Blackthorn Magick: 11 Helpful Correspondences

The blackthorn is flowering. It usually blooms before the leaves appear around March or April time; making it easily distinguishable from the hawthorn, whose similar flowers appear after its leaves.

Blackthorn is a hermaphrodite, meaning both male and female reproductive parts are found in one flower - the term (according to my tree surgeon husband) is “monoecious.”

Blackthorn is known for its sloe berries and has traditionally been used for making walking sticks, riding sticks, shillelaghs (sail éille), tool handles, and burnt as firewood. Magickally, it has been used for wands, rods, staffs and stangs. Its thorns are often used in baneful and protective magick.

It is said that “an eldern stake and a blackthorn ether, will make a hedge to last for ever” and it is certainly true that blackthorn makes up a lot of hedgerows across the UK.

Another country saying about the blackthorn is “when the sloe tree is white as a sheet, sow your barley whether it be dry or wet.”

Magickal Correspondences for Blackthorn:
Dispelling negativity
Hope during devastation
Exorcisms
Purification
Warding
Protection
Inflicting strife
Release from Fae magick
The Crone
The Morrighan
The Cailleach

Other names for blackthorn are: wishing thorn, Faery tree, sloe, pear hawthorn. 

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