Druidry and ancient trees

Nimue Brown

Aug 25

There aren't many topics where you can confidently assert anything about what all Druids do, but I think a love of trees is a pretty safe bet. Druids in untreed landscapes may have other plants that speak to them, poetically or literally. If there's one thing more appealing than a tree, it's a really old tree with a lot of character.

A tree is a very large manifestation of the natural world. They are easy to form relationships with because you know exactly where they will be and that they will be there all year round. Trees lend themselves to being hugged, leaned on, climbed and sat under depending on what suits you. They are really companionable entities and most of them are safe to spend time with. Yew trees require some caution, and some trees will drop branches on you (I had had that happen once) but mostly trees are friendly.

Ancient trees provide a physical link with the past. Yew trees are especially long lived, I encountered one recently that was some 1600 years old. That's a lot of rings, a lot of seasons absorbed into wood. Trees that have lived for a long time have experienced many things, and offer us a sense of physical connection with the past. They are living ancestors in the landscape, and they can help us form a connection with the past. Spending time with them is spending time with history.

Not all ancient trees are as self announcing as this one. Some trees are very slow growing, so an ancient hawthorn tree isn't big or impressive unless you know what you're looking at. Coppicing causes trees to live longer, so an ancient hazel can look quite young if you're considering the size of the trunks. The truth of the tree's age is in the size of the base - called the stool - and coppiced hazels can create massive stools over time.

I've seen it said that you can estimate the age of some trees - most likely ancient oaks - by the number of archaeologists who can hold hands around the trunk. This was a very big tree. I didn't have any archaeologists to hand but my guess is that it would have taken six or seven of them to embrace it.