When it comes to driving away witches or keeping off evil, nothing beats the rowan tree, with its gleaming scarlet berries and pentagram markings. Aeneas Dennison walks into a forest of myths.
It is strange to think that, for centuries, something so seemingly ordinary and so apparently inanimate as a tree could captivate people across the world and embody the hopes and fears of diverse cultures. Yet that is precisely what has happened with the humble rowan, a tree so…
