During our first winter in Heath the heavy snows blew and fell on our road, sometimes making it impassible, even for the town plows. During our first spring we began to plant our windbreak. We planted several varieties of conifers in three staggered rows alongside the road to catch the snow. This kept our road from being a giant snowbank. The town crew appreciated it. Oak and Ash and Thorn is a song released by The Longest Johns on June 10th, 2020 along with 11 other songs on their “Cure What Ails Ya” Album.

Positively soaking in flora and fauna with a host of wonderful creatures to guide the Hidden Folk on their way, Harrison presents a call to arms for the young reader to embrace the natural world whatever it looks like and wherever it may be found. There were times when I thought that the narrator trod close to 'telling' rather than 'showing' but the story, characters and sense of place were more than enough to find a balance between that sense of an invitation rather than being a guide who pointed ideologies out to the young reader. But the English are strangely quiet about their deep past; disconnected, embarrassed. It’s a curious thing, for the country is full of living reminders of its mythical history and prehistory, from the green men on the lintels of old churches to maypoles and even Christmas trees. But the English have nothing to rival the Mabinogion. They have no W B Yeats or Dylan Thomas, diverting old myths through new channels. What are the foundation myths of the English? Who are their folk heroes? When they look for a mystical past, why do they turn to the Celts? Where did they come from, who built their landscape? Why are the barrows silent and where have the faeries gone? And so the cycle continues. Because though we have forgotten much in England, we don’t have the option of leaving the past behind. No-one ever does. Weirdly, obtusely, at the margins and from the corners of our eyes, the old myths can still be seen. A hundred years on from Kipling, the long barrow on the ridgeway near White Horse Hill is still known as Wayland’s Smithy; the old smith, it is said, will shoe any horse left there overnight if a coin is placed on the stones. The third day of the week is still Woden’s Day, the green men on the cathedral ceilings receive coats of fresh paint, and every May Day, even now, the strange green dance goes on in crevices and byways while most of the nation is driving to the out-of-town retail park. I really appreciated how the story was written. The descriptions of the wild world, the animals met by the Hidden Folk, etc. were both very precise and true yet whimsical. The song is a cover of Oak and Ash and Thorn by Norfolk folk legend Peter Bellamy, first recorded in 1977. Bellamy’s song is itself an adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s 1906 poem A Tree Song.Cumulus, Burnet und Moss sind Hidden Folk - kleine Naturgeister, die seit Jahrhunderten in einem hohlen Baumstamm inmitten eines verwilderten Gartens leben und sich um Flora und Fauna ihrer unmittelbaren Umgebung kümmern. Doch als ein Frühjahrsunwetter ihr Zuhause zerstört und Cumulus beginnt, durchsichtig zu werden, müssen sich die drei unweigerlich auf eine abenteuerliche Reise aufmachen...

Before the Normans arrived in 1066, and began to unravel the English sense of self at the tip of a sword, everyone in the country would have known the story of Wayland the smith. It’s not a hateful book, but honestly I think it’s pretty vapid. Some sequences are well-imagined, like a flying scene late on. But there’s a lot of fiction out there executing this kind of message and/or the idea of a world of tiny people to much better effect than this. Finally, the third of the sacred circle, the thorn. We use the full name, hawthorn. This tree, Crategeus, is known for its large sharp thorns. However, C. viridis, Green Hawthorn, has few thorns. You can see these thornless trees locally at the Energy Park. The Greeks and Romans associated the hawthorn with weddings and babies. Brides and their attendants carried hawthorn blossoms. These trees were often planted by holy and healing wells in England. Homeopaths consider the hawthorn a powerful medicine and use it for heart tonics.In the 9th Century traditional folk ballad Glasgerion, the eponymous protagonist swears his innocence on the same three trees: In 1855 book Westward Ho! by Charles Kingsley, Sir Richard Grenville likewise swears on the three trees:

Massachusetts has its share of ash trees. We had a row of ash trees on the road to our house in Heath. We saw lightning scars on their bark, proving their power to attract lightning. As a practical note, both ash and thorn, make good, hot, burning firewood. Hawthorn at Energy Park in Greenfield I have also been discovering a lot about my own beliefs through these little characters. Since becoming a parent I have been trying to nurture my inner child and access a long-forgotten part of myself that has faded away with the stress and challenges of being an adult in the modern world. Our reality is already challenging, complex, and dark. The older I get the more I realize, that simple lessons are valuable at all ages, perhaps even most valuable as we get older and are more likely to brush them aside. It feels smug; not inviting readers in to wonder and understand and empathise with this new knowledge. This story is filled with examples of kindness, secure relationships, healthy communication (including disagreements), navigating big/scary feelings, empathy, compassion, unconditional love, as well as respect for the natural world, an interesting look at the personalities and ethos of different animals, and perspective about humanity’s impact on nature.She isn’t overly critical of humans, rather they are portrayed as impressive inventors who are nonetheless blind to the destruction they cause. Harrison encourages ‘noticing’ children (and adults!) to act as best they can to protect the extraordinary, ordinary world around them, before it fades away completely. We can also plan our gardens so that trees will throw their cooling shade on the house, necessitating less air conditioning. The ash tree is the second in the sacred trio. In Norse mythology the Tree of Life, Yggdrasil, which held the nine elements of the cosmos, is referred to as an ash. This tree supports all creatures and represents the cycle of birth, growth, death and rebirth, the forces that make up life’s journey. The belief system outlined in this book has shown me exactly what I have been yearning to reconnect with, and is essentially the framework for how I would like to live and raise my children to think and act.