What’s that whispering in the breeze? Could it be elves?
There’s something rather magical about a willow and the way they’ve insinuated themselves into cultures across the globe, waving breezily on the banks of the river in Kenneth Grahame’s stories of the riverbank one moment, and standing beautiful and blue on Willow Pattern plates the next.
Go as far back as ancient Greece and you’ll know that Orpheus was said to have gained his gifts for music and poetry by touching the willow trees in a grove sacred to Persephone. Shakespeare featured willows frequently, too, though by then they were getting rather a bad press, with Viola begging an unrequited love to “make me a willow cabin at your gate”, Ophelia falling to her death from a broken willow branch, and Desdemona having her death foretold by a song about the trees. Shakespeare’s heroines don’t have a great experience with willows, all told.
In Japan ghosts are said to dwell where willows grow, while in British folklore willows are believed to be capable of uprooting themselves and stalking travellers.
But despite this, the trees have also been strong symbols of good fortune and positive magic.
European folklore told that the sound a weeping willow makes in the breeze is the sound of elves whispering. Perhaps they were begging the wood to reveal the secrets of those who have told their innermost thoughts to a willow, to have them bound safe forever in its wood, as the story goes. As any Harry Potter aficionado will tell you, willow makes for the most magical of wands (and the strongest of broomsticks - well, if it’s good enough for cricket bats…)
Meanwhile, Native Americans tied willow branches to their boats in order to protect them in a storm. And if all that is not protection enough for you, folklore tells that if you knock on the trunk of a willow it will disappear your bad luck for you, which is where the superstition of knocking on wood was born.
Superstition aside, willow bark has been used for thousands of years both as a pain killer and an anti-inflammatory. The Native Americans sometimes referred to it as the Toothache Tree. They were likely onto something there, as willow bark contains salicin, a natural form of aspirin. Magic indeed, when your wisdom teeth are giving you trouble and knocking on wood has done you no good.
In our March issue, we meet some real people who perform magic with willows; the mother-daughter team at Willow With Roots willowwithroots.co.uk/, who weave their homegrown willow into everything from lampshades and magic wands to sculptures and garden hideaways. Now, if they’d like to make us a willow cabin at anyone’s gate, we’d probably be happy to forget all about unrequited love. Read more on page 60.
Buy this month's The Simple Things - buy, download or subscribe
