Christmas is a Christian celebration strongly influenced by the Roman festival of ‘Saturnalia’ and a veritable cocktail of activities borrowed from the ‘Pagan’ solstice festivals. Pagan was the name given to non-christian groups by the Christians and included a wide range of local activities and festivities that were part of the solstice celebrations that heralded the New Year and a return to longer daylight hours.
Pagans celebrated with feasts and activities that often included food and alcohol, but many of their festivities remain today. Some are better known than others, but hundreds of years ago and before the use of clocks to tell the time, Pagans stuck a stick in the ground three days after Solstice (now known as Christmas Eve) and waited for it to cast a shadow from the sun, this usually happened around 25th December – this meant the sun was returning – and that was a reason to celebrate.
Another Pagan tradition was to decorate their houses with plants. In the depth of winter in Britain, not many plants are in leaf, but two favourites were the Holly (Ilex) and the Ivy (Hedera), and this is their story.
In Celtic mythology, the Holly King ruled nature from the summer to the winter solstice. At the summer solstice, the Oak King defeated the Holly King to lead until the summer solstice again.
The Holly King was depicted as a mighty giant of a man covered in holly leaves and branches, wielding a holly bush as a club. It’s widely believed that the Green Knight of Arthurian legend was based on the Holly King. Gawain rose to the Green Knight’s formidable challenge in this story during the Round Table’s Christmas celebrations.
However, the folklore of the holly is only partially connected with Yuletide festivities. Like several other native trees, people believed it had protective properties. It was said you would bring ‘bad luck’ upon yourself if you cut down a whole holly tree, and even today, you can see holly trees in hedges left uncut when trimmed.
Some believed that leaving the holly tree uncut in the hedge was to obstruct witches, as it was generally believed witches would navigate along the tops of hedges. Bats still use this method of navigation today.
More practically, farmers used the distinctive evergreen holly trees to establish lines of sight during winter ploughing. In 1861 the then Duke of Argyll had a new roadway rerouted to avoid cutting down a distinctive old holly tree.
Despite the belief that the felling of whole trees would bring bad luck, taking boughs for decoration, and coppicing of trees to provide winter fodder, was allowed. Holly leaves proved to be exceptionally nutritious as winter feed for livestock. Some farmers even installed grinders to make the pricklier leaves more palatable.
Coppicing also allowed the holly’s hard, white, close-grained wood to be used for inlaid marquetry and to make chess pieces and tool handles. Old folklore tells us that holly wood had an affinity for control, especially of horses, and that’s why ploughmen’s ‘whips’ were made from coppiced holly. There is never a reason to whip an animal to control any animal – but tragically, this is how many were, and still are, ‘trained’ to work for humans.
In Scotland, they use the Gaelic name for holly, Chuillin. The name appears across the country from Cruach-Doire-clean on the Isle of Mull, where the local McLean clan adopted holly as their clan badge, to Loch a’ Chuillin in Rossshire in the north. It’s believed the town of Cullen in Banffshire derived its name from a block of local holly wood.
In Europe, Holly trees were traditionally planted near houses to offer protection from lightning as the European Pagans associated holly with the thunder gods such as Thor and Taranis.
And there was truth in the belief. Thanks to modern science, the spines on the distinctively-shaped holly leaves can act as miniature lightning conductors, thereby protecting the tree and other nearby objects.
Holly brought ’a splash of colour’ to the bleak depths of winter, which is why it was sacred to the Druids. It was considered a sign of fertility and long life to have magical powers, and a sprig of holly hung in the home would bring good luck.
Holly was also said to be a masculine plant that would bring men good luck and protection, whilst its Ivy was considered feminine. This association led to the Christian carol ‘The Holly And The Ivy’ using holly as a symbol to celebrate Christ’s birth.
Holly is dioecious, requiring separate male and female plants for pollination to occur. The male plants have ‘prickly’ edged leaves, while the female plants have smooth-edged leaves and red berries.
Winter birds such as finches, dunnocks, goldcrests, robins and thrushes use holly’s dense foliage and sharp prickles as a protective shelter, whilst the female’s red berries provide an essential food source during the winter.
Smaller wildlife such as hedgehogs, toads and slow worms use the deep leaf litter produced for hibernation, whilst bees collect the nectar and pollen produced earlier in the year. Caterpillars of the holly blue and various moths, including the yellow-barred brindle, double-striped pug and the holly tortrix. Even eat the sharp prickly leaves.
Mature Holly trees can grow up to 15m and live for 300 years. The bark is smooth and thin with lots of small, brown ‘warts’, and the stems are dark brown. Holly flowers are white with four petals. They bloom from early spring to the early summer. Once insects pollinate, female flowers develop into scarlet berries, which can remain on the tree throughout winter.
The mistle thrush is known for vigorously guarding the berries of holly in winter to prevent other birds from eating them.
In harsh winters, when food is short, Deer feed on holly leaves. Female Holly trees that have been ‘browsed’ by Deer will adapt and make all the leaves within the ‘browse’ line with prickly edges to discourage browsing, and that is why you can see holly trees with berries and prickly leaves.
IVY
Ivy has many superstitions and beliefs attached to it. Because it forms dense thickets in woodland and can grow where other plants could not, it could ‘block out the light’ – even to the mighty oak. The Druids believed Ivy gave them strength and power to defeat their enemies, giving Ivy a sinister reputation.
Ivy has long been associated with Greek and Roman gods and was said to be the ‘enemy’ of the vine, although, in mythology. In Greek mythology, Ivy was sacred to Osiris and associated with Dionysus. In Roman mythology, Ivy was connected to Bacchus, the god of wine, as it grew over his homeland.
Bacchus is often portrayed wearing an ivy crown, perhaps because this was once thought to prevent intoxication. Don’t try this one at home, but the poisonous ivy berries were believed to be a hangover cure when ground into a powder. They may have worked but only by poisoning the taker faster than the alcohol intoxication!
Despite this, the Romans carried the tradition to England, where old English Taverns would display Ivy above their doors as an indicator of the high quality of their drinks. In ancient Ireland, Ivy was thought to protect from evil when growing on or near a dwelling. However, misfortune would fall upon those therein if the Ivy should die or fall.
Ivy was often carried by young women for good luck and fertility and is still included in many bridal wreaths today. Ivy was also worn by poets in the form of a crown and was said to inspire ‘creativity’, and the Greeks presented their winning athletes with ivy crowns still used as a symbol in the modern Olympic Games.
Being an evergreen plant, Ivy was the natural choice of the Pagans throughout Europe to bring into their houses for the winter solstice celebrations.
Ivy is a woody climber that can grow to 30 metres or around 100 feet. It has climbing stems with specialised hairs that help it stick to surfaces as it climbs.
There are two native subspecies of Ivy in the British Isles: Hedera helix and Hedera helix hibernica. The subspecies hibernica does not climb but spreads across the ground, but this isn’t Ground Ivy, which isn’t a true ivy and is, in fact, part of the mint family; Ground Ivy is, however, used to brew beer – so it is, essential!
Only mature plants produce flowers. They are yellowish green and appear in small, dome-shaped clusters known as umbels. The Ivy fruits are black and berry-like and form globular clusters.
Ivy flowers from September to November, and its fruits ripen from November to January, so it’s vital for wildlife. Ivy’s nectar, pollen and berries are essential food sources as the high-fat content of the berries is a nutritious food resource for birds. The berries are eaten by various species, including thrushes, blackcaps, wood pigeons and blackbirds.
Ivy also provides shelter for insects, birds, bats and other small mammals and many insects before they go into hibernation. Some of the main insect species that forage on Ivy’s nectar and pollen are bees, hoverflies and common wasps. It is an important food plant for some butterfly and moth larvae.
Many rare insects, including the golden hoverfly, are attracted to ivy flowers. Hoverflies are frequent visitors. Ivy has its specialist hoverfly, the ivy hoverfly, and the ivy bee Colletes hederae. This plasterer bee specialises in foraging on ivy flowers and was first recorded in Britain in 2001.
Ivy flowers also provide a lifeline to autumn flying butterflies such as Red Admiral and Vanessa Atalanta. A night time foray may also reward you with the sight of moths such as the Angle Shades and Phlogophora meticulosa feasting on the rich ivy nectar.
Ivy is vital for the Holly Blue butterfly, Celastrina argiolus, for its first-generation offspring. Still, the second generation of caterpillars feeds on Ivy.
We would also like to lay to rest a considerable untruth about Ivy, and that is that it kills trees – It doesn’t.
Ivy uses trees and walls for support, allowing it to climb upwards to better levels of sunlight. Ivy is not a parasitic plant; it has its root system in the soil, so it absorbs nutrients and water as needed.
Contrary to popular belief, Ivy does not damage trees, and its presence doesn’t indicate that a tree is unhealthy, dying or dead.
A scientific study by Oxford University found the microclimate benefits from Ivy against walls that wildlife knew. The evergreen foliage makes an excellent early nesting site and shelter for birds such as wrens. Ivy is a year-round plant for wildlife.
Ivy lives up to its mythological meaning of strength and protection, so you should include Ivy in your wildlife garden.
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Further Reading
The Holly and the Ivy Traditional Story
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