Botanical lore

Holly prefers deciduous woodland and open pastures, and is the only tree that can survive under the dense shade of beech trees. The only european evergreen that has leaves, holly needs the protection of tall trees from intense cold as it is not resistant to hard winter frost and therefore is found mainly in the west (in central Europe it rarely grows larger than a shrub in consequence).

 

With its shiny, waxy leaves (like plastic or leather) and their wavy, accentuated spiny margins it is easy to distinguish. Above the reach of browsing animals, its leaves become much less spiky. With its slow and patient growth, holly is very strong and resistant, and its wood tough, of high-quality with an even texture.

 

Growing best on sandy, slightly acidic or lime soils, holly trees usually attain two to three hundred years of age. Once it reaches about twenty, holly begins to produce small, white, finely scented flowers that appear in May or June from the leaf nodes. Usually dioecious (separate male and female trees), holly can produce both genders of flower on the same tree when distribution is too sparse for insect fertilisation. Its berries are initially green and become their traditional bright red in autumn, remaining on the tree all winter.

 

Its seeds germinate in the ground on the second or third year Holly is an important source of food to many birds, although the berries are poisonous to humans, being are highly emetic and laxative. However the leaves are known for their healing properties and tea made from them wa used for curing feverish colds, coughs and loosening mucus. As a Bach Flower, holly is used to combat disconnecteness through jealousy, hatred and insensitivity, by opening the heart and prompting all-encompassing love.

holly family aquifoliaceae. holly (ilex aquifolium)

Added notes: related forms are scarlet oak, kerm-oak, holly oak, holm oak, also ilex, terebinth.

 

Mythology

For a variety of different reasons, holly has strong association with Christian symbolism. Partly seen in the passion and crucifixion of Christ, with the tree having prickly leaves, four-lobed flowers (mirroring the points of the cross) and blood red berries, the association extends further than this. The last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, was the tau (Tav), a T-shaped cross and the letter T re-occurs in the gaelic tarbh (bull and pronounced the same), and Tannus, a gaulish thunder god armed with triple thunder bolt.

The symbolism is also apparent in the story of Gawain and the Green Knight, where the latter comes to Arthur's court, challenging a knight to behead him on condition that he be allowed to return in a year's time and 'balance' the conditions that will occur in the intervening year. Similar sacrificial metaphor is found, not only in christian religion, but in Lleu Llaw Gyffes (Bendigeidfran), Bel, and in Nemi, the oak king, ritually sacrificed each summer. Like the glas-tann (green sacred tree), these are usually concerned with the holly and oak as aspects of the same thing, with oak as king of the waxing half of the year and holly as king of the waning half of the year, and the rites of passage between father/son and the lore connecting inheritance and geis. This lore is still alluded to in the carol 'of all the trees that are in the wood, the holly is the best'.

 

A similar parallel is the bull with the club foot, who represents both the conditions of kingship and also has three cranes on his back (cranes representing the alphabet's letters brought from Egypt). 

Added notes: two halves also "spear that roars for blood" (iron grey)  "battle-waging spear" and "I embolden the spearman" from Taliesin (greek is prinos and hysge, while brythonic has kelynn).

'Who so ever ageynst Holly do crye, In a lepe shall he hang full hie. Alleluia!' (Folkard 1892)
lesem yellow cairngorm. glaring hot. weekday, Tuesday. Mars. 
the word tinne in gaelic refers to the full set of pipes