The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

Hazel was a holy tree in the days of Celtic paganism, associated with poetry and knowledge, fire and fertility. Its nuts are still connected in country belief with love and child-birth, and are used in divination on Halloween nights. Rods made from its wood formerly employed to detect hidden veins of metal in the earth, and water-diviners today often use forked hazel twigs for their work.

The fig tree is a sacred tree and figs an important fruit to many ancient people. It is still sacred in India, China and Japan and Moslems call the fig “Tree of Heaven” and revere it. The Greeks and Romans believed that the fig was a gift from the god of wine and agriculture.

In ancient Greece and Rome the hawthorn was linked with hope, marriage and babies. At wedding ceremonies the bridal attendants wore its blossoms and the bride carried a bough. However, in medieval Europe the hawthorn was regarded as an unlucky plant and that bringing it into a house would cause the death of a member of the household.

The weeping willow is a well-known symbol of unlucky love and mourning in the Western world. In the Orient it has been associated with the springtime regeneration of nature, eternal friendship, patience, perseverance and