Hazel

Hazels, the genus Corylus of the family Betulaceae, are shrubby trees often growing with several trunks. In Kynes's description they carry showy yellowish-brown male catkins and smaller reddish female ones, rounded leaves with toothed edges and a short point, and nuts held in a shell inside a husk. Kynes's entry covers the American hazelnut and the common hazel, AHPA's the European and the beaked hazel. The Greeks and Romans used hazelnuts in the mystic rites of Mercury and Apollo, and Germanic peoples dedicated the tree to Thor, seeing in it both the power of lightning and a shield against it. In Celtic myth it was a tree of importance to the Tuatha Dé Danann, and its nut was a store of wisdom. In England hazelnuts were thrown into the fire at Samhain for divination, while in Scotland and Ireland two nuts grown together were a good omen, carried as a charm against witchcraft. A pointed hazel stick was believed to fight off the spectral black dog, and in Scotland, Germany and the Tyrol a hazel branch cut at Midsummer or Twelfth Night served as a divining rod for water or treasure. Cunningham hangs strings of nuts in the house for luck, gives them to a bride, and eats them for wisdom and fertility and before divination. Twigs in the window frames guard against lightning, three hazel pins driven into the house protect it from fire, and the wood makes a fine all-purpose wand.