The alder [Alnus sp.] species consists of about 30 shrubs and small trees belonging to the birch family, Betulaceae. Alders are widespread in Asia, Africa, Central and Southern America, and Europe as far north as Arctic Circle. They prefer moist soil and are found mainly on the banks of rivers, ponds and brooks, sometimes growing to well over 90 ft.

The black or dark grey bark may be smooth or wrinkled. When they first open in spring, the leaves are light green and are rounded with a toothed edge and a blunt tip. As they mature, they darken, finally turning brown before they fall in late autumn, by which time the flowers, borne on old wood, are already formed, arranged in catkins ready to open in spring. The male flowers survive the winter as brown oval buds and expand in March to form the characteristic lamb's tails. The female catkins are clusters of tiny flowers, developing into green cones, which become hard and woody by autumn with small winged nutlets. These remain on the tree throughout the winter. Ten species of alders grow in North America. Most are large shrubs that form dense thickets. Alders are best propagated by seed, though some varieties may be grafted. Cuttings can be taken, but rooting is uncertain.

The Common or English alder [Alnus glutinosa] is a deciduous dark coloured tree or shrub found in Britain and Europe south of the Arctic Circle, western Asia and North Africa. It thrives in moist soil, particularly beside water. The stalked leaves are ovate and smooth. The catkins are formed in the autumn and the flowers appear in the early spring. The female catkins are globe shaped and are sometimes called “berries” and appear before the leaves are fully out. Common alder are often grown in coppices on hillsides to form shade for grazing stock as they do no harm to the grass growing below.

The Grey alder [A. incana] has acute leaves which are downy underneath, and grows to a height of about 24 m (about 80 ft). A native of the American continent, it is very hardy and thrives well in cold wet places.

The Red alder or Oregon alder [A. rubra] grows up to 100 feet (30 meters) high in humid climates around Pacific Northwest and coastal Alaska. It has blackish-grey bark with small warts, and russet inner surface. Red alder grows in clumps and thickets on borders of ponds, rivers and in swamps. The reddish-green flowers open in early spring.

The Tag alder [A. serrulata] is a shrub which grows in both the United States and Europe in thickets on river banks. In early spring red-green flowers appear and the bark is black-grey and warty.

LORE:

The common name of alder may be derived from the old German word elawer which means “reddish” as when the tree is cut the wood is at first white then appears to bleed crimson, like wounded flesh. Alder provides several dye colours, all of which have symbolic and ritual significance. The bark, used alone, yields a reddish dye [the Laplanders chew it and dye leather with their saliva] and naturally red is the colour of blood, birth, rebirth, and fire. The catkins will yield a green dye, which is associated with the colour of fairies’ clothes, nature spirits, plant life and water, while the young shoots, dried and powdered, will yield a light brown colour, associated with the bare earth in winter. These three colours and their related elements of fire, water and earth are the themes of the alder- the power of fire to release the earth from water and bring about the resurrection of the land in spring, when the strengthening sun causes the barren earth to flower. As we shall see, the alder is closely associated with the yearly journey of the sun, and especially the spring equinox.

Alders can be seen fringing streams, rivers, and lakes: the first trees to start colonising the land around watery places. In addition alder is the only tree which has root nodules and therefore contributes towards nitrogen fixing in the soil, enriching the soil in which it stands. Alder wood is oily and endures for a long period under water and so was employed for making aqueducts, water pumps, piles for bridges and foundations for buildings in boggy and watery places, contributing towards its reputation for reclaiming land from water.

The British alder god is Bran [“Raven”] who was the guardian of all Britain. One day the King of Ireland, Matholwch, came to Wales to ask Bran for his sister Branwen in marriage. The Irish and British parties all travelled to the sacred Isle of Mon [Anglesey] where it was agreed the ceremony should take place. However, two half brothers of Bran, Evnissyen and Nissyen, were angry that they had not been consulted about the wedding and in a fit of pique cut off the tails, lips and ears of all the Irish horses. The Irish King was outraged and Bran sought to appease him by giving him several gifts which included the replacing of all the horses, a huge golden disc, a tall, silver staff and a cauldron that would resurrect a man from the dead, though he would have lost his power of speech. The wedding was duly celebrated and the Irish king set sail with his bride Branwen and after nine months she gave birth to a son, Gwern [“alder”].

However, the Irish court did not forget the insult of the mutilated horses and it was decided that Branwen should atone for the insult. She was forced to slave in the kitchen, where she was also regularly beaten. In despair she trained a sparrow to take a message to Bran. When he learned of the foul treatment of his sister he determined to take revenge, and assembled a huge fleet of ships, so that the Irish swineherds on the shore thought that there was a forest on the sea and a mountain approaching, which was Bran himself.

The Irish fled over the river Shannon and broke the bridge behind them so that the British warriors could not follow, but Bran laid himself down across the river and the army marched across him. Seeing this Matholwch sued for peace and offered to abdicate the throne in favour of Branwen’s son, Gwern; however, Bran resolved to rule Ireland himself. The Irish druids tried to trick Bran by saying that the ceremonies of kingship should take place in a huge hall that should be built for it, the only house big enough to contain Bran. In the hall a hundred leather bags were suspended, which they said contained oatmeal for the feast, but in fact contained one hundred Irish warriors, ready to kill Bran. Evnissyen, Bringer of Strife and half brother to Bran, suspected the deceit and squeezed each of the bags, crushing all the warriors.

The Irish and the Britons met in the hall and agreed to acknowledge Bran as overlord, but to make Gwern king of Ireland. He was duly installed as king, but as he went round for all to congratulate him Evnissyen seized him and threw him into the fire. At this the British and Irish enjoined in battle, but the Irish kept flinging their dead into the cauldron of resurrection and bringing them back to life, and in this they had an advantage. Seeing this Evnissyen smeared clay on his face to disguise himself as an Irishman and played dead. When they threw him into the cauldron he stretched himself until his heart burst and shattered the cauldron into four pieces.

In the end the Britons won, but there were only seven warriors of Bran’s band left. He himself was poisoned in the foot and knew he was dying. He instructed his companions to cut off his head and carry it to the White Mount in London and bury it there, facing France. He also made prophecies as to what would happen on the journey. The journey took eighty seven years, because of adventures that happened along the way, and all the time the head continued to speak. Eventually they came to the White Mount where the head was buried and magically continues to guard Britain against invasion; this is the present site of the Tower of London. The presence of ravens, Bran’s totem birds, at the Tower confirms its association with the god. It is still said that as long as the ravens remain at the Tower then Britain is safe from invasion; if they should ever leave disaster will follow and they are still carefully looked after.

The story of Bran contains themes of death, resurrection and the turning of the seasons. Bran is a giant figure, existing before the race of man and perhaps the later race of gods. No house could contain him. His name means “raven” and that of his sister “white raven”, birds associated with the passage of time because of the sickle shapes of their beaks [think of Old Father Time’s sickle]. The gifts he gives to the king of Ireland represent the sun and the moon and the turning of the year- the golden sun disc, which marks the passage of the year, the silver moon staff, which marks the passage of the months, the horses which in Celtic mythology are associated with the sun and its passage through the zodiac, its nightly and yearly death and rebirth, and lastly the cauldron of renewal, the rebirth after death which is promised to every man and woman and which each spring brings to the earth, year after year. Like his Greek counterpart Cronos [“Raven”], Bran is a god of time.

Bran’s half brothers Evnissyen and Nissyen are described as the Bringer of Strife [or Change] and the Bringer of Peace. They probably represent the dark and light halves if the year, night and day and other such polarities in general. It is significant that Evnissyen is the prime mover in the story and it is his actions that bring about the whole sequence of events. His is the touch of chaos which brings about change- the mutilation of the horses, throwing Gwern [“Alder”] onto the fire and lastly bursting the cauldron, thus winning the battle.

In Ogham, the Celtic tree alphabet, the alder is fearn; the Brythonic spelling of which is Gwern, who is described as Bran’s nephew. In laying himself across the river, so that his army might cross on his body, Bran becomes a bridge, referring to the use of alder pilings to make the footings for a bridge. Bran instructed his companions to cut off his head after his death and it continued to sing, speak and make prophecies. This singing head refers to the topmost branch of the alder, called “the head”, which was used to make magical flutes and whistles, through which the god was thought to speak- one of the old names for the alder is “whistlewood”. The topmost branches of the alder move when the wind blows and the leaves rustle more musically than any other tree- the tree seems to sing.

The alder is associated with another “singing head”, that of Orpheus in Greek mythology. His name is derived from orphruoeis which means “on the river bank” i.e. the alder tree. Orpheus [the son of Apollo, the sun god, and the muse Calliope] could charm both men and beasts with his music. He married Eurydice who tragically trod on a venomous snake and died. He determined to seek her in the underworld and descended there to plead with Hades and Persephone, its rulers, for her release. The ghosts and even the tortured spirits of Tartarus stopped to listen to his beautiful, pleading music, and the two gods could not resist. They agreed that Eurydice should be returned to life on condition that Orpheus did not turn around to look at her until they were both out of the underworld. Orpheus journeyed upwards, but on reaching the sunlight and forgetting the injunction, turned around to make sure his wife was following. Seeing her in the shadows he reached out to embrace her, but alas, she was snatched away from him, back to the land of the dead. The bereft Orpheus wandered the earth in misery and refused to give worship to Dionysus, the wild and joyful god of wine. Dionysus angrily sent his followers, the maddened Maenads, to tear him limb from limb. His head was laid to rest in a cave by the Muses, where it continued to prophesy day and night, until Apollo himself ordered it to be silent.

Here too, we have the themes of the sun. Orpheus is the son of the sun god, and travels to the underworld and back again as the sun does nightly and, like Bran’s, his severed head continued to prophesy. Prophecy is a gift associated with the sun god, along with music, poetry, and healing.

In another Greek myth Marsyas played and danced with the Corybantes who were called “The Children of Apollo”. They were the dancers at the winter solstice festival which celebrated the rebirth of the sun amidst the winter dark. Apollo, the god of the sun and music challenged Marsyas to a music contest, and when he lost Apollo flayed him alive and nailed his skin to a pine tree. Marsyas’ punishment is simply a symbolic rendering of the ritual flaying of the bark from an alder shoot to make a musical pipe: the alder personified as a god.

Amongst the Greek alder gods was Cronos, who like Bran was a Titan figure with a raven totem. One of his titles may have been Phoroneus, who was said to be the first to discover the use of fire after Prometheus stole it from the gods. In “The Greek Myths” Robert Graves suggested that his name may be derived from Fearinus [“Of the Dawn of the Year”] a variant of Bran, Gwern or Fearn, making him an alder god, the spirit of the spring equinox. His mother was the ash nymph Melia because, Graves suggests, the ash courts lightning, man's first source of fire. There is an ancient association of the alder and the ash, and they are sometimes seen as opposites. In the Celtic poem The Battle of the Trees [Cad Goddeu] from the “Romance of Taliesin” the alder is in the front line on one side and Gwydion’s ash on the other, the ash defeating the alder, perhaps denoting a change of season.

In the Irish “Song of the Forest Trees” the alder is described as “the very battle witch of all woods, tree that is hottest in the fight”. Though alder makes poor firewood it is much prized by charcoal burners. Phoroneus’ use of fire may refer to the discovery of alder charcoal which burns hottest and was favoured by smiths and metalworkers, the manufacturers of weapons.

The Greek for alder derives from “I close” or “I confine”, perhaps referring to the fact that alder trees grew around and so enclosed the river islands which had special ritual significance, and which were used for divination and initiation. Alders fringed the witch goddess Circe’s island Aeaea [“Wailing”] an island at the head of the Adriatic not far from the mouth of the Po which was the southern terminus of the Bronze Age route down which amber, sacred to the sun and Apollo, travelled to the Mediterranean from the Baltic.

There is a further association with the sun in the Greek myth of Phaeton, who was the son of Apollo. One day he stole his father’s sun chariot but was unable to control it, careering madly around the sky in it, sometimes scorching the earth and sometimes flying so far away that it seemed to be winter. Eventually the chariot crashed to the earth, killing the youth. His sisters were said to have been turned into either poplars or alders as they wept at his death.

The Greek demi-god Herakles was a solar hero, his twelve labours representing the signs of the zodiac and the sun’s passage through them. At his death he was cremated on an alder wood pyre at the midsummer solstice and his remains were floated away on a river in an alder wood boat, probably symbolic of the sun passing through the underworld river at night on the sun barge. Floating on alder wood boats or arks occurs elsewhere in myth: Tyro fell in love with the river god Enipeus but he was indifferent. Poseidon disguised himself as the river god and ravished her. She bore two twins sons in secret and set them floating down the river in an alder wooden ark, just like the one in which Romulus and Remus were set afloat.

The Odyssey tells us that the alder is one of the three trees of resurrection (the others being white poplar and cypress). The alder symbolises the warm fire of the sun at the vernal equinox which reclaims the land from the winter floods and awakens life in the earth. At the spring equinox Bran is the alder god, renewing life. In the Mabinogion Gwydion guesses the name of Bran because he carries alder twigs in his hand, on which the buds grow spirally, the almost universal symbol of rebirth. Again, the bleeding of the alder wood when it is felled can be seen as symbolising rebirth from the flux of the womb.

Traditional witches employ alder as one of the nine sacred woods of the Beltane fire, and in the spring equinox fire to symbolise the reclamation of the land from the winter floods by the growing power of the sun. Alder also has a deeper resonance which is utilised in initiation rituals. The candidate must “capture” an alder wand with the buds still attached, which he or she takes up on emerging from the incubation chamber or cairn. It symbolises the new dawning consciousness of the initiate emerging from the subconscious, the fire of Will emerging from the darkness of chaos, the primordial womb, exemplified by the cairn.

Ritual whistles and flutes are made from the alder and are used to invoke the Sun God at the solstices and equinoxes. His gift of music is honoured and celebrated with these instruments and his voice is listened for in these sounds and in the wind moving through the alder treetops as a form of divination or seeking for guidance.

The power of the alder’s fire to free from water is also used by Craft herbalists to treat conditions caused by water and damp such as rheumatism, where a pulverised poultice of the bark is used. The fire of alder has a drying effect and the bark boiled in water is used to staunch bleeding, reduce inflammations of the throat, mouth and gums, reduce swellings and breast engorgement.

We also use the dyes provided by the alder to colour ritual robes, cords and cloths. The red dye from the bark is utilised for the robes of Ostara and Yule, or robes used in fire rituals. The green dye from the catkins is associated with spring, nature rituals, and Beltane, while the brown dye from the shoots symbolises the bare earth in winter.

RITUAL USES:

Alder wands, especially those with the buds still attached, are symbolic of rebirth and are used at the spring equinox and at initiations. One of the tasks set a candidate for initiation might be to make an alder wand as a meditation on his or her coming rebirth. Alder wands may also be used for rituals of divination and prophecy.

Alder constitutes one of the nine sacred woods of the Beltane fire and may be employed in the spring equinox bonfire.

Alder can be used in incenses for the spring equinox, those employed in rites of divination and scrying and in incenses to invoke Bran, Cronos, Branwen, Herakles, Phoroneus, Gwern, Circe, Orpheus, Apollo, Marsyas, Rinda, Arthur, Guinevere and Arawn. It can also be used in a planetary incense of Venus, Pisces incense and to consecrate garnet, obsidian and ruby.

Magical flutes and whistles can be made from alder wood and these are employed to celebrate the resurrection of the vegetation god at the spring equinox, the rebirth of the sun at the winter solstice and to mourn the death of the corn lord and the decline of the sun at the autumn equinox. Alder flutes may also be used at memorial and funeral services, to denote the rebirth of the soul.

Alder dyes are used for colouring magical robes, dye from the bark for colouring robes for ceremonies of resurrection, such as Yule and Ostara, dye from the catkins for water and nature rituals, and dye from the shoots to celebrate the earth.

MEDICINAL:

A decoction of the bark is used for bathing swellings and inflammations, especially of the throat. Peasants on the Alps cover themselves in bags of hot leaves to cure rheumatism. The pulverised bark may be similarly used in hot poultices for rheumatism. The fresh crushed leaves are soothing to chapped skin. A decoction of the bark (boil the shredded bark in water) makes an external lotion for bathing swellings.

Alder is most often used as a mouth wash and gargle for tooth, gum and throat problems. A decoction of the bark has a drying action which contracts the mucous membranes and reduces inflammation. A decoction may be used to staunch internal or external bleeding and to heal wounds. Used as a wash for scabies. An infusion of the leaves can be used as a foot bath for aching feet or as an external wash to reduce breast engorgement in nursing mothers.