hagathorn

Old English hagathorn combines haga ('hedge, enclosure') and thorn ('thorn'). The tree was the hedge — the living fence that marked boundaries across northern Europe. Proto-Germanic *hagaz meant 'enclosure,' and gave English both 'hedge' and 'haw' (the hawthorn berry). The hawthorn was not planted in hedges. The hawthorn was the hedge.

The Enclosure Acts of the 18th and 19th centuries transformed the English landscape. Open fields and commons were divided into private plots, and the boundaries were planted with hawthorn hedges — an estimated 200,000 miles of them between 1750 and 1850. The modern English countryside — its patchwork of small fields bordered by hedgerows — is largely a hawthorn creation.

In Irish and Scottish folklore, the hawthorn was a fairy tree. Cutting one down invited disaster. As recently as 1999, the planned route of a motorway in County Clare, Ireland, was altered to avoid a hawthorn tree believed to be a fairy meeting place. The lone hawthorn in a field — the one farmers plowed around for generations — carried a weight that went far beyond botany.

Hawthorn (genus Crataegus) has genuine medicinal properties. The berries, leaves, and flowers contain flavonoids that support cardiovascular function. The European Medicines Agency recognizes hawthorn preparations for mild heart complaints. The hedge-thorn that marked every boundary in England also, as it turns out, is good for the heart.