Silver Birch Premium Gift Tree

The Silver Birch symbolises new beginnings and protection.

Believed to possess mythological powers, people would hang boughs of Silver Birch on their door to ward off evil spirits on May Day.

The birch tree is also associated with beginnings in Celtic mythology, where it represents purity and rejuvenation. The first tree in the Celtic tree alphabet, Ogham, is birch, or beithe. It was observed at Samhain's holiday, which is British Halloween today. The Celtic year began on Samhain, a time when people valued purification and utilised bundles of birch twigs to ward off the spirits of the previous year. Eventually, this would develop into the local parishes' "beating the bounds" rituals.

The birch besom, or broom, is still used by gardeners to "purify" their spaces. Additionally, besoms were traditionally the broomsticks used by witches. They employed these in their shamanic trips, sometimes following the application of fly agaric mushroom extracts from birchwoods.

There are also significant fertility associations between the birch and Beltane ceremonies. This was the Celtic year's second summer half, which is today observed as May Day. In Scotland, birch and oak were used to make Beltane fires, and birch trees were frequently utilised as living maypoles. Birch trees are among the earliest to blossom, thus it makes sense that they would be chosen as a springtime symbol.

Birch trees are closely associated with fertility and love gods, such as the northern European goddesses Freya and Frigga. The Anglo-Saxon goddess of spring, Eostre, is where the term Easter comes from. Between Beltane and the spring equinox, she was honoured in and around the birch tree. Venus, the planet and goddess, controls over birch, so says the mediaeval herbalist Culpeper. A barren cow herded with a birch stick was said to become fruitful in Highland mythology, while a pregnant cow was said to bear a healthy calf.