Hawthorn: Magical Properties & Uses

Hawthorn is one of the most complex trees in the British magical tradition: simultaneously a tree of love and of death, of spring joy and serious warning. Its primary magical uses are protection (particularly of thresholds and boundaries) and the opening of the heart. The thorns protect; the flowers open. In working terms this means hawthorn is most useful at liminal moments: the beginning of a relationship, the crossing of a threshold, a decision that marks a clear before and after. It is also directly associated with fae work, and any serious engagement with the Otherworld tradition of these islands must account for the hawthorn.

Hawthorn berries (haws) are one of the most researched herbs in contemporary cardiovascular medicine. The leaf, flower, and berry all contain procyanidins and flavonoids with demonstrated effects on heart function: improving coronary blood flow, reducing blood pressure, and acting as a mild cardiac tonic. Hawthorn is a licensed herbal medicine for mild heart insufficiency in Germany. It has been used as a heart herb in folk medicine since at least the Middle Ages, and Culpeper recommended it for cardiac complaints.

Flora, Cardea, the Fae

The hawthorn is the Fairy Tree of the British Isles: a lone hawthorn standing in a field is sacred and should not be cut; cutting one without proper propitiation invites catastrophe. This belief was so persistent that road engineers in Ireland altered road plans to avoid solitary hawthorns well into the modern era. The hawthorn blooms in May and its flowers are associated with Beltane and the beginning of summer: to bring hawthorn flowers into the house before May Day was, however, traditionally considered dangerous, associated with ill omen and even death. In Christian legend the Crown of Thorns was made from hawthorn, and the Glastonbury Thorn (said to flower at Christmas) is a hawthorn variety still growing on Glastonbury Tor.