Oak and Ash and Thorn: The Ancient Woods and New Forests of Britain

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But the English are strangely quiet about their deep past; disconnected, embarrassed. It’s a curious thing, for the country is full of living reminders of its mythical history and prehistory, from the green men on the lintels of old churches to maypoles and even Christmas trees. But the English have nothing to rival the Mabinogion. They have no W B Yeats or Dylan Thomas, diverting old myths through new channels. What are the foundation myths of the English? Who are their folk heroes? When they look for a mystical past, why do they turn to the Celts? Where did they come from, who built their landscape? Why are the barrows silent and where have the faeries gone?

The ancients used ash leaves to make a tea as a diuretic and as a laxative, as well as infusions to treat gout, jaundice and other ailments. The Swords (ravens) represent intellect, thoughts, and state of mind. They resemble a logical and intelligent spirit.I am listening to the audiobook which is full of lovely nature sounds and makes the story even more magical! It feels smug; not inviting readers in to wonder and understand and empathise with this new knowledge. The Cups (squirrels) represent feelings, emotions, and relationships. They resemble a heart-centred spirit.

During our first winter in Heath the heavy snows blew and fell on our road, sometimes making it impassible, even for the town plows. During our first spring we began to plant our windbreak. We planted several varieties of conifers in three staggered rows alongside the road to catch the snow. This kept our road from being a giant snowbank. The town crew appreciated it.This is a lovely book exploring nature, protecting it and connecting with it, all told through an adventure by the Wild Folk- Moss, Burnet, Cumulus- who are similar to borrowers but who have protected nature from the beginning of time. But things are changing, and Cumulus and Burnet are beginning to disappear, and they set out of a quest to find more like them, to find out why. I have also been discovering a lot about my own beliefs through these little characters. Since becoming a parent I have been trying to nurture my inner child and access a long-forgotten part of myself that has faded away with the stress and challenges of being an adult in the modern world. Finally, the third of the sacred circle, the thorn. We use the full name, hawthorn. This tree, Crategeus, is known for its large sharp thorns. However, C. viridis, Green Hawthorn, has few thorns. You can see these thornless trees locally at the Energy Park. The Greeks and Romans associated the hawthorn with weddings and babies. Brides and their attendants carried hawthorn blossoms. These trees were often planted by holy and healing wells in England. Homeopaths consider the hawthorn a powerful medicine and use it for heart tonics. Our reality is already challenging, complex, and dark. The older I get the more I realize, that simple lessons are valuable at all ages, perhaps even most valuable as we get older and are more likely to brush them aside.

There are many ancient stories about the trees that are familiar to us, like the oak, ash and thorn. However, when we talk about trees today, we talk about their beauty and value to the environment. Trees breathe in carbon dioxide and breathe out oxygen. In forests tree roots help rains seep into the ground where they are taken up into the tree and then release that filtered water as vapor and oxygen. Trees also cool our neighborhoods and cities because of the shade they throw and because their transpiration of water also cools the air. We can treasure parks with large trees and leafy canopies that shade us and cool us during the summer. Now we are in town and have borrowed shade from the majestic oak, maple and sycamore that grow on our neighbors’ property. We even benefit from the fallen autumn leaves. Mulch! Compost! Trees give us many benefits. Wow. Wow. Wow. What a beautiful, profound, and hilarious story! It made me so nostalgic of my childhood, which I often spent collecting frogspawn, birdwatching and climbing trees like a feral cat… Despite a few very dark moments, this was such a sweet story. I love a good animal adventure story, because it's usually got a lot of brilliant nature writing, strange but lovable characters and some form of ecological disaster looming. Obviously I don't love the last part, I just like reading about it and how the characters try to help. Friendship between species is also a recurring thing in these kinds of stories. By Ash, Oak and Thorn has all of this, in addition to a few inventive scenes straight out of The Wind in the Willows. Humanity’s baleful influence is constantly bemoaned but not really dramatised: it’s not human action that destroys the protagonists’ ash-tree home or imperils Moss at the end that, or really constitutes any of the obstacles.In the 9th Century traditional folk ballad Glasgerion, the eponymous protagonist swears his innocence on the same three trees: In 1855 book Westward Ho! by Charles Kingsley, Sir Richard Grenville likewise swears on the three trees:

And so the cycle continues. Because though we have forgotten much in England, we don’t have the option of leaving the past behind. No-one ever does. Weirdly, obtusely, at the margins and from the corners of our eyes, the old myths can still be seen. A hundred years on from Kipling, the long barrow on the ridgeway near White Horse Hill is still known as Wayland’s Smithy; the old smith, it is said, will shoe any horse left there overnight if a coin is placed on the stones. The third day of the week is still Woden’s Day, the green men on the cathedral ceilings receive coats of fresh paint, and every May Day, even now, the strange green dance goes on in crevices and byways while most of the nation is driving to the out-of-town retail park.

In a book that nods to classic childrens fare, such as The Little Grey Men by “B.B.” and The Borrowers by Mary Norton, this is a story filled with natural history and wonder. Harrison doesn’t so much create a world as she does show us what it really there; what has always been there, if we have eyes to see. Lovingly painted characters and landscapes expose a world of tiny beings, the overlooked environment of our day-to-day life. As the Hidden Folk consider their own continued existence in the world, they ponder the behaviour of humans; why we do the things we do, what we consider important and everything we miss or ignore in the world. They want to understand why some humans (most usually children) can see and speak to them and others seem to forget. (There is a short, wonderful scene in the beginning when a young child, Ro discovers them and can even speak the language of natures’ creatures, the Wild Argot. Really makes you wonder!) We follow Moss, Burnet and Cumulus, three little creatures known as Hidden Folk, who have started to become invisible. They decide to search for an answer to what's happening to them, while also looking for other Hidden Folk, as they haven't seen any in a long time.