Danaan
Sacred Nature- Druids in North America

Nuin         Symbol: Nuin

Sound value: N

Literal meaning: Letter

Pronounced as

“NOO-un”

Northwest Europe

ASH

(Fraxinus excelsior)

Features Deciduous tree, one of the last trees to leaf out and first to drop leaves

(Olive Family)

Uses Wood very tough & elastic. Medicinal uses.

North Central Florida

WHITE ASH (Fraxinus americana Linnaeus)

(Fraxinus americana Linnaeus)

Features Deciduous tree (Olive Family)

Uses Wood is tough and does not break under large amounts of strain, used for baseball bats, etc.+ Medicinal uses. /

+ School of Forest Res. & Conserv. UF, Forest Trees
/ Univ Michigan, Deerborn Ethnobotany Database

White Ash, Gainesville, FL

White Ash (Fraxinus americana Linnaeus), Gainesville, Florida

White Ash leaves, Gainesville, FL

White Ash (Fraxinus americana Linnaeus), Gainesville, Florida

White Ash, Gainesville, FL

White Ash (Fraxinus americana Linnaeus), Gainesville, Florida

Modern divinatory meaning: Tree of rebirth, passageway between inner & outer worlds

Animal symbolism (based on traditional lore): adder

Bird symbolism (based on traditional lore): snipe

Associated deities: Odin, Woden, Poseidon, Nemisis, Mars

Color: clear

Element: Water

Calendar: Nuin is associated with the fifth lunar month of the Celtic year, March. (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

  • In Britain children were healed by passing them through a split in an ash tree’s trunk. (A split was made in the tree, child passed through, the trunk rebound, and prayers said. If the tree healed well so would the child. Offerings were often buried at the roots of these trees.)
  • After the Saxon influx into England, the ash tree replaced the birch tree for use in Maypoles. In Norse myth the ash tree is the World tree- or Yggdrasil, with it’s roots in hell (the past), branches in heaven (future), and trunk in the earth (in the present).
  • The god Odin, in a sacrifice to himself, was hanged from the world tree Yggdrasil for nine days and nights, pierced by his own spear, in order to learn the wisdom that would give him power in the nine worlds. This lead to his discovery of the runes. Odin’s spear shaft was made from ash (as was the Greek hero Achilles’ spear).
  • Ash wood, is tough and elastic and not prone to splitting while worked. It was traditionally used for oars, poles, axles, bows and arrow shafts, furniture, implements, boat slats, and more. Witches broomsticks were said to be made of either ash or birch.
  • In Ireland 3 of the 5 magical trees protecting the land were ash trees- the Bile Uisnigh, Bile Tortan, and Craobh Daithi . (The Irish word bíle means ‘sacred tree’.)

To learn more:

Tree Wisdom: The Definitive Guidebook to the Myth, Folklore, and Healing Power of Trees by Jacqueline Memory Paterson (1996)

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