Your perfume permeates the hot sticky air. It is 38 degrees outside and as I sit in my kitchen, I perform my ritualistic labour of love on the elderflowers.

As I run my fingers over the thousands of dried crispy petals and stems of the elderflowers, it is then that they release their perfume and pollen onto my hands and into the air.

The Elderflower tree has always been a giving tree, and for me, they are the epitome of foraging, in the spring they bring visual delight with the flowers and the sent.

In the summer I love to watch as the little balls of goodness start to form and change colour from bright green to the deepest could or purple it could almost be black.

Thank you elder mother , Mother Nature,

For guiding me to this healing bounty of your fruits,

At this intersection of change of seasons from the hot summer days where your flowers once grew

Now in these colder dark months shines your purple black berries

waiting for creatures to come and ask for be thankful for the healing they deliver.

Then in the autumn, the excitement of gathering so many tiny, dark, juicy, fruits of goodness, colouring our hands purple as we take each bushel of berries from its bowing branches. 

These flowers and berries are the only fruit that has helped my family get through the summer and winter without colds. The flowers are used in cordials, dried in teas, frozen for ice cubes, and mixed into butter and sugar for adding to recipes and for many elderflower champagne is a must. 

The berries and the best part for me personally, are full of vitamins and minerals. I love the colour, you can almost see the goodness these will bring when made into juices, jams, fruit leathers and more...

Since my recent house move, I have been in a constant search for local Elder trees, but have really struggled, may last two homes had an abundance of them and I guess I became complacent and comfortable in that knowledge, but this time I have felt a positive need to find them.

As if the mother Hyldemör herself is compelling me to get out there and find her, a dryad in German and Scandinavian lore that was believed to reside within the elder tree. I did have a small elder in the neighbour’s garden but this was not very fruitful and the pigeons had any that were there, it was a tree that was being swallowed up and overcrowded by giant leylandii which I hope to ask the neighbour to reduce, and then that may give this elder a chance of survival.

There have been very few others on my walks out and what I have found have had their clusters either emptied by birds, or withered, or are up far too high, I do have one or two more days this month September left to try and find enough for winter,  but the ripeing of them has been unusually early and the blackberries have also been exceptionally big and also early as if they take turns each year to produce abundance of berries.

There are many myths and stories related to this wonderful tree, and as with all myths, they usually start with some kind of truth within them. Many of the stories relate to a mother living within or connected to this sacred tree, and permission should be sought from her before taking anything from its branches and thanks should be given when it is granted. This tree is both used to heal and for protection, through its fruits, flowers, and branches. The branches are sacred and used by mystics, to create wands and give protection.

This could also be why Elder is one of the few folk plant remedies that have been tested in Western medicine and a variety of studies have shown that berries (and flowers) have antiviral activities against HIV, dengue, various influenzas, Herpes, and pathogenic chicken coronavirus, as well as having antibacterial effects by decreasing populations of the Strep A bacteria and MRSA. This could also be why during the pandemic supplies of herbal remedies in shops ran out, as many people started to turn to natural ways of healing themselves. This pandemic has turned a lot of people to nature in many ways, which is a good thing, but there does need to be education in the ways of foraging and self-medication.

This giving tree does not stop there, When this tree does die back, then its life is not over, for that is when the likes of mycelium and the fungus called Hirneola auricula-judge ( or Jews/jellied ear fungus) take over and grow from its branches.