Annalou Oakland’s writing is a vivid, impassioned tapestry that weaves together folklore, herbal knowledge, political critique, and deep-rooted cultural memory—all through the symbolic lens of the hawthorn tree. Blending poetry, oral history, and protest, she reclaims the hawthorn not just as a wild plant, but as a living witness to communal loss, seasonal renewal, and resistance against land dispossession. Her work channels the spirit of ancient traditions and rural wisdom, while fiercely challenging modern systems that have severed people from the land and from each other. It is both an ode and a call to remember, reconnect, and resist.
PLANTS and TREES
HAWTHORN quick thorn, Whitethorn, May, snow in May, Maytree, bread ‘n’ cheese,
BREAD N CHEESE: Fed hungry children going to school with leaves and later its berries. Try them! Sweet, nutty.
Just suck in the flesh of red berries.
Blackthorn: flowers first. But the magical Hawthorn usually flowers at Easter: it is anciently linked with the dance of rebirth – hence the dance around a MAY POLE. Fecundity and Romance.
Its leaves come first and then the abundant white flowers: Snow in May!
Hawthorn is a wonderful medicine to regulate low or high blood pressure! Heart irregularities too. As do ‘heartsease’ pansies…
Grown as a thick, thorny hedge in the ENCLOSURES. Lords and rich land owners took over the Common Ground.
The Common. Land shared at the heart of each village, once for grazing flocks of geese, sheep, cattle owned by peasant farmers, local cottagers and travellers.
But… this Common land was taken away from common-folk, by the rich landowners. No more letting sheep, cattle, or gypsy horses graze!
There’s still a righteous group pushing to have back our COMMON GROUND.
Perhaps The House of COMMONS once truly represented us lot??! We could legitimately walk up and speak truth to power!
‘Get real! Let women and children be heard. Get down here… feel how impossible it is to live on 1/30th of your salary!’
MAY TREE mostly seen as an open-hearted small tree occasionally grows high.
Hawthorn is called Snow in May. It flowers on Easter Day!Pagan calendar?
Linked to Christ as the crown of thorns.
?
Whitethorn: ‘no thunder, troubles or storm will offend thee, no ghosts will follow you home.’
Alternatively, May is ‘Not taken indoors ‘case sprites and death do follow.’
But also death is overcome, this is the dance 
of Spring renewal. Death is overcome and renewal of love and warmth.
A time of Courtship! Circling girls and boys around the May pole. Haw: ‘sorrow and joy of love go mingled…’
5-petalled, Brigid’s pentagram flower, linked to FERTILITY.
Women and men would gather dawn dew to wash their faces in, keep beauty and youthful look.
Gathered In the Dawn Chorus!Beloved of birds, flutterbyes, and especially BEES for the sweet nectar. Draws the wolf to it.
Scent of sex and corpses! Wrapped around a body to preserve them in death. Hawthorn absorbed scent stink of death -especially during Plague years.
A CLOUTY bush: hung with bits of cloth to draw blessings to you, grant healing or your wishes!
Lay not your washing onto the hawthorn, lest the Fairies’ (sprites) clothes be covered!’
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