The Red Branch

If there is one thing every reader of fairy tales can tell you, it’s that you should never, ever venture into the woods alone. From the whispering willows to the ominous oaks, this episode brings you the stories of the trees that loom large in our collective imagination, exploring their sinister attributes and the cautionary tales they inspire.

Researched, written, and produced by Corinne Wieben with original music by Purple Planet.

Episode sources

Chapters

• 0:00 Pre-roll
• 0:08 Intro
• 2:50 The Willows Were Against Us
• 7:22 The Alder and the Red Branch
• 12:22 Ash and Oak
• 15:01 Birch and Yew
• 19:37 Conclusion
• 22:22 Outro

Transcript

Pre-roll
You’re listening to Enchanted, a podcast on the history of magic, sorcery and witchcraft. I’m Corinne Wieben.

Intro
If there is one thing every reader of fairy tales can tell you, it’s that you should never, ever venture into the woods alone. In the tapestry of folklore, forests serve as both sanctuary and snare, a place where the familiar blurs into the unknown. From the deep, shadowy groves of ancient Europe to the vast, whispering woods of North America, these wild spaces feed into humanity’s deepest fears about the power of nature. When we step into the woods, we leave civilization behind.

Consider the tales spun in the heart of the European forests, where trees grow tall and thick, their branches intertwining overhead to filter the light of the sun and moon. Here, among the flickering shadows, lies the seductive call of the fae, the powerful spirits who lure the unwary traveler into the depths of the woods by the soft sounds of laughter or the glimmer of ethereal lights. The woods are where witches live in their gingerbread houses, where wolves speak to little girls who stray off the path to grandmother’s house, and where monsters of all kinds await those brave or foolish enough to enter unprepared.

But what if the real danger is not what lay in the woods but the woods themselves? In our stories, trees are often celebrated as symbols of life, growth, and stability. Yet, hidden within their gnarled branches and twisted roots lies a darker tale—one that warns of peril and enchantment. From the whispering willows to the ominous oaks, certain trees stand as harbingers of danger, embodying the fears and anxieties of humanity. In this episode, we will delve into the stories of dangerous trees that loom large in our collective imagination, exploring their sinister attributes and the cautionary tales they inspire.

The Willows Were Against Us
The willow tree is often depicted as graceful and melancholic, swaying gently by the water’s edge. In folklore, however, the willow also harbors a more sinister reputation. In various cultures, it is believed that these trees can harbor spirits or serve as gateways to the afterlife. The ancient Greeks associated the willow with Hecate, goddess of witchcraft. In the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, in which the hero Orpheus attempts to rescue his beloved from the Underworld, Orpheus is said to have carried willow branches with him. In tales from the British Isles, the willow is often associated with sorrow and death, its drooping branches mirroring the weight of grief. The chilling notion that willows can “whisper” the secrets of the dead adds an eerie layer to their beauty, and those who linger too long beneath its boughs may find themselves drawn into the sorrowful memories of those who have passed, blurring the line between the living and the dead. One particularly haunting tale is that of the “Weeping Willow,” a story told to children as a warning to stay away from the water's edge. The tree, according to legend, is said to weep for the souls it has claimed, and those who hear its cries are doomed to join the mournful spirits forever. Most disturbing is the warning traditionally given to travelers to beware of passing a willow tree since they like to uproot themselves and follow along. The traveler who notices there’s always a willow just behind him on his path should probably start running.

In 1907 Algernon Blackwood, an English writer and member of the London occult society The Order of the Golden Dawn, published his novella The Willows, which tells the story of two men who canoe down the Danube and discover a deserted island filled with willow trees. At first, the men are delighted, laying claim to the island as their own. But as the story unfolds, the protagonists experience a growing sense of unease, as if the very landscape around them has become alive with a sinister force. The willows, once a serene backdrop, seem to become sentient, seeming to move of their own accord to conjure monstrous shapes, leading one man to declare, “The willows were against us.” The landscape shifts, echoing the characters’ mounting dread as they confront an inexplicable, otherworldly power that seems intent on ensnaring their minds.

The clearing the men have been camping in begins to shrink, growing smaller and smaller as the forest closes in on them. Eventually, the clearing disappears altogether and the trees go still. The men escape their camp only to find the body of another human with signs of a violent attack. The protagonists come to the conclusion that they have been spared only because the trees had found another victim to satisfy them. Grappling with their terror, the men find a way off the island, but we’re left to imagine they’ll never again view nature as something under their dominion.

Ultimately, The Willows is a meditation on nature’s duality. The woods can be a place of beauty and serenity but can quickly transform into a realm of fear, disorientation, and even cosmic horror. Blackwood invites us to reflect on the mysteries that lurk just beyond our perception, reminding us that the natural world is not merely a backdrop for human experience, but a living, breathing entity with its own secrets and shadows.

The Alder and the Red Branch 
Another tree associated with the water’s edge is the black alder. In Europe, alders line the banks of rivers and streams, and groves of alders can grow in swampy terrain. The trees can thrive with their roots in several inches of water. Perhaps the result of growing in watery environments, the alder, like the willow, is often associated with sorrow and tragedy.

In the annals of ancient Ireland, the tale of Deirdre of the Sorrows sets a poignant story of love, fate, and sorrow in an alder grove. Deirdre, a woman of extraordinary beauty, was destined for both greatness and tragedy. According to legend, the chief druid at the court of King Conchobar mac Nessa of Ulster foretold even before Deidre’s birth that she would be beautiful but that her beauty would “split the Red Branch [of Ulster] in two”: for her sake, kings and lords would go to war, much blood would be spilled, and the three greatest warriors of Ulster would be forced into exile. Immediately the warriors in the hall called for the child to be killed, but King Conchobar declared that he would raise the child in a secret place away from the court, and if she proved to be as beautiful as the prophecy foretold, he would marry her himself.

Raised in the safety of a distant land, Deirdre and her nurse kept far from the eyes of any man, save Conchobar and an old mute servant, and the maiden did grow to be just as beautiful as the prophecy had foretold. But one winter’s day, the old servant killed a calf, and a raven swooped down, attracted by the blood on the snow. Deidre, who had no love for Conchobar, saw this and fell into a faint. When she woke, she decided that she would love no man unless he had skin as white as snow, cheeks as red as blood, and hair as black as a raven. Asking her nurse if she knew of anyone matching that description, the old nurse said that Naoise, the brave and handsome youngest son of the warrior Uisneach, was the only one with those qualities.

One day, the sons of Uisneach, went hunting in the valley where Deirdre lived. As soon as they laid eyes on one another, Deidre and Naoise fell in love. Yet, their joy was not to last, for the jealous King Conochbar, who sought Deirdre for himself, would stop at nothing to possess her. Fleeing from the king’s wrath, Deirdre and Naoise, accompanied by his loyal brothers, embarked on a perilous journey across the sea, making a home for themselves in the wilds of Scotland in the alder woods of Glen Etibhe. But as the tragic tale unfolds, Naoise and his brothers fall victim to the king’s treachery, lured into a deadly trap. 

King Conochbar promised safety to the brothers if they would return with Deidre. However, the night before the king’s messenger arrived, Deidre had a dream that a raven flew over the alder woods with three drops of honey in its beak, but when it landed in the trees, the honey became three drops of blood. Naoise ignored Deidre’s warning of treachery and the group returned to Ulster. Once there, Conochbar’s jealousy returned. He orderd his warriors to attack the brothers and seize Deidre, but the sons of Uisneach managed to surround and defend her. Conochbar then called on his druid to help him with magic, and the druid summoned a terrible black sea, forcing Deidre and the sons of Uisneach to drop their weapons and swim to dry land where they were seized, and Naoise and his brothers were beheaded. Brokenhearted, Deidre took her own life, and Conochbar had Deidre buried near Naoise and his brothers. Unable to bear the thought of the couple touching, he had stakes of alder driven into the ground between their graves, but the stakes grew roots into each the graves and grew into great alder trees, whose branches intertwined, uniting the lovers.

Ash and Oak
In Norse mythology, the ash tree—specifically Yggdrasil, the World Tree—holds a central place in the cosmos, connecting the nine worlds. Yet, this mighty tree also embodies the dangers inherent in its power. Yggdrasil is said to be plagued by various threats, from the gnawing of the cosmic serpent at its roots to the constant danger of being felled by the forces of chaos. In this context, the ash tree serves as a metaphor for the precarious balance between life and death, creation and destruction.

The ash tree is also featured in many tales as a source of magical properties, capable of both healing and harm. In some folklore, it is said that those who carve their names into the bark will face misfortune, a warning against disturbing the natural order. This duality highlights the ash as a powerful entity, capable of granting wisdom and strength, but also of exacting a heavy toll on those who dare to trespass upon its sacred ground.

The oak, too, is a sacred symbol of strength and endurance in many cultures. The Greeks, Romans, Celts, Slavs and Germanic peoples considered the oak to be the greatest of trees. Yet, the oak also has a darker side, often associated with witchcraft and the supernatural. In European folklore, oaks are considered places for witches to gather, hold secret meetings, and perform dark rituals. The very presence of an oak can instill fear, as it serves as a reminder of humanity’s vulnerability to the unseen forces that lurk in the shadows. This association of witchcraft with the oak, especially in the British Isles, may date back to the early rivalry between Christian authorities and druids. The druids, practitioners of a pre-Christian religion focused on the power of nature, often met in oak groves to perform their rites, and later Christian critics of these practices characterized these activities as witchcraft. This belief may also arise from the belief that faeries favor oaks for their homes, and swear vengeance against those who cut down oak trees. Folklore warns the wise from sitting on the stump of a felled oak, a sacrilege that will surely bring misfortune.

Birch and Yew
One reason the woods can be so frightening is the human tendency to see trees as objects while knowing they are living things. This paradox makes trees uncanny: familiar and alien all at once. Nature as landscape can quickly turn into nature as maze once we stop admiring the wilderness from a distance and actually venture into it. The interconnectedness of root systems and branches can also give trees a conspiratorial feel, and, as literary scholar Elizabeth Parker has observed, branches, twigs, and thorns take on the quality of hands or claws, engaging our natural anxieties about something touching, scratching, or grabbing us.

This fear may be at the root of at least one piece of folklore surrounding birch trees. One of the most sacred trees in Celtic tradition, the birch symbolizes renewal, purification, and rebirth. Tradition holds that a broom made from birch twigs and be used to drive out evil from homes and gardens. It also symbolizes fertility, perhaps because it’s one of the first trees to produce new leaves in the spring, and in Norse mythology is sacred to Freya, the goddess of love and fertility. The dramatic appearance of the silver birch may also contribute to the legends around it. In winter, the branches are bare, and the tall, thin, white trunks and pale, twisting branches take on a skeletal appearance. Perhaps this is why birches are associated in Celtic folklore with Tír na nÓg, the land of the dead, and bear associations with death, rebirth, and the fae realm. Despite the birch’s association with purification and health, one superstition holds that travelers should be careful that a birch branch doesn’t brush their heads as they walk through the woods, as sickness will surely follow.

The paradoxical view of trees as both helpful and harmful continues in Celtic folklore, where the yew tree is seen as both a protector against malevolent spirits and a harbinger of doom. The tree's toxic berries and leaves add to its reputation, as they can be deadly if ingested. In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the witches making their famous brew call for “slips of yew, silvered in the moon’s eclipse.” The yew stands as a chilling reminder of mortality, serving as both a guardian and a source of danger in the natural world. The ancient yew tree, revered as sacred in many cultures, is equally feared for its associations with death and the afterlife. In the British Isles, yews are frequently found in churchyards, standing sentinel over the graves of the departed. This connection to mortality imbues the yew with a sinister aura, suggesting that it serves as a bridge between the living and the dead.

The Great Yew of Glen Lyon, located in the churchyard at Fortingall, was first documented in 1789 and is estimated to be between two and three thousand years old. In recent years, it made headlines when a branch on the tree, previously classified as male, began to exhibit female characteristics. Although this phenomenon was first observed in the 1990s, it went largely unnoticed at the time. It’s not uncommon for yew trees to change their sex, either partially or entirely, switching between male (flower-bearing) and female (fruit-bearing) forms for as long as it needs, one more piece of transformative magic that trees can perform.

Conclusion
The woods mean many things. Disappearing into the woods can mean sanctuary from danger, as in the story of Deidre, or an existential threat, as for the protagonists of Blackwood’s The Willows. In her book, The Forest and the EcoGothic: The Deep Dark Woods in the Popular Imagination, Elizabeth Parker writes, “The Gothic forest—that is, the frightening and foreboding forest—is an archetypal site of dread in the collective human imagination.” The woods still fascinate and terrify us, from the ancient Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh to Dante’s Inferno to J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings to modern films like 1999’s The Blair Witch Project and 2024’s The Watchers. The forest frightens us both because it’s inherently frightening and because of the way we’ve portrayed it for centuries. The woods remain a place where we can choose to disappear or disappear against our will, but one lesson is ubiquitous: no one who enters the woods leaves without being changed by them.

Nowhere is this clearer than in “The Fairy Thorn,” a Northern Irish ballad recorded by Sir Samuel Ferguson. In this story, four maidens venture into the woods to dance in a fairy grove. Upon reaching the grove and seeing the trees there, all of them fall to the ground, unable to move under a powerful enchantment. They are made to watch in horror as one of the girls, Anna Grace, is spirited away by the fairies. When the dawn breaks and the three remaining maidens can move once again, they flee in terror, but as the ballad warns us, there is no escape from the danger of the woods. The final stanza reveals the maidens’ fates:

Then fly the ghastly three as swiftly as they may,
 And tell their tale of sorrow to anxious friends in vain—
 They pined away and died within the year and day,
 And ne’er was Anna Grace seen again.

Outro
If you enjoyed this episode, you can subscribe to Enchanted wherever you listen. This episode was produced by me with original music by Purple Planet. You can find them at purple dash planet dot com. If you want to learn more about the trees in folklore, be sure to check out the sources link in the show notes. Special thanks to Enchanted’s Patreon patrons for supporting the production of this and every episode. If you want to support Enchanted, please visit patreon dot com slash enchantedpodcast. If you’re looking for a way to support the show that won’t cost you anything, you can always give Enchanted: The History of Magic & Witchcraft a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts, Podchaser, Audible, or wherever you listen and recommend it to your friends. You can get in touch with me via email at enchantedpodcast at gmail dot com or follow on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads at enchantedpodcast. As always, for more information and special features, visit enchantedpodcast dot net. I’m Corinne Wieben. Thank you for listening and stay enchanted.