Round the Herne

 Finally got round to continuing with the series of recordings about the Irish ogham alphabet, now up to the ninth letter Coll (which means 'hazel tree').

 This is my reading of the last part of Lucy M Boston's "The Children of Green Knowe" (1954), in which all the loose ends are tied up and the groundwork laid for the sequels. Christmas day arrives at the isolated country estate. Wishing a Happy New Year to all my listeners (both of you) - hope it is a great improvement on the year now going for all concerned.

 This is my reading of the tenth part of Lucy M Boston's "The Children of Green Knowe" (1954), in which Tolly has an encounter with the (only mildly) menacing spectre of a cursed tree. There's also some Christmas shopping, if you can bear the prospect at this time of year and are not sick to the back teeth of shopping.

 The fourth story from Ruth Manning-Sanders children's anthology "A Book of Magic Animals" (1974) is 'Lilla Rosa', a Swedish tale about a princess with the inevitable wicked stepmother who falls victim to various magical shenanigans. Not sure if the linden tree in this story is the original Singing-Ringing Tree of awful, badly dubbed 1970s children's TV fame. It's a frothy piece and I don't want to start reading too much symbolism into it, but the shapeshifting struggle near the end (a common theme in many legends, folk-songs and the like) ca be understood as reflective of the ways people change in response to grief and being caught up in treacherous family dynamics - and how difficult it is for those who love them to hold on to the essence of who that person is amidst the dark times when they seem to have become something alien and frightening.

On Saturday past the Pagan Council held a Tree Walk around the Ipswich Arboretum in which I shared myth, poetry, folklore, and pagan magical traditions connected to the species of tree that we saw. There was a nice turn out on the day, the weather held well, and it raised just over £20 for the Woodland Trust (every little helps). Afterwards we had tea and cake in the cafe in Christchurch Park. It was a lovely, relaxing afternoon and we may well run something similar next year, going on a different route with other trees and their folklore. This story is a short version of one of the most famous Irish tragic sagas, Deirdre of the Sorrows. I include it here because of the appearance of the trees at the end of the tale. There are several versions of the saga, each with slight variations (not all include the trees, for example). One day I might do a fuller version of this story, fleshing out some of the characters that just get glossed over in this recording.