Elm Tree Lore

[glaive]

I've been aggregating my own list of elm (Ulmus spp) folklore from various sources and thought I'd share what I'd found here. This is mostly Greek/Roman and British Isles info, but I'm planning to extend my search...I also didn't include anything about herbalism, especially slippery elm, but I figure a lot of info is available on that elsewhere...anyway, would love to hear how any of you work with elm if you do

The Elm is typically considered Saturnian, and the Veritable Clavicle of Solomon and Agrippa seem to associate it with Pisces. There are also recurring motifs in classical literature of "wedding the elm to the vine" (a vine twining around an elm tree) and associations of it with death.

Elm and Death/Disease/Sleep

• When Orpheus was mourning Eurydice's death with the lyre, a forest of elms grew around him
• According to Virgil, there was a great elm at the entrance to the underworld
• He also called it a "roosting-place of dreams":

Full in the midst a spreading Elm displayed
His aged arms, and cast a mighty shade;
Each trembling leaf with some light visions teems.
And heaves impregnated with airy dreams.

• Greeks/Romans called it a funereal tree and it was also associated with Oneiros/Morpheus, god of sleep
• Falling of elm leaves could be an indicator of livestock disease
• The elm was the execution tree of the Normans
• Elm as "prophet tree" - if an elm on a particular property died, it could foreshadow death in the family
• Elms were often considered to be hostile to humans as they can drop limbs with no warning

Elm Magic

• Two recipes from the Egyptian Secrets of Albertus Magnus involve elm:
  • To Beat Witches: Let the sweepings, which are swept together in a house for three days remain in a heap, and on the third day cover it with a black cloth made of drilling, then take a stick of an elm tree and flog the dirt heap bravely, and the sorceress must assist, or you will batter her to death.
  • For Sorcery: Take elm wood on a Good-Friday, cut the same while calling the holiest names. Cut chips of this wood from one to two inches in length. Cut upon them, in the three holiest names, three crosses, † † † Wherever such a slip is placed, all sorcery will be banished.
• A 16th-century Irish manuscript discusses an elm wand used for healing purposes, as well as a cure for a man who was impotent by magic: cut his name in ogham on an elm wand and strike him with it
• There is also a Russian folk healing charm against impotence: the man needed to strike the horns of a bull with a staff made out of red elm
• Daniel Schulke's Spirit-Retinue of elm: Solemnity, Mystery, Archaism, Evanescence, Perplexity, Innervation, Vengeance, Strict Countermeasure, Solemn Memory, Umbral Majesty, Shrouded Memory, Caliginous Shadow, and Cloistered Gloom
• The wych-elm (Ulmus glabra) had protective powers: in the Scottish legend of
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  , who went to visit the legendary Dropping Cave, believed to lead to the underworld, Willie sewed wych elm and rowan sprigs in his waistcoat as protection (he also brought a Bible, a bottle of gin, and a blackthorn staff made with wood harvested on the full moon)
• The wych-elm could also be used to protect farm animals by tying a spring onto them

Elms and Saints

• St. Zenobius's heraldry has elm leaves. A great healer, he was once crushed in a crowd of people trying to touch him to gain blessings. He got pushed against a dying elm tree, and the tree immediately sprouted a bunch of fresh green leaves.
• From Somerset, a few sprigs of wych-elm should be put in vases in the house on July 15th, to protect from St. Swithun's curse. Swithun's feast day was often correlated with causing storms so I'm guessing this was a charm against bad weather.

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Sources
Elsevier's Dictionary of Plant Lore - DC Watts, 2007
Plant Lore, Legends and Lyrics - Richard Folkard, 1892
Myths and Legends of Flowers, Trees, Fruits, and Plants - Charles Skinner, 1911
The Green Mysteries - Daniel Schulke, 2023