The Hawthorn Sign in the Celtic Tree Calendar

The Hawthorn sign (May 13 to Jun 9) is one of the thirteen signs of the so-called Celtic tree calendar, a modern system of tree-astrology in which the year is divided into thirteen months, each governed by a tree and its ogham letter. This sign is ruled by the Hawthorn, whose ogham letter is Uath.

A twentieth-century invention

Those born under it are described in the popular literature as marked by adaptability, curiosity and a hidden depth behind an easy manner; the many-sided listener.

The framework should be dated honestly. The thirteen-month tree calendar was constructed by the poet Robert Graves in his book The White Goddess (1948) as a poetic and literary argument, not as a record of ancient practice; the surviving Celtic and Druidic sources describe no such calendar and no birth-sign system. The fixed date-ranges and personality profiles in use today are a later popularisation built on Graves. The sign is set out here as part of that modern esoteric tradition, not as an inheritance from the ancient Celts.