Ashen Faggots Fall Victim to Die-back Disease

The pond-rous ashen faggot from the yard
The jolly farmer to his crowded hall
Conveys with speed; where, on the rising flames
(Already fed with store of massy brands).
It blazes soon; nine bandages it bears,
And as they each disjoin (so custom wills),
A mighty jug of sparkling cyder's brought,
With brandy mixt to elevate the guests.
1795, author unknown.

                                    

                                       

                                          

       A damping day in Shropshire, and I've been out walking along the Roman Road at the far end of the village, and thinking about Christmas. Or, in particular, thinking about the threat to one particular tradition, still carried on in some parts of the country, of burning an Ashen Faggot at Christmas. Because, now we have the Ash Dieback Disease, caused by Chalara Fraxinea fungus, in the country, we’re not allowed to remove any ash wood from any areas where the infection is present, and only allowed to remove it from uninfected areas if we’ve removed all leaves and shoots first, and the shoots are what an ash faggot consists of.

    The tradition is a very old one indeed, though possibly not one the Romans ever indulged in, because it originated with the Norsemen, who held anything to do with Ash trees to be sacred.

    The custom was that a bundle of ash sticks, known as a faggot, was bound with nine green lengths of ash bands, or 'beams', preferably all from the same tree. On Christmas Eve the faggot was put on a fire that had been lit with the remnants of the previous year’s faggot. Everybody would then gather around the hearth watching the faggot burn. The men servants would sit around drinking cider whilst they watched the faggot burning, and as each withy was burned through a new jug of cider was brought out to them to replenish their mugs with. The women who were present, the unmarried ones amongst them anyway, would each choose one of the green bands to be theirs, and the woman who selected the first band to ignite and break would be the next one to get married, they believed. In some places, every time a binding band broke, a quart of cider would be passed around and a toast would be made.

   The Christianised version of the use of ash to celebrate Christmas, was that it was the wood that Mary used to light a fire in order to warm Jesus. In Romany lore it was thought that Jesus was born in a field and that he was kept warm by the heat of an ash fire. The holly, ivy and pine trees hid the infant and were allowed to keep their foliage all year. The oak and the ash, on the other hand, showed where he was hiding and they were condemned to die every winter.

   In the garden, look out for the fragrant, short-tubed, creamy-white flowers, carried above oval dark green leaves, of the spreading semi-evergreen shrub, Lonicera fragrantissima, which flowers during the winter and has red berries in May.