Sacred Woods :: Hazel
Hazel, the tree of wisdom and learning,
Adds its strength to the bright fire burning.
Hazel does not have the oak’s might trunk,
nor the birch’s reaching white limbs, instead with each new growing
season, the humble hazel sends up a number of pliable shoots that break through the soil to join previous years’
growth. All the shoots branch at ground level, creating a base, called a stool, which can reach up to 6 ½ feet
in diameter.
While an oak will stand for centuries, its gnarled limbs spreading wide, the modest hazel typically dies before its 70th birthday. The bark of the graceful willow will cure headaches and hawthorn’s leaves were brewed into tonics, but in reference to hazel, the famed healer and author Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) reported “The hazel tree is a symbol of lasciviousness. It is rarely used in healing, when then for male potency.”
For years even modern botanists disregarded hazel, classifying it as belonging to the Betulaceae (birch) family and only recently gave it its own family, Corylaceae. Many folks refer to hazel as a bush, due to its aforementioned growing habits, rather than honoring it with its proper title of tree.
So what to make of this ignoble offering form the plant kingdom? And why revere it as one of the ten sacred woods?
Only recently have we re-discovered hazel’s important role in sustaining human life during the adventurous migrations that occurred when the ice sheets began to retreat some 10,000 years ago. Analysis of pollen deposits taken from dated peat strata has confirmed that hazel was a dominant under-story tree in pine forests after the last ice age. But it is thought that hazel is native to Asia Minor, which is no where near the dense confer and deciduous forests of Europe.
When man began to move into newly revealed areas during the Mesolithic Period (11-6,000 years ago, the nuts were an easy to transport, relatively long storing food source and so they went with him. As a result of a nut dropping here and there along the trek and the tree’s seeming indifference to growing conditions, the range of hazel expanded exponentially. From Asia Minor, the tree spread east into the warm countries surrounding the Mediterranean Sea and westward through Iran and even into China, thanks to its toasty and vitamin rich nuts which can be eaten or pressed for their aromatic, delicately flavored oil. The Chinese boast a five thousand year history of carefully cultivating hazel in order to harvest the nuts.
Today, it can be found throughout Europe and Scandinavia and into Russia as far as the Ural Mountains. In the colder latitudes, hazel nuts were the only properly edible nut for years, keeping the new settlers fed and nourished.
It grows happily in all parts of England, except the Shetland Islands. An old name for Scotland, even alludes to the prevalence of the tree in the area, the name is Caledonia, meaning hill of the hazel (Col/Cale = hazel, dun = hill).
Observing the seeming ease with which
hazel nuts rooted and sent forth new life and the annual rebirth of dormant
stools with fresh shoots each spring it is easy to see why man believed the plant to possess the power of fertility,
sometimes believing its influence to extend to a lascivious extreme. The nuts themselves may be consumed or carried
to increase fertility and they were gathered for use in fall fertility rites in some areas of England.
The bounty of hazelnuts in nature was linked to human fertility and promiscuity in the sayings: “When there are hazelnuts, there are also many children born out of wedlock” and “When the hazelnuts prosper; so do the whores.”
To “go into the hazelwood” was once a euphemism for sexual intercourse and girls considered to be "easy" were given hazel sticks during spring festivals. Indeed young girls were even warned away from hazel, especially during the Middle Ages when the tree came to symbolize seduction. A Moravian song from the period warns a virgin against the dangerous tree:
(Virgin to Tree) “Protect yourself Lady Hazel, and look all around you I have at home two brothers proud, they want to cut you down.
(Hazel responds) If they cut me down in winter, in summer I’ll green again But when a girl loses her maiden head, that she’ll never find again.
Even the branches of the tree were thought to bring the blessing of fertility. They were carried at weddings and hung over beds for this purpose and couples hoping for children could often be seen carrying branches laden with nuts. Everything lashed with hazel becomes fertile and prosperous according to lore. In Northern Europe, midwinter rituals included a rite in which boys wrapped in furs descended upon villages to flog people and animals with hazel branches for just this purpose.
Hazel’s ability to protect mankind from hunger bloomed into a host of areas in which hazel was believed to posses protective powers. The renown protective powers of hazel are even mentioned in the Bible as being the branches beneath which Mary seeks shelter from severe storms while traveling to visit her cousin Elizabeth. This may have been a source for the practice of placing twigs in window frames to protect the house from lightening and of driving three pins of hazel into the structure of a home to provide protection from fire.
Using a hazel twig to draw a circle around yourself or a plant was said to protect all inside and if the circle were to be drawn around a snake, it was said that the snake would not be able to escape the boundary. When taken aboard ships, hazel protected sailors from shipwreck. In perhaps the most strange and specific belief regarding hazel’s powers of protections, hard drinkers who cut a piece of hazel at midnight on Halloween and kept it in their pocket would never become intoxicated, regardless of how much they drank.
In the modern Rede of the Wiccae, hazel is numbered among the sacred woods of the witches, but it was once believed to protect people and animals from occult forces. At one time in Scotland double hazelnuts were thrown at witches to keep them at bay. In other areas, breast bands fashioned of hazel’s pliable switches were placed on horse’s harnesses to protect them from witchcraft and demons. At Beltane and Litha, cattle were singed with hazel witches to keep them safe from fairy’s enchantment as they wandered the open fields during grazing months. Hazel even held the power to protect the dead. Since Neolithic times, a tradition of burying the dead with a hazelnut between their teeth or in their hand persisted in the belief that it will stave off hunger in the afterlife.
Hazel is considered a masculine tree and for centuries, its branches have been used to create the most phallic and
authoritative of tools, the wand. Hermes’ caduceus, a gift to the god from Apollo, was fashioned of hazel and when
Hermes touched people with the rod, they could speak fro the first time. Odin’s wand, also cut from a hazel branch
was carved with reddened runes on Wednesday, the day over which he held governance.
Old Jewish legends speak of both Aaron and Moses’ rods being hazel. Aaron’s rod was said to have been created on the sixth day of creation and carried out of the Garden of Eden by Adam who subsequently passed it into the hands of the first patriarch. In Exodus 4:2, Moses is described holding his rod while tending his flock and it is this rod that God uses to prove to the mortal that He is indeed who He says He is. The rods of Moses and/or Aaron are cited repeatedly through Exodus and Psalms and are mentioned in Ezekiel, Numbers and Isaiah as well. These humble hazel sticks become powerful tools in the hands of the brothers who use them to prove the power and wisdom of their God, to bring plagues, to part waters, to spring water from a rock and to hold dominion over their people as they wander through the desert.
St. Patrick too was said to have employed a hazel rod with which he directed all the snakes of Ireland into the sea. Through the Middle Ages and into recent centuries, sorcerer’s wands and royals’ scepters were made of hazel, which enabled the rod’s possessor to find hidden treasures. This belief and practice is merely an extension of far older practices found in various parts of the globe.
Five thousand years ago, Chinese feng shui masters used hazel wands to find dragon energy in the earth. On the Italian peninsula, Etruscan dowsers, known as aquileges, could find underground springs using hazel rods; the Roman naturalist Pliny wrote a how-to on this practice centuries after Etruscan civilization disappeared so it was obviously a method that continued to be used years later.
For centuries, forked hazel branches were reputed to be the best tool for finding water sources; specific instructions for procuring a hazel rod suitable for dowsing are given as:
Hazel was further endowed with the ability to make rain, a practice said to originate with Etruscans shaman that
continued long into the Middle Ages and later became associated with witchcraft. The transcript of a 17th century
witch trial reads: “A devil gave a hazel branch to a witch and told her to beat a stream with it, where upon a downpour
followed…A witch boy flogged water with a hazel switch until a small cloud rose up from it. Not long thereafter, a
rainstorm began.”
When man’s idea of ultimate treasure moved from necessary water to luxurious gold and silver, hazel’s reputed divining powers changed as well. The wands of kinds and sorcerer’s were now said to be able to uncover precious treasure, a belief that carried well into recent centuries.
As well as being able to divine the location of treasure, hazel is also believed to bestow the blessing of mystical wisdom in Germanic and Celtic, especially Irish, lore. Wisdom is a trait most desirable in a ruler and the wand that once found treasure may have become a symbol of the ruler’s wisdom and through the use of this wisdom, his ability to protect his people. When consumed, the nuts grant wisdom and were often eaten prior to divination, a practice that can easily become part of divination preparations today. Celtic judges carried the branches for wisdom and heralds so their words would be well chosen and intelligent. For Germanic people, the handle of Thor’s hammer had been crafted of hazel, so to invoke his presence and the justice which his hammer symbolized, hazel branches were placed in the ground around Thingstead, where council meets and duels took place.
The most fantastic and detailed lore connecting hazel directly with the acquisition of wisdom is the legend of Haselwurn. This white, half-snake half-human creature was said to possess the head of an infant or cat upon which sat a golden crown and its cry was similar to that of a child. The Snake Queen, as she was also know, lived under a very old hazel tree that had been invaded by mistletoe, but these clues to her hiding spot made her no easier to find, though men have search for her through the centuries in order to acquire the knowledge she possesses.
To find her was difficult enough, but once founds, she must then be captured. Specific instructions regarding her capture were provided. Her hiding place must be approached before sun rise on the new moon, the correct spells must then be spoken: one addressing the hazel and one to enchant the snake. Dried mugwort can then be sprinkled on the snake to keep it quiet.
For those who do find her and eat her flesh are rewarded with wondrous powers and command over spirits, they will be able to make themselves invisible and the secrets of herbal healing will be opened to them. Paracelsus, the 16th century physician, alchemist and astrologer, was believed to have eaten such a snake. During the Middle Ages, the Snake Queen was equated with the serpent that spoke to Eve in the Garden of Eden, thus it came to be referred to as the Serpent of Paradise.
As with most legends, it is believed that the snake and the arduous effort necessary to find her are symbolic. The serpent is connected to the archaic brain stem and the entire limbic system which appears in the mind of those in deep meditation. Base instincts are directed from this most primal part of the nervous system. Sexuality, procreation, emotion, divinatory ability have their basis here and hazel has the ability to exert a subtle influence over this area.
Some of the themes found in the legend of
Hazelwurm filtered through to folklore and common usage. Crown of hazel
are said to induce invisibility or to grand the wearer their wishes and general good luck. Welsh superstition suggests
that hazel is so influential that only a twig and leaves, rather than a whole crown, worn in a cap will impart the
previous blessings. Hazel’s connection to wisdom gained through divination comes through in the belief that sleeping
under a hazel will cause prophetic dreams and in a charming, classic Halloween tradition. On Halloween night, it is
possible to detect if your lover is faithful by placing two hazelnuts in the bonfire; if they jump and glow your love
is true. This tradition was once so prevalent that Halloween is also called Nutcrack Night and the poet John Gay
immortalized the practice in one of his poems:
And to each nut I gave a sweetheart’s name:
This with the loudest bounce me sore amaz’d,
That in a flame of brightest colour blaz’d
As blaz’d the nut, so may thy passion grow,
For ‘twas thy Nut that did brightly glow!
Hazelnuts, which resemble an acorn without a cap, ripen to brown in September and October, just in time for Nutcrack Night and for giving out to trick or treaters, as was the tradition in Celtic lands. A delicious recipe including the nuts would be most appropriate to celebrate autumn's sacred days.
Hazelnut Biscotti
2/3 cup white sugar
1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
¼ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking powder
1 ¼ teaspoons black pepper
5 tablespoons room temperature butter
1 ½ cups toasted chopped hazelnuts
2 large beaten eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
Mix sugar, flour, baking powder, salt and pepper in a bowl. Add the butter and crumble the butter into the dry ingredients using two knives in a criss-crossing motion as you would for a pie shell.
In seperate bowl, add vanilla and hazelnuts to 2 beaten eggs. Add dry ingredients to wet and mix well, use your hands to mix so you can feel the dough. If it is too dry, keep working everything together.
Shape dough into four logs and place on a parchement paper lined cookie sheet.
Bake at 350 for 15 minutes.
Allow to cool, then slice into ¾ slices.
Toast the slices for 5 minutes on each side.
Before 1940, the US imported but did not grow hazelnuts, which they call Filberts either in honor of St. Philbert around whose day the nuts ripen or as a derivative of the German Vollbart which means “full beard” and is a reference to the appearance of the nut. Today, the northwestern states grow hazelnuts commercially for direct consumption or for pressing into oil. Delicately flavored and aromatic, hazelnut oil is used in cooking and salad dressing but also in oil based paint, machine lubricants, perfumes and cosmetics.
Growing hazel is stunningly easy thanks to the plants tolerance to what would normally be adverse conditions. A hazel is happy in full or partial sun, it’s lime tolerant and it doesn’t mind overly wet conditions though in wet conditions the stool is often covered in mosses, liverworts and lichens. The hazel is short lived, living only 50-70 years, but if coppiced it will create a beautiful fencing for hundreds of years.
Varieties of Hazel for Your Garden
Corkscrew Hazel – Corylus avellana contorta. A popular choice as an ornamental garden tree, it is stunning gin late winter to early spring when the catkins appear.
Kentish Cob – Coryllus maxima Native to west Asia and southeast Europe, this variety produces larger nuts, leaves and male catkins than the average hazel. It’s a small tree, growing up to 32 feet. Coryllus maxima purpurea is the purple leaved variety.
Turkish Hazel – Corylus columa In its native lands, this variety grows in a pyramidal shape up to 80’. Its bark, which is the standard grey brown associated with hazel has coarser fissures. It was introduced to Britain in the 17th century, but it is a sun loving plant that thrives in hot summers and cold winters. In colder climates it does not fruit well.
Witch Hazel – Hamamelis species. Native to North America and mistaken by Europeans as a hazel because of the similarity in leaves and growing habits, the bark and leaves of witch hazel have medicinal and tonic properties. It is cultivated in Germany.
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