A Celtic Herbal . . . Druids, Drupes and Divination

Mention Celtic and for many of us images wild and romantic emerge - spiritual, artistic, and ancient. What deep longings, what tugs from long-buried folk memories fuel the modern resurgence of Celtic traditions that we see now?

Although everyday life for the Celts must have been hard, sometimes brutal, they have left us an enduring legacy of myth, lore, reverence for nature, and knowledge. Modern seekers are finding in things Celtic an element that "connects" with them. What part do herbs play in this and what parallels do we see in the "Herbal Renaissance" and the Celtic resurgence?

Branches and Leaves Intertwine Symmetrically ...

All things Celtic are "in" - music, dance, art, jewellery, folklore, religion and herbs. In music, Ashley McIsaac, Riverdance, and Natalie McMaster are the modern minstrels of these wild and untamed sounds. Celtic energy and spirit conjure images of the far-flung glens and misty mountains of the fairy kingdoms, blood-feuds, dark longings, and a jaunty, sometimes irreverent, love of life. Celtic art is full of twisting but perfectly balanced knots, mythical beasts, and fierce weapons. Branches and leaves intertwine symmetrically in Celtic symbols which echo Greek, Egyptian, and even Mayan art forms.

Modern pronunciation of Celtic may be either Seltic or Keltic. But chances are that the native speakers used the latter since the word is derived from the Greek Keltoi and the Latin Celtae, both pronounced with the hard K sound. The language of the Celts is Gaelic, a mystical family of languages whose soft sounds and lyrical tones fit well with the romance of the Celtic tradition.

A Recurring Theme of the Celtic World Was Humanity’s Affinity with Nature.

The Celts were those ancient tribal peoples who, moving west through central and northern Europe, populated the British Isles, especially Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, in pre-Roman times, i.e., more than two centuries ago. Although Celtic culture faded under the onslaught of the Anglo-Saxon and Norman invaders, its traditions and customs were kept alive in the folk-memories of the people.

The old Celtic religion of nature-worship was overseen by officiants who unified the roles of priests, magicians, and soothsayers - the Druids. Nature worship, a combination of plant lore and beliefs aimed at strengthening the human/nature bond, was their religion. Wise elders had been given the task of memorizing in verse all the knowledge and history of the Celts. This was passed on by word of mouth and by ballads sung to Druidic harp accompaniment. Later, the Christian monks penned the ancient songs and poems, giving them a written form.

A recurring theme of the Celtic world was humanity’s affinity with nature. For us of the modern world, Celtic poetry still "delights with its tender love of the natural world."1Birds, fish, animals, woods, seas, earth, fruit and blossoms all fill Celtic myths and poems (sometimes in the same verse!). Lush images from this nature-loving people are found in such phrases as:

Blackbirds to a swan . . . waves of perfect vermilion flowers . . . your puny craft navigates over a blossoming halcyon wood . . . a wall of woodland overlooks me . . . frost crystals and level ice . . . from primrose of the mountain.2

The Celts, like all ancient peoples, relied on plants in daily life for food, for medicine, and for tools; they especially relied on trees for shelter and fuel. But beyond mere reliance, the Celts revered the trees which then covered the British Isles in vast thick forests and personified them with qualities both good and evil. Among the indispensable trees and shrubs used in herbal ways by the Celts were oak, willow, yew, blackthorn, ash, apple, elder, holly, hawthorn, briar, birch, rowan and hazel.

The herbs often used by them included nettle, mugwort, mistletoe, plantain, betony, heather, thyme, and fennel. We will look at some of these in future articles but now we will consider the ways Celts used the trees,blackthorn, elder, and oak, and how they characterized them.

The blackthorn Prunus spinosa, from the large rose or Rosaceae family, is a thorny shrub which bears white-petalled flowers which open in early spring followed by small blue-black fruits. The blackthorn drupes (fleshy fruits enclosing stones), also known as sloes, have a sharp sour taste, ripening or sweetening only after the first frosts. The sloe gin that we know is the liqueur made by steeping sloes in gin. The Celts added the blackthorn berries to wine, enhancing the flavour.

According to Liz and Colin Murray in Their Fascinating Book, The Celtic Tree Oracle:

A System of Divination, blackthorn is called straif in Gaelic, a word which has links to the English strife.
They further describe this Celtic herbal shrub which is associated with the colour purple:

Black-barked and with vicious thorns, the Blackthorn forms dense thickets when given the opportunity to spread .. . The wood of the Blackthorn is that traditionally used for the Irish cudgel, or shillelagh; the thorns, those used in witchcraft to pierce wax images . . . Blackthorn is the card that represents the strong action of fate or outside influences on your life journey . . .that a winter of discontent can lead to a fruitful change and a new flowering. 3

A Celtic poem from 800 AD confirms the paradox found in the blackthorn imagery:

• The wicked blackthorn . . .
• Each prickle is a pang,
• Appetite has been well sustained by
• Those berries, juicy, darksome, stainful.4

Elder, shrubs and small trees of the genus Sambucus, in the Caprifoliaceae family, was also used by the Celts. Ruis, as it is called in Gaelic, produces five-rayed clusters of creamy white flowers followed by tiny blue-black or red berries. Black elder Sambucus nigra, is also known as European elder, ellanwood or ellhorn, names derived from the Old English word ellaern.

The fruits, which probably account for this shrub’s association with the colour red, were made into wines and jellies. The root, bark, young shoots, leaves, flowers and fruit may all be used, but with caution, since too high a dose may be purgative especially if the berries are eaten raw. The Celts used the bark medicinally and the flowers as a dye as this verse shows:

• Elder, that women strain, boil twice,
• The bark will dry the pus in boil
• Out of the flowers will come a greenness.
• Dyers make the dark and the pale be seen.5

In The Celtic Tree Oracle We Read That:

The Elder, with its distinctive, easily hollowed, pithy stems, is a tree of regeneration. It regrows damaged branches readily and it will root and grow rapidly from any part. . . . This Ogham card is linked to the eternal turnings of life and death, birth and rebirth. 6

The Celts particularly revered the oak, perhaps because upon its branches grew the sacred mistletoe. The Celtic people would have used what is now known as the English oak, Quercus robur L. which is from the large Beech family. This familiar tree is distinguished by its lobed leaves and by its distinctive fruit, the acorn. Down through the ages it has become known as well for its very durable wood, so much so that the phrase English oak has become a metaphor for strength and fortitude. The Gaelic word for oak, duir, is related to the Old English dura and the Sanskrit dvar, both meaning door. The relationship between door and oak is that both are solid and offer protection. The Celts associated the oak with the colours black and dark brown.

Liz and Colin Murray say of the oak Ogham (secret Druidic alphabet) card which represents primeval strength:

"Choosing this card means that you will be secure and strong in your pursuits. The doorway to inner spirituality will be opened to you and you will be protected on your journey."7

The bark of the English oak is now used in much the same way as white oak bark, i.e., as an astringent or tonic. Here is a verse of Celtic poetry which shows the characterization of the oak as protector and healer:

• Oak, mighty one, my shelterer,
• I lie beneath you, acorn in shell.
• Crush of your bark will cure a mastoid,
• Swine root among the years of mast.8

The acorn, the fruit of the oak, is a thin shelled, smooth nut set in a cuplike base of overlapping scales. Its appearance and the handy detachability of nut from base are appealing - especially so to children for whom they make imaginative playthings. Illustrators of whimsical tales also have taken a liking to this natural versatility and often portray the cuplike base as a hat on the head of an elf!

For the Celts, though, it is not clear whether the acorn was a source of everyday nourishment or merely a famine food. Acorns may have been boiled (a necessary step to remove the bitter tannins) and then ground and eaten or cooked into a pottage, a soup or stew. It is more likely that acorns were used as animal fodder as is described in the verse above.

Paul Huson in Mastering Herbalism, A Practical Guide, conjures up a haunting picture of the charm of the Druid wood:

Imagine yourself standing in some dark forest in Europe ten centuries ago. All around you the wide trunks of trees stretch up into the golden-green ceiling of leaves overhead; beneath your feet lies a thick carpet of dead leaves - hundreds of centuries of leaves. There grows the smooth pale trunk of a holly bush . . . its dark, prickly leaves contrasting with the delicate pale-green keys of the ash which grows beyond it. And there, on the other side of you grows a vast, spreading oak . . . gnarled by many centuries . . . This was once a Druid wood, but though the Druids and the Romans have now been gone for many centuries, the trees remain, the oak, the ash and the thorn, the guardians of Britain, tall, silent, impressive, ancient, and very powerful.9

Today, such evocative portrayals serve to inspire the modern Celts who are spearheading the Celtic resurgence. This revival is gaining popularity even with those whose Celtic roots are dim, tasting more of curry and maple syrup rather than leeks and heather!

Next issue we will continue our look at the herbs of the Celtic world.

1. Katherine Washburn, John S. Major, and Clifton Fadiman, eds., World Poetry: An Anthology of Verse from Antiquity to our Time (New York: Quality Paperback Book Club, 1998), 207.
2. Washburn, Major and Fadiman, "Part III: The Postcalssical World, Poetry in Celtic Languages."
3. Liz and Colin Murray, The Celtic Tree Oracle: A System of Divination (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1988), 50.
4. Washburn, Major and Fadiman, "Trees of the Forest" trans. Austin Clarke, 322.
5. Washburn, Major and Fadiman, "Trees of the Forest" trans. Austin Clarke, 322.
6. Murray, 52-53.
7. Murray, 37.
8. Washburn, Major and Fadiman, "Trees of the Forest trans. Austin Clarke, 322.
9. Paul Huson, Mastering Herbalism:A Practical Guide (Lanham, MD: Madison Books, 2001), 260.