In the third chapter of Dracula, while Jonathan Harker was trying to determine his situation, he asked rhetorically, “What meant the giving of the crucifix, of the garlic, of the wild rose, of the mountain rose?” The modern reader has come to know these four items as devices for protection against vampires. Mountain ash is a member of the rose family and is also known in northern Europe and the British Isles as the rowan. Bram Stoker probably knew of the traditional use of the mountain ash as protection against witchcraft, in much the same manner as hawthorn was used throughout southern Europe. A rowan tree was often planted in churchyards and at the door of homesteads as a warning against evil spirits and was sometimes pruned so it became an arch over the barn door to protect the farm animals. It was particularly effective in conjunction with a red thread, and in the Scottish highlands women often used a piece of twisted red silk around their fingers along with a necklace of rowan berries.
In Scandinavia it was also known as Thor’s Helper, a designation derived from a story in which the tree helped him escape a flood caused by the Frost Giants.
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Mulo see: Gypsies, Vampires and the