No, not a rant about politics, but an explanation of the love-it-and-hate-it scent of the common hawthorn, or May Tree, also known as whitethorn and quickthorn (Crataegus monogyna). Just now, the roadside hedges are dotted with the linear wands of flowering hawthorn, and if you are on foot…
Tag: folklore
This year, our Egremont Russet apple tree was laden with apples despite the hot dry summer. For the past couple of weeks, we’ve been eating windfalls, but recent winds and the inevitable abscission process have meant that they are dropping in significant numbers, so today I hauled out…
It’s a common myth, often disputed, that the Inuit have many more words for snow than in English, and Bill Bryson, in his At Home: A Short History of Private Life tells us that in South America, there are many hundreds of potato-related words. English is widely accepted to…
“Oak before ash, in for a splash; ash before oak, in for a soak” Thus runs the old country saying, suggesting that if the ash tree comes into leaf first, there will be more rain than if the oak tree does. This year, the ash trees are still…
The flowering of the blackthorn tree is commonly associated, in folklore, with a “blackthorn winter” – a sudden unseasonal spell of cold and wet or snowy weather at the same time as the tree is in blossom. Given the very variable weather we get in an English spring,…
I hope H E Bates will forgive me for purloining the title of his bucolic novel for my current piece. Hawthorn or may (Crataegus monogyna) is the third star in my spring play – first, blackthorn – second, gean – and now it’s time for the densely packed…
There’s a popular belief (in rural areas, at least – I doubt town or city dwellers notice it!) that the blooming of the blackthorn in March and early April heralds a cold spell called the “blackthorn winter”. March is often cold, so I suspect it’s a coincidence that…
This year, the oak leaves were out well before the ash. According to the saw: “Oak before ash, in for a splash – ash before oak, in for a soak”. So, what actually happened? We had 10 days of clear warm sunny weather, followed by a torrential downpour…