The W G Hoskins Lecture 2007

‘Woodlands in myth and Legend’ presented by Dr. Della Hooke.

The Eighteenth Hoskins Lecture

30 June 2007

This year the 18th Hoskins’ Lecture took place on the 30 June and coincided with the University of Leicester’s ‘Homecoming Weekend’. Good number of Friends were present and their eagerness to buy meant that our annual book sale raised over £400.

The guest lecturer was Dr Della Hooke. Dr Hooke is familiar name to all students and graduates of the Centre for her many publications. She was introduced by our Chairman, Pam Fisher. Dr Hooke is an Honorary Fellow of the University of Birmingham, Institute of Advanced Research and Editor for the Society of Landscape Studies. She has published widely on the Anglo-Saxon landscape and charter boundaries, particularly across Wessex and Mercia, including the counties of Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Herefordshire, Shropshire, Devon and Cornwall. Her most recent publication (2006) is ‘The English Landscape: the West Midlands‘, in the English Heritage series.

The first myth that Dr Dela Hooke exploded was that England had been covered by a ‘wild wood’ at any historical time. The clearing of forest and the management of surviving woodland was well advanced by the Bronze Age. Dr Hooke then gave an overview of the uses of woodland in the medieval and modern periods, well illustrated with a series of slides. Woodlands were used for seasonal grazing, which encouraged regeneration of trees. It resulted in a landscape of open woodland, with stands of mature trees interspersed with glades and clearings. She felt that the Anglo-Saxon leāh originally meant an extensive area of wood pasture, not just a clearing. Likewise haga boundaries suggested some form of game reserve, long before the Norman Forest Law. Woodland was exploited not just for pasture and for game preservation, but for timber too. Trees were felled, pollarded and coppiced for a wide variety of purposes, including building and fuel. Ironically, industrialisation preserved the forests through its increasing demand for charcoal for smelting.

Then Dr Hooke turned to the cultural meaning of woodland. It was seen as a wilderness; not necessarily a place of desolation, but somewhere remote from daily experience, only periodically approached and then with some trepidation. Forests were liminal places. For early European Christians the woods, wastes and fens were the equivalent of the biblical desert, places of separation and trial. Men such as St Guthlac withdrew to such places and many abbeys, like Great and Little Malvern, claimed to have been founded on the sites of hermitages. Symbols of the forest were brought into abbeys, churches and cathedrals in the profusion of naturalistic carving of leaves and trees. The well- known figure of the Green Man, his open mouth giving access to the soul, was used as a Christian symbol, even if borrowed from earlier times.

Many other mythical characters were associated with woods, especially in their guise as hunting grounds. This is true of Welsh legends, such as the tale of Pwyll and the Cwn Annwn [hounds of Annwn, Lord of Winter] and in Saxon legends such as Herne the Hunter. Not all creatures connected with forests were entirely mythical, for wolves did exist, but also attracted many legends and supernatural aspects to themselves. They were associated with the devil and represented violence and force. Many ‘wolf’ place names occur in Anglo-Saxon charter boundaries and later, though Professor Phythian-Adams, during questions, suggested that some of these may refer to human outlaws, bearing the mask of the wolf, rather than to the animals themselves. There were more pleasurable associations with hunting and the ‘merry greenwood’ in the tales of Robin Hood and many songs celebrating spring and summer in the wood.

The iconography of individual trees is very rich in many cultures. Not just the woodland, but individual trees are seen to have spirits. Where early Christians were able to appropriate sacred springs and wells, trees could not be seen to compete with the one true ‘tree’ or cross. The one tree that does seem to have taken on some Christian symbolism is the yew, which was given connotations of resurrection. In some early charters there are references to ‘holy ash’ and ‘holy oak’ trees, though it is not clear what was meant by this. Trees, being large and long-lived, were often used as boundary markers in charters and as hundredal meeting places. Over three hundred thorn trees are so used in surviving charters, three times as many as oaks. Oaks were sacred in many traditions and associated with strength. The ash was regarded as almost as powerful as the oak, connected with rebirth, new life and having healing powers. Hawthorn, or ‘magic may’ was more ambivalent and had to be approached carefully. In Ireland it was believed to be able ot cause death or loss of money. The elder was the tree most associated with witches. It was a tree of doom or death but could also have healing powers. The rowan, or quicken tree, was planted as a defence against witches and in the 17th century the wood was used for the yokes of plough oxen.

After a fascinating metaphorical ramble through the wood, we were all ready to repair to No 1 Salisbury Road for tea and cakes and the usual book sale.

From an original report by Sylvia Pinches