The Shadows

"We are the Shadows" repeated the Shadow solemnly.

"We do not often appear to men."

"Ah" said the King.

"We do not belong to the sunshine at all. We go through it unseen, and only by passing chill, do men recognise an unknown presence."

"Ah" said the King again.

"It is only in the twilight of the fire, or when one man or woman is alone with a single candle, or when any number of people are all feeling the same thing at once, making them one, that we show ourselves, and the truth of things."

"Can that be true that loves the night?" said the King

"The darkness is the nurse of light." answered the Shadow

"Can that be true which mocks at forms?" said the King

"Truth rides abroad in shapeless storms." answered the Shadow.

George Macdonald 'The Shadows' from The Fantastic Imagination

Benevolent and Malevolent Trees

Stories about benevolent and malevolent trees are widespread in British folklore.

Here's one from Derbyshire:

A man has to make a journey late at night along a stretch of road which crosses a river at a place where the torrent is particularly fast and rocky. He is afraid because this stretch of road is haunted by a malevolent ash tree known as 'Crooker' who causes people to drown in the torrent. So although the way is dark, it is important to get to the bridge before moonrise when Crooker become active. But more important still is to gain the protection of a benevolent tree. This the traveller does and the beech tree appears to him in the form of three separate women dressed in green and each of them gives him a posy of flowers "for Crooker". He is also given a beech nut for a talisman.

Once on the road he moves through the darkness as fast as he can go but sees the Moon rising before he has reached the bridge. As he gets close the shadow of a crooked branch begins to move towards him threateningly, so he offers one of the posies of flowers which is taken a thrown into the river. Further on the crooked shadow looms up before him so he offers the second posy and this too is cast into the river. Almost on the bridge the enormous shadow with branches like clasping arms bars the way. He offers the final posy and it is cast into the river. Can he now pass onto the bridge? He takes the beech nut and thinks of the rustling leaves of the beech tree. The shadow withdraws and he steps onto the bridge, passing safely across it.

***

These stories of animated trees with a variety of dispositions towards humans might be compared to the dryads of Greek mythology, though these are often represented as spirits inhabiting the tree which takes human form. Here, the tree itself may appear in human guise to humans but remains a tree. It is said that the greeks had a tendency to personify such spirits while the Romans were more likely to think of them as 'presences' of indeterminate form. But the British folklore record does very much indicate the attribution of both animation and particular intentions to the trees themselves.

The Apple Tree Man

There is a place where it was once the custom for the youngest rather than the oldest son to inherit the family wealth. In one family where this happened the youngest son had a particular dislike for the oldest son, so when he came to share out the inheritance all the oldest got was “an old dunk [donkey] and an ox that had gone to natomy [like a skeleton]” together with an old ruined cottage with three apple trees that had belonged to their grandpa. For this he had to pay rent. He didn’t grumble but cut all the grass along the lane to feed the donkey and the ox and he rubbed the ox with herbs to revive him. The he put the two animals into the orchard of three apple trees, and the trees flourished too.

Just before the rent was due on Midwinter Day his brother came to him and made him an offer to reduce the rent by sixpence if he could come and listen to the animals on Midwinter Night. He had heard that animals could talk to each other at this time and he hoped they might reveal the whereabouts of some treasure that had been buried in the area.

On Midwinter Day the older brother gave the animals some extra feed and hung up some holly in the barn. Then he took the last of his cider, mulled it by the embers and took it to give to the trees. When he had done this, the Apple Tree Man spoke to him, telling him to look under the exposed roots of one of the trees. There he found a box full of gold. “Tis yours”, the Apple Tree man said. “Put it away safe and tell no-one”.

When the older brother came out at midnight sure enough he heard the donkey and the ox speaking. The donkey said : “You know this gurt, greedy fool that’s listening to us – he wants to know where the treasure is”.

And the ox replied: “But he won’t never get it, cos someone else has took it already”.

***

Adapted from a dialect version in Katherine Briggs A Dictionary of British Folk Tales.

The obvious interest here is the Apple Tree Man, but I wonder if the reference to the inheritance by the youngest rather than the oldest son is something that just happens to have got mixed up with this tale, or whether it has some other significance?

The Forbidden Wood

'The Naiad' John Waterhouse

"I entered a forbidden wood, and the Nymphae and half-goat god bolted from my sight. If any knife has robbed a grove of a shady bough to give ailing sheep a basket of leaves: forgive my offence. Do not fault me for sheltering my flock from the hail in a rustic shrine, nor harm me for disturbing the pools. Pardon, Nymphae, trampling hooves for muddying your stream. Goddess, placate for us the Springs and Fountain Spirits [Naiades], placate the gods dispersed through every grove. Keep from our sight the Dryades and Diana’s bath and Faunus lying in the fields at noon.” - Ovid, Fasti 4.751

Phantastes

George MacDonald's Phantastes, first published in 1858, is a classic text that influenced C. S Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien and others in the succeeding 20th century.

Here's another brief quotation from this novel :

As through the hard rock go the branching silver veins; as into the solid land run the creeks and gulfs from the unresting sea; as the lights and influences of the upper worlds sink silently through the earth's atmosphere; so doth Faerie invade the world of men, and sometimes startle the common eye with an association as of cause and effect, when between the two no connecting links can be traced.

The Protecting Beech Tree

In George MacDonald's 'faerie romance' Phantastes, the protaganist is being attacked in a forest by an ash tree with evil intent. He is saved by a beech tree who not only protects him but expresses feelings of fondness towards him. She appears to him as a woman, but when he asks her "Why do you call yourself a beech tree?" She replies, "Because I am one". She puts her arms around him and kisses him "with the sweetest kiss of winds and odours". The whole scene has the sacred aura of a communion about it. To maintain her protection she says he must be bound with some of her hair:

"I cannot tell you more. But now I must tie some of my hair about you, and then the Ash will not touch you. Here, cut some off. You men have strange cutting things about you."

She shook her long hair loose over me, never moving her arms.

"I cannot cut your beautiful hair. It would be a shame."

"Not cut my hair! It will have grown long enough before any is wanted again in this wild forest. Perhaps it may never be of any use again - not till I am a woman." And she sighed.

As gently as I could, I cut with a knife a long tress of flowing, dark hair, she hanging her beautiful head over me. When I had finished, she shuddered and breathed deep, as one does when an acute pain, steadfastly endured without sign of suffering, is at length relaxed. She then took the hair and tied it round me, singing a strange, sweet song, which I could not understand, but which left in me a feeling like this -

"I saw thee ne'er before;

I see thee never more;

But love, and help, and pain, beautiful one,

Have made thee mine, till all my years are done."

I cannot put more of it into words. She closed her arms about me again, and went on singing. The rain in the leaves, and a light wind that had arisen, kept her song company. I was wrapt in a trance of still delight. It told me the secret of the woods, and the flowers, and the birds. At one time I felt as if I was wandering in childhood through sunny spring forests, over carpets of primroses, anemones, and little white starry things - I had almost said creatures, and finding new wonderful flowers at every turn. At another, I lay half dreaming in the hot summer noon, with a book of old tales beside me, beneath a great beech; or, in autumn, grew sad because I trod on the leaves that had sheltered me, and received their last blessing in the sweet odours of decay; or, in a winter evening, frozen still, looked up, as I went home to a warm fireside, through the netted boughs and twigs to the cold, snowy moon, with her opal zone around her. At last I had fallen asleep; for I know nothing more that passed till I found myself lying under a superb beech-tree, in the clear light of the morning, just before sunrise. Around me was a girdle of fresh beech-leaves. Alas! I brought nothing with me out of Fairy Land, but memories -memories. The great boughs of the beech hung drooping around me. At my head rose its smooth stem, with its great sweeps of curving surface that swelled like undeveloped limbs. The leaves and branches above kept on the song which had sung me asleep; only now, to my mind, it sounded like a farewell and a speedwell. I sat a long time, unwilling to go; but my unfinished story urged me on. I must act and wander. With the sun well risen, I rose, and put my arms as far as they would reach around the beech-tree, and kissed it, and said good-bye. A trembling went through the leaves; a few of the last drops of the night's rain fell from off them at my feet; and as I walked slowly away, I seemed to hear in a whisper once more the words: "I may love him, I may love him; for he is a man, and I am only a beech-tree."

RIVERS

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There are examples of rivers actively participating in the resistance to invasion of a particular land. For instance in the Irish epic The Táin ,Ulster is being attacked by invaders from Connacht. We are told that

... the river Cronn rose up against them to the height of the treetops and they had to pass the night by the edge of the water. In the morning Medb ordered some of her followers across it. The famous warrior Ualu tried it. To cross the river he shouldered a big flagstone so that the water wouldn't force him backward. But the river overwhelmed him, stone and all, and he drowned.

[Cúchulainn continued to harass the army from across the river]

So they went along the river Cronn until they reached its source. They were crossing between the spring and the mountain summit when Medb called them back ....

Next day they travelled to the river Colptha. Recklessly they tried a crossing, but it too rose against them and bore off a hundred of their charioteers towards the sea. ...

After this they went across Glen Gatlaig, but the river Gatlaig rose up against them also.

(quotations from Thomas Kinsella's translation)