Botanical

The ash is one of the most beneficial of all trees. It is a light-bringer, letting light pass down through its bright green foliage in myriads of reflections, almost like a prism. It reaches very strongly up into the sky and also down into the earth, where its long grip reaches far out with a massive web of roots. These roots break down and ventilate the soil so that, with the of large amount of rich leaves it sheds every year, it is the most vital and important of trees in humus production.

 

It is also a healer. Hippocrates, a greek physician in 400 BC, set a trend we still use today through his use of ash preparations to cure gout and rheumatism, (though medicinal values of ash will have been known previously). And, since the Middle Ages, herbal books describe the healing properties of bark, leaves and seeds, which strengthen the liver and the spleen and are generally diuretic, laxative, blood-cleansing and help to de-toxify the body. Until more modern antiseptics were in use, the inner side of the bark was a remedy for healing bleeding wounds, since its fresh sap is a disinfectant. Leaves, used inside boots, refresh tired feet.

Ash has long been accepted as benevolent to newborn life. Because of its benign effect, sap of the tree was given to newly born babies in Scotland, while young twigs were put on the birth fire, 'in honour of the tree and as a prayer made for the newborn child.' (Fife 1994). Its vigourous growth was widely recognised. In Ireland, ash and hawthorn are the trees most commonly found at sacred springs, or 'clootie wells'.

 

Although found throughout Europe, ash prefers the conditions of moist air and soil, which makes it especially common in Britain. Fully grown at around a hundred years old, a three hundred year old tree is common, and far older trees are found. Its paired, feathered leaves are slightly serrated at the edges. It prefers well-watered places and grows alongside alder and other water-seeking trees.

 

Ash is often described as having power over water and Celtic customs have invariably incorporated ash wood in boats. During the clearances of the nineteenth century, migrant Gaels carried pieces of ash over the Atlantic, and Tim Severin built his hide boat, the Brendan, using the Irish lore of ash specifically 'from the north side of the tree' (very rich in lignin) for his Atlantic crossing. In rain, or cloud-making cermeonies in prehistoric Greece, Robert Graves describes the meliae, or Ash-nymphs, as cloud spirits, or 'cloud-makers' and the daughters of mighty sea gods, 'whose domain was originally the cloud sea' (Folkard 1892, 7). The Greeks dedicated the ash to the sun and to Poseidon, the god of the sea.

 

Various customs in England and on the continent were still alive in the nineteenth century, based on the tree's ability to heal. In Sweden, the ash was one of the guardian trees (Varträd), of the farm and the ash-woman (Askafroa) was provided with regular offerings of milk or beer. Ash trees however, were planted well away from houses and crops, because their vigorous root system can push out stone walls and drain water from crops. Ash tree are male, female or hermaphrodite. Flowering in April to May, long before the leaves unfold, ash has catkins (like willow) but with large single blossoms. These develop into flat, winged nutlets, often called 'keys', which usually hang in bunches throughout the winter, before being scattered by the March winds.

 

Other notes: olive family (oleaceae) common ash (fraxinus excelsior) tree of lowlands
Wood: very strong, spears, bows, arrows, tool handles, cartwheels, cricket bats, building, lumber, walking-sticks ‘ash-plants’
Bark: a poultice for adder bites
Seeds: ‘ash-keys’ are remedy for flatulence, also used as capers
Medicinal: bark is astringent, good for fever and ague, leaves are a laxative, has reputation for curing warts
Remedial: passing through cleft of pollarded ash was a cure for hernia

 

Mythology

A number of significant dates occur in early February, when Nuin/ ash  begins. Foremost is Imbolc (Feb 1st) and Candlemas (Feb 2nd) and these are the feasts of Brigit (Brigde, Bride),  whose vast influence was critical to all rites of birth.

Although Irish, Brigit has many names, one being her Brythonic counterpart Arianrhod (another Brigantia in northern Britain). Her name means 'the shining one' (breo being a torch in Irish) and associated with fires (the annual need-fire or renewal of the hearth-flame) and the colour white. Hence her connection with 'Alba' (white) and Scotland. A goddess of fertility, healing, craftwork and poetry, she epitomises the inspirational and female aspect of ash.

A related form of Brigit is Epona, the celtic horse-goddess, a mythic aspect of whose story appears as Rhiannon in the Mabinogion (where she suffers as a horse for years in order to keep her child from the ignorance of Powyll, her lord). 

Epona (root of the word pony) is symbolised beautifully in the Uffington horse, a carving on the Oxfordshire chalk downs made over 3,000 years ago. 

 

Odin's ancient World Tree, Yggdrasil, although originally a Yew, became the 'World Ash', yet  his spear was always ash, as were all spears made by Iron age peoples. The greek centaur, Chiron, made the ash spear which gave Achilles his victory at Troy. Greeks, Romans, Germanic and Celtic tribes, all had spears and arrows made from ash. Other links to Nuin are Nuada of the Silver Hand, a king of the Tuatha de Danaan, and Nodens, to whom a large sanctuary on the River Severn was dedicated in the third to fifth centuries. Both their names a re interpreted as 'cloud-maker' (Green 1992, 162) .

More recently, Tim Severin's voyage of the Brendan demonstrated the venerated sea-power - or power over water of ash - with wood cut from the north side of the tree...

odd notes: the Tree of Life, Ygdrassil (world-tree), ‘Askr Yggr-drasill’ (’the horse of Yggr’), Sleipnir (Odin’s eight-legged horse); ‘’Tre fuilngid Tre Eochair’ (’the triple-bearer of the triple key’) has two great ashtrees, the Tree of Tortu (Brythonic) and the Branching Tree of Dathi (the Danes/ Nordic).
associations: snakes fear ash and will not crawl over its wood. Traditionally the yule-log
(left: Odin on Sleipnir)

ash sacred to the Anu (or Danu - mother of the Danu), and to Poseidon in greek mythology
Feb 1st feast of Imbolc/ Feb 2nd feast ofCandlemas, when all fires renewed from single source of Brighde (St Brigit) February fill-dyke, season of floods.