Winter is a time of rest, renewal, and reflection, but it also feels just a little bit otherworldly. In the orchard, the trees have now shed their leaves and stand like silhouetted skeletons, the hips and haws dot flashes of festive red in the hedges, the winter dew collects on surviving perennial leaves and spider webs, and the frost hangs on branches like glitter. Folklore comes alive in this environment.
But folklore isn’t just old myths and legends of rural places, it also includes what we practice, believe, and say today. It’s the tools we use, and the things we grow and make. It’s in our urban orchards nestled in sprawling cities. Folklore is everything and everywhere.
In the orchard, knowing both old and newer folk stories, uses, traditions, rituals and practices can make us feel more connected to the things we grow, the trees we care for and to our fellow orchardists. Here are some winter folk stories and practices you can share in your orchard during this dark season.
The Cailleach: A winter nature spirit
In Scottish folklore, the Cailleach (pronounced Cahl-yach) is associated with the cold of winter. Written stories of the Cailleach only emerge in the late 19th and early 20th century, but folklorists and historians have found some medieval and possibly even ancient elements to her story. The word Cailleach means “old woman” or, rather unflatteringly, “hag”.
This old woman figure was a giantess with a tangle of long white hair and blue-tinged skin, a nature spirit with God-like qualities. She was sometimes depicted carrying a rod used to strike the earth to bring the frosts. When the spring emerges, she tries to keep her wintery realm by striking down new green shoots with her frosty magic, until she is finally defeated by the warmth of spring.
The winter is an important season for fruit trees, so the Cailleach can be very helpful in an orchard. Fruit trees need a certain number of “chilling hours” (between 1°C to around 12°C) to develop their flowering buds for fruiting later. Typically, apple and pear trees need around 1000 hours. She brings the cold to let the fruit trees sleep well in a deep dormancy, so they can emerge with a good amount of fruit in the warmer months.
But she can also be destructive. We have all known the agony of seeing a fruit tree full of flowers in early spring, only for the Cailleach to summon one last frost to damage the blooms and risk the future fruit. She can be a very cruel winter spirit when the mood takes her.
Plantlore and winter remedies
While the Cailleach brings the cold, we need to keep our strength up to be able to complete all the winter orchard tasks on our ‘to do’ list. Our orchards are full of helpful plants that have folklore uses as cold and flu remedies in the winter months.
Herbs that are winter hardy, such as Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme make wonderful warming teas when added to hot water, and are quick to brew up in the middle of a gardening session! These herbs have anti-bacterial and anti-inflammatory properties, and smell and taste wonderful.
Rose hips have been used to create syrups and tonics due to the incredibly high content of Vitamin C in these small fruits, which boosts the immune system. When using rose hips in your flu defence syrups, make sure to remove the tiny hairs and seeds from inside the fruit. It’s a good idea to wear rubber gloves when doing this as the tiny hairs are very irritating to the skin. In fact, they can cause such an itch they were used by children as itching powder for horrible pranks in the 1940s and 50s!
During the second world war in the 1940s, the Ministry of Food published “Hedgerow Harvest” leaflets to encourage foraging, including promoting picking rose hips to make immune boosting syrups. In later versions of the leaflets, recipes for rose hip syrups and marmalades were included.
Orchard winter wreaths and garlands
Seasonal festivals have always involved using available plants that would add the most colour as decoration. For winter festivals in the UK that means evergreens with beautiful red or deep purple berries. The pre-Christian traditions of decorating with evergreen wreaths and garlands are seen in descriptions of the Roman festival Saturnalia. Saturnalia honoured the God Saturn and was celebrated from 17 to 23 December throughout the Roman empire.
Holly and ivy can often be found in the margins of community orchards among wildlife hedges. These plants are very important for biodiversity in the cold months, with holly berries being a vital source of winter food for birds and small mammals. Not all holly bushes will have red berries, only the flowering female plants. But if your holly display is lacking a flash of red, rose hips can be used in your garlands and wreaths instead.
Ivy berries are a beautiful fresh green colour, ripening to a moody deep purple, with a high fat content which is very nutritious to birds. If using these plants for your wreaths and garlands, remember to leave enough for our insect and animal friends to feast on so they can celebrate Saturnalia too!
by Franki Appleton, volunteer community orchardist at Sustainable Merton’s Mitcham Community Orchard, and co-founder of Tree Folk Collective.
Further reading:
Read more about more winter plantlore in our previous blog on mistletoe: The Magic of Mistletoe
Find out more about winter orchard activities: The Orchard Year – Winter
Book recommendations:
Hutton, R (2022), Queens of the Wild: Pagan Goddesses in Christian Europe: an Investigation, Yale University Press, New Haven.
Vickery, R (2010), Garlands, Conkers and Mother-Die: British and Irish Plantlore, Continuum Publishing Corporation, London