Meaning
Hawthorn is a dense, thorny tree of hedges and field edges, white with blossom in May. The kenning of its letter is "pack of wolves", in Calder's translation, and the Auraicept gives two explanations: "A meet of hounds is huath, viz. white-thorn; or because it is formidable owing to its thorns".
Our reading holds the contrast together: people born in this month are read as guarded on the outside and gentle within, keeping their boundaries with care. The reading is ours.
The letter
Uath is the first letter of the second group: one stroke to the left of the stemline. Its Old Irish name úath means fear or horror; it is not a tree name. The Auraicept glosses it as whitethorn, and the Ogam Tract as "test-tree or whitethorn"; O'Flaherty in 1685 has whitethorn or thorny bushes. The manuscripts spell it huath; the Modern Irish name is Uath.
The fairy thorn
A lone hawthorn standing in a field is, in Irish folklore, a fairy tree that people will not cut. The custom is alive: in 1999 the new road near Latoon, County Clare, was built around a fairy thorn rather than through it. It is told here as custom.
In Graves' year
Hawthorn runs from 13 May to 9 June in every list of the tree months, apart from one summary that gives 15 May, most likely a slip. Paterson gave the Hawthorn month the planet Vulcan, which does not exist; that and the gemstones, animals and personality titles of tree-sign websites are modern, and are not used here.
Correspondences
Each item with how it stands: “sourced” is in the work cited, “our construction” is EsoTerrier’s own, and “disputed” means the sources disagree.
- The Auraicept's explanation
- "A meet of hounds is huath, viz. white-thorn; or because it is formidable owing to its thorns" (Calder 1917, p. 91) sourced
- The Ogam Tract's gloss
- test-tree or whitethorn (Calder 1917, p. 277) sourced
- O'Flaherty's gloss (1685)
- Uath, white-thorn or thorny bushes sourced
- How the letter is tied to the tree
- A medieval gloss: the name means something else sourced
- Colour and bird words for the letter (a medieval curiosity)
- Colour: húath, "terrible"; bird: hadaig, "night raven (?)". Words that begin with the letter, like the tract's lists of churches; not the tree's colour or animal sourced
- Our reading
- Thorny outside and white with blossom in May: guarded on the outside and gentle within, keeping boundaries with care. our construction
How the schools read it
- The medieval tracts
- The kenning "pack of wolves"; the Auraicept glosses the letter whitethorn.
- O'Flaherty, 1685
- Uath, white-thorn or thorny bushes.
- Graves, 1948
- The sixth month, 13 May to 9 June.
- Ogham scholarship
- úath means fear or horror; the tree is a learned gloss.
- Tree-sign websites
- The same dates; a planet, gemstone, animal and personality title, all modern. Not used here.
- EsoTerrier
- Thorny outside and white with blossom in May: guarded on the outside and gentle within, keeping boundaries with care.
Claims about it
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The letter name Uath means hawthorn.
falseWhat the record shows: Úath means fear or horror. The whitethorn is the medieval scholars' gloss, which the tract explains by the tree being formidable for its thorns.
-
The hawthorn is ruled by the planet Vulcan.
disputedWhat the record shows: Paterson's attribution of 1992. Vulcan is a hypothetical planet inside Mercury's orbit that does not exist. We give no planets.
-
The Hawthorn month belongs to an old Celtic calendar that the Druids kept.
falseWhat the record shows: No ancient or medieval source has a tree calendar or a tree for each birthday. The thirteen months are Robert Graves', set out in 1948.
-
The Hawthorn month has a traditional personality title.
falseWhat the record shows: The thirteen titles come from one website of the 2000s and were copied widely; nothing in Graves, Paterson or the medieval tracts supports them. We never use them.
