Apples are a common food for many of us. The are harvested in the fall and can keep, in cool, frost free conditions for quite a long while, they have been a winter staple food in North America and Europe. Apples have a rich and varied folklore. Associated with beauty, love, seduction, death, wisdom and immortality, their uses are widespread.
The folklore belonging to apples stretches far into the Western past. they are native to Central Asia, and Alexander the Great is believed by some to have introduced them to Macedon and Greece. In the United States, the legend of Johnny Appleseed, a pioneer who supposedly planted many of the trees through out the Eastern United States is still repeated. The current imagery from the myth of Adam and Eve, portrays the apple as the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge (in Elizabethan England it was the quince). Apples are the iconic instrument of poisoning Snow White, and the food of immortality in Germanic pagan lore (part of the bobbing for apples tradition at Halloween). They are the namesake for the isle of Avalon, and part of the cause of the Trojan War. Apples are associated with teachers and good health as well.
With such a rich body of mythology surrounding them, it should come as no surprise that they are powerful magical ingredients. Cut across the waist, an apple reveals a dainty five pointed star. They are used in beauty magic (and in many cosmetic products). They are associated with both death and immortality in Arthurian legends. Apples attract love, and also figure in seduction magics, as they are largely recognized as the forbidden fruit. Apple blossoms do not produce an essential oil, and all scents sold as apple blossoms are chemical approximations of the scent. The seeds are mildly poisonous. With beauty and danger rolled into one package, use apples in your spells, especially when balancing two seemingly opposite desires.
The folklore belonging to apples stretches far into the Western past. they are native to Central Asia, and Alexander the Great is believed by some to have introduced them to Macedon and Greece. In the United States, the legend of Johnny Appleseed, a pioneer who supposedly planted many of the trees through out the Eastern United States is still repeated. The current imagery from the myth of Adam and Eve, portrays the apple as the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge (in Elizabethan England it was the quince). Apples are the iconic instrument of poisoning Snow White, and the food of immortality in Germanic pagan lore (part of the bobbing for apples tradition at Halloween). They are the namesake for the isle of Avalon, and part of the cause of the Trojan War. Apples are associated with teachers and good health as well.
With such a rich body of mythology surrounding them, it should come as no surprise that they are powerful magical ingredients. Cut across the waist, an apple reveals a dainty five pointed star. They are used in beauty magic (and in many cosmetic products). They are associated with both death and immortality in Arthurian legends. Apples attract love, and also figure in seduction magics, as they are largely recognized as the forbidden fruit. Apple blossoms do not produce an essential oil, and all scents sold as apple blossoms are chemical approximations of the scent. The seeds are mildly poisonous. With beauty and danger rolled into one package, use apples in your spells, especially when balancing two seemingly opposite desires.
