We were fortunate to have a mother who believed in the power of the printed word. A talented scholar, she had to leave school at twelve years of age to work in order to support the family. She continued to educate herself – and her children - for the rest of her life. She was an avid reader; there was always a pile of books beside her chair.
There was little spare money for books when we were children. Consequently, we spent a great deal of time in the public library. (We also spent Friday mornings at the Slipper Baths as we had no bathroom at home, but that’s a story for another day and has nothing to do with slippers!)
Our mother had a marvellous imagination and, despite the shy person she was, she came alive around poetry and literature. She read to us every day, encouraging us to close our eyes and imagine, to look into the flames of the fire for pictures. I still know every word of Longfellow’s “Hiawatha’s Childhood” and have those images in my head of the warrior who threw his grandmother up into the sky at midnight.
At the door on summer evenings, sat the little Hiawatha;
Heard the whispering of the pine trees, heard the lapping of the water,
Sounds of music, words of wonder;
“Minne-wawa!” said the pine trees, “Mudway aushka!” said the water.
As a child, I loved stories about trees, especially the ones that were living spaces for tiny people and animals. In many children’s books trees are personified – wise and old, swaying and bending like ships on the sea, sometimes dangerous!
Peter Pan’s underground house. K. Atkins
Perennial children’s favourite by Enid Blyton
I find there to be a lot of snobbery surrounding children’s books. Enid Blyton’s stories in particular come in for a good deal of unfair criticism. Generations of children read her Famous Five and Secret Seven stories avidly and if it gets them into the way of reading for pleasure, well it can only be a positive experience. My youngest son loved a chapter of “The Magic Faraway Tree” at bedtime. The tree is so tall that its branches reach into the clouds and the children go on adventures to the top of the tree, which contains small houses in its trunk.
As I became old enough to read independently, I remember my imagination being captured by “The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe” by C.S. Lewis. The excitement and wonder of Lucy’s emergence into Narnia remains with me after all these years.
Trees and woods are personified and symbolically important in Narnia.
The Tree of Protection was a magical tree, planted in the Lantern Waste by Digory Kirke during the early days of the creation of Narnia. It was the direct offspring from the Tree of Youth. “It must have grown up silently . . . It’s spreading branches seemed to cast a light rather than a shade and silver apples peeped out like stars from under every leaf. But it was the smell which came from it . . . that had made everyone draw their breath.”
An offspring from this tree was planted in London and, although it appeared to be an ordinary apple tree, deep within its sap it was connected to the parent tree in Narnia. The tree fell in a great storm and the now elderly Digory had its wood made into a wardrobe, later to be found by Lucy as a portal to Narnia.
Dryads were nature spirits associated with Narnian trees. They looked quite humanoid and were attached to individual trees. Lewis describes the dryads of Narnia as having specific characteristic features. Beech dryads are queenly and gracious, birch dryads slender and graceful and oak dryads as wizardly and elderly.
Mr. Tumnus warned Lucy that some tree dryads worked as spies for the White Witch and some of the female spirits were turned to stone by her and kept in her castle courtyard, including birch girls dressed in silver, beech girls in green and larch girls in bright yellow and green. Fortunately, they were all later released by Aslan.
In the second book in the Narnia Chronicles, Prince Caspian, there is a wonderful description of the newly awakened tree dryads:
“Pale birch girls were tossing their heads, willow women pushed back their hair . . . The queenly beeches stood still, shaggy oak men, lean and melancholy elms, shock-headed hollies (dark themselves, but their wives all bright with berries) and gay rowans, all bowed and rose again, shouting “Aslan! Aslan! in their various husky or creaking or wave-like voices.”
Prince Caspian C.S.Lewis
Prince Caspian among the dryads
Lucy encounters a cherry tree dryad in the film
Although I haven’t read any of the hugely successful Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling I do know that there is a personified tree of great significance in the stories, the Whomping Willow.
This tree was located in the grounds of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, planted to disguise the opening of a secret passage leading from the school grounds to the Shrieking Shack in the village of Hogsmead. A very violent tree, it was known to attack anyone who disturbed its branches!
The Whomping Willow
I read Lord of the Rings when I was a student. I was drawn into the deep dark woodland that was Fangorn Forest, which grew beneath the Misty Mountains. It was a dangerous place. Anyone who wandered far into Fangorn, or cut down trees, would have been killed by the Ents.
Treebeard was the oldest Ent and a masterpiece of tree personification. He was angered by Saruman’s Orcs chopping down parts of the forest, hence the dramatic attack by the Ents on Isengard.
Treebeard
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