National Tree Week!
Its #NATIONALTREEWEEK this week... so a perfect week for us to release the first episode of Murray Lachlan Young / Paul Hartnoll's Tales From The Forest: The Great Oak.
The Great Oak tells of the death of one ancient magical tree, and the birth and life of another great tree (as well as the arrival of two surprise packages!).
So I find myself musing on my favourite trees and woodlands.
When I first heard The Great Oak a couple of weeks ago I couldn’t help but remember The Great Yew at Dartington where I was a student in the nineties. Back, back we must go back urges Murray in The Great Oak - and aged somewhere between 1,500 and 2,000 years old Dartington's Great Yew does just that: she could have been a slim sapling as the Romans invaded England.
Yews have always been pagan symbols of eternal life, of new springing from old but to me as a young undergraduate it was simply awe inspiring and a constant friend.
Tagore - a huge influence on Dartington - once said 'Trees are the earth's endless effort to speak to the listening heaven'
Trees talk? Here's Suzanne Simpard's Ted Talk on the matter - Or the BBC's rather more simplistic version…
But I’m getting off my point.
The first trees I really remember are much younger, the trees of Hunger Hills in Horsforth not far from my family home which were planted to beautify the bell pit mines. Under one of those mounds, wrapped now I suspect in tree roots are the remains of three miners buried alive when their pit collapsed in 1806.
Younger still I remember being enthralled by Enid Blytons Faraway Tree. I doubt Blyton spent much time considering Tagore but her faraway tree not only spoke to, but reached a heaven like another world. I was hooked.
And still am - there is nothing quite like looking up through a tree and not being able to see where it ends.
Now here in Wivenhoe I'm lucky enough to have an ancient woodland just over the road from me. Wivenhoe Woods was probably first planted at the same time as Dartingtons Great Yew was a mere sapling. So the oaks and chestnuts I see today are probably relatives of trees who also witnessed the Romans arrive.
It proved the perfect setting, just as light fell, to stomp those well trodden but never familiar, paths with my headphones in to listen again to The Great Oak
Even though I’d heard it so many times before it was strangely haunting and even more beautiful than before. There's something uplifting to be listening to a story about the growth and magic of trees whilst wandering around an ancient woodland. Especially in #nationaltreeweek.
Continue watching and listening to our audio tales here!
Words Murray Lachlan Young
Music Paul Hartnoll
Imagery Bek Palmer
Direction / Dramaturgy Nina Hajiyianni
BSL (youtube link) Katie Łabno
Mastering and digital wizardry Warehouse Digital
