Studio design: drawn with AI image tools to the iconography of Folk & Fairy, checked against that tradition's rules and approved by a person. Captions are set in real type, never generated. Made to order in the USA.
The Deity Project supports the keepers of the world's sacred traditions. See our giving
The story behind the line “Mind the hawthorn.” It's an old Irish warning. A lone hawthorn is said to be a fairy tree, belonging to the aos sí, the people of the mounds, and cutting one down is asking for bad luck. Some farmers still leave them standing, and in 1999 a famous fairy bush at Latoon in County Clare was spared when a new road went through.
In Irish folklore, the Aos Sí are the people of the sídhe: the green mounds, ringforts and lone hawthorns of the countryside. Storytellers said they were the old Tuatha Dé Danann, who went beneath the hills when the Gaels came. They were seldom named aloud, only called the Good People, and farmers left their thorn trees standing. Their busiest nights were May Eve and Samhain, when the mounds were said to open. The wise gave them room and a kind word.
A Next Level 3633 cotton muscle tank, soft combed ring-spun cotton with dropped armholes, printed with the design and its line.
From The Deity Project, a living encyclopedia of the sacred.
