S for Silver Birch?

Way back in 2021 (you can see it here), before I moved here to the bungalow,  I did a post about Silver Birch trees using the pages from the Ogham Tree Alphabet again.

On moving here I found two young birches, one out the front and another, younger, in the back garden but although they have silver white trunks I think they are Himalayan Birch rather than Silver Birch

Himalayan and silver birch both have white bark, but Himalayan birch is distinguished by its consistently bright, smooth, and papery white bark that peels away. In contrast, silver birch bark develops dark, rugged fissures at the base as it matures. Other key differences include the Himalayan birch's more upright, less weeping branches and its larger leaves, compared to the silver birch's more graceful, weeping form and smaller leaves

This is the tree at the front of the bungalow as it's leaves changed colour in October. Silver or Himalayan - either way I'm pleased to have a few trees around me.

Back Soon

B is for Blackthorn

It's been almost a year since I mentioned the Ogham Tree Alphabet on the blog .

This is what I wrote way back in 2020, when I found Karen Cater's book about it and started taking photos and writing about all the trees mentioned in the book.

The Ogham Alphabet is the only native British writing system devised over 2,000 years ago and carved using notches onto wood or stone.

I had heard of this way of writing from the Sister Fidelma Books by Peter Tremayne -the first few of these I read years ago before they became very repetitive.

It turns out that in the Ogham Alphabet each letter is also a tree and a number and part of the calendar or actually the other way round..........each tree is a letter and number and a month or day of the year.

Over the last 5 years I've written about most of the trees mentioned in the book but not the Blackthorn. I took the photo above way back in the late summer or early autumn, when I noticed how many sloes there were on a tree in a car park. It's been sitting in drafts waiting for after the Autumn equinox because the Blackthorn is the tree that rules the dark half of the year, giving the strength to survive the winter month.

 The tree represents the letter S and the number 14.

Blackthorn wood is dense and strong and the thorns can cause infection. The wood is used for the Irish Shillelagh a walking stick or cudgel. And it was said that if a witch pointed a stick of Blackthorn at a pregnant woman she would miscarry.

 Vast numbers of sloe stones have been found in ancient archaeological sites although now we find them far too sour to eat.

It is thought that the Crown of Thorns that Jesus was crucified with was made from blackthorn and a blackthorn winter is a spell of cold weather just as the blackthorn blossoms during the days of the Ice Saints.

This lovely illustration by Karen Cater shows the whole year of trees for the alphabet.

All the other posts about the Ogham Tree Alphabet are here if you want to look at them.

Back Tomorrow

Ogham Tree Alphabet November 25th to the Solstice and Saturday Fail

 The tree I've not mentioned with regard to The Ogham Tree Alphabet is the Elder. If you've not come across the Ogham Tree Alphabet then this below is from my first post about it in 2020 explaining what it is.

The Ogham Alphabet is the only native British writing system devised over 2,000 years ago and carved using notches onto wood or stone.
I had heard of this way of writing from the Sister Fidelma Books by Peter Tremayne -the first few of these I read years ago before they became very repetitive.

It turns out that in the Ogham Alphabet each letter is also a tree and a number and part of the calendar or actually the other way round..........each tree is a letter and number and a month or day of the year.
Karen Cater (Author of this book below)

set out to find, in her local area, each tree of the calendar, illustrate them all and find out more about the history, traditions and folklore surrounding the trees.

I have been taking photos of the trees in the book and writing about the Alphabet off and on since 2020 but although I've written about Elder trees I've not shown the Elder photo and relevance from the book for this period of the year. 

Rather than re-write about all the wonderful properties of Elder and the way it keeps away witches! here is a link to all the posts that I've written about it over the last 6 years

Sadly there are very few Elder trees around the village and the one over the road at the edge of the burial ground has been 'tidied' by the Community Payback team(people doing Community Service instead of prison) who have been working there every Saturday morning with their strimmers and mowers for the last two years ...driving me crazy and ruining the habitat for many creatures in the process!

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 Saturday's visits to Christmas Fayres cost me nothing except diesel and 1 hour of wasted time! I started at one that opened at 10am in Eye where I could also pop in the library to return a couple of books that had people waiting. There were a few stalls in the Town Hall but nothing very exciting. Then I went home via two villages where I should have found 3 sales - in the first village the fayre must have been cancelled, in the second village I looked round quickly hoping to get a jar of Lemon and Lime marmalade from a local producer but they didn't have any and their second sale didn't start until much later - I must have misread their times.

I was soon home again out of the windy weather!

Back Soon

Sue

'"Tis But A Thing of Straw"

 I unpinned my corn dolly from the top corner of the bookshelves when they were emptied ready for moving when the floor was being done and bits fell off it. It's looking very faded too.

This is how it looked when new

 So I had to look back on the blog to see how old it was and turns out I got it in October 2020 because of the connection to the Ogham Tree Alphabet which has Wheat Straw representing October to November.

The Wheat-straw Page from Karen Cater's book" Ogham Sketch Book"

Later I was shifting more books from the living room shelves out of the way and re-found a sort of scrap book I started with great plans about 8 years ago. (This is a different scrap book to my two old fashioned scrapbooks started in 2021!) It has cuttings about the seasons and weather folklore taken from the pages that I wrote for the Suffolk Smallholders Society newsletter and cuttings from Country Wisdom and Folklore Diaries but not much else. Trouble is they are all stuck in with glue and can't be taken out.........Anyway, while I was flicking through a loose cutting fell out -taken from an old Folklore Diary all about Corn Dollies. Ah Ha I thought - I can make a blog post from this. ............

From the diary

Twisting and plaiting straw to make effigies and other objects has been practised all over the world and is closely linked to harvest thanksgiving. In the British Isles, the men who brought in the harvest traditionally made a human-like form out of the last wheat standing. This tradition developed to become a decorative pastoral craft often practised by women. Crafting these symbols of good luck and fertility, which reflected superstitious beliefs also enabled them to earn a small extra income. In it's purest form, the corn doll was used to than Mother Earth for the harvest.

'Tis but a thing of straw' they say,

yet even straw can sturdy be

Plaited into a doll like me.

And in the days of long ago

To help the seeds once more to grow

I was an offering to the gods.

A very simple way indeed

Of asking them to intercede

That barn and granary o'erflow

At harvest time, with fruit and corn

To fill again Amalthea's horn.

Minnie Lambert 1957 

(Amalthea's horn is another name for a Cornucopia)

From the book Cattern Cakes and Lace by Julia Jones

Great ceremony was always attached to the harvesting of the last sheaf  and a great Harvest Shout was raised by the reapers as it was cut. It was treated with special respect and used to make the corn dolly which would be carried home atop of the last load from the field. In the following year the Corn Dolly would be planted in the first furrow on Plough Monday, so that it's spirit would be released and ensure another good harvest.

Many parts of the country gave names to the dolly made from the last sheaf. In Devon the 'Crying The Neck and Kirn Baby'. In Hertfordshire 'The Mare'. In Shropshire ' The Old Hare'. In Hampshire 'Kern Baby' and in the Highlands of Scotland it was called 'The Maiden'.

I may have a morning out sometime to Corncraft  in Monks Eleigh for a new corn dolly, a look around their shop - and a coffee and cheese scone of course!

Back Soon

Sue

December 22nd - The Solstice and The Ogham Tree Alphabet

The winter solstice 

It's been over a year  since I wrote a post mentioning the Ogham Tree Alphabet. The only native British writing system devised 2,000 years ago using various notches on sticks. Each letter also corresponds to a tree and a month or a day of the year. My first post about the alphabet is HERE  after I found the book by artist Karen Cater.

The tree for the Winter Solstice is the Scot's Pine and I've been collecting photos of them.

Firstly in the village. I can see this one from my back windows. There are two planted on a green area in the middle of the housing estate behind . They would have been planted when the homes were built in about 1983/4 and are getting rather large.

At Needham Lake. This is a smaller and much younger tree, photo taken on a foggy day back in the spring.

And at Sutton Hoo when we were there in the early Autumn. Growing tall on the sandy soil there

These are the pages from the book that explain it all.

Back Tomorrow

Sue

M is for Mistletoe

In the Ogham  Tree Alphabet Mistletoe has no number or letter but instead represents the "day" of  "a year and a day".

The Celtic Lunar calendar had the year as being 13 months of 28 days = 364 days, so to complete the year an extra day was added. This was always December 23rd because the year started and ended on the Winter Solstice, which was counted twice. (Information from the book "Ogham Sketchbook" by Karen Cater and I don't quite get that statement either!)

The Druids believed Mistletoe was too sacred to be given a name or a symbol but they called it "Allheal" due to it's medicinal use. It has always been a magical plant, not of the earth but growing in the meeting place between earth and sky. The Celts considered all these meeting places as sacred  where magic could happen. Dawn and Dusk, Earth and Sea , Gateways and Thresholds.

The Mistletoe

Sitting under the mistletoe

(Pale-green, fairy mistletoe),

One last candle burning low,

All the sleepy dancers gone,

Just one candle burning on,

Shadows lurking everywhere:

Some one came, and kissed me there.

Tired I was; my head would go

Nodding under the mistletoe

(Pale-green, fairy mistletoe),

No footsteps came, no voice, but only,

Just as I sat there, sleepy, lonely,

Stooped in the still and shadowy air

Lips unseen—and kissed me there.

By Walter De La Mare 1873 - 1956

In early November I saw a poster for a craft fair with free coffee and cakes in a nearby village - (the FREE was the attraction!)  a lady had some small stained glass pieces and I spotted this for the Christmas tree................it looks better with a light behind it.

I've written about Mistletoe before..... HERE . The huge bunches high up in the churchyard of my previous village and the clump I found not far from Clay Cottage and when it was mysteriously cut down. 

It usually grows way out of reach but I spotted some on an old tree a couple of years ago, and stopped to cut a little bit last year but it seemed a strange colour and half dead. I shall look again this year.

Back Tomorrow

Sue

The Ogham Tree Alphabet - The Apple

Here's another bit I'd missed from the book about the Ogham Tree Alphabet when I wrote about most of the trees/letters through 2021 (all the rest are HERE ) 

(The Ogham Tree Alphabet is the only native British writing system, devised over 2,000 years ago by Celtic Druids)

 This is the letter Q and it's tree is the Apple which rules the light part of the year from May to October.

It's hard to imagine, now that we can buy any fruit we want all year round, just how important apples were in previous centuries.

Here's a you tube clip from the Tales of the Green Valley, shown on TV in 2005 and at the end Ruth

is up in the loft of the C17 farmhouse where the apples and pears were stored through the winter.

September blow soft 'til the fruits in the loft.

Not just for eating of course as they were used for cider, which like beer, was the main drink for many people when water wasn't safe to drink. Many farm workers in the main cider areas in the  south and west of the country had cider as part of their pay.

My only apples here this year are 7 on one of the new Minarette apple trees and I probably should have taken these off at bud stage as it's a new tree, but I was so excited to see them!

They are still hanging on and I've been checking regularly as they shouldn't be ready quite yet being an early October apple. The other two Minarette and the small Bramley seem to be much younger trees so no fruit on them for a few more years I think

But on Tuesday morning I looked out and one was on the ground - bother. So picked it up and it looked like this .....

and all because a wet leaf had got stuck to it and turned it rotten underneath. 

At Clay Cottage we had planted a couple more Apple trees to add to the two that were there when we moved in but back at the smallholding in Knodishall there were three when we moved in and we planted several more so that after 23 years we'd just about got to the stage when there were some to eat every day from September and to store for the winter too.

Back Soon

Sue

Ogham Tree Alphabet, August into September

Back again.

 On the new laptop and after a busy few days with visitors....Eldest Daughter, Eldest Grandson (6 and a bit) and Youngest Grandson (10 months).

 

Yes, the Computer shop set up the computer with a new search engine and I took my camera disc so they loaded that too as this lap top has nowhere for a CD - apparently they don't anymore. My old laptop had separate right/left click buttons - this one doesn't which confused me for a minute.

Then I had to track down passwords to put all my favourite things back for easy finding. It's nice to be able to type a row of words and actually having a space bar that makes a space between them - which recently my old laptop didn't always do.

Eldest daughter managed to find a way of loading photos from my new phone to this laptop, I'd tried everything to do it on the old laptop without success.

So all is well until the time comes that I need a new camera!

One of the months and letters of the alphabet that got missed when I had a year writing about the trees in the Ogham Tree Alphabet    through 2020/21 was The Hazel - standing for the letter C, the number 9 and ruling the 9th month from August into September.

 

 

In Irish Legend, Connla's well  was overhung by nine Hazel trees which contained all the knowledge of the arts and sciences to those who ate them (Connla was one of the Celtic Dieties in Irish Mythology).

 When nine nuts fell into the well they were eaten by a salmon, which developed nine spots as a symbol of the knowledge. The salmon was then cooked by Fionn, the son of the chief Druid's daughter for the Chief Druid to eat . Fionn was forbidden to eat the fish but when he burnt his thumb on the hot fish, he sucked it to ease the pain and stole the wisdom by accident.

From the book 'Discovering the Folklore of Plants' by Margaret Baker..............
The Celtic world treated hazel as a holy tree. Its nuts were connected with poetry, knowledge, love, fertility and childbirth. In the Scottish Highlands hazel was one of the nine sacred woods used in kindling needfire at Beltane. (Need-fire, or Wild-fire, a fire caused by friction is a term used in folklore to denote a superstition which survived in the Scottish Highlands until a recent date.)

 

Hazel Dowsing rods have long been used to find underground water. This was something that worked for Colin easily - yet never for me. 

 

 

I've been watering my new Red Hazel tree regularly but it still looks sad from lack of rain but too much heat. One day I hope it will be as huge as the one in BiL's garden. I gave a squirrel-sown seedling to Mum in Law way back in the late 90's and now the tree is a giant which Brother in Law moans about each year when he has to trim it back!

 Despite enjoying writing it was quite nice to have a short blogging break, posting 6 days every week can get quite time consuming. I've decided to cut down a little on blog time so sometimes I might say "Back Tomorrow" or I might say "Back in a While". 

This time I have something in drafts so.....................................

Back Tomorrow

Sue

 

Advent Photos 2021. Dec 21st and the Winter Solstice

Thank you to everyone for comments on yesterday's Boar's Head post. It was interesting to find it was called Head Cheese in Canada. When I was a girl we often had it for tea at a weekend with salt and pepper and bread and butter and it was always tasty which is why I wanted to make it myself when we kept pigs. I'm now going to investigate the few proper butchers shops that are left around about to see if they sell it.

So.........onto today's post...............................

 

 Last year I did lots of posts about the Ogham Tree Alphabet.

The Ogham Alphabet is the only native British writing system devised over 2,000 years ago and carved using notches onto wood or stone. Although I knew of it, this book found at a boot sale 3 years ago really describes everything well.

 

 Each tree represents a letter and a month and there are also trees for the other special days in the circle of the year.

The tree for the Winter Solstice is the Yew

I've written about Yew trees before HERE so won't repeat myself but this illustration for the Yew tree representing the letter I comes from the book.

 

So with the shortest hours of daylight  today it's all is on the upwards and onwards from now. Between the 21st and the 31st daylight  over here in the East will increase by..............................6 minutes!

And once again I have to include this poem, which I love

Susan Cooper was born in the UK and emigrated to the US in 1963, she mainly wrote children's books

This poem was written for the Christmas Revels, which I looked for information about and found.........

On Christmas Eve in 1920, John Meredith Langstaff was born into a music-filled home where a rousing, wassailing carol party was the peak of his family's year. Half a century later, his inspired Christmas Revels was born, a theatrical weaving of traditional song, folkdance, and drama that has become a beloved institution across the country.

 and this

Revels is a contemporary series of American seasonal stage performances, incorporating singing, dancing, recitals, and theatrics loosely organized around a central theme or narrative. The folk-tradition-based performances started in 1957, were restarted in 1971, and now occur in multiple cities around the US. 

 Wonder why we don't have similar here or maybe we do?

Back Tomorrow

Sue

The Yew

 The Yew hedge between my front garden and next door neighbours front garden has had a trim last week. It didn't take me long to cut with the electric hedge trimmer. Much, much easier than the many metres of hawthorn and privet at the Cottage. I raked up all the biggest bits and then hoovered the rest up with the lawn mower The hedge must only be 7 years old according to neighbours but has got very wide and tall in that time. I couldn't reach some of the top middle bits but next door neighbour was able to quickly get rid of the straggle. He also volunteered to clear all the small stuff from his lawn - thank goodness. Hopefully it only needs cutting once a year - there's conflicting advice online.

I've not had much to do with Yew trees or hedges- none anywhere I've lived before but of course they are famously long lived and found in churchyards all over the country including over the road. Back in the Middle Ages they made the best longbows for archery

Here's the Yew pages from the Complete Flower Fairy Book by Cicely Mary Baker

 

Looked in my book about the Ogham Tree Alphabet and discovered it's the tree that represents the Winter Solstice so I've made a note to write a blog post about it then.

Wordsworth wrote a poem about them too but it's a bit long to include here, this is a small part.

This solitary tree! - a living thing

Produced too slowly ever to decay

Of form and aspect too magnificent

To be destroyed

and Arthur Conan Doyle wrote "The Song of the Bow" HERE

 That's enough about the Yew for now

Back Tomorrow

Sue

Saturday Round-Up and the Spring Equinox

 As well as a tree for each of the months in the Ogham Tree Alphabet Book, there are also shrubs or trees that represent other points in the wheel of the year and the other letters of the alphabet.

The Spring or Vernal equinox (meaning equal night) can happen on the 20th, 21st or 22nd March. This year its today.

Represented by Gorse

This photo below dates from January 2019 and was taken a couple of miles from the Cottage at the end of the lane.

The spring equinox  still determines when  Easter will be....the first Sunday after the first Full Moon after the spring equinox. Hope the weather improves before then as it's been a dreary week weather wise in Suffolk until at last yesterday we got some sunshine. I've been mainly reading and watching too much TV again. I'm in Sicily now with Inspector Montalbano - haven't quite decided if they are meant to be a bit funny in places or if that's how the police work there!

I've been doing a short walk each day....I am so unfit it's frightening..... although there really isn't anywhere to go in this village, there are footpaths beside the roads in some places but in others just grass verges or high banks and a surprising amount of traffic. My bike is still a few miles away in BiLs garage as I didn't want to bother him to bring it then have to move it again if I wasn't going to be here long but no sign of completion yet so I'll get him to bring it when he has time.

Thank you to everyone for comments and more questions for me to answer when I'm short of ideas for posts.

Have a super-douper weekend

Back Monday

Sue

Ogham Tree Alphabet for the 3rd Lunar Month February into March

 The tree that represents the 3rd Lunar month from February into March is the Ash.

There are just a few Ash trees on the meadow

and one still has lots of Ash seeds known as keys,  attached, hanging down in brown clumps.

Here's a word I didn't know........ "samara". It is the name of any dry fruit that has flattened wings attached so that it can be dispersed by the wind.

 

Back Tomorrow

Sue

The Ogham Tree Alphabet January into February

 The tree for this period of the year in the Ogham tree alphabet is the Rowan or Mountain Ash.

Representing the letter L and the number 2 for the second Lunar Month

It was on a cycle ride last September when I found a Rowan with berries to recognise it and in a good place to photograph about 2½ miles from home.

They are much more common in Wales and Scotland and although we had a couple at the smallholding that got to over 10 feet tall while we were there, they rarely had more than a few berries.

I've never used the berries to make a jelly, mainly because it needs an awful lot of sugar to take away the astringency and I usually had redcurrants anyway. In history it was also used to ward off evil spirits and witches.

Back Tomorrow

Sue

Ogham Tree Alphabet December Into January

 The tree for this part of the year and the first lunar month is The Birch and this time last year I couldn't find any locally to photograph that were not in someones garden.(Which is why I didn't start these posts of trees last January) Contrary to what people think about re-wilding the countryside, Silver Birch tree's don't appear if you leave land untended and they don't even grow easily if planted. We put in 10 here and all were eaten by deer despite tube protectors. We planted 25 at the smallholding - I wonder if they are still there and growing?

Luckily on one of the few car boot visits last summer I spotted some Silver Birch at the car-park near the big car-boot sale site in Needham Market, so called in there on my way back from the scrap-yard on Friday. This land is owned by the local council, so these trees would have been protected and cared for when they were small.

 

 The Birch pages from "The Ogham Sketch Book by Karen Cater. Top left corner of the top photo  and at the bottom of the second photo shows how the letter B or number 1 would have been written way back in the 6th Century in Celtic nations.

Maybe I'll plant a small group on the grass out the front of the bungalow - just to carry on the tradition of trying to grow them in each new home.

Back Tomorrow

Sue

Ogham Tree Alphabet 12th Lunar Month

When I looked in The Ogham Tree Alphabet book to see what tree represented the 12 lunar month it turned out to be Wheatstraw! ............................. Where to find wheat straw in November?

 

The Wheat-straw Page from Karen Cater's book" Ogham Sketch Book"

When we traveled to visit friends in Essex we would pass a sign for Corncraft  and that's where I went a few weeks ago, before the latest lock-down. (Thank  goodness I went then and didn't wait until November!)

They had dozens of different corn-dollies from teeny to very large and this is the one I bought.

 

My Corn Dolly is now hanging on the dresser, looking very good.

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Thanks again for comments about moving, I only found some yesterday. The next house will be the 11th house I've lived in in my 65 years from a C16 cottage to a New Build in 1975, Victorian  to 1700's, from small garden to 5 acres , bungalows and houses - I've seen them all! (not forgetting the caravan!) and no I don't have any worries about moving and yes I'll still be in Suffolk probably only 10 or so miles from where I am now. The benefit of a new build by a large house-building company is they have a NHBC warranty and a person in a sales office to moan at if things go wrong!! 

I was confused by one comment from MargaretP

"If you plan to have a nice garden, don't forget to include good access through fencing etc." ?? 

AKA a gate I presume!

House photos here have been taken and by the wonders of modern technology the house should be on the market by the weekend or Monday at the latest. The Estate agent said did I want a sign up outside and I said they needed to put up 2, one at the end of the lane on the road and one outside the house because when the property at the other end of the lane went up for sale with no For Sale signs no-one could find it and I had loads of people driving right up to my end of the lane looking completely lost.

Unfortunately yesterday was too windy for a drone photo to show the whole garden and meadow which would have been a good idea but never mind. 

Back Tomorrow

Sue