A Tree is for Life (& Death), not just for Christmas. 

 
I’ve been thinking a lot about trees lately. Trees and humans share a deep and intrinsic 
connection. Whether you want to term this connection holistic, cosmic, emotional or 
chemical matters very little, as at the sub-atomic level its all much of a muchness. 
Trees are made of us and we are made of Trees; Sunlight, water and carbon dioxide 
combine through photosynthesis to create the building blocks of growth, and in heavily 
urban environments a good deal of this carbon dioxide is the exhaled breath of us 
Townies. Trees absorb 50% more carbon dioxide than they emit and in turn provide 
much of the oxygen we can gasp above the fumes. This perpetual interchange of matter 
is vital to our survival, especially when you consider that London actually has more 
Trees than people, and recent research from UCL has found that they store as much 
carbon per hectare as tropical rainforests. Furthermore we replace 98% of the seven 
billion billion billion atoms in our body every year, a factoid fabulously illustrated by the 
notion that each inhalation of every human on the planet contains at least one atom of 
Julius Caesar’s dying breath.  
 
Trees have been instrumental in human worldviews as far back as we can tell (which is 
not very far, about 12 thousand years, at a pinch, which might seem a long time to wait 
for a bus, but is nothing in terms of geology or evolution). This is probably because they 
have been around a lot longer than we have, (by even the most generous estimates 
anatomically modern humans are less than a million years old, whereas trees started 
evolving from smaller plant forms 350 million years ago) because we have relied on them 
for food and shelter for most of the past 55 million years, and because they are larger, 
stronger and more durable than we are. On a cosmic level the World Tree is a recurring 
feature in religion, mythology and folklore from mesopotamia to mesoamerica. 
Instrumental in integrating differing cosmic realms, dimensions or planes, the World 
Tree is repeatedly depicted with its branches holding up the sky and roots reaching 
down to the hidden darkness of the underworld. As such, Trees symbolically connect 
the sky and the earth, the living and the dead. On a more local level, village squares, 
farmsteads, churchyards and shrines all over the world include a sacred grove or Tree, 
providing priceless oases of biodiversity and enshrining ageless cultural memories and 
traditions. In some areas the Sacred Groves attached to Holy Tombs remain sacrosanct, 
even generations after the identity of the occupant is lost from memory. There are also 
spookily consistent traditions attached to sacred trees: leaving offerings of candles or 
foodstuffs, pouring wine, beer, or milk over the roots, and tying ribbons and cloths to 
branches. Leaving presents ​under​ the tree probably originated as a tradition of leaving 
presents f​ or​ the tree, or tree-spirit, or Saint, Prophet or Elder associated with it. Similar 
offerings are made at Holy Wells, Springs, Rivers, Barrow mounds, fairy-rings, standing 
stones and stone circles all over the world.  
 
Trees are the place for tapping into otherworldly power, whether asking for the 
blessings of good weather or holding a Witches Sabbat. Some Trees, especially apples 
and yews have been revered as doorways to the otherworld or ‘Fairy Trees’. Yews are 
especially associated with death and rebirth because of their ability to split and regrow. 
The tradition of passing coffins through split Yews en route to the grave, recorded as 
late as the 19th century for the ancient Fortingall Yew in Scotland, represents one of the 
many folkloric associations between the Yew and the Dead in Ireland and Britain alone. 

 
Cuttings of Yew were customarily wrapped in shrouds, hung in houses in which bodies 
lay awaiting burial, and carried in funerary processions, and is the tree symbolising the 
darkest season of the year, between Halloween, and the Solstice. The Yew in the 
Churchyard of St Dygain in Llangonyw was said to have been inhabited by an ancient 
spirit known as ‘Angelystor’, who emerged on Halloween to announce the names of 
those in the parish who would die within the next year. Their ubiquitous presence in 
Churchyards has given rise to a series of legends in the most stubbornly Celtic areas of 
northern Europe. Various traditions hold that the roots of the Yew dig down into the 
eyes or mouths of corpses: keeping the secrets of the dead, silencing the screams of the 
damned in torment, hosting the souls in purgatory or soaking up souls from the ground 
to release them into the air through its branches, depending on where you are. Suitably 
macabre for a Halloween Tree, but also a reminder of the symbiotic relationships of the 
natural and supernatural worlds.  
 
With the Solstice comes the season of rebirth and the move towards light, but as with all 
changes of seasons, risks abound from unseen forces; mistletoe and ivy are symbols of 
fertility and miraculous growth, but the Holly decking the halls acts as sanctified 
flypaper trapping fairies, ​demons, witches and other malevolent spirits of the air. 
Frankincense, (the resin of the ​Boswellia Sacra)​, and Myrrh (the sap of the ​Commiphora 
myrrha​) ​have been used for millennia not just to purify and consecrate sacred spaces, but 
to summon spirits into them. Myrrh was also used as an embalming agent, and because 
of its analgesic properties it was offered mixed with wine to those condemned to 
crucifixion. Other plants were routinely deployed against the forces of evil by burning 
or smudging during the nights of Christmas, Hildegard of Bingen claimed that the 
smoke of fir wood was ‘hated by the spirits of the air’, together with Cardamon, Mastic 
and Juniper, which with Bay and Rosemary operate very much as the SAS of plants, 
smoking out depression, lunacy, witches, goblins and guarding from evil spirits, 
thunder and lightning. On St Lucie’s Day (13th December, the winter solstice before the 
shift to the Gregorian Calendar), the ‘blackest night’ was also fortified with hazel rods 
and mugwort. It's not all doom and gloom though I promise, Pliny recorded the 
‘miracle blossom’ of winter flowering pennyroyal being hung under rooftops on the 
Solstice, and in the later years of the Roman Empire the 25th December was celebrated 
as the birth date of ‘Sol Invicta’, the Unconquerable Sun. Summer is coming, just be 
sure to take down your decorations before Candlemass ( the feast of St Bridget or the 
Celtic Imbolc) on 1st February, or you’ll have a goblin infestation to deal with; and I’m 
not even joking. 
 
"Down with the rosemary, and so,  
Down with the bays and mistletoe ; 
Down with the holly, ivy, all,  
Wherewith ye dress'd the Christmas Hall : 
That so the superstitious find,  
No one least branch there left behind : 
For look, how many leaves there be  
Neglected, there (maids, trust to me) 
So many goblins you shall see." R
​ obert Herrick 1591-1674 
 
Nell Aubrey, Witch in Residence.