Apple

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Magical Uses: Protection against Malefica (Inkwright)

Additional Notes: divider

A standard part of “any good and practical garden”, and once considered to be the most magical of all trees due to the shape of the seeds within the fruit- which form a 5 pointed star shape if the apple is cut crosswise. Such a shape has been considered a protective symbol (especially against Malefica) tracing at least back to Scandinavian faith systems; Apples were used in a variety of ways to also divine true love.

In Ireland, Apples are the food of the Dead and Apple wood is used to line the insides of Coffins. It was originally a custom (where?) to leave some Apples on the trees as offerings to the Spirits, but also believed that if the Apples stayed on the tree until Spring it fortolled a member of the family was likely to die that year.

Wassailing is an old English custom still practiced in Cider producing areas to wish good health for the trees, and a bountiful harvest. During the practice, the largest Apple tree in the Orchard is found and “thanked” by throwing some of the previous year’s Cider at its trunk.

'Folk Magic and Healing: An Unusual History of Everyday Plants' by Fez Inkwright

Associated with the dead and the underworld; in Ireland the fruit is left on the Graves of the dead during Samhain. Coffins are also lined with Apple Wood to grant the return of youth in the afterlife. Golden Apples are believed to grow in Emain Ablach and tended by Manannán mac Lir [and his daughter Clíodhna]. When shaken, the Apples produce music that puts anyone listening to sleep.

The Micah Rood or “bloody Heart” variety once popular in America during the late 1700’s, but now extinct, had a sweet flavor and fragrance with a handsome red outside, and mostly white flesh with a core of red representing “Human Blood”; a similarly blood-marked variety thrived in Scotland was first recorded in 1833 was named “The Bloody Ploughman” and had flesh as red as its skin.

The Medieval Church believed that Apples given with ill intent could also cause demonic possession.

'Botanical Curses and Poisons: The Shadow-Lives of Plants' by Fez Inkwright