Bringing hawthorn indoors
Bringing hawthorn indoors was believed in Britain to be followed by illness and death, notes a woodland charity, yet the same blossom decked doors every May. In Suffolk, a servant who brought in a flowering branch on May Day earned cream.
What it may mean
Hawthorn has two reputations that meet at the front door. On May Day, people in Cornwall decked their doors and porches with flowering branches, and in Suffolk farmhouses a servant who brought in a branch in full blossom on the first of May was given a dish of cream for breakfast. Yet in Britain, a woodland conservation charity notes, it was believed that bringing hawthorn blossom inside would be followed by illness and death. The plant was welcome at the threshold and feared beyond it. Most of us keep a similar line. Some things are lovely at the door (a neighbor's gossip, a colleague's drama, a relative's opinions) and become a different matter once they are inside your rooms. The hawthorn line is a reminder that you can admire something and still choose where it stops.
Depending on how you saw it
A branch of may on the doorstep
In Cornwall, Brand records, it was an ancient custom to deck doors and porches with green boughs of sycamore and hawthorn on the first of May. A decorated threshold tells passersby something about the house. What do your front door and your manner say about you before anyone steps in?
The smell up close
Hawthorn blossom is pretty from a distance, but close up its scent has a stale, fishy edge, which comes from a chemical also formed early in decay. Which lovely thing do you prefer to enjoy from a few steps away?
Blossom that misses the date
Brand noted that the Suffolk cream custom had faded because servants could no longer find hawthorn in full blossom by the first of May. The date stayed fixed while the tree kept its own schedule. Which old date in your calendar no longer matches when things actually happen?
Why it happens in nature
Common hawthorn flowers in May in Britain, which is why it is also called may. Its blossom contains trimethylamine, a compound that gives it a faintly fishy smell and is also one of the first chemicals formed in decaying animal tissue. The tree supports hundreds of insect species, and migrating birds eat its red haws.
What folk beliefs say
Britain
It was believed in Britain that bringing hawthorn blossom inside would be followed by illness and death, and in medieval times the blossom was said to smell like the Great Plague, according to the Woodland Trust.
Source: Woodland Trust, Common hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna), A-Z of British trees (n.d.), www.woodlandtrust.org.uk. View the page
England (Suffolk)
It was an old custom in Suffolk farmhouses that any servant who could bring in a branch of hawthorn in full blossom on the first of May was entitled to a dish of cream for breakfast.
Source: John Brand; Henry Ellis (ed.), Observations on the Popular Antiquities of Great Britain, vol. 1 (1849), vol. 1, p. 229. View the page
England (Cornwall)
Borlase, quoted by Brand, wrote that the Cornish had an ancient custom of decking their doors and porches on the first of May with green boughs of sycamore and hawthorn.
Source: John Brand; Henry Ellis (ed.), Observations on the Popular Antiquities of Great Britain, vol. 1 (1849), vol. 1, p. 222. View the page
To reflect on
What do you happily welcome at your door but would rather not let into your rooms?