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I asked my sister this morning about the tree I visited on the weekend. The history of the tree is really unknown to me, just that it's a large poplar, with three trunks. It has been there as long as I can remember and I've always felt it was a place of power. There is a strong energy about the place, one that my sister once comment was dark, and overpowering. I told her that I didn't think the place was evil, just powerful. When I walked down there on the weekend, I found a statue of a fairy inbetween the trunks, and I assumed my sister had set up some sort of place for offering. Turns out it was my niece, who is currently 8. My sister said the story goes something like this (and I admit to taking great liberty here):

I walked in the woods the other day, as I do from time to time, to say hello to the trees and greet the green growing things. Some woods are different than others, and I’ve found that some are quite enchanted. I found one such grove sometime ago, but it wasn’t until recently I discovered why it was so magical.

I walked through the tall green grasses of the woods, hopped a very small stream and came to a tree that I had visited before. We were old acquaintances, she and I. She is actually three trees in one, three trunks that meet just above the ground and grow all from the same roots, fed by the same stream. We are both alike, in that regard, and this is why we’d become easy friends.

It was odd, this last visit, and my first one in a year or so. When I approached the tree and touched her rough bark, and squatted to sit in her shade, I saw a strange white statue. I knelt and examined the figure, one I’d not encountered before. It was a beautiful little fairy, smiling serenely at a butterfly on her elbow. I reached to pick up the statue, but thought differently about disturbing the statue. Instead, I quizzically rubbed my chin.

I sat there for a minute or two, and finally asked the tree aloud how long the fairy had been there. There was a low rustle of leaves, and I knew the tree was not going to give up her secret. I reached out again, gingerly running my finger along the length of the fairy’s nose and smiled to myself. I sat back again, and closed my eyes and listened to the wind in the leaves around me. Soon I imagined I could hear a sweet, soft humming in my ear, a light and blissful tune. I sat up to move, but hear a soft song that told me not to open my eyes.

I remained still, listening to the tune that moved like wind and honey, sweet and so smooth, so serene. It told me about the little statue; it sang about a sweet fairy that had come to this place and lived in that tree, which roamed the hills nearby and watched over the animals and insects and trees and plants. It told how she coaxed the grass to grow tall, the better for hiding away the smaller animals and feeding the taller ones. It told how she talks the leaves to bud from even the sleepiest tree every spring, and the flowers to grow from the stubborn ground. The song told me of how she flies to warn the animals of intruders, and hides them from hunters and predators, and about how she even helps to heal the wounded and sick creatures that come there.

Oh shaded wood, the shaded wood
Where waist high grasses grow,
She flits beneath the canopy
And wanders to and fro

At times she would, the fairy good,
So sooth the wounded deer,
And fly before the hunter comes
So creatures would not fear.

When Spring would come, and rabbits drum
And play they in the snow,
She’d sit among the leafless trees
And sing to them to grow.

And fly she’d down upon the ground
And breathe upon the snow,
So softly thus she’d free the sprouts,
And bid them too to grow.

A friend is she, to bug and tree,
But be it ever known
That should you spy with human eye
So she would turn to stone.

So in the wood, the shaded wood,
Come you with a care,
That nothing should befoul the glade,
Her warden is aware.

posted by September @ 10:44 AM