'Embracing the Thorn'

Hawthorn in Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights

Springtime, Hawthorn Blossom, 1917, Alexander Brownlie Docharty | GMRC

One may guess the power of the north wind, blowing over the edge, by the excessive slant of a few, stunted firs at the end of the house; and by a range of gaunt thorns all stretching their limbs one way, as if craving alms of the sun.

English Hawthorns (Crataegus monogyna)—their ‘gaunt thorns all stretching their limbs one way, as if craving alms of the sun’—grow at Wuthering Heights. Outside my front door I grow our U.S. native, the Washington Hawthorn (Crataegus phaenopyrum). Right now it is covered in clusters of white flowers, but by late-summer our resident mockingbird will be hopping among its top branches devouring its red berries.

The Power of the North Wind

More branches grow on the south side of trees. The branches on the south side tend to grow toward the horizontal and the branches on the north side tend to grow more vertically.¹

Tristan Gooley, Fellow of the Royal Institute of Navigation and the Royal Geographical Society

I am observant. Emily Jane Brontë also paid attention. She knew that trees are shaped by the wind. Exposed trees, especially. Looking at a tree perpendicular to the action of the wind shows us the windward sides bear the brunt; branches on the windward side are tightly packed and straggly branches stick out—craving alms of the sun. Very little light penetrates this side; the downwind edge of the tree, through which more light passes, appears more straggly and vertical in shape²

Our hawthorn grows beside (and shelters) our Eastern Redbud tree. It takes the brunt of the westerly winds. Our 20-foot hawthorn is sheltered by the neighbor’s Japanese maple and so, it grows rather uniformly. No branches in particular require charity. The tree produces copious fruits and our mockingbird proliferates the species.

The Heart of a Tree

While learning about hawthorns I discovered another interesting bit…about the heart of a tree. Yes, the heart of a tree is not quite the same as our human heart but just for a moment, let’s think about it in that way.

Heartwood is at the center of a tree. At least that is the general definition but it is not necessarily true. The heart is drawn toward the side from which the prevailing wind blows; it’s location is affected by the asymmetric strains of the wind.³

The heart is dark. And dead. Yet, it does not decay.

I can’t help but think of Catherine Earnshaw, whose home was at Wuthering Heights. When she moves to Thrushcross Grange, the honeysuckles embrace the thorn. But she is drawn to the Heights. Cathy married Edgar but she shares her heart with Heathcliff. When neither man will yield to the other and they remain at odds, she wills herself to die. But Heathcliff lives, and so, she does not decay. Not until they are joined together again will they dissolve into the earth as one.

If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be…

Perhaps it is our hearts, which when shared with another and braced against the strains of prevailing winds, support us and make us strong?

The heartwood of the hawthorn is dead, but the tree bears fruit. The fruits (haws) have been used medicinally throughout history. I’m curious: what do you think hawthorn is capable of healing? The heart. It’s true!

In the 19th century an Irish physician using Crataegus, created an elixir from its leaves and haws, which acted as a cardiac depressant and hypotensive, slowing an overactive heart and lowering high blood pressure. Hawthorn is still used today to mend and heal our damaged human hearts.⁴

Hawthorn Blossoms, c 1899, Edward Wilkins Waite, Museums Worcester

The Death-Stench of Hawthorn

I began writing this essay on Memorial Day (U.S.), which coincides with the UK bank holiday. In 1971 the Spring Bank Holiday became fixed—the holiday lost its centuries-long link to Whitsun, a moveable feast commemorating the descent of the Holy Spirit to Christ’s disciples.⁵

Also in 1971, Sylvia Plath’s poem, “Whitsun” was posthumously published. Written a decade prior, Plath’s poem is an honest (and cynical) reflection of a holiday spent in Whitby. I was reintroduced to the poem—a stanza of which is below— while reading about hawthorn in Vickery’s Folk Flora, An A-Z of the Folklore and Uses of British and Irish Plants.

Green as a pool table, where cabbage butterflies
Peel off to sea as gulls do,
And we picnic in the death-stench of hawthorn.
The waves pulse like hearts.
Beached under spumy blooms, we lie
Sea-sick and fever-dry.

Not such a romantic vision, is it? Plath’s observation of an overpopulated destination, filled with tourists she likens to hospital inmates is not my focus.⁶ It is instead, only one line: And we picnic in the death-stench of hawthorn.

Hawthorn flowers contain a chemical called trimethylamine. If you read my essay, ‘Of the Dead Land,’ you learned how certain organic compounds add a sickening odor of decay to the fragrance of some plants—lilacs, being the particular focus of my piece.

Unlike lilacs, which contain a chemical called indole (a breakdown of the amino acid tryptophan), hawthorn does not smell floral and sweet. More accurately, it smells like rotting fish.⁷

Do you recall, I mentioned earlier that I grow hawthorn? I asked my husband to clip a sprig of its flowers for me yesterday—they are so high, I cannot reach them. Plath is entirely accurate in her description: the death-stench of hawthorn is unmistakable. Like the dull, rotting ‘meat’ odor of a decaying animal, the smell catches in your throat and sort of chokes you if you inhale too deeply. It is this odor, Vickery suggests, which led to various superstitions related to the plant.

Hag-bush and Pin Trees

Folklorist Roy Vickery believes Hawthorn’s reputation as unlucky developed due to its death-like stench. It is considered bad luck to bring hawthorn flowers into the house as it is believed it will result in death. Vickery provides a number of reasons the belief may have developed but most accurately, he recognizes:

It is not surprising that our ancestors, who kept corpses in their homes for anything up to a week before burial, were fully aware of the odor of death and decay, and would not want hawthorn flowers indoors.

Vickery’s Folk Flora, An A-Z of the Folklore and Uses of British and Irish Plants

Vickery also tells us, in Yorkshire the hawthorn was called hag-bush. A magical plant, the hawthorn is related to witches and sacred to fairies. It increases fertility, protects houses from lightning and even promotes a good catch, when fishing!⁸

The Pennsylvania Germans called hawthorn, schpel le bawm or, pin tree because the thorns were used by wool carders in place of pins. And so, we return to Wuthering Heights, Gimmerton and the grazing sheep of the moorland. ♡

I hope you’re enjoying these short essays based on my current research into Emily Brontë’s weaving of Nature into Wuthering Heights. As I ramble down rabbit holes I will continue to share my discoveries…I hope you’ll join me.

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1. The southwestern and southern sides of a hawthorn have been observed to appear bare of fruit (haws) while its opposite side is often weighed down by hundreds of haws.

2. Gooley, Tristan, and Marc Williams. The Lost Art of Reading Nature’s Signs : Use Outdoor Clues to Find Your Way, Predict the Weather, Locate Water, Track Animals--and Other Forgotten Skills., Illustrated by Neil Gower, The Experiment, 2014.

3. When viewed in a cross-section.

4. Reader’s Digest Association. Magic and Medicine of Plants. Reader’s Digest Association, 1986.

5. Parker, Eleanor. “The Sad Loss of Our Common Rituals.” UnHerd. May 29, 2020.

6. The entire poem was published in The Colossus and other poems. (affiliate link)

7. Trimethylamine also contributes to the odor of animal decay and human infection.

8. Cunningham, Scott. Cunningham’s Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs. Llewellyn Publications, 1998.

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