Subject: (urth) Peace: The elm tree planted by Eleanor Bold

From: Russell Wodell <hse at telus.net>
Date: Sat, 23 Mar 2002 17:52:26 +0000

This is going a long way back to the list discussion of PEACE, but I ran
across the following in Everyman's Encyclopaedia of Gardening and was
forcibly reminded of the tree on Weer's grave:

"Danger in Elms. It is known that elms of fifty years old and upwards are
dangerous, as they have a habit of casting their branches. this is
immortalized in an old verse:

Ellum, she hateth
mankind and waiteth
Till every breeze be still
To drop a limb
On the head of him
Who doubeth her sovereign will."

And further on:

"The common belief that Elm wood is of little use except for coffins is
ill-founded.... The wood is not of the best for fuel, although perhaps
hardly deserving such severe condemnations as:

Elm wood burns like churchyard mould,
E'en the very flames are cold.

Fallen elms, however, do not attract even the poorest of fuel-seekers, as
the boles are hard to saw up."

This all seems very vulpine.

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