skip to main |
skip to sidebar
At the time of their awakening Ents could not speak, but the Elves taught them that art, and they loved it greatly. They delighted in learning many tongues, even the short chirping of Men. Though Ents at times had great gatherings called Entmoots, for the most part they were a solitary folk living apart from one another in isolated Ent houses in the great forests. Their stories are many and span progressively until the Third Age in startime. With them the tree spirits obtain strength, Entwood thrives, their lives are wise and great. Wars were then waged within lands around them, Ents lost members of their families, some even retreated in Ent fashion into the nature of their being. Again, they lived peacefully in the Entwood, yet they continued to wane and the Fourth Age was believed to be their last.
cited and adapted from Guide to Tolkien's World by David Day
Fraxinus is a genus of flowering plants in the olive and lilac family, Oleaceae. It contains 45–65 species of usually medium to large trees, mostly deciduous though a few subtropical species are evergreen. The tree's common English name, ash, goes back to the Old English, while the generic name originated in Latin. Both words also meant "spear" in their respective language. The leaves are opposite (rarely in whorls of three), and mostly pinnately compound, simple in a few species. The seeds, popularly known as keys or helicopter seeds, are a type of fruit known as a samara. Most Fraxinus species are dioecious, having male and female flowers on separate plants; grown as an ornamental and both sexes are present, ashes can cause a considerable litter problem with their seeds. Rowans or Mountain Ashes are unrelated to true ashes and belong to the Genus Sorbus though the leaves and buds are superficially similar.
In Greek mythology, the Meliae were nymphs of the ash, perhaps specifically of the Manna Ash (Fraxinus ornus), as dryads were nymphs of the oak. They appear in Hesiod's Theogony.
The ash exudes a sugary substance that, it has been suggested, was fermented to create the Norse Mead of Inspiration. In Norse mythology, the World Tree Yggdrasil is commonly held to be an ash tree, and the first man, Ask, was formed from an ash tree. Elsewhere in Europe, snakes were said to be repelled by ash leaves or a circle drawn by an ash branch. Irish folklore claims that shadows from an ash tree would damage crops. In Cheshire, it was said that ash could be used to cure warts or rickets. In Sussex the ash and elm tree were known as the Widow Maker because the large boughs would often drop without warning.
cited from Wikipedia
following points were found with Ash Tree Magic
- Some traditions of magic hold that the leaf of an Ash tree will
bring you good fortune. Carry one in your pocket - those with an even
number of leaflets on it are especially lucky.
- In some folk magic traditions, the ash leaf could be used to
remove skin disorders such as warts or boils. As an alternate practice,
one could wear a needle in their clothing or carry a pin in their pocket
for three days, and then drive the pin into the bark of an ash tree -
the skin disorder will appear as a knob on the tree and disappear from
the person who had it.
- The spear of Odin was made from an Ash tree, according to the Norse poetic eddas.
- Newborn babies in the British Isles were sometimes given a
spoonful of Ash sap before leaving their mother's bed for the first
time. It was believed this would prevent disease and infant mortality.
- Five trees stood guard over Ireland, in mythology, and three were
Ash. The Ash is often found growing near holy wells and sacred springs.
Interestingly, it was also believed that crops that grew in the shadow
of an Ash tree would be of an inferior quality.
- In some European folklore, the Ash tree is seen as protective but
at the same time malevolent. Anyone who does harm to an Ash can find
themselves the victim of unpleasant supernatural circumstances.
- In northern England, it was believed that if a maiden placed ash
leaves under her pillow, she would have prophetic dreams of her future
lover.
- In some Druidic traditions, it is customary to use a branch of Ash to make a magical staff. The staff becomes, in essence, a portable version of a World Tree, connecting the user to the realms of earth and sky.
- If you place Ash berries in a cradle, it protects the child from being taken away as a changeling by mischievous Fae.
- The Celtic tree month of Ash, or Nion, falls from February 18 to March 17. It's a good time for magical workings related to the inner self.
The images above are illustrations from Arthur Rackham, an extraordinary perception of nature, little people, and storytelling. Another powerful reminder that trees are the roots to grand life here on earth is the writing from Ursula K. LeGuin.
Direction of the Road from The Wind's Twelve Quarters, 1975
The tree stands just south of the McMinnville bypass on Oregon State Highway 18. It lost a major limb last year, and it has never failed to uphold Relativity with dignity and the skill of long practice.
"They did not use to be so demanding. They never hurried us into anything more than a gallop, and that was rare; most of the time it was just a jigjog foot-pace. And when one of them was on his own feet, it was a real pleasure to approach him. There was time to accomplish the entire act with style.
..I'd approach him steadily but quite slowly, growing larger all the time, synchronizing the rate of approach and rate of growth perfectly, so that at the very moment that I'd finished enlarging from a tiny speck to my full size--sixty feet in those days--I was abreast of him and hung above him, loomed, towered, over-shadowed him. Yet he would show no fear. Not even the children were afraid of me, though often they kept their eyes on me as I passed by and started to diminish."
