This tree’s name is Bartholomew Bartisimus Folistorious III and he is from the Chivalric Order of Beech Knights. As you can tell, he is bent over backwards in order to serve. Bartholomew’s service is a sacred service. He was called upon when he was a mere sapling and takes his duty very seriously, as indeed he should. It is said that a wren first proposed the service to him, and that an entire intergenerational murder of crows performed the ceremony once he said yes. It took that many cawing and bobbing crows to call up the ancient animating power from the deep. Bartholomew’s principal job is to connect the earth with the sky. You can see his heart-centre is open to the heavens and that his tree-arms and nose are similarly thrust skywards, linking the energy of above with below. Through this link, he draws down the cosmogonic forces of the
How do you like this stump? It’s lovely, isn’t it? Kind of like a melty Oscar the Grouch somehow. However, I’m sorry to be deceptive, but this isn’t actually a story about this beautiful stump. It’s just that I was unable to take a picture of the subject of the story, who was, right at that moment, behind the stump. As it goes, I was sitting down eating my lunch on the remnants of an old laid beech hedge opposite this glorious stump, when a ghostly lady slowly approached on an equally ghostly bay horse. The pair were smiling gently, clearly deep inside some shared reverie, as they ambled down the path before them. At first I was not sure if they would notice me, but as they came adjacent, the lady turned her vaguely opaque head toward me and said ‘good day’ as she doffed her top hat. After which,
Quite a long time ago, people were much, much smaller than they are now. This is where our fairy legends come from, only so much time has passed that we’ve forgotten that the little people were actually us. Bigstickasaurus hasn’t forgotten though, he’s still full of the stories from when we were small. He even told me one. In those days, we, the little people, would suspend ourselves from his spikes like ornaments on Christmas trees. Our ancestors would sit there, swinging backwards and forwards, shouting out ideas for a full moon show, practicing under cover of the new. The full moon shows were always spectacular and involved incredible circus feats. After they were finished, the little people would jump off their swings all at the same time, and perform synchronised somersaults as they landed. Then, after a prolonged series of curtsies and bows to a very loud round of applause,
I have to say that I was excited to find this sign! It’s been a long time since I encountered the Numberplate of Destiny, so to find the Sign of Jumbling Fortune was, well, a sign! A sign the universe had another message for me, a sign that my quest was not in vain, a sign that I had eyes for seeing and ears for hearing, a sign that the universe was rewarding my careful, quiet attention with a message. Before I reveal the potent and timely message the Sign of Jumbling Fortune had for me, let me first explain the way it works. As with a great many other naturally magical artefacts, it works best if you are carrying a stick. Thankfully I had picked up three yew sticks on that walk, and was thus able to divine a rather complicated message. However, the Jumbling Sign recognises that three sticks
They say ‘history repeats itself’ and it does, of course. I’ve got a PhD in history, so you can trust that I know what I am talking about. Anyway, this tree is actually a very old tree and it has lived through a time which in some ways resembles the one we have now. Be prepared then reader, for this is a cautionary tale. The reason this tree on Linchmere Common is bendy, is because during its lifetime the sun disappeared. As such, the tree, not having eyeballs to see, just gradually reoriented itself to a second source of power and energy: the molten core of the earth. When the sun came back, the tree turned upwards again to the original, greater source of energy. It’s stayed growing that way for some time now, but I have it on good authority that it may well have to make another turn soon.