Join us for a festive exploration of the deep connections between nature and Christmas, as we delve into the traditional story of the holly and the ivy. This episode reveals how these two plants are not only integral to holiday decorations but also steeped in rich folklore and historical significance. Discover the pagan roots of Christmas celebrations, including the symbolism of holly as a protector and a sign of fertility, alongside ivy's associations with strength and creativity. We'll also discuss the ecological importance of these plants, from providing shelter for wildlife to serving as vital food sources during the harsh winter months. As we celebrate the season, we reflect on the intertwined histories of these beloved plants and their roles in our holiday traditions.

In the Christmas Special Podcast, Wildlife Matters looks into the traditions that have Holly and Ivy are an integral part of Christmas and made them a vital part of Christmas celebrations today.

A real Christmas story to enjoy on a cold dark evening

Wildlife Matters wishes you a very peaceful, happy Christmas

As the episode unfolds, Palmer draws connections between the natural world and human experiences during the festive season, emphasizing that the story of holly and ivy is not just about botany but also about tradition, survival, and joy. The discussion transitions into the significance of ivy, which has a rich mythology associated with strength and protection, often linked to ancient deities. The podcast showcases how ivy, often misunderstood as a destructive force to trees, is in fact a crucial part of the ecosystem, supporting various forms of wildlife and serving as a valuable resource for bees and birds during the colder months. Palmer encourages listeners to embrace these plants in their gardens and acknowledges the importance of nurturing nature not only for its beauty but for the ecological balance it provides. In conclusion, this Christmas special leaves the audience with a deeper appreciation for the intertwined stories of holly and ivy, inviting them to reflect on the natural world as they celebrate the holiday season.

Hello and welcome to the Wildlife Matters Christmas special podcast with me, Nigel Palmer. Today we're going to be looking at a traditional Christmas story that shows how nature Christmas are so intricately linked together.

The story is the holly and the ivy. So grab yourself a little drink and get ready to sit down and relax and hopefully enjoy and learn a few things about the traditions of Christmas.

So Christmas is a christian celebration that is strongly influenced by the roman festival of Saturnalia and a veritable cocktail of activities borrowed from the pagan solstice festival festivals.

Pagan was the name given to all non christian groups by the Christians and included a wide range of local activities and festivities that were part of the solstice celebration that heralded the new year and a return to the longer daylight hours.

Pagans celebrated with a series of feasts and activities that often included a lot of food and alcohol, but many of their festivities still remain today.

Some are better known than others, perhaps, but hundreds of years ago and before the use of clocks to tell the time, pagans stuck a stick in the ground three days after solstice that we now know as Christmas Eve and waited for it to cast a shadow from the sun. And this usually happened around the 25 December. This meant that the sun was returning and that there was a reason indeed to celebrate.

Another pagan tradition was to decorate their houses with plants in the depth of winter. In Britain, there are not many plants in leif, but two favourites were the holly or Ilex and Ivy Hedera, and this is their story.

In celtic mythology, the holly king ruled nature from the summer to the winter solstice. At the summer solstice, the Oak king defeated the holly king to rule for the time until the summer solstice.

Again, the holy King was depicted as a powerful giant of a man, covered in holly leaves and branches and wielding a holly bush club. It's widely believed that the green knight of arthurian legend was based on the holly king.

In this story, Gawain rose to the Green Knights formidable challenge during the roundtable's Christmas celebrations. However, the folklore of Polly is not solely connected with yule type festivities.

Like several other native trees, people believed it had protective properties. It was said it would bring bad luck upon yourself if you were to cut down a whole holly tree.

And even today you can see holly trees in hedges left uncut when they are trimmed.

Some believe that leaving the holly tree uncut in the hedge was to obstruct witches, as it was generally believed that witches would navigate along the tops of the hedges. In fact, it's bats that still use this method of navigation today.

Despite the belief that felling of whole trees would 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.

Some farmers even install grinders to make pricklier leaves more palatable. Coppersing also allows the holly's hard, white, close grain wood to be used for inlaid marquetry and to make chess pieces and tool handles.

Old folklore tells us that Hollywood had an affinity for control, especially of horses, and that's why plowman's whips were made from coppiced holly. There is never a reason to whip an animal for control, but, tragically, this is how many were and still are trained to work for humans. In Scotland.

They use the gaelic name for holly, that is, Shulin.

The name appears across the country as Krak der Culin, on the Isle of Mull, where the local Maclean clan adopted the holly as their clan badge to locate in Ross shire in the northeast. It is believed that the town of Keolin in Banffshire derived its name from the local Hollywood.

In Europe, holly trees were traditionally planted near houses to offer protection from lighting, as the european pagans associated holly with the thunder gods, such as Thor and Tyranus. And there was truth in their belief.

Thanks to modern science, we now know that the spines on the distinctly shaped holly leaves can act as miniature lightning conductors, thereby protecting the tree and other nearby objects. Holly bought a splash of colour to the bleak depths of winter, and that is why it is sacred to the druids.

It was considered a sign of fertility and long life. To have magical powers, and a sprig of holly hung in your home would bring good luck.

Holly was also said to be a masculine plant that would bring men good luck and protection, whilst its ivy was considered as feminine. It is this association that led to the christian carol, the holly and the ivy, using holly as a symbol to celebrate Christ's birth.

In fact, Holly is dioecious, requiring separate male and female plants in order for pollination to occur. The male plants have the prickly edged leaves, whilst the female plants have smooth edged leaves and also have the red berries.

Winter birds such as finches, dunocks, goldcrests, robins and thrushes use Holly's dense foliage and sharp prickles as a protective shelter, whilst the female hollybush's red berries provide an essential food source during the winter.

Smaller wildlife, such as hedgehogs, toads and slow worms, use the deep leaf litter produced for hibernation, whilst bees collect the nectar and pollen produced earlier in the year.

Caterpillars of the holly blue butterfly, along with those of various moths, including the yellow barred brindle, double striped pug and the holly torturex, even eat the sharpen prickly leaves. Mature holly trees can grow up to 15 meters and live for up to 300 years.

The bark is smooth and thin, with lots of small brown warts and the stems are dark brown. Holly flowers are white with four petals.

They bloom from early spring to the early summer, and once pollinated by insects, female flowers develop into scarlet berries, which can remain on the tree throughout the winter. The missile thrush is known for vigorously guarding the berries of the holly in winter to prevent other birds from eating them in harsh winters.

When food was sure. Deer have been known to feed on holly leaves.

The female holly trees that have been browsed by the deer will adapt and make all the leaves within the browse line with prickly edges to discourage browsing. And that is why you can see holly trees with berries and prickly leaves. So let's take a look at ivy.

An ivy has many superstitions and beliefs attached to it because it forms dense thickets in woodland and can grow where other plants could not, it was able to block out the light even to the mighty oak. The druids believed ivy gave them strength and power to defeat their enemies, giving ivy a rather sinister reputation.

Ivy has a long association with both greek and roman gods, and was said to be the enemy of the vine. In greek mythology, ivy was sacred to Osiris and also associated with Dionysus.

In roman mythology, Ivy was connected to Bacchus, the God of wine, and it grew over his homeland. Bacchus is often portrayed wearing an ivy crown, perhaps because this was once thought to prevent intoxication. Don't try this one at home.

But the poisonous berries of the ivy, when ground into a powder, were believed to be a hangover cure. Well, it may have worked, but only because you'd have been poisoned before the alcohol intoxication took over.

Despite this, Romans carried the tradition to England, where old english taverns would display ivy above the doors as an indicator of the high quality of their drinks. In old Ireland, ivy was thought to provide protection from evil when growing on or near to a dwelling.

However, if the ivy should die or fall down, their misfortune would fall upon those therein. Ivy was often carried by young women for good luck and fertility, and is still included in many bridal wreaths today.

Ivy was also worn by poets in the form of a crown and was said to inspire creativity. And the Greeks presented their winning athletes with crowns of ivy that is still used as a symbol in the modern Olympic games.

Being an evergreen plant, ivy was the natural choice of the pagans throughout Europe to bring into their houses for the winter solstice celebrations. Ivy is a woody climber that can grow to 30 meters or around 100ft.

It has climbing stems with specialized hairs that will help it to stick to surfaces as it climbs. There are two native subspecies of ivy in the British Isles, hedera helix and hedera helix hibernica.

The subspecies hibernica does not climb, but spreads across the ground. But this isn't ground ivy, which isn't a true ivy and is in fact part of the mint family.

Ground ivy is, however, used to brew beer, so it is very important. Only mature plants produce flowers. They are yellowish green and appear in small dome shaped clusters known as umbels.

The ivory fruits are black and berry like and form in globular in clusters. Ivy flowers from September to November and its fruits ripen in November to January, so it's really important for wildlife.

Ivy's nectar, pollen and berries are an essential food source, as the high fat content of the berries is a nutritious food resource for birds and the berries are eaten by a wide range of species, including thrushes, blackcaps, wood pigeons and blackbirds. Ivy also provides shelter for insects, birds, bats and other small mammals and many insects before they go into hibernation.

Some of the main insect species which forage on the nectar and pollen of ivy, are bees, hoverflies and common wasps. It is an important food plant for some butterfly and moth larvae. Many rare insects are attracted to ivy flowers, including the golden hoverfly.

Hoverflies are particularly frequent visitors.

A nighttime foray may also reward you with the sight of moths, such as the angel shades feasting on the rich ivy nectar.

Ivy is vital for the holly blue butterfly for its first generation offspring, but the second generation of caterpillars feed on ivy we would also like to lay to rest a huge untruth about ivy, and that is that it kills trees. It doesn't. Ivy uses trees and walls for support, allowing it to climb upwards to better levels of sunlight.

Ivy is not a parasitic plant as it has its own root and system in the soil, so it absorbs its own nutrients and water as needed. And contrary to popular belief, ivy does not damage trees and its presence does not indicate that a tree is unhealthy, dying, or indeed dead.

A scientific study by Oxford University found that the microclimate benefits from ivy against walls, and wildlife knew that all along. The evergreen foliage makes an excellent early nesting site and shelter for birds such as wrens. Ivy really is a year round plant for wildlife.

We believe ivy lives up to its mythological meaning of strength and protection, and that is why you should always include ivy in your wildlife garden. I hope you've enjoyed the story of the holly and ivy in our little bonus wildlife matters Christmas special podcast.