Danaan
Sacred Nature- Druids in North America

Ngetal         Symbol: Ngetal

Sound value: Ng

Literal meaning: Wound

Pronounced as “NYEH-tal”

Northwest Europe

BROOM

(Cytisus scoparius)

Features: Large deciduous shrub without spines, grows on sandy soils (Legume Family)

Uses: Branches used for sweeping brooms, sheltering windbreaks. Medicinal uses.

North Central Florida

SWEETBROOM

(Scoparia dulcis)

Note: no direct local native equivalent found- this is not a Cytisus spp. plant, but has similar features to Broom.

Features: Small annual herb (Figwort Family)

Uses: Medicinal uses.#

#Univ. Texas Austin, Wildflower Center

Sweetbroom

Northwest Europe

REED

(Phragmites australis)

Features: Perennial giant grass, grows in clumps at edges of water bodies & wetlands (Grass Family)

Uses: Thatching, stabilizing soil on river banks , runners sweet & used as fodder, used for fiber.

North Central Florida

SWITCHCANE

(Arundinaria gigantea)

Features: Perennial, evergreen grass, grows in wet & moist soils (Grass Family)

Uses: Plant: used by NAs for baskets, webbing, music instruments, arrow shafts, blowguns and darts. Good livestock forage. Medicinal uses. /

/ Univ. of Michigan Deerborn Ethnobotany Database

Switchcane

Switchcane (Arundinaria gigantea), Gainesville, Florida

Switchcane

Switchcane (Arundinaria gigantea), Gainesville, Florida

Northwest Europe

FERN

(Pteridium aquilinum)

Features: Perennial plant, deciduous in winter; fern common in woods & grassland, preferring dry, acid soils (Dennstaedtiaceae Family)

Uses: Medicinal uses.

North Central Florida

BRACKEN FERN

(Pteridium aquilinum)

Features: Perennial plant, deciduous in winter; fern common in woods & grassland, preferring dry, acid soils

(Legume FamilyDennstaedtiaceae Family)

Uses: Medicinal uses. /

/Univ. of Michigan Deerborn Ethnobotany Database

Bracken Fern

Bracken Fern (Pteridium aquilinum), Starke, Florida

Modern divinatory meaning: Cleansing, healing, restores harmony

Animal symbolism (based on traditional lore): hare

Bird symbolism (based on traditional lore): goose

Associated deities: Chiron

Color: grass green

Calendar: Ngethal is associated with the twelfth lunar month of the Celtic year, October. (Using the Celtic tree calendar system that has 13 ‘months’ starting in November, as popularized by Liz and Colin Murray. Other calendars are also used, most notably the calendar devised by the poet Robert Graves in his 1948 book White Goddess.)

Folklore

  • The Bracken Fern is also known as Brake Fern (often called the Female Fern by old writers), Umbewe, Brake, Pasture Bracken, Hog-Pasture Bracken, Eagle fern, Umhlashoshana, and Adelaarsvaring. It has minute spores that were reputed to confer invisibility on their possessor if gathered at the only time when they were said to be visible, i.e. on St. John’s Eve, at the precise moment at which the saint was born. (Also close to the time of the Summer Solstice, which is a faery time.) The Fern was also said to confer perpetual youth. (A Modern Herbal, Grieve)

Shakespeare says, in Henry IV: ‘We have the receipt of Fern seed – we walk invisible.’
and Ben Jonson: ‘I had no medicine, Sir, to walk invisible. No fern seed in my pocket.’

  • Blodeuwedd (“flower face”) is the wife of the hero Llew in Welsh mythology, and was created magically from the flowers of the oak, broom and meadowsweet.
  • In some parts of the UK it is thought to be unlucky to bring broom into the house. In northern Scotland it was used in making a bridal staff to be kept in a bride’s house overnight before a wedding, as it was said to enhance fertility.
  • Syrinx was a fresh water nymph of the River Ladon in Arkadia (southern Greece). She was pursued by the amorous god Pan, and to avoid his embrace was transformed into a reed plant (syrinx). From her plant the god Pan crafted his famous pan-pipes.
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