The Holly ( Ilex aquifolium ) is a very easily recognised species due to its distinctive glossy, prickly leaves and evergreen nature. The waxy cuticle on the upper leaves allows it to retain water and be able to retain them when the deciduous trees all around are losing theirs. Being evergreen allows the holly to photosynthesise all year round – which gives it an advantage in the winter and means its trunks do not develop the marked annual rings of deciduous trees.
Holly grows to about 10m, but usually encountered as a small understory tree or bush. It gives dense cover and protective nesting spots for birds. The flowers provide nectar and pollen for bees and other pollinating insects, whilst the leaves can be eaten by caterpillars and moths as well as by deer during winter. Winter is also the time when the berries provide a particularly important source of food for birds and small mammals such as wood mice and dormice.
Because of how it grows the wood of holly is fine grained, hard and heavy. It can be used to make furniture and can be highly polished, and, because of its near white colour, can also be stained. However, since it not grow very large the timber size is limited. So the wood is well suited for small carvings – such as chess pieces, inlay and as a mahogany substitute.
A more unexpected use is as winter fodder. Sheppards would cut the upper branches (not as prickly because they are out of reach of browsing animals) and feed them to their livestock. And so holly would be regularly coppiced and thus not allowed to grow to full size. Coppicing also provided wood for the production of whips for ploughmen and horse-drawn coaches, accounting for hundreds of thousands of stems during the 17th-19th centuries. This use was probably influnced by folklore belief that the wood had an affinity for control. And in fact there is some truth in this, for holly trees were traditionally believed to protect from lightning strikes and planted near houses for this purpose, and we now know that its leaves can actually act as miniature lightning conductors – with modern science catching up with an explanation for what may previously have been dismissed as superstitious folklore!
Given its valuable properties it is not surprising that holly (also known as ‘Christmas Holly’) has held great symbolic significance historically, including in Roman, Celtic and Christian traditions. The practice of using it to ornament the home is believed to have begun with the Romans, who regarded it as an omen of good fortune and a symbol of immortality. They sent congratulatory wreaths of holly to newlyweds, and used it as a gift during the festival of Saturnalia (a celebration itself based partly on Greek and Egyptian solstice observances).
To the Celts, for whom the winter solstice was cause for both celebration and fear, evergreens were a symbol of hope and rebirth, and holly closely connected to Yuletide Festivities. The Holly King, depicted as a strong giant covered in holly leaves and wielding a holly bush as a club, was said to rule during half the year between the summer and winter solstices, at which time the Oak King defeated him until next summer solstice, when the Holly King takes back his power. However, in some belief systems, the dates of these events are shifted; so the battle takes place at the Equinoxes, and the Oak King is at his strongest during Midsummer, or Litha, and the Holly King is dominant during Yule. From a folkloric and agricultural standpoint, this interpretation seems to make more sense.
The Celts believed that by bringing evergreens indoors they were providing a haven for woodland spirits through the winter months. Evergreen plants like holly, ivy and mistletoe would ward off misfortune and bring protection and luck – with wreathes on the door acting as flypaper for fairies, trapping any evil spirits who tried to enter. Not surprisingly, it was either taboo or very bad luck to cut down whole holly trees, and they were also frequently left uncut in hedges - to obstruct witches who were known to run along the tops of hedges - although more practically it allowed farmers to use their distinctive evergreen shapes to establish lines of sight during winter ploughing.
Early Christians appropriated the practice of decorating with holly and gave it their own religious associations - namely, that the spiky leaves represented Christ’s crown of thorns, and the red berries his blood. So holly (and ivy) then became the main greenery used to decorate English churches beginning in the 15th and 16th centuries.
J.K. Rowling chose holly for Harry Potter’s wand, explaining that ..holly has certain connotations that were perfect for Harry, particularly when contrasted with the traditional associations of yew, from which Voldemort’s wand is made, - so being traditionally thought to repel evil – as well as conducting electricity!
The Festival of Beltane is a pagan fire festival held on 1st May. The word ‘Beltane’ originates from the Celtic God ‘Bel’, meaning ’the bright one’ and the Gaelic word ’teine’ meaning fire. Together they make ‘Bright Fire’, or ‘Goodly Fire’ and traditionally bonfires were lit to honour the Sun and encourage the support of Bel and the Sun’s light to nurture the emerging future harvest and protect the community. On May Eve the sexuality of life and the earth is at its peak. Abundant fertility is the central theme. The Maiden goddess has reached her full ripeness – the manifestation of growth and renewal as Flora, the Goddess of Spring, the May Queen or May Bride. The Young Oak King, as Jack-In-The-Green, as the Green Man, falls in love with her and wins her hand. The union is consummated and the May Queen becomes pregnant. Together the May Queen and King are symbols of the Sacred Marriage of the union of Earth and Sky. This is the night of the Greenwood Marriage - about sexuality and sensuality, passion, vitality and joy - and conception. It is the moment in the Wheel of the Year to bring ideas, hopes and dreams into action. And have some fun…..!
Traditionally all fires in the community were put out and a special fire kindled for Beltane. This was the Tein-eigen, ‘the need fire’. People jumped the fire to purify, cleanse and bring fertility, whilst couples jumped the fire together to pledge themselves to each other. Cattle and other animals were driven through the smoke as a protection from disease and to bring fertility. At the end of the evening, the villagers would take some of the Teineigen home to start their fires anew – as indeed Christians do in the Orthodox religion at the hour of Jesus’s resurrection.
Infusions of the leaves act as an expectorant, and as a diuretic and treatment for urinary infections, kidney stones and poisoning. The berries however, are mildly poisonous and can cause vomiting and diarrhoea. It also protects us from ourselves if our emotions becomes out of control with feelings of jealousy, envy, hatred, revenge or suspicion. Holly flower essence will help transform these emotions into those of love towards others and yourself.
Holly warns us that there may be powerful results from our actions and will help us bring a clear, calm, emotional response.
The linking of Holly and Ivy at Christmas goes back to the idea of the holly (male) and ivy (female) repesenting the sexes and being burnt together at Beltane. The well-known Xmas carol the Holly and the Ivy is related to an older carol: “The Contest of the Ivy and the Holly”, a contest between the traditional emblems of woman and man respectively. (I wis = I am sure)
Holly stands in the hall, fair to behold:
Ivy stands without the door, she is full sore a cold.
Nay, ivy, nay, it shall not be I wis;
Let holly have the mastery, as the manner is.
Holly and his merry men, they dance and they sing,
Ivy and her maidens, they weep and they wring.
Nay, ivy, nay, it shall not be I wis;
Let holly have the mastery, as the manner is.
Ivy hath chapped fingers, she caught them from the cold,
So might they all have, aye, that with ivy hold.
Nay, ivy, nay, it shall not be I wis;
Let holly have the mastery, as the manner is.
Holly hath berries red as any rose,
The forester, the hunter, keep them from the does.
Nay, ivy, nay, it shall not be I wis;
Let holly have the mastery, as the manner is.
Ivy hath berries black as any sloe;
There come the owl and eat him as she go.
Nay, ivy, nay, it shall not be I wis;
Let holly have the mastery, as the manner is.
Holly hath birds a fair full flock,
The nightingale, the popinjay, the gentle laverock.
Nay, ivy, nay, it shall not be I wis;
Let holly have the mastery, as the manner is.
Good ivy, what birds hast thou?
None but the owlet that cries how, how.
Nay, ivy, nay, it shall not be I wis;
Let holly have the mastery, as the manner is.