River Cottage Hedgerow

I've recently acquired the excellent River Cottage Hedgerow book, by John Wright. Not only am I all inspired for when, in approximately 6 months time, I will be able to eat the entirety of the British Isles, but I have learned many amazing folk tales about various trees and plants.

For example, take the humble Elder. To an unfortunate Antipodean such as myself, an Elder tree is just like any other tree. But if you know anything about anything, you would know that you should:

• never cut one down
• never make a cradle from one
• never burn the timber
• apologise to the tree if you cut one of its branches

or the Elder Mother will get you in some horrible way. That said, apparently Elder trees can provide the following benefits:

• use it to get rid of warts and sorrows by transferring them to a stick from an Elder
• plant one near your house and it will protect the occupants from evil
• hide under one during a thunderstorm and you won't be struck by lightning
• use practically any part of it for some sort of remedy

What I love best about these stories is that they are so obviously pre-Christian and have lived through aeons of attempts by invading forces to convert the locals to various theologies, but some stories are just so strong they have their own lives. Of course the Christian tradition decided to co-opt the mysteries of the Elder tree by claiming it to be the tree that Judas hanged himself from, but we'll just ignore that silliness.

Unfortunately the only issue I've had with Elder trees was getting the tiny little bugs off the flowers pre-Champagning, an issue which this book does not go into. Oh well.

Image from Wikipedia