Celtic Tree Horoscope
The Druid horoscope links your birth date to one of 22 trees. Most trees have two periods a year, the Jasmine has one, and four special days around the equinoxes and solstices are each given to a tree of their own.
How the Horoscope Works
The year is divided into periods, usually ten days long (the shortest is five days, the longest nineteen), and each is assigned a tree. The periods come in pairs: the same tree returns about half a year later — for example, the Cedar rules in February and in August. Only the Jasmine has a single period in our version of the table, from May 1 to 14.
The exception is four days around the equinoxes and solstices: March 21 belongs to the Oak, June 24 to the Birch, September 23 to the Olive and December 22 to the Beech. These trees occupy exactly one day. The Birch's day is not the solstice itself (which falls on June 20–21) but June 24, midsummer in old European tradition.
The calculator above finds your tree by date. The full list is on the 22 trees page.
Where It Came From
It's important not to be misled by the name. This horoscope has nothing to do with the historical Druids: extremely little is known about the calendar beliefs of the Celtic priests, and they left no written sources.
The 22-tree scheme appeared in the 20th century in popular literature and spread through magazines and calendars. In other words, it is a modern system that uses Celtic symbolism, not a reconstruction of an ancient tradition.
That doesn't make it useless as entertainment, but it's worth knowing what you're dealing with. On the tree pages we describe precisely this modern tradition.
What the result means
The tree describes character: the endurance of the Oak, the flexibility of the Willow, the reserve of the Cypress. Interpretations are built on the properties of the plant itself, which makes the system intuitive, unlike the zodiac, where the link between a sign and a character has no real motivation.
In this system, compatibility is derived from the similarities and differences between the trees' characters. There is no single compatibility table, just as there are no generally accepted elements for the trees in this scheme.
Frequently asked questions
Why do different sources give me different trees?
There are several versions of the date table, and they disagree on the May and June periods. We use one of the common versions; the dates of all the trees are given in the calculator result and in the list of 22 trees.
Is this the same as the Celtic Ogham calendar?
No. The Ogham alphabet is indeed linked to tree names, but the horoscope's scheme of 22 trees does not derive from it.