wayland
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Fairy Tree.Please excuse my Anglo Saxon spelling but have any of you got one of these? If so have you any tales attached to it that you can share. In the UK some of us of the Pagen persuasion would never cut one down.
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Róisín
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Lots of them. There is one next to where I grew up at home in my parents'. Our family goes way back in that village via my dad's side. This particular one is where the fairy folk hold their hurling matches at midnight. Really!
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quarryman
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Very few of even the big landowners would cut them down. I am originally from Co. Louth and have heard "tales" of cattle going missing and very bad luck and accidents after they were cut down.
The stories from prehistory say that the people who lived here first were the Tuihe de Dannan who were very small in stature and lived underground. When the Celts invaded they forced the Tuihe into hiding and they became "the little people". There will be stories in every townland of the shee or whatever thay are refered to locally.
Let us know if you cut it down........and if we don't hear from you........
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Róisín
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I don't think anyone would ever cut one down. The Roads Auth. built a new road *around* one in Clare a few years ago. If you do cut one down, blood will appear in your spuds. 
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wayland
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So can we cut a branch and dress it at Beltain or must this be from another tree?. I find this pleasing and fascinating. Our long defunked Celtic past in the UK means that very little of the old traditions survive. Not like here 
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Róisín
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No idea. Is this from a Pagan religion thing? (Not sure of correct term, don't want to seem offensive.) Bealtaine (pronounced bee-YOWL-tin-ah) just means the month of May in Irish. Do you mean Mayday? I know it was supposed to be some kind of midsummer/end of spring 'Celtic' festival, but I don't know anything about celebrating it.
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blowin
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Not quite the same scenario but this story is absolutely true . It happened to me , not the usual friend of a friend . How long have you got ? Go get a drink anyway  .
Approx 1 acre of our ground is sparse but mature woodland which has become heavily overgrown over the past 15 yrs . The usual brambles and stuff plus some dense blackthorn thickets Assorted very large boulders which make a sort of natural ampitheatre and , in the spring , carpets of bluebells , primrose , wood anemonae and pig-nuts would you believe ! Long strands of lichen and honeysuckle hanging above , thick moss and ferns below . Stunningly beautiful .
Near the middle of this forest you can clearly see about 1/3rd of an old circular stone walled enclosure of about 30 ft diameter . This is in about the same place as a similar sized plot of land which the Deeds indicate does not belong to us even tho it is totally cut off by us . Immediate thoughts were "fairy fort" but I gather they have all been mapped and this one doesn't show up on the Ordnance Survey .
Anyway , we call this place "the Fairie Wood " for no obvious reason .
We love it as it is and interfere with it as little as possible but one evening I took the chainsaw to a fallen down Blackthorn tree. It wasn't a really old stand-alone one and I did quietly ask permission first altho' I felt a bit silly about that in those days .
Dragged it out of the woods and onto the pile and thought no more about it.
I set about cutting it into logs late one autumn afternoon , chucking the wood into an old outhouse as I worked thru' it . It got very dark -- cloudy with no moon -- but peripheral vision wasn't too bad so I carried on . Then it rained so I took shelter to admire my ( invisble ) log pile for a while . Lit a fag , as you do .
Then the lights started to appear ....   
For a moment I thought someone must have slipped me the wrong kind of cigarette but that wasn't it . Then I thought I'm getting ***** out of here but couldn't quite drag myself away .
The glows got bigger . And brighter . And multiplied . 
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Do what ? .. ok ..... they were roughly circular , between 1 and 3" diameter , a distinct but very soft light . A bit like a LED torch when the batteries are fading , more like glow-worm if you've seen those at close quarters . It will faintly illuminate an object up to about 3" away but not much more than that . There is no warmth from it .
Just the tiniest slug of the Irish stuff ( the real stuff -- I have no idea where it came from ) and I had enough courage to reach towards a light and grab ........ a Blackthorn log ...... glowing at both ends .
I took one inside where it continued to glow until the next afternoon , then the light gradually faded away . I left the others outside .
The morning was bright , clear and pretty cold . The logs left on the grass had mohican haircut style bands of very fine white whiskers about 1" tall running along their length . I went in to get MOH to take a look but they ( the hairs ) had vanished without trace within 2 minutes .
I kept half of the logs and carefully put the rest back into the wood !! They are still there now , under the thick , thick , moss .........
Not a word of a lie in that . Possibly a tiny bit of poetic license but not much , and certainly no exaggeration . I am not Irish . I do not drink and it wasn't a funny cigarette either . So ..... there you go
Yep , I do know what the scientific explanation is but I also don't think it counts for much on some occasions ! 
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Róisín
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What *is* the scientific explanation?
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wayland
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Thanks for that Blowin Ive got a few tails to tell but perhaps another time. I do agree with Roisin though. With such goings on one should look for a scientific reason first. To be objective that is. Having said that I am open to the fact that not all things can be explained by science or should be.~~~~~~~ On the fence enough me thinks.
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Róisín
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Oh I don't think that the scientific explanation should always be looked for! I just asked for it as Blowin mentioned that he knew it and I thought he might tell us it as the next bit of the story
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blowin
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I haven't gone to any great lengths to verify this but it won't be far off . Fungi are a bit of a hobby of mine and I've just drawn a few other links together . My "scientific" terminology might be a bit inaccurate !
The glow was bio-luminescence generated by fungi which had thoroughly invaded the dead parts of the wood . There are plenty of similar phenomina such as from plankton , jelly fish and , I believe , GM sheep .
I don't think the fungi ref books would call it "rare" but I have never seen it before .
It was the act of sawing which triggered the light-making process ( woke the thingys up and vibrated a bit of energy into them ) .
I don't know whether they faded because they died or had done whatever comes naturally for long enough .
The morning was cold & bright, remember, so there was a very light ground frost . The mohican hair will have been the fruiting body of the fugi . It was very fine and frosted like spiderweb .When I first spotted it it was in shadow . By the time MOH came out the sun had moved round , frost gone , hairs practically invisible .
Nothing mystical or paranormal about any of that .
But it's the way so many of these explicable but "unusual" things come together that gets me wondering
As for " co-incidence " , that deserves a whole section of its own !
Maybe we should have one 
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GB
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A friend of mines daughter had a favorite stick (she was about 4 at the time) and they were walking to the bog together. On the way back my friend stopped to dig up some comfrey roots for transplanting. The little girl put the stick down on a completely level area and went to help. When done they turned to get the stick--stick gone. Bear in mind that the only cover was a ditch. no long grass, no bushes, nothing. They searched for ages and finally gave up. Little girl crying and mum upset but enough was enough, they had to go. Friend said to little girl, "maybe the faeries will put it back next time we come by" and they walked off. After about 50 meters friend looked back--Stick is lying in middle of path.
She said thank you very much and walked calmly back home and it was a looooooooooooooooong time before she went that way again. She said even though they gave the stick back it was really scary. And she is the most down to earth unfancyfull person I know.
Fairies can be really bad mojo and I would never willingly do anything to upset them.
but then, I scare easily anyway
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wayland
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A nice tale GB. Any more anybody?
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admin
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| wayland wrote: | | ... Any more ....? |
How long have you got ?
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wayland
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All the time in the world for this subject
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GB
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I must admit to being all eyes myself
cant really say all ears now can I?
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keithrawlins
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i have two storys for you both happend to me.
the first is when we where building the house the planers wanted us to put the driveway in one place i wanted it in another place my boss said to tell them there was a fairy tree were they wanted it , they instantly changed there minds and it is now where i wanted it.
the second was i was claring soom wins and mistakinly cut in to a branch the saw jumped and i very nerly lost my finger my hand was a good 8 to 10 inchs away from the cut. you dicid.
i prefer to bring elm in two the house for beltane.
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wayland
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Nice one Keith. I must remember to quote the "Fairy Tree" to the planners next week. Cheers
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Kira
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Bealtaine is one of the biggest festivals of the pagan year. It's an ancient fire festival, like Samhain. Many couples married on May eve as part of the celebrations, as the month of may was considered to be the honeymoon period of the God and Goddess, and they'd get rather peed off at anyone trying to steal their limelight 
Personally, I wouldn't cut any branches from a fairy tree, or even burn dead wood from around it.
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