Hazel, Fionn & Magic

‘The hazel with its nourishing nuts and habit of growing near water, is a symbol of fertility, kingship, poetic inspiration and mystical knowledge’

The hazelnut is described as the 'nut of wisdom', e.g. esoteric or occult knowledge. Hazels of wisdom grew at the heads of the seven chief rivers of Ireland, and nine grew over both Connla's Well and the Well of Segais, the legendary common source of the Boyne and the Shannon. ‘The nuts would fall into the water, causing bubbles of mystic inspiration to form, or be eaten by salmon. The number of spots on a salmon's back was thought to indicate the number of nuts it had consumed. The salmon of wisdom caught by Fionn MacCumhaill had eaten hazel nuts’.

The Irish for hazel is 'Coll' and MacCumhaill or MacCuill means 'son of the hazel'. W. B. Yeats thought the hazel was the common Irish form of the tree of life.

Source: Dictionary of Celtic Mythology by James MacKillop