What do you know about Europe's ancient, pagan past – and its fantasy legacy?

I talk to the trees, but they don't listen to me…

Lerner and Loewe, Paint Your Wagon

Do you have a secret urge to go around cutting mistletoe with a golden sickle? How about nail scissors?.

Answers to the questions about old European tree folklore and new mythology.

1. What kind of tree is Yggdrasil, the Norse World Tree? An ash. It unites the Nine Worlds, so NASA should talk to it nicely about warp drive.
2. What kind of tree was sacred to the oracle at Dodona in Greece? An oak. Oaks are awesome. Ask them questions.
3. How can a tree help heal the sick? By taking the sickness. Or the evil spirit, whatever. The tree draws out the evil. If you do not believe anybody could be this superstitious, you've never met any actors who were staging Macbeth. More than one cast has performed while wearing cedar chips (the treatment of choice) in their underwear.
4. What did St Boniface do with the wood once he cut down Thor's Oak? Built a church with it. He wasn't wasting good timber.
5. Medieval Christians were not above tree worship. What's special about Glastonbury Thorn? It blooms twice a year. It's also connected to Joseph of Arimathea. Cromwell chopped the original down. He hated it when people mixed their metaphors like that.
6. Who wrote about Telperion and Laurelin? JRR Tolkien.
7. What tree did WB Yeats use to catch his fish in 'The Song of Wandering Angus'? A hazel. (The fish turned into a pretty girl.)
8. What unusual talent do the trees have in The Chronicles of Narnia? They talk. (Just not to Clint Eastwood.)
9. What race worships trees in The Return of the Jedi? The Ewoks. The trees probably wish they'd go away.
10. Why did fans of the New Zealand fantasy series The Almighty Johnsons mail twigs to the network? The network threatened to cancel the series. Which was about Norse gods who had a cutting from the tree Yggdrasil in their closet in Auckland. Mythology lives on…

Show your tree you appreciate it. Go out and give it some water. And be careful with that lawn mower.

Dmitri Gheorgheni

11.05.15 Front Page

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