"Did your father introduce you to the rowan berry the way mine did?" asks a friend. "We were out in the Wicklow mountains one hot day when I was about eight or nine, and he picked a spray of the berries, gave me two and told me to bite on them and then spit out the berries. He said they gave a bitter but refreshing juice into the mouth. He was right. I do it automatically now. Don't think it would kill me if I swallowed the berries, but I always play safe in these matters."
Charles Nelson in his great work Trees of Ireland tells us: "In mediaeval times and as recently as the late 18th century, rowan fruits were gathered in Ireland and used either as a food or for fermenting as a drink." He quotes Dr John Rutty of the 18th century as remarking that when frost-bitten the berries become "sweet, acid, not an ungrateful taste". Sophie Grigson in her Fruit Book (Penguin) seems to think that they are best used to make a sharp red jelly to go with lamb or game. She recommends a mixture of rowan and apple - preferably crab apple. By the way, the rowan is not an ash at all in spite of the name mountain ash. It is a sorbus: Sorbus aucuparia. You could make a liqueur, as some people seem to do, in the usual way: put fruit into a bottling jar, make a syrup of boiled sugar and water, allow to cool, then pour to fill the jar one-third or one-half; top up with your vodka or whatever spirit, close jar tightly and wait, preferably for a year. Sprigs of rowan have been used widely in these islands and beyond to ward off evil - witches or whatever. Thus the rowan was hung over stables or byres and at the front door of houses.
The herbalists have a lot to say. Mrs M. Grieve, in that fattest of Penguin books, A Modern Herbal, has many uses for rowan. "The ripe berries," she writes, "furnish an acidulous and astringent gargle for sore throats and inflamed tonsils." The Welsh, she notes, used to brew ale from the berries, "the secret of which is now lost". Our mentor Richard Mabey tells us that it is in the Isle of Man that customs around the rowan lasted longest. Thus each May Day a cross is made by breaking off (not cutting) two twigs about five inches long. One is split in the centre with the thumb nail, and the other pushed through it, bound round with sheeps wool taken from the hedge. This is put inside the front door on May Eve. Primroses should ideally be in the house then too. The bark is good for tanning and dyeing black; good for poles and staves for barrels. You'd be inclined to leave the fruit to the birds, wouldn't you?