I think there were earlier trees, but the ones I remember are from undergrad. The little university had a ring of them, surrounding the (often-dark) ever-burning flame. They stood in front of a small, domed building that, in the stories my friends and I told, often took strange occult significance – the only place on campus that I had never seen unlocked. It was all very symbolic, but what I loved about it was the crabapple trees. They were bright and cheerful on one end of the long trampled expanse of our quad, which was more often brown than green, and they were, for me, the sign that spring had come.
This was a while ago now, long enough that the memories are faded. But I have a strong sense of looking up and trying to make sense of the colors of them in those earliest parts of spring, the deep, violent pink of the buds stark against the almost-brown leaves, studded and green-grey. From a distance they made no sense, blending into a color I couldn’t name or duplicate. Up close they were too complicated, too nuanced, for me to pick out the pieces that made up the whole. I imagined that this was what the lady of Spring’s dress must look like, strange and shifting and impossible.
This was before I found my path, back when I could have that thought and write the dress into a story and not consider any deeper meaning. Sometimes I miss those days.
Purple Prince Crabapple, Malus ‘Purple Prince’, Morton Arboretum acc. 49-93*1 [Bruce Marlin, Wikimedia Commons, CC 3.0]
“Do you know any particular meanings for crabapples?” I asked Eric.
He gave me the measuring look, half joking, that I usually get when opening an esoteric conversation. We’ve known each other, I realized recently, for almost half of my life, and the comedic bit where I’m a mad, magical rapscallion to his measured and community-oriented practice is still a good one. “Why do you ask?”
I pulled up my sleeve to show the still-fresh outline of a tattoo, leaves cresting my shoulder and pouring down toward the crook of my arm.
He sighed theatrically. “Most people would ask about magical significance before putting something on their body,” he said, rubbing his temple.
“Say it just occurred to me,” I replied. It wasn’t quite true, but his look of mock-despair was worth the bending. “You know I trust your deep knowledge of the lore.”
“My collection of Cunningham,” he corrected, pulling out a book and thumbing through well-worn pages. “You know wild apples are part of the Nine Herbs charm?”
“Sure,” I agreed. “Easier to get ahold of than bittercress.”
“Mhmm,” he agreed, distracted. “That’s it. There’s stuff about wild apples, but nothing about crabapples like we think of them. They’re American. I couldn’t tell you anything from an Indigenous point of view. Or even a settler one, really.”
“Ah yes,” I said. “You’re more of the magic of the old world.” As if we hadn’t met on the same college campus, or brandished swords a stone’s throw from those first trees.
“Well, I’m not your magical pharmacopeia,” he said and tossed the book towards me.
Cunningham’s entry on apples talks about love and health, the dead and harvest. The Nine Herbs Charm mentions apples as a protection against “venom.” I touched the outline on my arm and wondered.
Malus “Prairie Fire” [David J. Stang, Wikimedia Commons, CC 4.0]
There is a type of magic that measures every aspect of the spell, from time of day to color of the candle, and aligns them all for the greatest effect. Every symbol has a meaning – and every variable is a symbol – and by controlling everything, measuring and honing and releasing the spell in just the right way, it carries all the weight of the universe as it flies to its mark.
That style has never worked for me. I lack the essential belief that so many variables can be controlled. Even if they can, I hold the symbols too loosely. They have a tendency to shift and change as I’m watching. Red is a color of fire – unless the fabric reminds me of a certain dress, or the hue is the same as the skirt we put around my childhood Christmas tree. An egg is potential, sure, but my farm-kid memories also label it as death, hidden trauma, theft. The best I can do, in my spells, is to throw myself towards the chaotic overlap of symbols that I like. I try to aim for the area where, even if I miss, I will enjoy the consequences.
It’s the same way I feel about tattoos. On my side I wear an old friendship – but no matter how it changes, or who I become, I wear a moment in time, a story of who I was, a symbol that will change as I remember that person differently. My devotional tattoos aren’t any different. They might gesture towards a bigger person, a greater truth, but as I age I notice different things and get different meanings out of them.
Illustration of Malus Niedzwetzkyana from Addisonia: Colored Illustrations and Popular Descriptions of Plants, vol. 6, 1921 [M.E. Eaton, public domain]
“Why crabapple?” my artist asked, leading me back to the chair. We’d worked together before, although we don’t have much in common to talk about. I knew she must be actually interested, to ask at the beginning of what promised to be a long project.
“Uh,” I said. I usually have a short, pat answer ready for anyone who asks about one of my tattoos. In this case, I’d come unprepared.
There was too much to tell her – about being in college, about the Spring, about the bonfire of colors that are so impossible to catch on film. I wanted to tell her about the mysterious Anglo-Saxon charm, my own writing, the way I got to know my neighborhood by stalking through the streets in search of the closest trees. I know the crabapples in my favorite cemetery and all along the lake – I have gone to visit them on lunch breaks and on weekends, with my friends and very much alone. It was, in its own way, a devotional tattoo, but explaining how, even to myself, seemed impossible.
“I just – I look forward to them every year. I figured I’d like to carry them around with me.”
“That’s great,” my artist said, pulling up her reference photos as she looked at my arm. “Maybe by the time we’re done, they’ll be blooming, again.”
The Wild Hunt is not responsible for links to external content.
To join a conversation on this post:
Visit our The Wild Hunt subreddit! Point your favorite browser to https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Wild_Hunt_News/, then click “JOIN”. Make sure to click the bell, too, to be notified of new articles posted to our subreddit.