Stone Age food
As a source of food, hazel nuts have been found in all human settlements, right back to the Stone Age. The nuts contain vitamins A, B, C as well as potassium, calcium, phosphorous, magnesium, iron and protein and a high per cent of fatty oil. They can be eaten raw as well as roasted and appear in countless recipes.

Always young
Often growing in groves, the hazel tree takes nine years to mature and flower. Although its stems tend to die after thirty to fifty years, these are replaced by new shoots, and it because of this that hazel appears unusually young, even though its root or stump may be hundreds of years old. Catkins appear first, before the leaves, and the female flowers a month later, with scarlet stigmas.

Water guide
Hazel bark is smooth with lightly ‘blistered’ nodes. Several species of moth may be found as chrysalis under hazel leaves. In many countries it is used for divination or dowsing (finding underground water supplies and streams), which happens naturally when a forked branch is held lightly in either palm and as the tip bends down, the line of the water course can be plotted with accuracy.

Heart balm
In hotter countries, almond can occasionally be substitute for hazel. Medicinally, witch hazel is excellent for healing skin irritations. Leaves and bark are ancient remedies for heart problems and prevent dilation of blood vessels. Hazel belongs to the birch family - Betulaceae (coryllus avellana).

Magic nut of wisdom
Coll/ hazel, lies at the root of many ancient stories where, to save someone from certain death, the hero must go the Well at the World’s End and catch the magic nut before it reaches the Salmon of Wisdom. The nine hazel trees at Connla’s Well in Tipperary, Ireland, hints at this:

The nine hazels of Crimall the sage
drop their fruits under the well:
they stand by the power of magic spells
under a darksome mist of wizardry.
(Gwynn III 1913, 293)

The number nine
Nine is the number much associated with Coll/ hazel. In the Bush Barrow lozenge, found on the buried astronomer-priest (by Stonehenge, Wiltshire), shows such nine-fold geometry. The outer angles measure either 80° or 100° which are precisely the extreme rising and setting angles found at the Stonehenge latitude (lunar being the wider of the two). Nine is the number of the Greek Muses and Gaia (Spirit of the Earth).

Medical Symbol
In Greek and Roman myth, Hermes had a staff or rod made of hazel known as the caduceus - two intertwined snakes on a hazel rod - which still remain the symbol of the healing arts today, although the original hazel leaves are generally transposed with his wings (he was the messenger of the gods). White hazel wands, wrapped in a craneskin bag were once carried by druids, and hint at the legend of the three cranes who brought the tree alphabet from Egypt.

The wise salmon
Salmon, wisdom and hazel are all connected into the mystic Salmon of Wisdom, who each year travels his long journey to catch the falling Hazelnuts of Knowledge at the Well at the World’s End before returning “the ways of the round rolling world”. In the stories, Fionn, who is studying under a master druid, accidentally burns himself while cooking such a salmon one day for his master. Licking his burnt thumb, he takes in a drop of the magic juice and so gains his gift of prophecy. Bardic inspiration is associated with hazel, and Scotland’s other name, Caledonia, derives from Caldun (fort of the hazel), as does cnocach (wisdom) which comes from the more common word for hazelnut, cno. In the Mabingion, it is the magic salmon who - even older than the oldest animal in the land, the Eagle of Gwernabwy - directs Arthur and his companions upstream to find Mabon ap Modron, the Son of the Great Mother.

Taliesin, the Bard
A very famous association that combines hazel, salmon and magic power is Taliesin. Known in youth as Dylan, he was born when his mother, Arianrhod (her name means silver wheel), stepped over a hazel branch. This branch, or wand, was laid before Arianrhod as a trick by Dylan’s father Gwydion, who knew the mother did not want him. The boy grew up with his father and became in time possibly the most famous celtic bard, known as Taliesin. Taliesin had many shapes “I am a blue salmon” and was famed for his teaching.
The harvest feast of Lughnasa (Lughnasadh) falls on 1 August, which is in the month of coll/hazel. Lughnasadh is named after Lug (the Shining One).