For #ThickTrunkTuesday an old red oak friend. All those trees in the background that look so skinny? They’re not. This oak, already old, was the central tree when this area was a picnic grove in the 1800s and very early 1900s. When it stopped being used for picnics other trees grew and shaded its wide branches so they fell off. Their remains are on the ground around the tree’s base. Owls eat in its branches and raccoons use it as a landmark. It is a grand old being. #tree #oak #nature

#WyrdWednesday #LegendaryWednesday: `Holme II is centred on two #oak logs laid flat. Adjacent to Holme I, the ring is dated to the same year.
For Holme II University of Aberdeen researcher Dr David Nance points to legends of ‘sacred kings’ described in #IronAge Ireland and northern Britain who were sacrificed if misfortune fell on the community, as happened at Holme-next-the-sea, in an attempt to appease the goddess of Venus to restore harmony.
He said: “Evidence suggests that they were ritually-sacrificed every eight years at #Samhain (now Halloween) coincident with the eight-year cycle of Venus.
The fixtures in Holme II that were thought to hold a coffin, are orientated towards sunrise on Samhain in 2049 when Venus was still visible.
Holme I and II are best explained as having different functions and associated rituals, but with a common intent: to end the severely cold weather.`
Source: https://www.abdn.ac.uk/news/23205
Here’s more on „Seahenge“: https://hear-me.social/@NeuKelte/116290009970069017

#WyrdWednesday #LegendaryWednesday: `The circle „Holme I“, consisting of an upturned tree-stump surrounded by 55 closely fitted #oak posts, was originally built on the saltmarsh away from the sea and specialists estimate it to have been built of timbers dating from the spring of 2049 BC.
Dr David Nance explains: “Dating of the Seahenge timbers showed they were felled in the spring, and it was considered most probable that these timbers were aligned with sunrise on the summer solstice.
He suggests that its function was to mimic the ‘pen’ described in folklore for an unfledged cuckoo with the intention to keep the bird singing and thereby extend the summer.
“Summer solstice was the date when according to folklore the cuckoo, symbolising fertility, traditionally stopped singing, returned to the Otherworld and the summer went with it,’ Dr Nance added.
“The monument’s form appears to imitate two supposed winter dwellings of the cuckoo remembered in folklore: a hollow tree or ‘the bowers of the #Otherworld’ represented by the upturned oak-stump at its centre.
“This ritual is remembered in the ‘myth of the pent cuckoo’ where an unfledged cuckoo was placed into a thorn bush and the bird was ‘walled-in’ to extend the summer but it always flew away.”
Source: https://www.abdn.ac.uk/news/23205

Street Art by Oakoak in Avignon, France (2 photos)

Oakoak in Avignon, France.

https://streetartutopia.com/2024/03/03/street-art-by-oakoak-in-avignon-france-2-photos/

A mighty oak tree on the shore of an ancient lake #tree #lake #nature #naturephotography #spring #oak