Holly (Tinne) with its bright red berries was thought to rule winter as the Oak ruled summer. It was used to decorate ones home for protection and as a reminder to put your best foot forward.
Holly (Tinne) was the bush associated with T in our alphabet. As we noted earlier, to the Celts the symbol associated with Holly was more than a mere letter, the symbol carried with it the properties of Holly associated with it. In this way, Celts communicated on two levels…the level of the message and a meta level having to do with properties of the tree associated with the symbol. It is thought that Druids for instance used the first letter of a message to convey the meta message so a message beginning with T might have to do with protection at the meta level.
