Rowan: Magical Properties & Uses

Rowan is primarily a protective tree: against malicious magic, against spirits, and against the misdirection of productive and nurturing things. This last use connects rowan specifically to the protection of what sustains and nourishes: the harvest, the herd, the home's resources. In contemporary practice rowan is used in protective workings for the home and the practitioner, particularly in British and Norse-oriented practice. The berries are used in protective sachets; the wood in wands and staves. Its association with fire and the sun gives protective workings with rowan a brightness that those focused on fear and darkness benefit from.

Rowan berries (Sorbus aucuparia) are toxic when raw: they contain parasorbic acid, which converts to benign sorbic acid when cooked. Cooked or fermented they are used in jams, jellies, and wines across northern Europe. The berries are astringent and have been used in traditional medicine for sore throats and diarrhoea. Sorbic acid (first isolated from rowan berries) is now widely used as a commercial food preservative. The bark has been used in traditional tanning and as a dye source.

Thor, Brigid

The rowan (Mountain Ash, Quicken Tree) is the most widely revered protective tree of Britain and Scandinavia. In Scottish Highland tradition a rowan cross of two twigs bound with red thread was the standard household protective charm, placed above doorways, in cattle byres, and around dairies to prevent bewitchment of the milk. The Norse called it the salvation tree and associated it with Thor. In Irish tradition rowans growing near holy wells were never cut. The berries' small five-pointed star at the base (a natural pentagram) is frequently cited as the source of its protective power in British folk tradition.