Wish Trees Around the World: Ribbons, Cloth and Paper on Branches

There's a gesture that turns up again and again, in places with no connection to one another: a person ties something — a ribbon, a strip of cloth, a slip of paper, a thread — to a tree, and leaves a wish or a worry with it.

It appears in Slavic birch groves and Scottish glens, at Japanese shrines and Mongolian mountain passes. Here's a short tour of the world's wish trees, and why such a simple act turned up in so many places.

Slavic birch trees

In Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, the birch was a friend and a confidant. During the early-summer festivals of Semik and Green Trinity, girls decorated young birches with ribbons and cloth, plaited their branches into wreaths, and sang to them. Ribbons carried wishes and hopes; troubles could be confided to the tree. This is the tradition behind Hug a Tree — see why people tie ribbons to birch trees.

Clootie trees in Britain and Ireland

Beside holy wells in Scotland, Ireland and Cornwall stand trees hung with strips of cloth, called clooties or rags. Traditionally, a person dipped a cloth in the well water, washed an ailing part of the body or said a prayer, and tied the cloth to a nearby tree. As the cloth rotted away, the trouble was supposed to fade with it. Sites like the clootie well at Munlochy on the Black Isle are still visited today. We tell their story in clootie wells and rag trees.

Japan: fortunes, wishes and wooden plaques

At Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples, visitors draw omikuji — paper fortunes. A bad fortune is often folded and tied to a tree branch or a special rack so the bad luck stays at the shrine instead of going home with you. See omikuji.

In summer, during the Tanabata star festival, people write wishes on colourful strips of paper called tanzaku and hang them on bamboo branches. See Tanabata. And at many shrines, small wooden plaques called ema are written with wishes and hung up for the gods to read.

Hong Kong: the Lam Tsuen wishing trees

In the village of Lam Tsuen in Hong Kong's New Territories, people traditionally wrote wishes on joss paper, tied them to oranges, and threw them up into the branches of a large banyan tree — the higher it caught, the better the luck. After a heavily laden branch broke in 2005, visitors were asked to use a nearby wooden rack and replica tree instead, a reminder that trees can only hold so much.

Mongolia and Siberia: blue scarves

On mountain passes and at sacred places in Mongolia and southern Siberia, trees, posts and stone cairns (ovoo) are wrapped in silk scarves, often blue, the colour of the sky. Travellers stop, walk around the cairn, add a stone or a scarf, and make an offering or a wish for a safe journey.

South Asia: threads of hope

In India, people tie threads around sacred trees such as the banyan and the peepal, often at temples. During the festival of Vat Purnima, married women in parts of western India walk around a banyan tree winding thread around its trunk. At many shrines, threads are tied to trees or screens with a wish, and some people return to untie them when the wish is granted.

Turkey, the Caucasus and the Middle East

Wish trees hung with cloth and ribbons stand beside shrines, springs and tombs across Turkey, Iran, Armenia, Georgia and beyond. The gesture is familiar: a strip of fabric tied with a prayer for health, a child, a safe return, or relief from a worry.

A modern wish tree

The artist Yoko Ono has been inviting people to tie written wishes to trees since the 1990s in her Wish Tree artworks, displayed in galleries and public spaces around the world. The wishes are collected and sent to her Imagine Peace Tower in Iceland. It's a reminder that the impulse isn't only ancient — it still makes sense to people today.

Why the same gesture, everywhere?

Different cultures, different beliefs — yet the same act. A few reasons it seems to resonate:

• Trees are patient. They stay put, they outlive us, and they seem to wait. That makes them good keepers.
• Tying is deliberate. It takes a moment of attention, and you have to decide what the cloth stands for. That's a small act of naming.
• Leaving is the point. You tie it and walk away. The ribbon stays; you go on. It's a ritual with a clear ending. See why small rituals help us let go.

Be kind to the trees

Many traditional sites now ask visitors to use natural, biodegradable materials — cotton, wool, paper — rather than synthetic ribbons, and to tie them loosely. Synthetic rags don't rot, and heavy loads can damage branches. A wish shouldn't cost the tree its health.