Crack the whip

I’ve walked up this pathway a thousand times, I’ve photographed the trees before: their mistletoe baubles, pollarded boughs, the shards of trunks struck by lightning – I’ve even shared them on these pages.  But every time I walk this way I swear I see something different.  Once it seemed to be a ghostly shape emerging from the mist.  Another time, a leaf was magically suspended in mid-air, twirling and spinning for ages without visible means of support until I realised it must be hanging from the finest thread of spider’s silk.  This is the place just to observe and when you do, you simply never know what you’ll find.

And that’s how, as I walked up there a couple of days ago, I came across the devil.

Although distant, he caught my eye immediately.  Why haven’t I seen him here before?  I can only assume he is also a shape-shifter, his form ever changing as the wind and the rain and the sun sculpt his features each week, each month.  But the moment I saw him, I recognized him, from this:

19th Century illustration

Well, actually, more from this:

My photo below doesn’t do him justice but, believe me, he had perfect white eyes, small dark horns and the bulbous hindquarters of the Sabbatic goat.  And then there's that whip - the way he was wielding that whip!

I walked around him very cautiously, and came home with my soul intact.  Dare I go up there again tomorrow and see what has become of him, though?  Perhaps by then he will have changed form once more, and all I’ll find is benign old broken tree stump sprouting a long, thin branch.

Bauhaus: Lagartija Nick

The lightning tree

Some years ago I was studying part-time in Cambridge, which meant driving there once a week.  The 30 mile trip was along quite a dull route, nothing very picturesque or interesting about it - except for one particular thing which I looked forward to seeing every time, especially on my outbound journey when it was close and on my side of the road.  It was my lovely lightning tree.

It’s lost several branches and boughs in the interim years but it’s still there.  Now it looks like this: 

I know it probably doesn’t look very special here – it’s so much more blunt and stumpy than it used to be (that sign is new too) -  but what was marvellous about seeing it on my travels, apart from its former spikiness, was the way that it appeared so different every time.  I think it was something to do with the constantly changing nature of its backdrop.  Some early mornings the tree would loom out of the mist, its pointed fingers seeming to pierce through it.  On sunny days the bark would take on a bright, silvery sheen, creating a striking contrast to the wash of a vast blue sky.  On dark Winter mornings everything seemed to be in monochrome, an impression enhanced further by huge black crows perched on every limb.  Each variation in the light and time of day gave this tree a transitional quality, sometimes nuanced, sometimes dramatic; never the same twice.

It wasn’t just the sky backdrop which set the scene so beautifully for this central character, it was the position of the pylon behind it too. At a certain distance and angle they lined up perfectly - just for one split second - the pylon dwarfing the tree yet somehow mimicking it at the same time; their shapes not that dissimilar really.  They seemed so connected, not only visually but metaphorically too - united by electricity, signifying the death of one and the life of the other.

Ah, I loved that ever-changing picture on permanent display on the A1307.  It was the highlight of my weekly commute - so special to me that I honestly wished I could have been stuck in traffic more often.

From the other side of the road

Talking of lightning trees, remember this?

The Settlers: The Lightning Tree (theme from 'Follyfoot' 1971)

Treetime

Out walking today between the long line of trees that lead up to a manor house, I was struck by the beautiful shapes created by their previous pollarding.  Many of the enlarged stumpy ends of boughs from which the spindly new growths spring at awkward angles resembled animal heads.  I could see pigs with their blunt snouts and narrow eyes, cattle with flared nostrils and deer with fantastical antlers, entwined and knotted with mistletoe.  I wished I could capture them with my camera, but I knew the effect would be lost.  These imaginary creatures wouldn't survive the flatness of photography.

But I took pictures of the trees anyway.

Apart from zooming in against the light here, no special effects were needed.  I think of those marbled pictures you can make by pouring ink on oily water, or the result of blowing paint across paper with a straw.

I love this tree - surely some kind of monster:

But I also love how black and white can create a certain spookiness

It seems fitting that some scenes from 'Witchfinder General' were filmed right here.

Like a butchered animal carcass this trunk looks as if it's been cleaved in two:

And finally...