by Ilinca Micu
Everyone knows the hazel tree — children, young men, but especially shepherds and woodcutters, who use its smooth and bright branches to make all kinds of flutes and pipes. Hazel wood is also used to make distaffs, forks and pitchforks, baskets, rake teeth, and old men often lean on a sturdy hazel stick.
When fully grown, it is called alun (hazel); in some areas of Bukovina and Transylvania it is known simply as the bush, while when it is still small and young it is called alunel or alunaș. The places where many hazel trees grow are called alunișuri (hazel groves).
It is believed that hazel branches possess supernatural, magical power — especially against snakes and evil spirits. No enchantress, charm-maker, or witch, when wishing to heal snake bites, perform love spells, or foretell destiny, would ever do so without one or more hazel twigs. Without these slender branches, snake incantations, love charms, or fate spells would have no effect.
Against Snake Bites
When a snake bites a person or a domestic animal, the woman called to heal them takes three thin hazel twigs and strikes a vessel filled with unspoken water (water drawn before anyone drinks or speaks) while saying:
“From the forest comes the little snake,
Spiked and fiery,
And bites poor N. at once;
But when I took
And I seized
These three hazel sprigs,
And when I struck,
The little snake fled at once!”
(Fragment from a Bukovinian charm)
After uttering the words, the woman uses the enchanted water to wash the place where the bite occurred. As soon as it touches the wound, the bite heals as if it had never been.
Similarly, witches from Moldova chant against snake bites by stirring unspoken water with three hazel twigs:
“(…) But as lightning bursts from clouds,
So may the evil bites burst forth
From skin and bone,
From the serpent’s steel teeth,
That lies beneath the little stone,
In the small well,
Under the wild bush.”
(Fragment from a Moldavian charm)
The woman pours the enchanted water over the wound, and it heals instantly.
According to Simion Florea Marian, the most complete version of the charm is found among Romanians in Wallachia. There, N., bitten by a snake while walking barefoot through morning dew, goes to Holy Mother Mary to ask for help:
“Do not lament, N., your cure is found:
A finding knife,
A silver coin,
A hornwood stick,
A hazel rod,
Water unspoken,
Unstirred by the wind.(…)”
The Holy Mother takes N. in her arms, sprinkles the wound with enchanted water, then lays him down. N. shudders, then calms, remaining:
“Pure,
Bright,
And healed.(…)”
Thus, women across the land chant over snakebites using unspoken water and three hazel twigs. Even if a hundred snakes were to bite someone, once touched by the enchanted water, the person heals immediately. The hazel twigs lend such power to the water that any venom or evil, however great, is expelled entirely, leaving no trace.
For Love
The Pot Ritual
The power of hazel twigs is best known to witches and Babe Cloanțe — old crones who can read palms, bind the rains, and silence wolves. They can summon anyone through the air, across nine seas and nine lands, riding a hazel pole. Many claim to have seen such fiery arrows crossing the night sky; some even say they themselves were carried this way.
Thus, in certain moments, lovers are compelled to mount a broom or a hazel pole and fly through the air. When a young woman begins to feel doubt and a thorn in her heart, when she wastes away with longing, she hurries to the old witch with silver coins and a white or speckled rooster — without which the witch could not fulfill her wish.
The witch lives in a small hidden hut by a riverbank. She opens the door to the girl without asking a word, understanding her purpose by the look in her eyes. She takes the rooster and goes outside. The girl sits quietly in a corner of the room.
On a three-legged stool rest a clay pot, a shard from a broken vessel, and three hazel twigs.
After a few minutes, the witch returns — furious, hair disheveled — holding three strands of wool that the girl’s lover once touched. She unties them, then braids them anew. Holding them, she turns to each corner of the room, chants three times, and sprinkles the threads with water from the jug. Finally, she chants at the door, sprinkles the broom with water, and props it upright against the doorframe.
She circles the stool three times, then freezes. The fire in the hearth goes out — then rekindles softly by the three wool threads. The witch sets the pot over the fire and stirs, chanting and sprinkling water thrice over the flames. Everything in the pot turns to ash. She then places the empty jug on the fire and buries a speckled stone in the ashes. The jug begins to hiss. The witch takes the hazel twigs and strikes both jug and stone, saying that so should the young man’s heart hiss and burn. She calls his name, and he comes at her summons — nothing can stop him except a knife stuck into the ground.
The twigs break. The witch jumps to the window. The door flies open, and the young girl leaps into the arms of her beloved, just arrived. As they leave the witch’s house, she notices the hazel pole that carried him through the air — but he will never know.
The Binding with the Distaff
Many enchantresses cast love spells not only for young, beautiful girls but also for older women — sometimes even for themselves. But woe to the man who rejects them, for he will not be bewitched with the pot, but bound with the distaff — a curse few escape.
Such was the fate of a handsome young man who lived not far from a witch’s house. She had tried every charm to win his heart. Often, as he returned home at night, he caught sight of her by a stream or a pond, barking and howling like a dog. Yet none of her wicked spells pierced his pure soul.
One evening, however, the witch lured him into her hut, spinning flax on a new hazel distaff. She uttered thousands of incantations, spinning backward, not as one should. She took the spun thread and wrapped it around the young man’s waist without his noticing, then unwound it with the same invisible hand.
After he returned home, the witch placed the distaff in the attic. As the new hazel wood dried, so did the young man’s life fade away. Only breaking the hidden distaff could have broken the spell and saved his life.
Banishing the Weather Sorcerers (Solomonari)
People believe that solomonari are a kind of men who, in their childhood, spend seven years underground, reading from a devilish book and learning all existing spells and charms. After seven years, they return to the world, riding dragons, and with their demonic powers move heavy clouds and raging winds, bringing hail and storms that destroy people’s crops and fruit trees.
To keep such calamities away, villagers use various rituals. When they see a storm cloud on the horizon, the men rush to the church and ring the bells, while the women throw into the yard an axe with the blade upward, a hoe, a bread shovel, and the household broom — its handle made of hazel wood. Thus, they believe, the solomonar’s powers are weakened.
There are also certain men, stonemasons by trade, known in Bukovina as counter-solomonari. They must fast for three vigils — Christmas Eve, St. Basil’s Eve, and Epiphany Eve. On Epiphany Eve, they keep a total fast until sunset. Then, standing before a table laden with food, the counter-solomonar holds a hazel twig in his hand and says:
“You, solomonari (…),
I invite you today to feast,
But spoil me nothing
When spring shall come —
Neither the blooming fields,
Nor the ripened bread,
Nor the flowered plains,
Nor the fruit-bearing trees.”
Holding the hazel twig, he tastes each dish, continuing:
“I invited you today,
Yet you refused
To come and dine with me.(…)”
From then on, whenever he sees storm clouds approaching, the counter-solomonar runs to the edge of the village with the same hazel twig, raising it to the sky and reminding the solomonari how he once invited them to feast, but they scorned him. Now they must stay away from fertile trees and blooming fields:
“(…) From the clouds I’ll cast you down,
To the earth I’ll strike you down,
Beneath the ice you’ll perish.(…)”
He points the hazel twig toward the place from where the lightning flashes and the hail comes, and through its power, he strikes down the solomonar and his dragon together. Raising the twig once more toward the heavens, he turns all the hail upon them, covering the solomonar in ice.
Bibliography
- Simion Florea Marian, Botanica poporană română, Vol. I, Critical Edition, introduction, bio-bibliographical references, botanical index, index of published/unpublished chapters, edited text, index of informants and bibliography by Aura Brădățan, Romanian Academy Publishing House, Suceava, 2010
- Germina Comanici, Ramura verde în spiritualitatea populară (“The Green Branch in Folk Spirituality”), Etnologică Publishing House, Bucharest, 2004