Hawthorn

Hawthorn (Cratageous monogyna) is a small, gnarled, thorny tree native to the UK. It's far and away my favourite tree. In May the hawthorn coats itself with a cloak of milk-white blossoms, sometimes tinged with pink, and the blossom is often so profuse that the branches are completely obscured. The musky, intoxicating scent of the flowers is at its most powerful after rain, and perfumes the lanes and hedgerows with the truest scent of late spring and early summer.

    

In Autumn, the black, thorny branches hold aloft constellations of scarlet berries, feasts for the birds.

 Hawthorns are incredibly hardy trees, found in almost every habitat in the British Isles. If you spy a hunched, wind-sculpted tree clinging to some wild hillside, chances are it'll be a hawthorn.

In the mythologies of many European cultures, hawthorn is sacred to the Fairies. It's easy to see why, as there's something palpably mysterious and otherworldly about this species. Even now in many parts of Ireland hawthorns (or whitethorns as they're known over there) can be seen standing in otherwise cleared fields, a testament to farmers' unwillingness to anger the Sídhe by cutting them down. It is said that one of the surest ways to be carried off by the Fairies is to fall asleep under a  hawthorn tree on a May evening.  It hasn't happened to me yet though.

Hawthorn wood is dense, strong and extremely hard. It is deep brown in colour, sometimes with a pinkish tinge. It burns at a very high temperature and an old rhyme from the days of wood-fired ovens states:

"By country folk 'tis often said

That Hawthorn bakes the sweetest bread."

I made this two-prong hair fork yesterday from a hawthorn branch that I collected last year from Wynyard Woodland Park, near Stockton-on-Tees, after the hedge trimmers had left bits all over the 

place. The shape and features of the wood determines what I make from it; this piece was made from the junction of two small branches and displays a swirly knot on the top part. 

This is a hair stick I made from part of the same branch, modelled by Ro in the lovely Pennine hills.