Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind.
Speaker 3: My name is Robert Lamb, and I am Joe McCormick.
Speaker 3: And hey everybody, I got to apologize right here at
Speaker 3: the start for my voice and my brain. Possibly today
Speaker 3: I am wrastling a pretty nasty cold, but we're plowing
Speaker 3: right through. And today we're going to be talking about
Speaker 3: a topic. We're actually returning to a topic we talked
Speaker 3: about a couple of weeks ago, the subject of sacred trees.
Speaker 3: In that previous episode, Rob you talked about the giant's
Speaker 3: Equoia of western North America, arguably the largest tree in
Speaker 3: the world depending on how you measure, and we talked
Speaker 3: about the history of how people regarded these massive plants
Speaker 3: with reverence, and I ended up talking about the Ohia,
Speaker 3: the Hua tree of Hawaii, and a lot of interesting,
Speaker 3: beautiful ways that interlocks with Hawaiian religion and traditional practices.
Speaker 3: In some cases it's the physical embodiment of a god.
Speaker 3: In other cases it's like a tree beloved by the
Speaker 3: gods in storytelling and so forth. But when we were
Speaker 3: researching that episode, we thought, man, there are so many
Speaker 3: interesting angles on sacred trees that we could come back to.
Speaker 3: So that's what we're doing today. Here's a new installment.
Speaker 3: I'm sure this is something we'll probably return to again
Speaker 3: in the future.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's a good month for it, since we're
Speaker 2: into December here, and a lot of December holiday traditions
Speaker 2: center around a sacred tree. I guess one of the
Speaker 2: things I think we both encountered it in the last episode,
Speaker 2: especially in this episode. It's the thing about sacred trees
Speaker 2: is that it's never just a case of like, oh, well,
Speaker 2: you know, there's this tree around and at one point
Speaker 2: there's a group of people that thought it was sacred
Speaker 2: and then they stopped. You know, No, the trees have
Speaker 2: been around a long time, and human cultures enter into
Speaker 2: these areas where these trees grow, develop these ideas about them,
Speaker 2: and build upon those ideas, pass them down, and the
Speaker 2: trees remain. And so you start pulling the threads on
Speaker 2: some of these beliefs, and you know, those threads connect
Speaker 2: across different peoples, you know, into neighboring territories and oftentimes
Speaker 2: there as far flung as a particular you know, it's
Speaker 2: the range of a tree species itself. So before long
Speaker 2: you realize, oh, well, this isn't necessarily just a look
Speaker 2: at one particular tree and or one particular folk belief
Speaker 2: or mythology, but you can easily touch upon like a
Speaker 2: dozen different folk beliefs and mythologies concerning the same tree.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm.
Speaker 2: Which is to say, we're not going to pull all
Speaker 2: We're not going to pull all those those threads today.
Speaker 2: We're going to pull some of those threads and we're
Speaker 2: going to find some, I think, some very tantalizing, very
Speaker 2: interesting things to say about a couple of different topics
Speaker 2: related to sacred trees.
Speaker 3: That's right. So to kick things off today, I wanted
Speaker 3: to explore something interesting I came across in a book.
Speaker 3: The book is called European Pageaganism The Realities of cult
Speaker 3: from Antiquity to the Middle Ages, originally published in the
Speaker 3: year two thousand. I think the edition I was reading
Speaker 3: was from maybe twenty thirteen, but from Rutledge Press, by
Speaker 3: an author named Ken Dowden, who was a professor of
Speaker 3: classics at the University of Birmingham in the UK. This
Speaker 3: is a book about the religious practices of European cultures
Speaker 3: before the introduction of Christianity, and then also those pagan
Speaker 3: religions interacting with Christianity once it was introduced, and these
Speaker 3: religious beliefs and practices were, of course not all the same,
Speaker 3: though there are some themes that kind of emerge repeatedly,
Speaker 3: so you can kind of make some rough generalizations about
Speaker 3: pre Christian European paganism, but they don't apply in every case.
Speaker 3: And one is that a lot of pre Christian European
Speaker 3: religions saw sacred dimensions in the features of the physical land,
Speaker 3: like rocks, waters, and of course trees, but there are
Speaker 3: many different ways to understand the sacredness of trees. Now
Speaker 3: Down And actually begins this section of the book with
Speaker 3: an ancient passage describing something that's a little bit of field,
Speaker 3: but I thought it was so interesting I wanted to
Speaker 3: throw it in here. It's describing one way of showing
Speaker 3: appreciation for trees that's kind of hard to classify. It
Speaker 3: doesn't seem exactly right to call it a religious practice,
Speaker 3: but it definitely goes beyond like, oh, look at the poplars,
Speaker 3: they're so nice. This is a translated passage from Plenty
Speaker 3: the Elder that reads as follows on a hill called
Speaker 3: corney in the suburban part of the land of Tusculum.
Speaker 3: There is a grove in ancient Reverence dedicated by Latium
Speaker 3: to Diana, And that would be by the way Diana,
Speaker 3: goddess of the hunt of wild animals in the moon,
Speaker 3: sort of a wilderness goddess. The ranger of the party
Speaker 3: plenty goes on. The foliage of the beech forest is sheared,
Speaker 3: as though by topiary. In it an exceptional tree was
Speaker 3: loved in our times by Passienus crisp Us twice Console,
Speaker 3: the orator, later more famous thanks to his marriage with Agrippina,
Speaker 3: through which he became the stepfather of Nero. He was
Speaker 3: in the habit of kissing and embracing it. Talking about
Speaker 3: the tree kissing and embracing it, not only of lying
Speaker 3: under it and pouring wine over it.
Speaker 2: Literal tree hugging here.
Speaker 3: Yes, So this tree is interesting in the example here
Speaker 3: because it is in one sense a literal sacred tree.
Speaker 3: In a religious sense, it's part of an ancient sacred grove.
Speaker 3: And I guess one thing we could talk about is
Speaker 3: a distinction between sacred trees, as in, like a type
Speaker 3: of tree or a tree species has a religious significance
Speaker 3: within a particular culture versus an individual tree like this
Speaker 3: tree right here has religious significance of some kind, versus
Speaker 3: a collection of trees have some kind of religious significance,
Speaker 3: A sort of expanded version of this tree right here,
Speaker 3: this forest right here has significance. And there are a
Speaker 3: lot of those in pre Christian European religions, sacred groves,
Speaker 3: sacred forests throughout the continent. But so in this case,
Speaker 3: it is a particular sacred grove, a forest of beech
Speaker 3: trees that are in honor of the goddess Diana. So
Speaker 3: these are the trees of Diana, the goddess of the hunt.
Speaker 3: But this Roman politician isn't necessarily worshiping Diana. I don't know.
Speaker 3: Maybe he is, but it's not discussed in the passage here.
Speaker 3: He's not just honoring the sacred forest as a whole
Speaker 3: in its relation to the goddess Diana. It sounds like
Speaker 3: he is in erotic love with one particular, very special tree.
Speaker 3: Hard to think of a parallel to this. I just
Speaker 3: thought I thought it worth mentioning. But anyway, from here,
Speaker 3: Dowbtan goes on to a section where he sort of
Speaker 3: thinks about the implicit logic of our relationship to trees,
Speaker 3: especially in our desire to think of them as persons,
Speaker 3: as like a symbol of a person, or as containing
Speaker 3: the essence of a divine person. And he notes an
Speaker 3: interesting parallel between trees and humans which has been observed
Speaker 3: by a number of scholars of religion. It's not unique
Speaker 3: to this book, and that parallel is in the form
Speaker 3: of posture. Humans are mostly unique in the animal world
Speaker 3: for our verticality. What appears to physically differentiate humans from
Speaker 3: other animals is that we are a column, a standing
Speaker 3: straight up, compared to most other animals, which tend to
Speaker 3: position their bodies in a more horizontal fashion. You can
Speaker 3: think of a few little counter examples here and there,
Speaker 3: but for the most part this does really hold true.
Speaker 3: Humans appear to be different from all other animals in
Speaker 3: that we stand straight up. And what makes a tree
Speaker 3: different from a bush or a shrub or lots of
Speaker 3: other plants is that it is also a tall, vertical column.
Speaker 3: It's true of both trees and humans that we take
Speaker 3: the form of a vertical column. We grow taller as
Speaker 3: we age, and when we die, we fall down.
Speaker 2: That's a good point.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So with this kind of knowledge just sort of
Speaker 3: operating in our minds all the time, it seems very
Speaker 3: natural to think of the tree as the sort of
Speaker 3: human analog within the alien kingdom of plant life, except,
Speaker 3: of course, trees grow much larger than humans, and are
Speaker 3: much tougher than humans, and often live for hundreds of years,
Speaker 3: so in a sense, you can think of them as
Speaker 3: something that has always been here. So it's I think
Speaker 3: quite natural to start thinking of them as like super humans,
Speaker 3: super persons, they are gods.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, these are great points. Yeah, it stands tall
Speaker 2: like a human, it has the verticality, and then you know,
Speaker 2: lives before and after us and on this different time
Speaker 2: scale than we are.
Speaker 3: So that's just sort of one theory as to why
Speaker 3: we're sort of primed to see godhood in the form
Speaker 3: of trees. But Doubtan also emphasizes that many trees are
Speaker 3: integrated into religion not simply by their nature, not by
Speaker 3: being trees, but in a specific sense by being connected
Speaker 3: directly to myth or to history, as in like this
Speaker 3: plane tree at Delphi was planted by Agamemnon and that's
Speaker 3: why it's special. Or when Io was transformed into a
Speaker 3: cow by hera and tied to a tree. It was
Speaker 3: this olive tree right here, or this tree was the
Speaker 3: source of heracles first oak leaf crown, or this tree
Speaker 3: is where Helen of Troy was hanged after she fled
Speaker 3: to Rhodes. So in those cases you might say that
Speaker 3: these physical existing trees are sacralized by way of intersections
Speaker 3: with stories, and whether those are like sort of founding
Speaker 3: ethnic stories, like founding histories of a people or a nation,
Speaker 3: or myths about the gods. On one hand, you have
Speaker 3: a physical object that is right here here, right now,
Speaker 3: this tree we're all looking at. And on the other hand,
Speaker 3: you have the story we all know. And so by
Speaker 3: connecting the to the tree, the physical object makes the
Speaker 3: story more real, and the story makes the physical object
Speaker 3: more meaningful.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, Like eventually we'll come around to talking about
Speaker 2: the body tree in this series. The body tree, of course,
Speaker 2: in Buddhist traditions, is the tree under which the Buddhist
Speaker 2: sat when he attained enlightenment. You know, it is the
Speaker 2: place where it happened. Yeah. So yeah, we see versions
Speaker 2: of that in various different myths and religions.
Speaker 3: But one example I really wanted to focus on for
Speaker 3: a minute because I thought it was so interesting. Was
Speaker 3: something Dowdin brings up in this chapter, that is the
Speaker 3: idea of a sacred tree struck by lightning. Dowtan writes
Speaker 3: that the ancient Romans had a practice of enclosing a
Speaker 3: tree after it was struck by lightning, so like after
Speaker 3: a tree was hit by lightning that it would be
Speaker 3: subject to a type of sacrificial or religious immurement. The
Speaker 3: enclosure for a tree would sometimes be what this author
Speaker 3: identifies as a putel put e a l pleural would
Speaker 3: be puutealia, which usually refers to a well head. So
Speaker 3: this would be the raised stone structure around the opening
Speaker 3: of a water well. Now, in the case of a
Speaker 3: water well, usually you have a wellhead raised in part
Speaker 3: to prevent the well from simply being a hole in
Speaker 3: the ground that people can fall into. You know, it's
Speaker 3: like a wall for safety. In ancient Rome, these well
Speaker 3: heads were often made of marble and decorated with carvings
Speaker 3: or with bas relief. I've got a picture from a
Speaker 3: well head in Venice for you to look at here, Rob,
Speaker 3: so you can see, you know, it's a there's a
Speaker 3: cap on it right now. I think it's a it's
Speaker 3: an iron cap. I don't know what the original material
Speaker 3: of the cap would have been, possibly iron, you know,
Speaker 3: hundreds of years ago or thousands years ago as well.
Speaker 3: But in this case, you know, you could open it
Speaker 3: up and imagine looking down into the well, but then
Speaker 3: down on the wall around it, we've got I don't know,
Speaker 3: some kind of creepy dancing god babies who are thrown
Speaker 3: around some What do you think that is? Is that
Speaker 3: grape leaves or olives or something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, some sort of like wreaths and leaves.
Speaker 3: Yeah. But as Dowdan says in this chapter, sometimes a
Speaker 3: poutel would be built not around a water well, but
Speaker 3: around a tree or really any spot that had been
Speaker 3: touched by a bolt of lightning. So a lightning kissed
Speaker 3: location like this was called in Roman times a bidental.
Speaker 3: And I was reading about this in an older source
Speaker 3: from the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities by William
Speaker 3: Smith from the nineteenth century. This reference book goes into
Speaker 3: sources from ancient history describing what the bidental was and
Speaker 3: what its religious significance was. And so it says that
Speaker 3: the bidental was named after the fact that a you
Speaker 3: would sacrifice a sheep here after lightning struck it would
Speaker 3: be a two year old sheep called a biden, which
Speaker 3: means two tooth by DN like dental, and the sequence
Speaker 3: would go like this. So lightning strikes somewhere and people
Speaker 3: witness it, and whatever was struck, be that a tree
Speaker 3: or a person or just the earth, whatever is there
Speaker 3: is buried, in some cases burned, in other cases not burned,
Speaker 3: but is buried by priests in the ground in that
Speaker 3: very spot. So if you get struck by lightning and
Speaker 3: killed in ancient rome where these bidental priests are operating,
Speaker 3: you are not Your body is not transported to a
Speaker 3: cemetery and is not cremated. You are buried in the
Speaker 3: spot where you fell. And then the two year old
Speaker 3: sheep is sacrificed and added to the lot. And then
Speaker 3: that spot is in some sense sort of walled off
Speaker 3: from human contact. It is capped with an altar and
Speaker 3: then enclosed in some way by a fence or in
Speaker 3: some cases by a poutel a marble wellhead, and thereafter
Speaker 3: it is made taboo. No one may walk there, no
Speaker 3: one may touch it, no one may even look at it.
Speaker 3: And if a person were to violate this taboo, like
Speaker 3: to remove the well head or the altar, or in
Speaker 3: some other way violate the prohibition against treading there they
Speaker 3: would be subject to swift, violent punishment by the gods,
Speaker 3: and this connects to the original action there. Lightning was
Speaker 3: often thought to be the weapon of the gods in
Speaker 3: ancient Rome, particularly of Jupiter, so a place struck by
Speaker 3: lightning was both terrifying and holy. It was a sacred
Speaker 3: point of connection with divine power and a conduit of
Speaker 3: divine wrath. So as one example of a pouteal which
Speaker 3: may once have covered a tree made wholly by lightning,
Speaker 3: Doubtan mentions a fi tree attested in ancient sources in
Speaker 3: the area of the Committium of Rome. The Committeum is
Speaker 3: an ancient public meeting space in the city center, and
Speaker 3: this fig tree was known as the Picus romanaalis, which
Speaker 3: literally means the ficus of suckling, though experts apparently debate
Speaker 3: whether that's its original meaning or how it should be understood.
Speaker 3: But there are actually a couple of sacred objects said
Speaker 3: to be in the vicinity here. One thing is this tree,
Speaker 3: the Ficus roominalis, but there is also a stone which
Speaker 3: was said to have been cut in half with a
Speaker 3: razor by the ancient Roman augur Attus Navius, and the
Speaker 3: story goes that he cut the stone in half in
Speaker 3: a display of his powers when he is in the
Speaker 3: middle of rebuking a legendary king of Rome who was
Speaker 3: sort of arrogantly trying to expand his own glorification. ADUs
Speaker 3: Navius was rebuking him and saying, like, you go to
Speaker 3: far king, and in their conflict, He's like, I better
Speaker 3: show how strong my divinatory skills are and the kind
Speaker 3: of power I can command. So I'm going to cut
Speaker 3: a stone, cut a wetstone in half of the razor.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, I guess it worked.
Speaker 3: It did, according to the story. So you've got this
Speaker 3: split stone here, and then you've got the ficus tree.
Speaker 3: And here Doubdan again quotes a passage from Plenty the
Speaker 3: Elder describing the site of the tree and the sliced rock.
Speaker 3: So Plenty in translation rites a fig tree growing in
Speaker 3: the actual Forum and Committium of Rome is revered sacred
Speaker 3: because of the lightning bolts buried there, and still more
Speaker 3: to commemorate the fig tree under which the nurse of
Speaker 3: Romulus and Remus first sheltered those founders of empire at
Speaker 3: the Loopercol. It is called Ruminalys because it was beneath
Speaker 3: it that they found the she wolf offering her rumas
Speaker 3: that is what they used to call abreast to her babies,
Speaker 3: miracle commemorated nearby in bronze, as though the wolf had
Speaker 3: of her own accord, crossed the Committeum while adis Navius
Speaker 3: was acting in his role as auger. Nor is it
Speaker 3: without significance when it dries up and must, through the
Speaker 3: efforts of the priests, be replaced. So I thought this
Speaker 3: was interesting in that the way Plenty tells the story,
Speaker 3: the way he understands it, at least this fig tree
Speaker 3: is in part sacred because of an intersection with legend.
Speaker 3: Like we mentioned earlier, you know, so you know, much
Speaker 3: like you might say this tree was planted by Agamemnon,
Speaker 3: in this case you would say this tree is the
Speaker 3: site where Romulus and Remus were nursed by wolf Mother.
Speaker 3: And then also by proximity to the site where adas
Speaker 3: Navius split the stone, that's another connect intersection with legend.
Speaker 3: But then, according to Plenty, it's also sacred because lightning
Speaker 3: bolts are buried beneath it. And then here Doubtan also
Speaker 3: mentions a possible connection of the legend of the ficus
Speaker 3: from Analys to the interesting sort of botanical fact that
Speaker 3: the fig tree produces a sap like secretion, which I
Speaker 3: believe is part of an anti predator strategy that is
Speaker 3: said to look like milk. So, like you, if you
Speaker 3: wound a fig tree, the ficus will will leak out
Speaker 3: this white milky substance that is said to be quite
Speaker 3: bitter and I think is supposed to deter things from
Speaker 3: munching on it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, we used to have a fig tree, and yeah,
Speaker 2: I can attest to this.
Speaker 3: And so Doubtan's saying, you know, so you have a
Speaker 3: place where, according to these ancient texts, you have a
Speaker 3: stone which is interesting because of its shape, it's like
Speaker 3: a split stone. And then you also have a tree
Speaker 3: which has interesting sort of biological features. This tree appears
Speaker 3: to leak milk and then can be kind of attached
Speaker 3: to myths, and so he writes, quote the tree is
Speaker 3: tended and when necessary renewed by the priests. If it
Speaker 3: is surrounded by a poutel. Then originally this may have
Speaker 3: been understood as a place where lightning had struck and
Speaker 3: the wetstone, that's the stone that was apparently split in
Speaker 3: the story, the wetstone might have been considered a thunderstone.
Speaker 2: Wow, this is this is all really fascinating and fascinating
Speaker 2: to me, especially when you think about the idea that
Speaker 2: like the world tree and myth is often situated as
Speaker 2: this thing that connects Earth to the heavens and lightning
Speaker 2: as well. Is this momentary connection between Earth and heaven
Speaker 2: that leaves like a physical sign, you know, we see
Speaker 2: it and then we can if we can find where
Speaker 2: it hit. We have evidence of this contact between like
Speaker 2: lightning and the earth, between the storm clouds and the earth,
Speaker 2: but on another level, between the divine and the mundane
Speaker 2: world totally.
Speaker 3: And you know, one thing I like is the kind
Speaker 3: of ambiguity of the is this good magic or bad magic?
Speaker 3: The way you know that you can have a place
Speaker 3: where a tree is struck by lightning and it becomes
Speaker 3: in some sense sacred, But it seems to me rather
Speaker 3: there's a kind of ambivalence like is this a place
Speaker 3: that is cursed and dangerous and will hurt you, or
Speaker 3: is this a place that is in some way blessed
Speaker 3: and is showing off the power of the gods or
Speaker 3: God's power in a way that can be celebrated and sacralized.
Speaker 2: There's almost kind of a U curve, right, It's like this,
Speaker 2: the place is so sacred or it is so cursed
Speaker 2: that it essentially amounts to the same thing, and then
Speaker 2: that is no trespassing. Sorry, you can't visit, you can't
Speaker 2: touch it. Well, that is all really fascinating. And another
Speaker 2: cool thing is that it does lead directly into the
Speaker 2: tree that I'm going to talk about here, the Rowan tree.
Speaker 2: I've looking at several different sources on this, one of
Speaker 2: which was I didn't spend a lot of time with
Speaker 2: this source, but there was an older article titled The
Speaker 2: Full Floor of Trees by Lizzie M. Hadley. This was
Speaker 2: published in the Internal of Education back in eighteen ninety four,
Speaker 2: and this very short, little kind wordy right up, touching
Speaker 2: on various sacred ideas of trees. But the Rowan tree
Speaker 2: is mentioned in passing and just a few ideas connected
Speaker 2: to it or thrown out, including the idea in some
Speaker 2: European traditions that the tree grew from a place where
Speaker 2: lightning struck. That's like the origin of this tree.
Speaker 3: That would be interesting in the So remember the phrasing
Speaker 3: plenty uses is that lightning bolts are buried there where
Speaker 3: the tree is, so it's like when lightning hits the ground,
Speaker 3: it's almost like a seeding of the ground, like it
Speaker 3: plants something when it hits. And so you could imagine, well,
Speaker 3: if what it's planting is some kind of seed, what
Speaker 3: grows it could be a type of tree, that's right.
Speaker 2: So why did I pick the Rowan tree? Well, I
Speaker 2: recently had the opportunity, in the privilege, to go on
Speaker 2: a little tour of Whales with my family, and I
Speaker 2: was enraptured by the haunting beauty of its rolling hills,
Speaker 2: these dramatic valleys and in some cases hilltop ruins of
Speaker 2: which there are ghost stories about. So I thought, well,
Speaker 2: I should I should cover a tree that is sacred
Speaker 2: within Welsh traditions. There's obviously going to be a lot
Speaker 2: of overlap with other sacred trees in the British Isles
Speaker 2: and and so forth, But yeah, I wanted to pick
Speaker 2: something that had significance in Wales. And I realized I
Speaker 2: was already talking a little bit about Welsh tradition and
Speaker 2: mythology and the monster fact. And I should go ahead
Speaker 2: and drive home if anyone's not familiar Whales as a
Speaker 2: country in western Great Britain. It is part of the
Speaker 2: United Kingdom, but it boasts its own distinctive culture and language.
Speaker 2: We've touched on Welsh Welsh mythology before, which of course
Speaker 2: shares various ideas with other cultures of the British Isles.
Speaker 2: But I don't know if we'd really if we've ever
Speaker 2: really stopped to just talk about the idea of Wales
Speaker 2: in Welsh tradition and Welsh language in any degree of detail. Maybe,
Speaker 2: And I forgot about it, but I just wanted to
Speaker 2: bring it up again. So again. It's the rowan tree
Speaker 2: or sorbus occuparia, also known as the mountain ash, though
Speaker 2: it is not closely related to either true ash trees
Speaker 2: or a particular tree. This is Eucalyptus regnuns. This is
Speaker 2: the plant that you find in Australia, so obviously a
Speaker 2: good ways away from Whales in Europe, but that one
Speaker 2: is sometimes called a mountain ash, but it is not
Speaker 2: related to the tree we're talking about here. No, the
Speaker 2: rowan tree is actually a tree or shrub of the
Speaker 2: rose family.
Speaker 3: Oh I didn't know that. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So according to the UK's Woodland Trust, which is a
Speaker 2: nice little overview about the species here, a rowan tree
Speaker 2: can reach heights of fifteen meters or nearly fifty feet
Speaker 2: in height. The trees bark is smooth and silvery gray
Speaker 2: and leaf the leaf buds are purple and hairy. I
Speaker 2: included a close up image here for you, Joe. But
Speaker 2: out there, if you do a search you can find
Speaker 2: like rowing tree buds. You'll see these. And yeah, it
Speaker 2: has this as is often sometimes the case with like
Speaker 2: the little details, especially with budding of trees. You know,
Speaker 2: there's almost like a velvety appearance to it. It almost doesn't
Speaker 2: look like tree flesh, but more like, you know, it's
Speaker 2: like part of a deer growing out of the tree
Speaker 2: or something.
Speaker 3: I was gonna say, like like a little fallen's ear. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Now, when the leaves leaves develop, it's gonna have the
Speaker 2: serrated leaflets and groups of five to eight. It produces
Speaker 2: white flowers which, following pollination, develop into vibrantly scarlet berries.
Speaker 2: Sometimes I've seen various photographs and of course you know color,
Speaker 2: you know, details of color kind of bury depending on
Speaker 2: the exact photography in question. But yeah, sometimes they look
Speaker 2: more scarlett, sometimes they look a little more orange, but
Speaker 2: it's a vibrant color, and yeah, you can get into
Speaker 2: a discussion about it. What is red, what is orange? Anyway,
Speaker 2: At any rate, it's bright. It catches the eye, and
Speaker 2: that's going to be important as we proceed. And how
Speaker 2: long do they live? Well, a rowan tree apparently can
Speaker 2: live for upwards of two centuries according to the Woodland Trust,
Speaker 2: though a source I'm going to side in a minute
Speaker 2: put it more at about one hundred and fifty years.
Speaker 2: But at any rate, you know, not the longest lived
Speaker 2: tree by any stretch, but still they tend to live
Speaker 2: longer than humans. So they still have that kind of
Speaker 2: like you know, mythic connotation. They stand outside of our
Speaker 2: short time on.
Speaker 3: This earth, always been here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So they're native to the cooler parts of the
Speaker 2: northern hemisphere, mostly western and northern UK. That's or at
Speaker 2: least that's one of the key areas where they grow,
Speaker 2: and that's where we're going to be talking about here.
Speaker 2: So you'll find them not only in Wales, you'll find
Speaker 2: them in the highlands of Scotland, and they're they're pretty
Speaker 2: far flung. Another source I was looking at was a
Speaker 2: journal of ecology right up on the species. This was
Speaker 2: by all Olivier rasp at All titled just Sorbus Occuparia
Speaker 2: l And this article pointed out that one of the
Speaker 2: British isles, you know, are certainly a place where you
Speaker 2: can find them. They're present through most of Europe, from
Speaker 2: Iceland to northern Russia, though not into Arctic Russia, down
Speaker 2: into Spain, Portugal, Italy, Macedonia, and it seems limited by
Speaker 2: poor drought tolerance and a necessity for a short growing
Speaker 2: season and a cold requirement for the bud burst. This source, also,
Speaker 2: this is the one that puts the age at more
Speaker 2: of like a one hundred and fifty year range, So
Speaker 2: I'm not sure if it's one fifty or two hundred.
Speaker 2: You know, it depends. I guess you know where you
Speaker 2: want to fall on that. But it's also been pointed
Speaker 2: out that the sorbus species here seems to have perhaps
Speaker 2: originated in Southeast Asia and gradually spread. Now, another interesting
Speaker 2: thing to think about trees in terms of you know,
Speaker 2: having a sacred nature is that, of course we make
Speaker 2: use of trees. We do think with trees trees, you know,
Speaker 2: produce wood that we may use for various purposes depending
Speaker 2: on the quality of the wood. They produce leaves, they
Speaker 2: produce berries, they produce flowers, and so forth. So they
Speaker 2: are also this like font of materials that we might
Speaker 2: make use of. And I guess you don't always know
Speaker 2: exactly how that's going to fall. Like, you know, there
Speaker 2: are plenty of examples of cultures where the things that
Speaker 2: make the mundane world possible are in and of themselves sacred,
Speaker 2: you know, be it a food product or whatever. Like,
Speaker 2: just because you interact with it every day, it doesn't
Speaker 2: mean that it can't be sacred. It may be very
Speaker 2: sacred within a tradition because it is part of your survival.
Speaker 1: M m.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But then of course our lives are full of things
Speaker 2: that we don't really give sacred connotations to because they
Speaker 2: are just part of the mundane world. So what do
Speaker 2: whom humans use it for? Well, the wood of the
Speaker 2: rowan is usable. Apparently it's hard and tough, but not
Speaker 2: super durable. And my understanding of this is that basically
Speaker 2: it means you maybe wouldn't want to build a house
Speaker 2: out of it or use it for like really like
Speaker 2: high stress situations.
Speaker 3: You wouldn't build a car out of it?
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I guess so. Yeah. But on the other hand,
Speaker 2: it's not like it's super fragile like, because because you
Speaker 2: can make furniture out of it, craft works and even tools,
Speaker 2: you know, So it's like, I guess it's you know,
Speaker 2: it's not so fragile that you couldn't make a tool
Speaker 2: out of it. But just again, I guess maybe not
Speaker 2: a house, though perhaps there are examples of such usage
Speaker 2: as well. But that's that's what the sources were saying.
Speaker 2: And as far as the berries go, I think we
Speaker 2: were talking off Mikey earlier you asked me, well, can
Speaker 2: people eat the berries? Apparently, so now I want to
Speaker 2: add the caveat here. Anytime we're talking about eating berries,
Speaker 2: please do please do additional research before you eat berries.
Speaker 2: But my understanding is that they are edible for humans,
Speaker 2: but they are quite tart, and that means that jam
Speaker 2: is one of the most common culinary uses of the berries,
Speaker 2: you know, So, you know, typical jam making scenario usually
Speaker 2: there's a lot of sugar added or some sort of
Speaker 2: sweetener added. There's a you know, a reduction taking place,
Speaker 2: so there are a lot of steps in place to
Speaker 2: take something that is otherwise quite tart and make it
Speaker 2: consumable and you know, and appealing to the human power.
Speaker 3: So cooked rowan thumbs up, raw rowan question mark, right.
Speaker 2: But on the other hand, the sources I was looking at,
Speaker 2: they did say that, you know what they've the rowan
Speaker 2: berries have long been a part of the human diet.
Speaker 2: There's evidence from like southern Sweden from around six thousand
Speaker 2: years ago that that gives us evidence that, yeah, like
Speaker 2: people have been eating the rowan berries. So as to
Speaker 2: I didn't get into details about, you know, ancient preparations
Speaker 2: of rowan berries, if they were cooking them or if
Speaker 2: they were just eating them raw, But it seems like
Speaker 2: when you get into more modern uses, and not even
Speaker 2: just modern, but like you know, last several centuries, people
Speaker 2: we're generally talking about taking the rowan berries and doing
Speaker 2: some sort of culinary preparation to get them to a
Speaker 2: place where we enjoy them. Yeah, And sadly, I did
Speaker 2: not know to look out for rowan jam while I
Speaker 2: was in Wales, so I don't know if it's something
Speaker 2: I could have purchased or tried if i'd been looking
Speaker 2: for it. I did a quick look around the internet,
Speaker 2: and I'm not even sure you can get it in
Speaker 2: the States, So I'm not sure. If you have tried
Speaker 2: Rowan jam and or you are familiar with all the
Speaker 2: things you can do with Rowan Berry's, do reach out
Speaker 2: to us. Email us. We'll have that email at the
Speaker 2: end of this episode, and we will gladly share your
Speaker 2: Rowan Berry experience in a future edition of Listener Mail. Hey.
Speaker 3: In fact, this connects to a project that's been on
Speaker 3: my mind lately. I have never made jam at home,
Speaker 3: but for some reason, I've got a hankering to make
Speaker 3: homemade raspberry jam. Not exactly sure why, but it's in
Speaker 3: my mind and it's not going to leave until I
Speaker 3: do it. Jam makers, right and let us know what
Speaker 3: are your tips? How do you make the best jam?
Speaker 2: All right now? According to rasp in that paper I
Speaker 2: referenced earlier, if you if you look around in Poland,
Speaker 2: the fruits there are used to flavor vodka. Now, another
Speaker 2: source I was looking at does mention a Welsh spirit.
Speaker 2: This is in a book titled Rowan by Oliver Suffel three.
Speaker 2: This is a a erecton book. I think they have
Speaker 2: a number of books related to different species reference to
Speaker 2: at least one of these, a book on squid in
Speaker 2: the past on the show. But there's apparently a traditional
Speaker 2: Welsh spirit called di od grioval and this was made
Speaker 2: by steeping crushed rowan berries in water. Though I have
Speaker 2: to add here nobody offered me did grioval while I
Speaker 2: was in Wales. They offered me beer, they offered me cider,
Speaker 2: but they did not offer me this. So if you
Speaker 2: have experience with this spirit, do reach out to us
Speaker 2: on this matter as well. All right, So there's a
Speaker 2: ton of more botanical information we might get into with
Speaker 2: the tree, that is, you know, ultimately this is far
Speaker 2: flung and there are a lot of cultural interpretations of
Speaker 2: the plant that we're not going to get into because
Speaker 2: we're dealing with so many different cultures across a considerable
Speaker 2: period of time here. But one of the really interesting
Speaker 2: things about them is about that the tree itself is
Speaker 2: that it is considered a sacred tree, and it's considered
Speaker 2: a sacred tree not only in Wales but throughout the
Speaker 2: British Isles and of course into Europe as well. Mainland Europe.
Speaker 2: The berries seem to be a key part of the
Speaker 2: tree's sacred appeal, that bright color, that red, that scarlet,
Speaker 2: sometimes looking more like a deep orange in some of
Speaker 2: the photos I'm looking at. At any rate, this is
Speaker 2: a color that stands out. It catches the eye, and
Speaker 2: we know that it resonated with people in this part
Speaker 2: of the world going way back. In fact, this is
Speaker 2: something that Suthil brings up in his book. You know,
Speaker 2: if we look to the Red Lady archaeological coal find,
Speaker 2: we see the importance of the color red. This is
Speaker 2: something that actually came up during my tour. This is
Speaker 2: an Upper Paleolithic partial male skeleton that was found buried
Speaker 2: in Whales and the bones are dyed not with rowan
Speaker 2: berries but with red ochre. But it does give it
Speaker 2: this red coloration. Is the remains I believe are dated
Speaker 2: to about thirty one thousand BCE. And Sethil here inciting this,
Speaker 2: says that it stands as quote indication of the early
Speaker 2: sacramental importance of the color red in northern Europe. So
Speaker 2: just a little taste of the importance of red in
Speaker 2: the region. Though I think we can all sort of
Speaker 2: speak to the experience of seeing red, you know, as
Speaker 2: if we see red in nature, it stands out to us.
Speaker 2: It calls to us. It is communicating something to us,
Speaker 2: certainly about the natural world, but perhaps about the unseen
Speaker 2: world as well.
Speaker 3: It's a high salience color in nature, as opposed to
Speaker 3: you know, your your browns and greens, which are more
Speaker 3: kind of background.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so in Wales and throughout the British Isles,
Speaker 2: one of the most widespread folk traditions concerning the rowan
Speaker 2: is its ability to keep evil away, particularly certainly in
Speaker 2: later interpretations getting into the Christian era, is the idea
Speaker 2: that it will keep away witches and it will stand
Speaker 2: as a deterrent to witchcraft. So it has a long
Speaker 2: standing role in protective magic amulets made out of rowan
Speaker 2: or somehow incorporating rowan wood or other elements of the tree.
Speaker 2: These have been employed as charms against witchcraft, though ironically
Speaker 2: it Seltal points out this was itself considered witchcraft by
Speaker 2: the Church, you know, the so you get this weird,
Speaker 2: you see this of course, you know, all over where
Speaker 2: the Christian Church was also dealing with, you know, folkloric
Speaker 2: traditions and over pagan religion religious ideas is that they're
Speaker 2: warning them about the dangers of the devil. And then
Speaker 2: they're like, well, this devil thing seems pretty serious. Of course,
Speaker 2: I'm going to use all the tools in my toolbox.
Speaker 2: And then the church is saying, no, not all the tools,
Speaker 2: only the tools.
Speaker 3: You could hear this reminds me of In October, we
Speaker 3: did a couple of episodes about the demons of ancient Mesopotamia,
Speaker 3: and we were talking about the demon Pizzuzu, which features
Speaker 3: in the story The Exorcist, of course, written from a
Speaker 3: Catholic Christian Catholic perspective in which this demon is sort
Speaker 3: of the devil, one of the denizens of Hell, a
Speaker 3: servant of Lucifer. But in fact, looking into it, we
Speaker 3: found that Pazuzu was often used as a protective entity
Speaker 3: against worst demons in ancient Mesopotamia. So yeah, yeah, one
Speaker 3: person's guardian angel is another person's devil, I guess.
Speaker 2: So yeah, it's it's worth driving home there. Apotrobic magic
Speaker 2: is ancient. It has been a part of human culture
Speaker 2: since time. Out of mind and of the use of
Speaker 2: rowan based apotropaic magic also naturally predates Christianity in the
Speaker 2: British Isles, but it comes into sharp focus according to
Speaker 2: southhal during the Age of the Reformation, solidifying in this
Speaker 2: perceived modern struggle between the Christian faithful and which is
Speaker 2: in league with the devil. And of course we've talked
Speaker 2: about like the witchcraft persecution before, and it is interesting how,
Speaker 2: you know, it's easy to think about witchcraft persecution. You
Speaker 2: think Monty Python, the Holy Grail, you think firm Middle Ages,
Speaker 2: and a lot of what we talk about when we
Speaker 2: talk about the persecution of quote unquote witches, and which
Speaker 2: often boiled down to the persecution of non Christian ideas,
Speaker 2: of people who didn't fit in, of women in general.
Speaker 2: This was largely more of a of a Renaissance idea.
Speaker 2: You can really, you know, tease that apart in various ways.
Speaker 2: But you know, it is the it's not so much,
Speaker 2: you know, to use a popular description, it's not so
Speaker 2: much a part of the demon haunted world, but is
Speaker 2: the world is illuminating and there's a need to find
Speaker 2: those demons again, like it like no, there's less darkness,
Speaker 2: there's less place for me to imagine the demons, and
Speaker 2: I need to see them. You know. Anyway, we could
Speaker 2: go on and on about that.
Speaker 3: Or you could see it as a kind of lashing
Speaker 3: out an attempt to get control during times of disruption
Speaker 3: and disorder, which you know is certainly going on in
Speaker 3: Europe during the Reformation. You know, there's so there's undermining
Speaker 3: of the traditional dominant institution. There are schisms and factions
Speaker 3: and wars that follow, and and you know, there's all
Speaker 3: the kind of chaos that comes with that, and people
Speaker 3: are trying to get control and they demonize somebody to
Speaker 3: make sense of everything.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and and then on another level, it's worth noting that, Okay,
Speaker 2: so it comes into sharp focus here in and certainly
Speaker 2: there's a lot of writing for this time period that
Speaker 2: references it as people were using rowan then as an
Speaker 2: ambulant against the devil and or which is in the
Speaker 2: surface of the devil. But of course again it's an
Speaker 2: old practice. People are pulling out old practices even as
Speaker 2: this you know, modern threat is explained to them, and
Speaker 2: in you know, in the pre in pre Christian times
Speaker 2: and even into Christian times of course, because you know,
Speaker 2: different belief systems can can and often do stand alongside
Speaker 2: each other. It's not always devils and witches you're trying
Speaker 2: to keep it bay. Sometimes, of course, it is the
Speaker 2: fairy folk. Uh, you know, the the original unseen threats.
Speaker 2: And you know, we talked in our episodes from I
Speaker 2: think what the year before last, we talked about elfshot.
Speaker 2: We talked about the idea that the uh that these
Speaker 2: invisible folk are out there potentially targeting your cattle, your
Speaker 2: livestock with invisible missiles that will make the sick. And
Speaker 2: so there's this long standing tradition then of using rowan
Speaker 2: to ward off not only magical harm to your home
Speaker 2: or you know, your family and so forth, but to
Speaker 2: prevent magical harm to your live stock. And not only
Speaker 2: live stock, but you're like your milk, animal products that
Speaker 2: might be corrupted by the invisible fairy folk, that they
Speaker 2: might harm like the crucial element in the milk and
Speaker 2: either make the milk bad, you know, or not nutritious,
Speaker 2: or make butter making impossible, all due to magical attack.
Speaker 3: I recall passages about this in The Secret Commonwealth of Elves,
Speaker 3: Fawns and Fairies, which if you've never looked into that,
Speaker 3: that's a great cool historical book. It's from the late
Speaker 3: seventeenth century, sort of an anthropological study done by a
Speaker 3: Scottish priest named Robert Kirk. Is from the sixteen and
Speaker 3: he went out and like talked to people about what
Speaker 3: they believed about, like elves and fairies and stuff. And
Speaker 3: I recall a concern of it being that elves were
Speaker 3: gonna We're gonna come make your cow's milk sour.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And and that means, you know, not only
Speaker 2: might they make the milk taste bad, they might like
Speaker 2: destroy something very beneficial about it, and they might prevent
Speaker 2: you from using it in other products and so forth.
Speaker 2: So it's like it's, you know, seen as a sensitive
Speaker 2: time right after the milk has been collected, and yeah,
Speaker 2: you have to you have to apply these protections, and
Speaker 2: that might mean rowan wood, rowan berries, and so forth.
Speaker 2: By the way, reading about this was also pointed out.
Speaker 2: This is in the Sulful book, but I've seen this
Speaker 2: else pointed out elsewhere as well. Is that if you
Speaker 2: take a rowan berry, you pluck it from the tree,
Speaker 2: and you look at where the stem was attached, you
Speaker 2: will see what is sometimes described I think, I think
Speaker 2: a very with a fair amount of flourish as a cross.
Speaker 2: It's not really cross. It looks more like a star.
Speaker 2: I've also seen it described as being pentagram like, again,
Speaker 2: vaguely like a star. I think it's maybe a stretch
Speaker 2: to say it looks like a pentagram, but still I
Speaker 2: guess it does have a novel shape. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I think we see this in a lot of berries
Speaker 2: and fruits and so forth.
Speaker 3: I've never looked at one myself, but you've got the
Speaker 3: pictures here, and I'm looking at a five pointed star. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well when I look at it next to an
Speaker 2: image of a pentagram has presented here, I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 2: I guess I can see it. But all of this,
Speaker 2: you know, all of this energy around the row in
Speaker 2: these traditions of the rowan tree having some sort of
Speaker 2: sacred protective property to it, this continues again to hold
Speaker 2: sway during Christian times and in Rowan trees were then planted,
Speaker 2: for instance, in Welsh graveyards and church yards to ward
Speaker 2: away evil. And this is another case where I wish
Speaker 2: I had known to look out for one of these trees,
Speaker 2: because I got to roam around in a way Elsh
Speaker 2: graveyard at one point and it was, you know, it
Speaker 2: was very it was, it was very neat. I was
Speaker 2: looking at frozen spiderwebs. That was pretty fascinating. But I
Speaker 2: didn't know to look for these treetes. So maybe there
Speaker 2: was one there doing all this protective work and I
Speaker 2: just didn't know about it. The Woodland Trust website also
Speaker 2: points out that they're often situated in front of homes
Speaker 2: in Ireland, and then in various traditions where you want
Speaker 2: to protect that milk, you might have some sort of
Speaker 2: an implement made from rowan wood that is used to
Speaker 2: stir the milk, so like a direct interface between the
Speaker 2: sacred wood and the substance you were trying to protect
Speaker 2: from the fairy folks. Interesting, yeah, to prevent the milk
Speaker 2: from curdling for example. Also the Woodland Trust website mentions
Speaker 2: the idea of also having a pocket charm made from
Speaker 2: rowan wood to protect against rheumatism. So you know, there
Speaker 2: are various uses for it, also using it to make
Speaker 2: divining rods, so you know, you can get into various
Speaker 2: examples of where the wood is used. Maybe it's used
Speaker 2: in a tool to make a tool, and maybe that
Speaker 2: tool is you know, less a practical tool and more
Speaker 2: of a supernatural tool to you know, find things hidden
Speaker 2: in the earth, or to magically stir your milk to
Speaker 2: protect it. I guess one of the other things worth
Speaker 2: noting about the row and tree, though, we need to
Speaker 2: start talking about, like where it's planted and it's protective properties.
Speaker 2: Is that again, it is a it's a widespread tree,
Speaker 2: and it is widely planted they point out as a
Speaker 2: street or garden tree. So there are gonna be plenty
Speaker 2: of examples where a rowan tree is just around and
Speaker 2: it doesn't mean that someone's you know, protecting the local
Speaker 2: coffee shop or gas station. There just happens to be
Speaker 2: a row and tree there. So I don't know. I
Speaker 2: guess one has to avoid getting two into the idea
Speaker 2: of them being planted strategically to protect against evil. But
Speaker 2: on the other hand, it does seem like it was,
Speaker 2: at least in some instance definitely planted as a form
Speaker 2: of protective magic.
Speaker 3: Oh, it couldn't hurt. I mean, you don't want to
Speaker 3: be at the gas station and have an elf shooting
Speaker 3: in and souring your gas exactly.
Speaker 2: And I also want to throw this out just a
Speaker 2: quote provided direct quote about the consumption of rowan berries.
Speaker 2: The Woodland Trust does right quote. Rowan berries are edible
Speaker 2: to humans when cooked. They are sour but rich in
Speaker 2: vitamin C and can be used to make a tart jam.
Speaker 2: So I'd say, let's let's leave it at that. Then
Speaker 2: that sounds okay, that's that sounds it sounds good to me.
Speaker 2: Look up how to cook rowan berries before you eat them?
Speaker 2: And then I should also point out, I mean, there
Speaker 2: are obviously we don't have time to go into all
Speaker 2: of this, but I was reading a little bit about
Speaker 2: how there also are medicinal properties to the berries often
Speaker 2: used as is like a laxative usages like that. So
Speaker 2: there are going to be various traditions in these different
Speaker 2: European cultures that also involve uses for rowan berries and
Speaker 2: so forth, they're going to help with some sort of ailment.
Speaker 2: So again we get into the idea of that the
Speaker 2: sacred tree is this thing that may have you know,
Speaker 2: symbolic power, but then also it has these various you know,
Speaker 2: mundane uses that may also take on qualities that are sacred.
Speaker 2: It may have medicinal uses that could also take on
Speaker 2: qualities that are sacred as well.
Speaker 3: Can't think about the word rowan without thinking about the
Speaker 3: name rowan. Can't think about the name Rowan without thinking
Speaker 3: of who am I going to say? Am I going
Speaker 3: to say? The mister bean guy. No, I'm thinking of
Speaker 3: the wicker Man. That's the name of the kid that
Speaker 3: the detective is looking for.
Speaker 2: Oh well, that that I haven't looked into it, but
Speaker 2: that that can't be an accident, right, I mean that
Speaker 2: seems like that. That seems like a film that was
Speaker 2: very concerned with folkloric traditions and so forth.
Speaker 3: So be a mighty coincidence. Yeah, the kid wasn't named
Speaker 3: like Bill.
Speaker 2: We may have to come back to the Wickerman on
Speaker 2: Weird House Cinema at some point. That's that's a that's
Speaker 2: a big one.
Speaker 3: That's a favorite at our house.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's the full car Royalty right there.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of great Christopher Lee out there, but
Speaker 3: that is peak Christopher Lee.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, we're I'm gonna go ahead and close
Speaker 2: out this episode. Again, this is a series we'll likely
Speaker 2: come back to in the future. We already have some
Speaker 2: notes about some other Sacred Trees, so you'll be on
Speaker 2: the lookout, and if you have any suggestions for future
Speaker 2: Sacred Tree episodes right in let us know. Likewise, as
Speaker 2: we said, if you have experience with anything we discussed
Speaker 2: in this episode of or feedback on it, we'd love
Speaker 2: to hear from you. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is
Speaker 2: primarily a science and culture podcast, with core episodes on
Speaker 2: Tuesdays and Thursdays, but on Fridays we set aside most
Speaker 2: serious concerns to just talk about a weird film on
Speaker 2: Weird House Cinema. If you are on Instagram and want
Speaker 2: to follow the show, find us at STBYM Podcast.
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
Speaker 3: your Mind dot com.
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