We Irish are a very superstitious lot. We have superstitions about black cats, spilled salt, red-haired women, robins and countless other random things. One such superstition centres on fairy (or if you want to be more quaint about it!) faerie trees. There is a strong belief here that the fairies live at the foot of these trees, and understandably they do not take kindly to having their homes interfered with, never mind having them chopped down from above their heads! You wouldn’t like it either no doubt.
They seem to dwell in or otherwise loiter around free-standing trees, and mostly their preference is for hawthorn trees, although I have read that other types of trees are also favoured dwelling places for these wee folk. So the people (common mortals that is!) who live in these parts are pretty cautious where lone hawthorns are concerned, tending to give them a wide berth for fear of incurring the wrath of our small but apparently vicious little neighbours.
It is believed that various injuries and misfortunes have been visited upon anyone foolish or unlucky enough to have disturbed a fairy tree. Everything from sleep deprivation to painful death has seemingly been dished out to fairy tree vandals. Even minor tree disturbance or interference seems to be treated severely. Such as the chap who peed on a fairy tree and subsequently not one but five buses sent to transport his tour group back to their hotel all broke down. Coincidence, poor engine maintenance – or fairy fury? Or the chap who kicked a fairy tree and who then fell and broke his ankle? Okay maybe he broke it with the kick and then fell over – but maybe it was more fairy justice.
These fairies just take no nonsense from anyone. And such is the fear that some people have of drawing the fairies on them that they will go out of their way to leave these fairy trees undisturbed. It is said that a motorway in the West of Ireland was delayed and eventually diverted because a very significant fairy tree stood in its way.
The fairy tree that diverted a motorway
I don’t know that I believe in fairies myself, but I am delighted that so many people do, because it is at least some deterrent to men with chainsaws who have scant appreciation for trees. In fact many of my fellow country men and women appear not to notice the beauty of trees, or have any understanding of the role they play in purifying the air we breathe. Indeed trees perform so many functions for us that rather than knocking them down we should be planting more and more of them. It bewilders and saddens me when I see trees being knocked down needlessly when they could be left to live and breathe and enrich our lives.
So when I see one of these lone hawthorns standing smack in the middle of a field I have to smile and bless the fairies for saving another tree. And I love the thought that there are little beings – puddling and chuckling and living interesting little lives under these gnarled and aged hawthorns.
Faraway Fields 