A Strange Thing Happened.

In the past few weeks we have been replanting some of our Alder trees, they have just gone mad in our middle field over the past few years and they are starting to smother each other. We put this down to either the donkeys fertilizing them or the ‘wee people’. When we first moved here we heard the locals talk of the wee people. The main part of this was that Folklore has it that you must NEVER remove, cut down or tamper in any way with the whitethorn (Hawthorn) tree, as the wee people will not be happy. If you ignore this piece of advice then bad luck will surely come your way! We have heard of major road developments being halted because a large whitethorn tree has been directly in the way and the road workers wouldn’t continue to work! Needless to say any whitethorn on our land stays well and truly put!

This is our largest whitethorn tree which we call ‘The Fairy Tree’.

Now, after reading the brilliant ‘Magic of Findhorn’ by Paul Hawke (which is an actual place on the N.E. coast of Scotland), we came to think that surely the wee people were ‘Nature Spirits’, and that by working with them and not against them is something that we should try to adhere to. So, when our Alder trees started to spread we decided to move them to a better place but they just wouldn’t budge! We decided to ask them if they would allow us to lift them and place them in a better spot. After a few days we returned to try again and they just seemed to release their roots without us having to pull and tug! This is the truth! Now they can hopefully be happy in their new place and grow into a nice big screening hedge for us.

Some of the Alder trees that were to be moved.

This all brings me round to a strange thing that happened. About 4 years ago we started to plant some Willow in a very boggy part of the land to not just help with drainage but to also coppice in the future. There was a whitethorn hedge that seemed to be in the way so LJ decided to ask the wee people if it would be alright to move the hedge and to be given some kind of sign if it was ok. He had a thought in his head that for some reason he had to make a fool of himself! At this point he heard a rumbling sound behind him and turned to see our donkey (who was about a year old and full of testosterone!) racing towards him like a steam train! LJ thought at this stage it might be a good idea to get the hell out of the way and fell face down in the bog! The donkey stopped,,,Lj swore he heard giggling,,, the wee people! He trudged back to the house and after I’d finished laughing he told me what had happened. As he was telling the story we both noticed that there was a perfect circle of blood on the kitchen floor. We checked both dogs, cats, ourselves and not a scratch on any of us! Heres to say we took this as a sign and they were not moved!!

E.