Elder

Elder Mother by Arthur Rackham

"Old girl, give me some of thy wood
and I will give thee some of mine
when I grow into a tree."

AND SO, in various parts of England and Scandinavia, a woodsman who wished to cut the Elder would ask of it, lest misfortune befall him.
The Elder is a tree thought in many old tales to harbour a spirit. In Northern Europe she is the Hylde-Moer, a death and fertility goddess. And since days of yore and before, folk have alternately revered and reviled the Elder as a witches' tree, a tree of magic, which must be respected.


The tree's name comes from the Anglo-Saxon word Æld meaning fire, because the hollow stems make excellent kindling, and indeed it also bears folk names such as "pipe-tree", since Elder twigs have long been used as blow-pipes by children.
Its negative associations come from a belief that Elder was the wood of the crucifix and/or the tree from which Judas hung himself. The Jew's Ear fungus which grows predominantly on the Elder is so named also because of the crucifixion associations (Judas' punishment was to forever hear folk whispering of his betrayal by having his ears grow on the tree of the cross).

The Elder appears in the conjurings of the Macbeth witches, and there abound tales of Elder Tree Witches trying to steal cow's milk or pinching black and blue a baby sleeping in a cradle made from Elder Wood...

"It were all along of my maister’s thick ‘ead. It were in this ‘ow't’ rocker comed off t'cradle, and he hadn’t no more gumption than to mak’ a new ‘un out on illerwood (elder wood) without axing the Old Lady’s leave, and in course she didn’t like that, and she came and pinched the wean that outrageous he were a’most black in t’ face; but I bashed un off, and putten an eshen on, and the wean is gallus as owt agin."

But above all the Elder is a tree to be used in cooking. Elderflower and Elderberry wine and cordial are probably the most well known and fragrent Elder-recipes, but alongside these, the plant has many many medicinal benefits and other more obscure culinary uses, one of which, since the Elder is just flowering, I decided to make today...

ELDERFLOWER FRITTERS
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1. On a sunny day, pick a fair few flower heads, leaving long stalks.


2. Beat 1 egg in a bowl.


3. Add 250ml milk and stir.


4. Sift in 200g plain flour whilst stirring. Add a pinch of salt.


5. Dip flower heads into batter (after removing cobwebs and weevils).


6. Plunge battered flowers into a pan of smoking hot oil, a few inches deep, holding onto the stalks until the fritters have turned a golden brown.



7. Serve with a sprinkling of sugar, maple syrup or cinnamon.

For more information about Elder Lore, there's an excellent essay "By Standing Stone and Elden Tree" over at Hedgewychery.
There's more wild foodery and suchlike at Colour it Green where I found the fritter recipe.
And the fritters were delicious!

What I saw by the wayside

AFTER NATURE'S WEDDING when the ground was strewn with petal-confetti, I walked along the road, and delighted in my wild garden by the wayside.

There I saw growing in blue-eyed carpets Germander Speedwell or Jump Up And Kiss Me as they call it across the green sea.



And waving white Cow Parsley, beautiful stalks of lace, with sinister other names: Mother-Die, Stepmother's Blessing the children called it, don't pick it or it will break your mother's heart.



I saw Vetch that clings with wiry tendrils onto things.



And White Dead-nettle pretending to sting.



For gamboling children with a stitch in their side, Stitchwort grew for the piskies to hide.



And Red Campion which they used to call pudding bags on account of their shape.



I saw Goosegrass, or Cleavers, the sticky plant for finding out sweethearts.



And Ground Ivy, all mauve amongst the grass, and bearing the lovely other name Robin-run-in-the-hedge.



Common Mouse-Ear Chickweed or Mouse-ears for making peasant cough syrup grew in little white daintynesses there too.



And escapees from the forest, Bluebells blue.



Dove's Foot Cranesbill, whose roots powdered in claret were thought miraculous against ruptures, danced pinkly there.



And looking out at me from their grassy green sky, two open Daisies: a perfect day's eye.



As the day wandered on I saw yellow tooth-of-lion dent-de-lion Dandelions sending off their seeds.



And I waved off the what-o'clocks as a kiss on the breeze.



Everywhere I went on this wild-flower day, there grew lush confederations of green stingers, which I gathered in gloved hands for tea.


We infused it in a teapot for keeping away the summer sneezing, and we cooked it as greens in our dinner, sharing in an old tradition of using nettles in food.


They are full of iron and delicious in soups too. Nettle tales and lore abound, but I shall share just one here: A New Forest Gypsy in 1952 was recorded as using nettles as a contraceptive. The plant had to be laid inside the man's socks as a sole for 24 hours before his dalliance with his lady!

Tender-handed touch-a-nettle

It'll sting you for your pains

Grasp it like a man of mettle

And it soft as silk remains

Now as I sit here writing, I see that some of these spring flowers have wandered into my spring Crow painting for Melanie.




My bookshelves are full of plantish books, but for wayside identification I cannot recommend highly enough Roger Phillips' Wildflowers of Britain and indeed all the others in his photographic series. For the folkloric side of things, the brilliant Oxford Dictionary of Plant Lore will keep you diverted for hours.

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And there's our growing house... parked by a patch of nettles. Tui is building a roof-rack for bikes and other things (including sitting on summer nights), and a foresty ladder to get up there! Now as he climbs he has to dodge bees, because they too have decided that a house on wheels is the best of all places to live.



And two cuckoos in the trees are cuckoo-echoing, like children singing a round as the shadows get long. And I am off to sit in the evening...