths. There are different ways a contemporary Pagan

can integrate this into his or her spiritual practice. In all prob-ability you already do! Many Pagans today set up and dec-

orate evergreen trees at the winter solstice. You may even

have heard that this is an Ancient Pagan Tradition that was

later stolen by the Christians, but this is not true. In 575 CE

a Portuguese bishop complained about the Pagan custom of

bringing “laurel and green branches” inside at Christmas, but

people did not carry entire trees into their homes until the

15th century, and then only in Germany. Another 400 years

would pass before the custom started to become popular in

other nations.

This does not make the tradition of the modern Yule

Tree any less valid. Every tradition—whether five years

old, five hundred years old or five thousand years old—had

to begin sometime! The Yule Tree is a beautiful custom for

Pagan families, and we will look at this in more depth in this

book’s final chapter.

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THE MIDSUMMER TREE

Why not take this tree veneration further, and add a Midsum-

mer Tree to your summer solstice celebration? One reason so

many Pagans love the Yule season is because they associate

it with joyful activities. A holistic Pagan lifestyle should celebrate each holiday in a similar way, but all too often Midsum-

mer or the equinoxes are acknowledged with little more than

an obligatory ritual.

Children love decorating a Midsummer Tree, but it is fun

for adults also. Midsummer, the summer solstice, is opposite

the Yule season, so it makes sense to decorate a Midsummer

Tree that is opposite to the Yule Tree.

This means you will be decorating a tree outside rather

than bringing a tree into the house. It also means that you

will be decorating a deciduous tree (one that drops its leaves

in the autumn) rather than an evergreen. If you live in a

warm climate where trees do not drop their leaves seasonal-

ly, just pick a tree that is pleasing to you. There is no actual rule about leaf dropping, but it is important that the tree be growing naturally outdoors. This changes the general ambience of the tree veneration. When the Yule Tree is brought

indoors we are celebrating home and community. We may

derive a much deeper meaning from this, but essentially we

are gathering “at the hearth”. The Midsummer Tree, by con-

trast is a celebration of the natural world; of the greater

place that surrounds our homes.

Choose a day near the summer solstice for decorating

your Midsummer Tree. If your whole family is to participate,

this will probably need to be on the weekend. Also choose a

tree that will receive this honor. The honored tree needs to

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be a tree with low growing limbs. You will also need some or

all of the following:

• Dry pine cones

• Peanut butter

• Millet, or a mix of “bird seed”

• Assorted fruits

• String

• Scissors

• Several knives

The Midsummer Tree is a celebration of the natural

world, so you do not want to cover it with glass and plas-