The oak, the willow and the viburnum

Folk symbolism assigns roles to trees, and in this tradition the roles are consistent enough across regions to be worth setting out.

The oak

Male, strong, long-lived, associated with the thunder god in the pre-Christian layer and with strength and endurance afterwards. Oaks were left standing when land was cleared, particular ones had names, and some were sites in their own right.

In song, a young man is an oak.

The willow

Water, the feminine, flexibility and grief. It grows where the water is, which in a flat landscape makes it the marker of a river you cannot see. Willow branches are used at Palm Sunday in place of palm, which is the practical northern substitution.

There is a well-known saying about a willow growing where a Ukrainian passed, which is about how easily it takes root from a cut branch — an accurate horticultural observation turned into a statement about people.

The kalyna

The guelder rose or viburnum, and the one that carried furthest. Red berries in autumn, white flowers in spring, growing at the edge of a yard.

It stands for the young woman, for the homeland and, because of the colour, for blood and sacrifice. It appears in an enormous number of songs, in embroidery, in place names and on municipal arms.

Why these three

They are what grows here, they are visible from a village, and each has a distinctive quality — strength, water, colour — that a symbolic system can use. Symbolism follows botany more often than it is given credit for.

Three trees carrying most of the symbolic weight, and one of them travelling as far as the coat of arms and the shirt, is a good example of how a mark spreads. Seen from the branding side it is familiar: what is few, distinguishable and repeatable is what lasts. Why these three I cannot explain.