Elves

[Arcturus]

Im sure theres a time to cut a tree down.

Interesting about the Hawthorn. I have a Hawthorn about 2 yards from my house, specifically my bedroom, where i spend 24/7 (no sofa). I spend 20 hours a day under its canopy which goes over my roof (one storey property). I feel Ive got to know it a bit over the years and it has never been pruned, which is not necessarily a good thing, but could be. Its really quite big now and i have been feeding it volcanic rock dust. Its doesn't "belong" to me (or anyone of course) as its on the edge of someone elses ground so they could chop all they like.

The neighbours on the otherside felled theirs which they had to do but would have preferably been left as they were. This one has gotten very big for a hawthorn and im a little concerned that at some point it'll be chopped. Hopefully just pruned but no-ones done anything in 12 years so should be ok.

just looked up some folklore on hawthorn. id heard the leaves were good for the heart. i will read more on it. i have been trying to decide on a tree for the back garden. i think i have my answer.

Also this from one page, which you may know of

Britain's most famous hawthorn is the Holy Thorn of Glastonbury. Legend tells of how Joseph of Arimathea, the uncle of the Virgin Mary, arrived at a hill overlooking Glastonbury Tor with a few disciples and two sacred vessels containing the blood and sweat of Jesus. Where he thrust his staff into the ground it sprouted and grew into a thorn tree.

I stayed at a healing retreat in glastonbury at the base of the hill this tree is reported to have grown on.

Yggdrasil...just read some of the wicki on that, hopefully thats a good source here. Interesting, i do enjoy folklore and should read more of it. I have a couple of books of old faerie tales which i thoroughly enjoy. much good teaching in them. respect the land and don't be greedy.

in biodynamic agriculture they say that if done properly, one man can run a fairly large farm because he is working with nature. you really don't need pesticides etc and all the justifications are nonsense. the only reason they're needed is because you cannot grow stuff unintelligently unless you force the issue.

as per trees and the moon, bio-dynamics recommend february for fruit trees, which fits in with one way you mention, though they would do it during the descending or waning moon at that time. much of biodynamics is from folklore...steiner, its inventor, saw a peasant singing tones into a barrel of water as he stirred it one way then the other; creating millions of tiny vortices when you back stir against the direction of flow, which pulls in cosmic force, then spray it on the land. they have a specific tree paste and great ideas on tree health. never cut two trees without disinfecting the blade as it could spread disease. copper tools are best etc.

they also have fruit, leaf, stem and root days, governed by the zodiac...3 signs for each. thats from folklore too i believe. supposedly, years ago, farmers would harvest olives on fruit days and get more oil.

you seem pretty in tune with your land. probably all the answers are there. id love to own some land and care for it. id like to have a small hill with a stream and a natural forest...or make it so.

yesterday i went into town to post a parcel to the isle of man-first time ever. after that i went to the bank. just about to pull away and a motorcycle crashed into the back of a car. seemed synchy with your other post. she had some kind of celtic tattoo. she was ok.

excuse the fact its marginally off topic. ill try and stay on course if i post again. also my understandings are more intellectual as being fairly separated from nature at present i have less real knowledge or feeling. but an interest helps wih insights hopefully.

i guess there are a few types of elves. the ones i saw were about a foot high and transclucently green. llooked a little like the stereotypical little green alien man with a slight coned head and slanty eyes but were beautifull. faeries are real i think, to the other poster, the one i saw laughed at me. not mockingly so but i must've appeared somewhat strange or something. i think she was surprised i saw her. their love is not sentimental but based on action.

much of ufology could probably be ascribed to nature spirits. 3 angelogists in 3 books have ezekiels wheel/chariots of fire/ufo as angels. angels aren't earthly realm but still. one thing with the earthly realm is its eerie animal nature which folk cconfuse with evil beings. the horned goat man being one. once you accept this is the nature of that realm you can appreciate it more. thats to the weary.

All that sounds very interesting, and there's a lot of common sense in there too, particularly the bit about clean tools etc.

That tree out your back though, are you sure its Hawthorn? They can grow quite large, but they usually max out at about 30ft, so as trees go, they are quite small.

Hawthorn and Blackthorn, which are distantly related to roses, represent two aspects of the triple goddess from Celtic folklore. The goddess is called the Morrigan, and her name appears in later texts as Morgan. She is sometimes referred to as 'the maiden, the mother and the crone'. She is associated with Hawthorn in her aspect as the maiden (another name for hawthorn is 'white thorn'). As Blackthorn, sometimes the mother, but more often the crone. At the start of winter, according to folklore, the Morrigan manifests as the crone, carrying a walking stick made of Blackthorn. She bangs the stick on the ground, which sends out an expanding ripple of 'winter', casting the world into winter (obviously this idea was arrived at before anyone realised that while its winter on one side of the planet, its summer on the other side, but there we are).

The Morrigan also appears in Celtic folklore as something like 'death', the grim reaper, or the Norse Valkyrie, in that she attends at the scene of battles to collect up the fallen, and she is not entirely dissimilar to Odin, again from Norse, who among other jobs, roams around at winter collecting souls.

Blackthorn is also sometimes known as the Mother of the Woods. If you are ever lucky enough to see one that's been left to do its own thing for a century or so, you'll immediately know why. It does a spectacular thing. The mother tree sends out underground runners in all directions, which then each gets a new tree at the end. They all work out roughly the same length, meaning that you end up with an almost perfect circle of trees surrounding the central 'mother' tree. These baby trees then grow to maturity, forming a very dense, thorny, almost impenetrable barrier encompassing a circular area. Its gloomy inside, making it very difficult for grass and other such low growing plants to establish, so it seems pretty barren inside, but Blackthorn is not a tall tree, and other tree species can easily clear its height. This results in a sort of 'womb', where young trees of other species can germinate and get past the vulnerable sapling stage without any deer or rabbits getting in and munching them. These trees then do what trees do, and race for the sky before they run out of stored energy. As Blackthorn is not tall, they easily clear the canopy and find sunlight, by which time they are strong enough to go it alone, and the 'mother' has served her purpose. The tree(s) then grow, and gradually shade out the blackthorn 'mother', causing the Blackthorn wood to die off, leaving behind some new mixed species woodland.

But, as I mentioned, Blackthorn sends out runners under the ground, and the trees that make up this natural perimeter are no exception, so some of them (but strangely, not all) also go on to repeat this processing, forming a new 'womb', and so on and so forth.

I've had the privilege of seeing one of these Blackthorn wombs almost ready. Just beyond the boundary of my land there was one. You could get inside, as the outer perimeter had not quite finished sealing up. I went in, and I can tell you, the vibes you pick up when in there, really powerful. Unfortunately someone else, not even the owner of the land it was on, came in and cleared it to make it easier for the toffs to move about on the pheasant shoot. Chainsaws wiped out probably 100 years or more of this magical process, probably in a matter of a couple of hours. I wasn't there when it happened. I'd have probably tried to stop them if I'd known about it in advance.

[Arcturus]

yeah definitely a Hawthorn. my home is only ground floor (i was thinking one storey meant that so may have misrepresented my home). The roof starts at about 8 foot (2 and a bit metres). it hasn't reached ten yet so has more to go then, but in comparison to what i normally see, it seems big. Ive had an attraction to them for quite a while. Maybe cos im right next to one, hadn't thought about that. They have an ancient, almost prehistoric, look and feel to them. If im out in the country and there are a few about i feel like it could be 1000's of years ago, for some reason.

Im aware of the triple goddess but not in relation to the trees. That was a very interesting read. I wonder if the Morgan is the spirit that was supposedly seen fairly often in the 1st and 2nd world wars. I should read more folklore

Ive never heard of Blackthorn before and the way you say they do their thing is really cool. I should like to see a circle of them. Such a shame too about the one you saw, obviously. 100 years...We humans are, for the most, so disconnected from nature. People talk about the lovely English country-side but all i see is death and dying, for the most. The streams have no fish, the land is stripped bare and folk don't even feel the lands sadness. i can't even walk through a conventionally farmed field. Still, given a little space it still does its thing. With the problem with bees and similar, hopefully wisdom will eventually be forced to prevail.

Sorry, missed the bit about it being a single storey. Yes that makes sense now. Hawthorn would clear that.

Much of the English countryside is still really lovely and diverse, but I know what you mean. It upsets me where my land is, because just over the road is national park, which means vast expanse of nothing but heather. Total mono-culture. Nobody is allowed to do anything about that because its an area of outstanding 'natural' beauty. I put the 'natural' in quotes because there is nothing natural about it. If it was natural, it would be largely broadleaf decidious woodland, but that's not going to happen because the sheep, an introduced species, are allowed to roam freely and eat everything, and once a year the heather is burned away to make it easier for the toffs to see the birds they want to shoot.

Still, its a good job there are little bits of land like mine, with people like me on them, working with the land to try to restore the natural diversity. My aim is to heal that one little patch. It used to be part of a larger farm, so it had its fair share of abuse, but the farmer sold it because the shape of it doesn't lend itself to heavy machinery (lots of little ravines, streams, bogs and woods), so he considered it worthless and sold it cheap, and I bought it

There's a lifetimes worth of work there though I reckon. I'm 5 years into now, and I'm just starting to see wild flowers coming back in worthwhile numbers, but there's still much of it that isn't doing much yet.