Hawthorn fruit

I found a nice hawthorn tree recently, growing in miserable soil and still bearing fruit. I need to get some going in my nursery before too long. They’re great trees.

That said, my friend Louise recently sent me some terrifying info on hawthorns that I figured I’d pass on.

Thomas the Rhymer, the famous thirteenth century Scottish mystic and poet, once met the Faery Queen by a hawthorn bush from which a cuckoo was calling. She led him into the Faery Underworld for a brief sojourn, but upon reemerging into the world of mortals he found he had been absent for seven years. Themes of people being waylaid by the faery folk to places where time passes differently are common in Celtic mythology, and the hawthorn was one of, if not the, most likely tree to be inhabited or protected by the Wee Folk. 

Fairies, the Black Death and priestesses. Sold yet?