Whitethorn Summer

This week, another episode in which we discuss fairy lovers that destroy their beloved.

You will notice the lover sits plotting her hair beneath a whitethorn bush. In Irish mythology particularly white thorn bushes are gathering places for the fairies. It’s considered bad luck to damage or move, particularly solitary, whitethorn bushes, especially if they’re in raths. These are ringforts which were believed, similarly, to be where fairies lived. The white thornbush may be a vis source.

In some Irish legends it’s recorded that if you go at particular special times around the whitethorn bush you’ll find a strange white or green ichor. This is the blood of fairies that has been shed in a battle that has occurred at the mustering point of the whitethorn bush. Statistics for the lady of the whitethorn will eventually be added to this post.

Thanks to Librivox and WinstonThorpe.

Summer by John Clare

Come we to the summer, to the summer we will come, 
For the woods are full of bluebells and the hedges full of bloom, 
And the crow is on the oak a-building of her nest, 
And love is burning diamonds in my true lover’s breast; 
She sits beneath the whitethorn a-plaiting of her hair, 
And I will to my true lover with a fond request repair; 
I will look upon her face, I will in her beauty rest, 
And lay my aching weariness upon her lovely breast. 

The clock-a-clay is creeping on the open bloom of May, 
The merry bee is trampling the pinky threads all day, 
And the chaffinch it is brooding on its grey mossy nest 
In the whitethorn bush where I will lean upon my lover’s breast; 
I’ll lean upon her breast and I’ll whisper in her ear 
That I cannot get a wink o’sleep for thinking of my dear; 
I hunger at my meat and I daily fade away 
Like the hedge rose that is broken in the heat of the day.