“From the Balkans, hazel wood was revered and used in traditional witchcraft. A hazel wand was and is still often carried by witches. From ancient myths come the use of a hazel stick to kill the Devil, revive the deceased, and to turn people into other creatures. From this area also mentally ill people were made to walk three times around a hazel tree to help cure them and people made confessions of their transgressions to the nearby hazel trees rather than to a priest. A ritualistic amulet made in the Balkans is called the ‘Military Hazelnut’. This is a brilliant and detailed example of operative folk magic. It was traditionally made by the man who needed it, when he was summoned to war or on a long and dangerous journey. This information is relayed from Balkan Traditional Witchcraft, Radomir Ristic (2009). The folk ritual involved the man in need going to a hazel tree the night before Ascension Day between midnight and cock crow, clean shaven and dressed in clean clothing. He is then to undress and face the east, and bends down near a previously chosen hazel branch and attempts to pick one or even better three flowers with his buttocks. Then he finds the first nearest fern bush and picks one ‘flower’ (possibly a frond with spores) again with his buttocks. Upon returning home, he waits until the following morning and assembles the amulet while sitting on the threshold of his home. A healthy hazelnut is chosen, including the shell, and a hole is drilled into it, to help remove the insides. Then he places within the shell the following: a little mercury, a duck’s feather piece, incense, a marble, a piece of grass that was not cut during harvest tie, a piece of gold, clipping of a fingernail from an illegitimate child, a small bone from a wren and the flowers that he picked with his buttocks. The following words are then recited: ‘Just as no one can catch mercury, as the scythe couldn’t cut this grass, as the water didn’t wet this feather, as the rust cannot harm gold, the bullet cannot harm me… let it go to blooming ferns.. just as the marble is strong, and cannot be harmed by the knife, let me be strong. Just as the incense chases away evil, let it stay away from me. Just s the bastard is born happy, so I want to be lucky. Let me stay alive, clean and sacred like the stars in the sky and the morning dew.’ This amulet is sewn into the man’s clothing or he can carry it wrapped in something in his pocket.”
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