Is witch hazel a witch itself, or is that twitching the hazel witching?

Witch hazel is a popular, ornamental, flowering, deciduous shrub. “Deciduous” is a word meaning the leaves fall off the plant in the winter.

The flowers of the witch hazel are unusual in that they often appear on the barren stems after the leaves have fallen and the skies turned cold. The witch hazel plant is thought to have originated in North America, Japan and China. The North American species is sometimes called “winterbloom,” because that is what it does – it blooms in winter, and there the story begins. . . .

Witch hazel flowers are clustered together, with each separate blossom having four long, slender, strap-shaped petals extending from a core bloom. These straps, which are finger-like in appearance, can be yellow, orange or red. Altogether, the flowers look quite bizarre. On a winter’s trek through a barren wood with a bracing wind blowing, the twitching fingers of the witch hazel could be seen to twist and reach out toward the walker — as if casting a spell. I am reminded of the Wicked Witch of the West in the Wizard of Oz, her face contorted under the tall, black, pointed hat and those long-nailed fingers wiggling out to scare Dorothy and her little dog, Toto.

Perhaps, witches have always behaved in this way. It may be part of the show — you know. If you’ve ever ventured through the naked woods to buy a potion from one of the original purveyors of pharmaceuticals (or watched from the safety of a theatre seat), you know you want to feel you’re going to get your monies worth – that this is the real thing. For credibility, perhaps the witches of movies and lore have had to look the part, as they bend over the boiling and bubbling cauldrons and wiggle their fingers, before reaching out the vials and taking the coins from the shaking hands of their customers.

You were never so glad to leave. Rushing back along the path, you spy the colorful hazel blooms and mutter to yourself, “Witch hazel, witch hazel,” and hurry on your way. Apparently, the name stuck, and that odd winter plant with the finger-like petals came to be known as the witch hazel.

Reinforcing this interpretation is the fact that the word “witch” derives from the Middle English word “wiche.” “Wiche” itself comes from the Old English word “wice,” which means pliant or bendable. In the Old England of yore, hazel twigs were used as divining rods. A divining or dowsing rod was used to find ground water, buried metals, gemstones and gravesites. It was thought the divining rod would bend toward that which was hidden in the ground. The bending of the finger-like stick resembles the fingers of a witch’s hands twitching and pointing down into the pot of newt’s eye and frog’s leg. We see there the origins of the word “witch” — in the words and traditions for finger-like motions and appearances.

It was, I fear, fated that the strange-looking, cold-weather bloom with its pliant and bendable finger-like petals would seem of witching origins. Those petals moved like a witching rod, and they may well have appeared to the viewer hurrying past to resemble the hovering hands of the ladies of legend plying their trade in natural medicinals.

Between the two of us, I know the witch hazel is no witch itself, but I still see through its winter flowers a land of flying monkeys and hear far off a cackling laugh.

It never hurts to have a bucket of fresh water standing by. . . .

Just in case – you know,

Grandpa Jim