Elder: Magical Properties & Uses

Elderflower carries the lighter, more expansive energy of the elder tree: associated with Venus, with summer and the white flowering of the plant, with love, blessing, and the fae. Where elder bark and berries work with death, transformation, and banishing, the flowers work with the Otherworld at its most benevolent: attracting good fortune, blessing new beginnings, and maintaining a working relationship with fairy presences. They are used in love workings, in blessings for new homes and new relationships, and as offerings to the fae. Flowers gathered on Midsummer Eve are considered particularly potent.

Elderflower is one of the most widely used medicinal plants in European folk medicine. Its anti-inflammatory and diaphoretic properties make it a standard European remedy for colds, flu, and fever. The flowers have demonstrated antiviral properties in preliminary studies. Culpeper listed elder as one of the most important medicinal plants in Britain. The flowers are used extensively in cordials, wines, and culinary preparations: elderflower cordial remains common in British and Scandinavian food culture.

Holda, Elle-Woman, Death

The elder is perhaps the most mythologically complex tree in the British Isles. The Elder Mother (Hyldemoer in Danish) is a spirit believed to inhabit the tree; her permission was required before any part of the elder could be cut, and a witch who cut elder without asking was said to suffer lasting misfortune. In Britain the tree was planted near houses both to attract good spirits and to keep off witches: a contradiction that speaks to the elder's deep ambivalence: simultaneously protective and dangerous, a tree of life and of death. Culpeper dedicated extensive coverage to the elder in all its parts, and every part of the tree has its own medicinal tradition.