Bran and the British Mysteries

"The fourth letter in the tree alphabet is F for Fearn, the alder, the tree of Bran. In the Battle of the Trees the alder fought in the front line, which is an allusion to the letter F being one of the first five consonants of the Beth-Luis-Nion and the Boibel-Loth; and in the Irish Ossianic Song of the Forest Trees it is described as 'the very battle-witch of all woods, tree that is hottest in the fight'. Though a poor fuel-tree, like the willow, poplar and chestnut, it is prized by charcoal-burners as yielding the best charcoal; its connection with fire is shown in the Romance of Branwen when 'Gwern' (alder), Bran's sister's son, is burned in a bonfire; and in country districts of Ireland the crime of felling a sacred alder is held to be visited with the burning down of one's house.

"The alder is also proof against the corruptive power of water: its slightly gummy leaves resist the winter rains longer than those of any other deciduous trees and its timber resists decay indefinitely when used for water-conduits or piles. The Rialto at Venice is founded on alder piles, and so are several medieval cathedrals. The Roman architect Vitruvius mentions that alders were used as causeway piles in the Ravenna marshes.

"The connection of Bran with the alder in this sense is clearly brought out in the Romance of Branwen where the swineherds (oracular priests) of King Matholwch of Ireland see a forest in the sea and cannot guess what it is. Branwen tells them that it is the fleet of Bran the Blessed come to avenge her. The ships are anchored off-shore and Bran wades through the shallows and brings his goods and people to land; afterwards he bridges the River Linon, though it has been protected with a magic charm, by lying down across the river and having hurdles laid over him. In other words, first a jetty, then a bridge was built on alder piles. It was said of Bran, 'No house could contain him.' The riddle 'What can no house ever contain?' has a simple answer: 'The piles upon which it is built.' For the earliest European houses were built on alder piles at the edge of lakes. In one sense the 'singing head' of Bran was the mummified, oracular head of a sacred king; in another it was the 'head' of the alder tree - namely the topmost branch. Green alder-branches make good whistles … At Harlech, where the head sang for seven years, there is a mill-stream running past the Castle rock, a likely place for a sacred alder-grove. It is possible that the legend of Apollo's flaying of Marsyas the piper is reminiscent of the removal of the alder-bark from the wood in pipe-making.

The alder was, and is, celebrated for yielding three fine dyes: red from its bark, green from its flowers, brown from its twigs: typifying fire, water and earth. In Cormac's tenth-century Glossary of obsolete terms the alder is called ro-eim, which is glossed as 'that which reddens the face': from which it may be deduced that the 'crimson-stained heroes' of the Welsh Triads, who were sacred kings, were connected with Bran's alder cult. One reason for the alder's sanctity is that when it is felled the wood, at first white, seems to bleed crimson, as though it were a man… But principally the alder is the tree of fire, the power of fire to free the earth from water; and the alder-branch by which Bran was recognised at the Câd Goddeu is a token of resurrection- its buds are set in a spiral. This spiral symbol is ante-diluvian: the earliest Sumerian shrines are 'ghost-houses', like those used in Uganda, and are flanked by spiral posts.

Robert Graves, The White Goddess, p.170-172

"The fullest account of the original Battle of the Trees … is published in the Myvyrian Archaiology. This is a perfect example of mythographic shorthand and records what seems to have been the most important event in pre-Christian Britain:

'These are the Englyns [epigrammatic verses] that were sung at the Câd Goddeu, or, as others call it, the Battle of Achren, which was on account of a white roebuck, and a whelp; and they came from Annwm [the Underworld], and Amathaon ap Don brought them. And therefore Amathaon ap Don, and Arawn, King of Annwm, fought. And there was a man in that battle, who unnless his name were known could not be overcome and there was on the other side a woman called Achren ['Trees'], and unless her name were known her party could not be overcome. And Gwydion ap Don guessed the name of the man, and sang the two Englyns following:

'Sure-hoofed is my steed impelled by the spur;
The high sprigs of alder are on thy shield;
Bran art thou called, of the glittering branches.

Sure-hoofed is my steed in the day of battle:
The high sprigs of alder are in thy hand:
Bran thou art, by the branch thou bearest-
Amathaon the Good has prevailed.'

"Bran's name was guessed by Gwydion from the sprigs of alder in his hand, because though 'Bran' and Gwern, the word for 'alder' used in the poem, do not sound similar, Gwydion knew that Bran, which meant 'Crow' or 'Raven', also meant 'alder' - the Irish is fearn, with the 'f' pronounced as 'v' - and that the alder was a sacred tree. The third of the four sons of King Partholan the Milesian, a legendary ruler of Ireland in the Bronze age, had been called Fearn; there had also been young Gwern, King of Ireland, the son of Bran's sister, Branwen.

Robert Graves, The White Goddess, p.49-51

"…the alder remained a sacred tree in Britain for long after the Câd Goddeu; a King of Kent as late as the fifth century A.D. was named Gwerngen, 'son of the Alder'. The answer to one of the riddles in the 'Taliesin' poem-medley called Angar Cyvyndawd ('Hostile Confederacy'), 'Why is the alder of purplish colour?', is doubtless: 'Because Bran wore royal purple.'

Robert Graves, The White Goddess, p.58

In ancient Greece Cronos was represented by an alder tree. In Norse legends March was known as the ‘lengthening month of the waking alder’. In Irish legend the first human male was created from alder, and the first female from rowan. Alder’s burning qualities have always been prized amongst metal workers and smiths. It was known for its hot charcoal. As a tree which ‘bleeds’, alder is bound up in the legends of the Rollright stones in Oxfordshire where the King Stone, which stands alone, was once reputedly associated with a grove of alder trees. Alder was anciently renowned as the best wood to use for whistles and pipes. Such was the reputed harmony of the music played on alder pipes that the topmost branch of the alder tree became known as the ‘oracular singing head’ of Bran. The purple colour of alder’s leaf-buds is especially associated with Bran, and is called ‘royal purple’.

J M Paterson, A Tree in Your Pocket