View Full Version : Uses for holly?
brucemacdonald
12-12-2004, 23:42
I now have five holly staves (two cut last year, three just yesterday) which I am seasoning in my garage.
What would be the best uses for these? Knife handles? Or has anyone tried them for bow drills?
How long should I season them for?
I don't just want to make spoons with them :roll:
Best wishes
Bruce
You could make a bow if they are clear of branches, holly has an SG of 56 (I think) so you could get a reasonable draw weight out of one. Or walking sticks.
I have some small sections that I am seasoning for knife handles. I have read that holly is quite difficult to season without the wood checking and that it takes a long time to dry out.
they make fantastic staffs - the wood is good and waxy to carve and it's about the most sonorous wood I've every handled. What about some primitive music?
Realgar
I had a nice piece here, about 5" diameter 5ft long or so, in the month since it was cut it has split along its full length in a nice spiral, absolutely full of cracks and no good for anything, so dry it slowly and carfully, seal the ends! Maybe not such an issue with smaller pieces.
When broken the splinters are long and fibrous so it might well be good for bows.
Jason
Holly is what whitches made their wands out of apparently, that's where the place name Hollywood came from, where magic is still made today in the film industry.
Magic in the form of brainwashing that is!!!!!
Holly is not very good for bows. The grain goes spiralwise, so it's next to impossible to get a flat surface while respecting the grain (IOW, to get a good, durable bow, you need straight grained wood).
Holly is TOUGH when you keep it round. It's a hard wood, and the spiralwise fibers are extremely hard to separate from each other... so it won't crack easily when you ben it. As already mentioned, you have to dry it slowly, with sealed ends, though.
HTH,
David
arctic hobo
13-12-2004, 22:34
Holly is what whitches made their wands out of apparently, that's where the place name Hollywood came from, where magic is still made today in the film industry.
Magic in the form of brainwashing that is!!!!!
Hollywood being a small village in Ireland :lol:
not much good making a wand out of holly as it supposed to be one of the trees that offers protection from witches.
I offered to make my friend a staff from it (my warpped sence of humour) - she was up for it until about 1/2 later when it dawned on her I about holly. She thought I was winding her up straight away but could figure out how.
Paganwolf
14-12-2004, 11:00
Holly was believed to be antagonistic to witches.In its name they see but another form of the word 'holy,' and its thorny foliage and blood-red berries are associated with Christs crucifiction.So i wouldnt make a wand out of it :shock: walking sticks are a better option..
i have seen wands made out of.. not everyone who uses a wand is a witch..
"The holly represents life as it is green all year round. It is also a masculine tree of warrior magick and spiritual strength. It calls upon the seeker to recognise inner strengths."
these things often depend on who you ask :wink:
Paganwolf
14-12-2004, 11:41
True :wink:
falling rain
14-12-2004, 13:28
A 'Barren Holly' (A solitary holly bush) is supposed to be evil, I've heard. I believe there are some stories about 'Barren Holly'. Anybody know much about the myths or any stories ? I don't, but I do like folklore and stories
Please share if you know any :?:
greg2935
15-12-2004, 12:14
Dunno about evil but I made a fence out of an old holly bush I cut down and it sprouted after about 6 months! ****** tenacious and an excellent hedge.
Greg
Greywolf
06-06-2005, 18:57
It makes a bl**dy good walking staff, Ive made a few... come to think of it I have one curing now ;) if treated with boiled linseed oil and then a good few coats of beeswax (buffed with a cloth) the wood becomes the most beautiful bone colour.
As has been mentioned it can split during the drying time if left unsealed on the ends, but beeswax on the cut ends works well to seal in the goodness :p
Greywolf
Buckshot
07-06-2005, 08:52
It needs to be left to season much longer than other woods. They normally say to season woods for 'a year for every inch in diameter' but holly can be upto 5 years!
I agree Greywolf, it does make good sticks though :)
Cheers
Mark
Hi Bruce
I have had a lot of success using holly for a hearth. Use this along with a hazel drill and it makes an excellent combo. I have used it recently for teaching scout and explorer groups fire by friction and they found it relitively easy to get an ember.
Nick
i have seen wands made out of.. not everyone who uses a wand is a witch..
"The holly represents life as it is green all year round. It is also a masculine tree of warrior magick and spiritual strength. It calls upon the seeker to recognise inner strengths."
these things often depend on who you ask :wink:
Neo pagans see the Christian elements of the iconography. Famtrad and others see the tree in it's place in the rich oral & spiritual heritage of these lands. Like the Rowan it is supposed to scare witches away, yet every old witch I know grows one.....can't be a witch then, can she? ;)
Holly is a lovely timber for fine work, but it needs such a lot of patience to dry it properly. Seems to stay very white too when finished. If you find a wrinkled skin dead branch it helps speed up the drying process.
Cheers,
Toddy
Cheers,
Toddy
Povarian
07-06-2005, 09:54
Holly is a good wood to use for inlay work once it's been seasoned properly. I use it for trackways on games boards (e.g. nine men's morris) where the white/hint of green contrasts well with darker woods such as walnut. It also appears to be good for knife handles. More of a workshop thing than an "in the field" use though.
It carves well holding good detail. We refer to it as poor man's box wood - not as good as box, but grows a lot faster, so is readily available.
brucemacdonald
07-06-2005, 10:28
Hi Bruce
I have had a lot of success using holly for a hearth. Use this along with a hazel drill and it makes an excellent combo. I have used it recently for teaching scout and explorer groups fire by friction and they found it relitively easy to get an ember.
Nick
Nick, I still have some left over to try as a hearth. And there are four more staves left in the garage.
Best wishes
Bruce
A 'Barren Holly' (A solitary holly bush) is supposed to be evil, I've heard. I believe there are some stories about 'Barren Holly'. Anybody know much about the myths or any stories ? I don't, but I do like folklore and stories
Please share if you know any :?:
Try this (http://www.spiritoftrees.org/folktales/folktales.html)
or this (http://www.spiritoftrees.org/folktales/sort_category/folktales_trees_category.html)
I like the story of the proud Oak - short and sweet:
THE oak said to the reed that grew by the river: "It is no wonder that you make such a sorrowful moaning, for you are so weak that the little wren is a burden for you, and the lightest breeze must seem like a storm-wind. Now look at me! No
storm has ever been able to bow my head. You will be much safer if you grow close to my side so that I may shelter you from the wind that is now playing with my leaves."
"Do not worry about me," said the reed; "I have less reason to fear the wind than you have. I bow myself, but I never break. He who laughs last, laughs best!"
That night there came a fearful hurricane. The oak stood erect. The reed bowed itself before the blast. The wind grew more furious, and, uprooting the proud oak, flung it on the ground.
When the morning came there stood the slender reed, glittering with dewdrops, and softly swaying in the breeze.
Oh and some stuff on Holly since it's the subject of the thread :rolleyes:
For most of us the sight of holly leaves and berries is inextricably linked with Christmas, whether we celebrate this as a secular or a religious festivity. Christmas brings with it many traditions and it is probably the one time when many of us still practice at least a few old folklore customs today. Indeed in some parts of Britain holly was formerly referred to merely as Christmas, and in pre-Victorian times 'Christmas trees' meant holly bushes.
Though holly doubtless was, and still is, brought into the house for its shiny green leaves and berries, which reflect the light and add colour to the dark days of Yule, it has another significance as well. Christian symbolism connected the prickly leaves with Jesus' crown of thorns and the berries with the drops of blood shed for humanity's salvation, as is related, for example, in the Christmas carol, 'The Holly and the Ivy'. Yet even here the reference to these two plants refers to a pre-Christian celebration, where a boy would be dressed in a suit of holly leaves and a girl similarly in ivy, to parade around the village, bringing Nature through the darkest part of the year to re-emerge for another year's fertility.
Holly was also brought into the house variously to protect the home from malevolent faeries or to allow faeries to shelter in the home without friction between them and the human occupants. Whichever of prickly-leaved or smooth-leaved holly was brought into the house first dictated whether the husband or wife respectively were to rule the household for the coming year.
In Celtic mythology the Holly King was said to rule over the half of the year from the summer to the winter solstice, at which time the Oak King defeated the Holly King to rule for the time until the summer solstice again. These two aspects of the Nature god were later incorporated into Mummers' plays traditionally performed around Yuletide. The Holly King was depicted as a powerful giant of a man covered in holly leaves and branches, and wielding a holly bush as a club. He may well have been the same archetype on which the Green Knight of Arthurian legend was based, and to whose challenge Gawain rose during the Round Table's Christmas celebrations.
However the folklore of the holly is not solely connected with Yuletide festivities. Like several other native trees it was felt to have protective properties, and there were taboos against cutting down a whole tree. Hollies were frequently left uncut in hedges when these were trimmed. A more arcane reason for this was to obstruct witches who were known to run along the tops of hedges, though more practically farmers used their distinctive evergreen shapes to establish lines of sight during winter ploughing. Apparently the Duke of Argyll even had a prospective road rerouted to avoid cutting down a distinctive old holly in 1861.
Although the felling of whole trees was said to bring bad luck, the taking of boughs for decoration, and the coppicing of trees to provide winter fodder, was allowed. Holly leaves proved to be particularly nutritious as winter feed for livestock, and some farmers even installed grinders to make the pricklier leaves more palatable. Coppicing also allowed the holly's hard, white, close-grained wood to be used for inlaid marquetry and to make chess pieces and tool handles. Folklore suggested that the wood had an affinity for control, especially of horses, and most whips for ploughmen and horse-drawn coaches were made from coppiced holly, which accounted for hundreds of thousands of stems during the eighteenth century.
In Scotland the Gaelic name for holly, Chuillin, appears across the country from Cruach-doire-cuilean on Mull, where the local McLean clan adopted holly as their clan badge, to Loch a' Chuillin in Ross-shire in the north; the town of Cullen in Banffshire may also have derived its name from a local holly wood.
Holly trees were traditionally known for protection from lightning strikes, to which end they were planted near a house. In European mythology, holly was associated with thunder gods such as Thor and Taranis. We now know that the spines on the distinctively-shaped holly leaves can act as miniature lightning conductors, thereby protecting the tree and other nearby objects. Modern science occasionally catches up with an explanation for what may previously have been dismissed as superstitious lore!
Marts
Povarian
07-06-2005, 11:38
and...
The modern use of the holly wreath as a Christmas decoration is a remnant of the pre-christian "sun-wheel" which was burned on the winter solstice as part of the celebration of the cycle of the seasons/holly to oak. Incidentally, the modern astronomical symbol for the sun (a circle with a cross in it) is a depiction of the same.
So... you can make sun wheels from it . :)
Hi Bruce
Let us know how you get on using holly as a hearth! It does work very well and very quick.
Nick
stuart f
07-06-2005, 18:41
Just don,t try to use the leaves as loo roll as it tends to make your eyes water :eek:
acw_akkermans
09-06-2005, 09:50
Just don,t try to use the leaves as loo roll as it tends to make your eyes water :eek:
The leaves do work well as fletching on survival arrows. If you are into fantasy... you can leave the spikes and curves on. For a more useable arrow, trim the leaves so they have the same shape as a regular fletching feather. They last about three shots on a bow. If you make 5 arrows, this gives you 15 shots to kill that deer or rabbit...
Regards
Greywolf
14-06-2005, 07:18
ooooooooh, now thats a good tip :D
Greywolf