Am gáeth tar na bhfarraige
Am tuile os chinn maighe
Am dord na daíthbhe
Am damh seacht mbeann
Am drúchtín rotuí ó ngréin
Am an fráich torc
Am seabhac a néad i n-aill
Am ard filidheachta
Am álaine bhláithibh
Am an t-eo fis
Cía an crann agus an theine ag tuitim faire?
I am a wind across the sea
I am a flood across the plain
I am the roar of the tides
I am a stag of seven tines
I am dew in the sun
I am the wildest of boars
I am a hawk on the cliff
I am a height of poets
I am the most beautiful among flowers
I am the salmon of wisdom
Who but I is both the tree and the lightning striking it?
~ From the Book of the Takings of Ireland
Botanical name: Prunus spinosa
Family: Prunus
Ogham: Straif
Scots Gaelic: Àirneag,
Irish Gaelic: Draighean
Welsh: Draenen ddu
French: Prunelliers
At a height of eighteen feet, blackthorn is not a tree of great stature, but its lore stands tall indeed. The blackthorn is the tree of transformation, changing all things it touches.
Blackthorn transforms landscapes. Across the British Isles, the blackthorn was planted in tight hedges. The qualities of its thorns, its thick wood, and its tenacity even in salt-laden ground near the coasts made it the first choice when people created hedges that were impossible for domestic animals to assail. In the words of the Brehon law, a good blackthorn hedge should be pruned so that “a small pig should not be able to penetrate on account of its closeness, and an ox should not be able to penetrate on account of its height and firmness.” (1) Not many creatures could endure the pain of a blackthorn’s piercing branches, and thus blackthorn hedges divided the land into parcels throughout the isles.
Blackthorn marks the changes of the year. At the death of the old year, the advent of frost is told by the ripening fruits of blackthorn: its sloes are sweetened into edibility only by the first hard frosts of winter. Some say the handle of the Callieach Bheur’s frost-hammer is blackthorn, and that when she hits the earth to freeze it over on Samhain night, it’s the magic of blackthorn she uses. In Ulster the queen of winter needs no hammer, only a cudgel of blackthorn to blast the land into its winter barrenness. (2)
But as it marks the death of the year, blackthorn will mark its birth as well. It blooms white in the liminal month of March, when winter has not quite given up her grip. This relationship between the wariness agricultural people have for early spring and this plant is recorded in the English and Scottish nickname for spiteful late-spring storms: these blighting snowfalls are called ‘blackthorn winter.’ (3) The flowers are not trusty signs of summer, but they are signs of hope in the dark.
Blackthorn transforms cloth. Every part of the plant is used in the dyer’s art: a green dye from the leaves, a grey dye from the sloes, a yellow dye from the bark boiled in alkali, an orange dye from the flowers boiled with alum, a deep red from the roots, a purple if iron was added. In old Ireland these colors meant much: Your clothing was your calling card. What has survived to come down to us of the Brehon laws came mostly from thirty manuscripts rescued by Edward Llwyd in the 1780s. (4) These papers are written in archaic forms of Old Irish and extremely difficult to discern at times, but what is agreed upon is something like this:
The unfree were allowed to wear three colors.
The low free man was allowed four colors in his dress.
The farmer and crofter was allowed four colors in his dress, brown and bright red included.
The craftsman was allowed four colors, blue, brown and red included.
The noble, the brehon and the scholar was allowed five colors.
The king of a kingdom of Ireland was allowed six colors.
The high king and the first of the orders of bards, brehons, and druids were allowed the wearing of seven colors at one time.
Even today, what we choose to wear has power, though the meanings are no longer so clearly defined. Change your clothes, change yourself in the perceptions of those around you. If you are aware of this, it can be used as a great power.
And then there were those times when blackthorn changed people. Sometimes it turned them into braver people. At times, it turned them into corpses.
If you cut a stout stave of blackthorn near the bole of the plant, you’ll end up with a heavy stick that has a knob near the end. Strip this of bark, rub it with butter or lanolin and let it cure in a chimney over the winter. Take it out and what you will have is a stout, shining shillelagh: just long enough to be a walking stick, just heavy enough to be a formidable weapon. (5) A young man travelling for the first time was often gifted a shillelagh for his defense on the road: holding a stout weapon he could rely on, and trained in its use, he need have no fear. The Irish martial art of bataireacht, the traditional fighting style using the shillelagh, focused on knocking the opponent to their knees or laying them on their backs, where tradition dictated they ought to yield. This allowed for formal and honorable single combat without death to exist as a last resort for settling disputes or cooling hot tempers. (6) As time went by and outsiders did not honor custom, the shillelagh became a more fearsome weapon. In the west around the 17th century, a terrifying habit grew up of shaping the blackthorn with a single remaining thorn, designed to cause puncture wounds on impact that would fester and kill the victim. The heads of shillelagh were filled with lead to create fearsome skull-crushers. In days when the Irish knew they were travelling to unfriendly lands, they made sure to carry their shillelagh so much so that it became associated with Irish identity for centuries afterwards. (7) Even a small person could feel confident with a shillelagh in their hands, and even a well-built bully would reconsider when they spotted one in the hands of their prey.
Some changes look like loss and some like gain, but they are two facets of one truth: we must change in order to achieve our own growth and the growth of our world. The theme of a change that appears as a death and is only a new way of being appears again and again in the lore of Wales, England, Ireland and Scotland. But among its many masters, none is quite so great as Taliesin.
In days past, the lady Cerridwen had a son named Afaggdu who was as ugly as he was stupid. His name meant ‘utter darkness’. Like any good mother, the lady wished better for her son.
In her cauldron, she collected all the herbs and ingredients she would need. This working was to be so great that the person who first tasted of it would be gifted with all the knowledge in the world.
So, the cauldron simmered for a year and a day. Cerridwen put an old blind man to work feeding the fire, and a young servant boy named Gwion stirring the brew.
On the last day of the spell, a bubble in the cauldron burst, sending a few scalding drops onto Gwion’s finger. The boy cried out in pain and instinctively put his finger into his mouth to cool it. At that instant, Gwion gained the knowledge that was meant for Afaggdu.
Enraged, Cerridwen took off after the boy. “I’ll have your life!” she screamed.
Gwion was in great terror. But he was in great power as well, possessed of all knowledge. So the boy turned himself into a hare and ran into the blackthorn to escape Cerridwen. The lady became a hunting hound and burrowed after.
So Gwion came to a stream and changed himself into a quick-swimming trout, but Cerridwen was an otter, fast behind him. The trout leaped from the water and became a swift sparrow, but Cerridwen was a hawk.
Just as her talons were outstretched to catch him, Gwion spied a wheat field, and so he turned into a grain of wheat. Cerridwen became a hen and gobbled him up. And so, she thought, that was the end of the boy Gwion.
Not long after, Cerridwen found herself with child. For nine months she carried the babe she knew to be Gwion. Cerridwen intended to kill the child as soon as it was born. In the fullness of time she gave birth to a grand boy, and her plans were foiled by the thing she hadn’t expected: love for a child come of her womb.
But Afaggdu had not forgotten that this child had stolen the knowledge meant for him. Cerridwen knew of his hate: her second son would never live long in Afaggdu’s presence. So the lady crafted a tiny boat and set her second son adrift in the sea.
The babe came to rest on the shores of what we know today as Wales. The craft was found by a man named Elphin, nephew of Maelgwyn, king of Dyfed. Resolved to foster the child as his own son, Elphin named the boy Taliesin, which means ‘shining brow’.
So came into the world Taliesin, changed many times over and the greater for it.
Do not fear change, even when it comes wearing the mask of death. A seed that never ends its present existence will never grow.
- A Druid’s Herbal of Sacred Tree Medicine, Hopman, Ellen, Destiny Books, 1994
- The Book of the Year: A Brief History of Our Seasonal Holidays, Aveni, Anthony F., Oxford University Press, 2004
- Trees and Bushes in Wood and Hedgerow, Vedel, H; Lange, J., London: Methuen & Co Ltd., 1960
- “The Ancient Brehon Laws of Ireland”, Gorman, M. J., Can. L. Times 20: 127, 1901
- The Shillelagh Maker’s Handbook, Hurley, John W., Caravat Press, 2007
- Irish Peasants: Violence & Political Unrest, 1780–1914, Clark, Samuel; James S. Donnelly, University of Wisconsin Press, 1983
- “The stick is king: The Shillelagh Bata or the rediscovery of a living Irish martial tradition”, Chouinard B.A., Maxime, http://www.cimande.com/blackthorn/pdf/stick_edited.pdf
- “Blackthorn”, Woodland Trust, https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/visiting-woods/trees-woods-and-wildlife/british-trees/native-trees/blackthorn/
- “Roots of a Republic – An Irishman’s Diary about Brehon tree law and the Irish National Foresters” McNally, Frank, Irish Times July 12 2017