Logs, trees and London Boroughs

 A cold and frosty day in Shropshire. Too cold and frosty to be doing anything much outside today, even if I hadn’t succumbed to the village bug a few days ago.

When I was a boy gardener working for a variety of London Boroughs over the years, and wasn’t suffering from a village bug, winter was when you abandoned the parks to carry out work on the trees in the local streets.

Nowadays I tend to get the logs I burn to keep the house warm in winter already cut to size and barn dried, so they burn well.

When I was working for local authorities, and burning the logs I gathered during the course of my work to make the coal last longer, what I burned was dictated by what trees were growing in the streets there and none of the authorities I worked for at the time had ever planted Ash or Beech, generally considered to be the trees which produce the hottest burning logs.

There were large London Planes, planted around the turn of the twentieth century, which had thick branches requiring regular pollarding and lopping to keep them under control. The logs they produced were heavy and smoked a lot.

There were also Lime Trees, which were planted after the Second World War and hadn’t got big enough to produce very big logs in any volume at the time. Not enough to do more than mix them in with your other logs and not really know how they added to, or detracted from, their burning.

After the onslaught of Dutch Elm Disease in the 1960s, there were any number of Elm tree logs to be had, and they didn’t burn too badly as long as the supply lasted. Eventually though, there were no more standing elms left to cut down. The ones which had been standing dead the longest before being cut down burned quite well as a result.

In the garden, look out for a tree planted as a street tree in one London Borough, in Chiswick, I believe, though it wasn’t at all suitable really. Adding a touch of the exotic when it was, though. Robinia pseudoacacia, the False acacia, or Locust. A fast growing deciduous tree, with dark green leaves made up of oval leaflets and dense drooping clusters of pea-like white flowers borne in late spring and early summer. It also had thorns as I recall. Large ones.

                                                                    

Drug Induced Contact With The Spirit World

Columbus, when he had completed the first of his four epic voyages with the aid of an inaccurate world map drawn up by the ancient Greek geographer Ptolemy, returned to Spain, convinced that he had discovered, "the end of the east". His companions, judging by the accounts they wrote afterwards, may rather have believed themselves to have dropped out of their own world and into some kind of hell.

They had found a primitive people using a vast array of plant drugs: Cohoba (Piptadenia peregrine - the ground seeds of which are used as a narcotic snuff); Coca (Erythroxylum coca from which cocaine is extracted); Peyotl (Lophophora williamsfi, the dried crowns of which were chewed by the Indians for the hallucinatory effect of the drug anhalonine); certain species of mushroom, Datura arborea, the leaves of which were smoked by priests who believed the plant to be divine; Datura candida, a decoction of the leaves of which was drunk during ancient religious rites to induce prolonged delirium; Ololiuqui (Rivea corymbosa - the seeds of which are used as a hallucinatory drug); Caapi (Banisteriopsis caapi), which is cultivated for the leaves and young stems from which a hallucinatory beverage is obtained); and many others, of which Tobacco (Nicotiana rustica) was the most common.

None of the plants was known in Europe at the time, nor was the use to which they were most generally put - that of inducing a mild, trancelike state from which individuals would emerge to tell tales of having attended the councils of the gods. Divine substances were no longer a feature of the more advanced religions by this time. The people of Columbus' New World, however, took the concept seriously indeed.

DRUG INDUCED CONTACT WITH THE SPIRIT
WORLD

Though the drugs in question might also be in daily use for recreational purposes, if what they were being taken for was their visionary qualities, then there were certain rules by which the user had to abide. For one thing, an intoxicant was only to be imbibed by, or under the direct supervision of, a medicine man and experienced interpreter of visions. These glimpses of a world which occupied a different plane of reality from our own were by courtesy of the spirits who inhabited them and had access to sources of information unavailable to man.

The chronicler Gonzalvo Fernando d'Oviedo y Valdez wrote of the Indians of Hispaniola (present day Haiti), that they had secret means of putting themselves in touch with spirits whenever they wished to predict the future. A priest from any one of a number of small desert communes would be summoned and arrive with two of his disciples, who would have in their possession a flask filled with a mysterious drink. Seating himself between the disciples, one of whom would constantly be ringing a small bell, the priest would partake of the drink, which would shortly send him into a convulsive and sharply painful ecstasy from which loss of consciousness would eventually free him. It was at this point that the querist would put the question, to which the spirit replied through the mouth of the inspired man.

SPANISH REACTION TO THE USE OF DRUGS

The Spanish chroniclers had no doubts at all concerning the accuracy of the information collected. They were quite prepared to believe that sorcerers (curanderos they called them) could surrender themselves to a state of second sight after eating the toadstools which they named Teonanactl (Panaeolus campanulatus var. sphinctrinus), or "Flesh of God". They had witnessed the utilisation of the process to discover items which had been lost or stolen, or even to successfully track down runaway wives. What worried them about it was the belief that such visions could only possibly occur as a result of diabolic possession. since God was hardly likely to have allowed the wielding of such a valuable power to rest solely in the hands of this heathen race.

Diego Duran, in his account of the coronation of Montezuma II in 1502, describes the outcome of woodland fungi being administered to the guests when, "some became so intoxicated that they lost their senses and committed suicide. Others had visions during which the future was revealed to them, the Devil speaking to them while they were in this drunken state."

PREHISTORIC RITES

For just how many centuries this parlance with god or devil had been taking place no one is able to say for certain, even now, though it does seem to have been the practice in that part of the world for a very long time. Effigies of toadstools about 25cm tall found in Guatemala some years ago were thought at first to be phallic symbols, until the discovery of a connection with ancient rites involving hallucinogenic fungi caused that opinion to be revised. Below the stalks of the stone fungi are carved figures of men and animals and, on one of them, a toad. The statuettes have been dated to around 500 BC. That the practice had not rested in that ancient world was instantly apparent to Columbus and his peers. Nor was it eradicated during their era, despite the fierce, and often brutal opposition of the Christian Church to its continuation. There is an account of a ceremony which was witnessed in Mazatec country in quite modern times.

For more information read either Gardens of the Gods, by Brian Taylor, available as a hardback book from Amazon, recently given five stars by a satisfied reader, or its e-book version, Sacred Plants of the World from Neanderthal Times until the Present Day available from Amazon Kindle. 

William Randall and Mary Brown of Stotfold

   William Randall, born at Harlington on 13^th March 1796, married Sarah Smith at Sundon on 5^th October 1817, and set up home there. They had a son, James, baptised on 31^st January 1819. Nine months later William was doing a month’s hard labour at Bedford Old House of Correction for a Misdemeanour in Husbandry. He was committed 0n 16^th September 1819, and released on 13^th October.

In 1822 William Randall, aged 26, five feet eight inches tall, with brown hair and a fresh complexion, turned Kings Evidence when committed at Bedford County Gaol on 8^th March for stealing wheat and got off without sentence. The prisoner was described as orderly.

      In 1826 a daughter, Hannah, was added to the family and in 1841, at the time of the Census, William Randule, wife, Sarah, and daughter, Hannah, 15, were living together at Sundon. James was obviously elsewhere.

Somewhere around 1845 William opened some dyeing works at his home – the first in the country dedicated to servicing the straw plait industry on a large scale. Black, a very poor brown and dark blue, were the only colours available at first, but Thomas Lye, who moved to the area from Yorkshire shortly afterwards, added a grey, and then the invention of aniline dyes revolutionized the whole process.

William 53, was described as a Dyer in the next Census in 1851 and he and Sarah could afford a servant, Daphne Perry and an apprentice, William Faulkner. Next door, also a dyer, was son, James, 33, and his wife, Jane, with twins, Hannah and William, 13, daughters Sarah Ann, 6, and Mary Ann, 2, and son, James, 1.

In 1859 William, now described as with grey hair, sallow complexion and proportionate features, a straw dyer able to read and write, was committed to the debtors cells at Bedford County Gaol for ten days by the Sheriff’s Court on 28^th June for owing Frederick Allen £46.11s. 10d. It didn’t say who Frederick Allen was. William was discharged on 18^th August.

In 1861 William was committed to the Debtors Cells at Bedford County Gaol for twenty-one days by Luton County Court on 29^th November for owing Cyrus Fordham, a coal merchant, £18.9s.6d. He was discharged on 12^th April1862.

In 1861, at the time of the Census, Sarah had been home alone at Sundon, because William was away visiting his other family, and his other woman, Mary Brown, at Stotfold, on the other side of the county. Not that Sarah knew that. And she probably remained ignorant of it until her death, which was recorded during the January – March period of 1863.

Mary Brown had been baptized at Arlsey, Bedfordshire, on 9^th September 1827, the daughter of labourer, Richard Brown and his wife, Sarah.

In 1841 she was living with her family in Arlsey. Richard was a straw dealer now. There was also brother, Richard, 22, sisters Sarah, 20, Betsy, 15, Fanny, 11, and Louisa, 5, and another brother, Amos, 8.

Mary’s mother, Sarah, had died by the time of the 1851 Census. Father, Richard, still a straw dealer, was living with son, Amos, 18, and daughter, Louisa, 15, who were both described as his assistants. Eldest brother, Richard, who had married another Mary, was living with her in his own home in Arlsey and being described as a straw factor. Sister Mary was living with them and being described as a straw plaiter.

In 1861 Richard Brown, now described as being past work, was living with youngest son, Amos, a straw cutter , wife, Emma, and daughter, Sarah Elizabeth, 4 months old. Eldest son, Richard, and his wife, Mary don’t appear in this, or any subsequent censuses, so there’s no saying what became of them.

Mary Brown moved to Stotfold, about two miles away from Arlsey in the opposite direction to Pirton, and still in Bedfordshire, and, though lacking a husband, began having children there in 1852, when her first child, daughter, Hannah, was born. Mary was 25 at the time, and William Randall, if he was their father, was 56.

 William Randall Brown, born at Stotfold on 9^th February 1853, was baptised there on 2^nd October 1856; James Brown born on 19^th September 1854, baptised Stotfold 2^nd October 1856; Randall Brown born on 6^th September 1856, baptised Stotfold 2^nd October 1856; Edwin Randall Brown, baptised Stotfold 20^th January 1859; Arthur Headley Brown born 26^th January 1860, baptised Stotfold  22^nd February 1860; Frederick Brown born 1862, baptised 10^th April 1870, Arlsey; Elizabeth Brown born 1862, baptised Arlsey 10^th April 1870; Francis born 24^th September 1865;  Minnie born 1867, baptised Arlsey 10^th April 1870; Joseph baptised Arlsey 10^th April 1870. Eleven children in all, of whom only the last three were actually registered under the name of Randall.

Whoever the father was, the ones registered as Brown should have gone through life bearing that name. William Randall, may or may not have been the father of some or all of them. The first girl Mary had had been named Harriet, the same as William’s legitimate daughter and of the first two boys, William was named that for obvious reasons, and James, given the same name as William’s legitimate son. Despite the children having no father’s name given when they were registered, William can definitely be linked with Mary Brown as the father of her children, because he made the mistake of visiting her on the day the 1861 Census enumerator was in town.

In the 1861 Census, surrounded by her children, with a servant, Maryann Saunder, 17, and with William Randole, straw plait dyer there described as a visitor, Mary was described as a widow. It was the only time William’s true place of birth was given in any of the censuses. Probably because he had no part in the recording of it. Following the wrong William Randall from the place of birth given on other censuses – Toddington -  had led me astray for a long time when I first started  researching my family history.

How they had managed their double life for so many years is impossible to say. Or what Mary’s friends and relatives thought about it, because they must have known even if William’s next of kin didn’t. His job probably meant he had to travel a lot, but how many times he visited her in a year is also impossible to say. Or if all her children were also William’s, despite his name not being on the birth certificate. Or if she sometimes had other lovers besides him. The Headley family, for instance, were rich and powerful and lived just over the border in Cambridgeshire. Closer to Stotfold than William Randall was living in Sundon. Was Arthur Headley named after a father who was part of that family, not a Randall?

Mary brown married William Randall at Stotfold on September 11^th 1864. Eighteen months after his wife’s death. She was described as a single woman, and her father as deceased, which he might have been by then.

In 1871, living at Hitchen Road, Arlsey, to where Mary had returned before son, Francis, was born there in 1865, were William Randall, retired straw plait dyer and wife , Mary, a straw plaiter, along with offspring who had all had the surname Brown in earlier censuses, given the surname Randall in this one.

It was the last appearance in any census of James, Randall and Edwin who, whichever of the surnames they chose to go by, vanished off the face of the earth from that day on as far as censuses were concerned. Along with father, William, but he had the excuse of having been buried at Arlsey on 29^th January 1872. After enjoying married life with his new wife a mere five years.

Eldest son, William, did go by the name of Randall because he moved to Yorkshire where he became a timber yard foreman in Leeds, his eldest son, Harry, being born there in 1877.  William’s youngest brother, Joseph, followed eventually and was lodging with William and his family in 1891. He too became a timber yard foreman and had a wife and a son of his own by 1901.

In 1881 Mary Randall, widow, 55, straw plater born in Arlsey, was back in Stotfold at 135 Asylum Road. As well as son, Joseph, a scholar, living with her there, there was daughter, Minnie, a straw plaiter, and other sons, Alfred and Francis. Both carpenter’s labourers.

Mary was buried at Arlsey on 24^th July 1886 aged 59. In 1901 Francis was a general labour living at Newington, London with wife, Lizzie Ellen, 30. Frederick Randall was a journeyman painter in Luton living with wife, Alice a shirt machinest on her own account at home and daughter Elsie, 4. Minnie married John Pike a cement labourer on the railway and they had children James Marion and Reginald. In 1891 the census recorded Minnie and the fort two of her children visiting brother, Arthur and his wife, Harriet, and son, James in Willesden. 

Grass cutting blues

A sunny day in Shropshire and, despite last night’s frost, I’ve just been out in the garden cutting the grass. Something which I really didn’t want to be doing in February.

In the far off days when I worked for a local authority and had responsibility for sports turf of all kinds, one thing we tried to avoid doing at any cost, was starting the grass cutting season too early. Cutting grass for the first time in the year seems to stimulate it into even more growth for a while, as if it is trying to make up for the growth you’ve just cut off.

Grass needs a temperature below 5c in order to stop growing and it needs a winter average of night time temperatures well below that for it to fall into a state of dormancy. Last year there were far too many nights when the temperature was well above that in October and November – some nights almost double that cut off point – and too many in  December too. And it was very wet as well.

Another condition which will drive grass into dormancy is drought – hence the lack of growth during the summer of 1976 – though the brown lawns a lot of people were faced with then all recovered when the rain returned. Though last September and October included a lot of dry days, November and December included a lot which were very wet as well as too warm. Hence me having to be out cutting my grass this morning.

In the garden, if the soil in that garden is inclined towards being acid, look out for Fothergilla major, which has very striking, scented, petal-less creamy white flower heads made up solely of stamens, which are carried in spring on a multi-stemmed medium-sized shrub. The oval, 4 inch long glossy dark green leaves turn scarlet and orange in autumn.

Fungus Foray

Woodland walking, pleasant at any time of the year, can offer a bonus to the discerning Autumn rambler. A time of fiery red and brilliant yellow leaves, it is also the season when some of the more interesting of the three thousand or so species of larger British fungi are most likely to be seen.

Hidden amidst the leaf litter, or enjoying the dappled sunshine of a leafy glade, they are easily overlooked, however, unless a par­ticularly damp Summer has lingered on into a mild September and October. Then by a dramatic increase in size and abundance they make their presence known.

I can recall one such season in birch woods near Ashbridge in Hertfordshire, when I came upon a circle of Fly Agaric (Amanita virosa), each at least two feet tall, with red-spotted caps as many feet across. So striking to look at in fact, that I half expected a band of pixies to emerge from a grassy knoll behind me and take their seats.

They would have been wise not to nibble the upholstery had they done so though. The garish coloured species owes its common name to its thirteenth century role as a fly killer.

More common are the Russulas, which come in pur­ple, green, scarlet, yellow, cream and violet shades, some of which are edible, some of which, quite definitely are not. The apricot scented Chanterelle (Cantharellus cibarius), a delicious funnel shaped fungi found in mixed woodlands is yellow to orange apricot. The Wood Blewit (Lepista nuda), also extremely edible, is lilac to reddish violet in colour.

Puffballs, so named because they are cylindrical, and filled with millions of spores, which puff out like clouds of smoke if you touch them when they are ripe, come in various sizes. The largest reported specimen of the Giant puff­ball (Lycoperdon giganteum) was reputedly mistaken for a sheep when seen in New York State in 1877. A more normal size is about the circumference of a man's head though, again after a wet summer, I have seen them much bigger.

The slightly flattened while to yellowish spore mass has been claimed as a forerunner of the football, though its comparative fragility would seem to make that unlikely. Ripe spores were used by early physicians to cauterize wounds, however, and by country people for tinder both for kindling and to make smoke for handling bees. A young fungus is said to be delicious when divided into steaks and fried.

The Shaggy cap (Coprinus comatus) on the other hand, is better stewed or baked but only in its juvenile state. With age the tall, white, lawyers wig cap turns to an indigestible black, oily, consistency. Books usually give their habitat as grassland where soil has recently been disturbed, but whenever I have come upon it, the shaggy cap has been in clusters under trees on the fringes of light woodland.

     When eating this fungi it is a wise precaution to keep the wine bottle tightly corked as it con­tains a substance which reacts with alcohol in the body to cause nausea.

    No such problems with (Boletus edulis), which has a rich, toasted brown cap reminis­cent of a penny bun – its common name. Found predominately in the heavier shade of beech woods, it can be eaten fresh or used dried as seasoning.

A friend of mine who was incurably addicted to Boletes once got me to take her to woodlands near Maidstone where another friend had told her that they grew. I wasn't surprised when we came away empty handed though. Knowledge of such sites is generally too jealously guarded to be so easily passed on. Their whereabouts is the sort of secret an enthusiast is prepared to take with them to the grave.

Just as the Roman Emperor Claudius did with a few secrets of his own, though in his case not inten­tionally, and not ones concerning the where­abouts of certain larger fungi.  The fungus he was poisoned by is one which is extremely poisonous, but also fortunately, extremely rare in Britain, the Destroying Angel (Amanita virosa), which closely resembles young specimens of the Field Mushroom (Agraricus campestris) and has sometimes been eaten in mistake for them, with fatal results. I have only seen it once, several years ago, growing under birches in mixed woodland. Not the type of habitat from which I would expect to gather Field Mushrooms, yet it was only the white gills on the underside of the cap (mushrooms have grey, pink, or dark brown gills) and the volva at the base of the stem, which finally con­vinced me that here was a much more deadly species.

 Claudius was poisoned by it, not by accident, but by his wife, the Empress Agrippina, who prepared him a meal containing the fungus, when she felt that it was time for her son, Nero, to take over the throne. I have used the fungus and its properties in the plot of my latest murder mystery, available from Amazon Kindle as an e-book, The Body in the Woods.

Not that a fungus has to closely resemble a Mushroom for it to be eaten in mistake for one. Death Caps (Amanita phalloides), such as those I saw grow­ing under beeches near Cranleigh in Surrey, have greenish olive caps with white rings and gills, and a sickly sweet smell, yet are rep­resentative of a species accounting for ninety per cent of all fungus-induced deaths. Deaths which, in Britain at least, result from mistaken identity rather than experimentation.

A pity then that all fungi aren't as immedi­ately recognizable as Fly Agaric? Or a pity that more people don't take the time and trouble to learn to distinguish the different species for themselves?

Varying characteristics, habitats and seasons are, after all, as marked between fungi as they are between trees, grasses or orchids. It is only through observation that the separate identities of any of them begin to emerge.

 

                                                  

 

           

                                                            Destroying Angel fungus

 

 

 

 

Tree and earth oracles

The belief that certain trees contained a divine essence, for whatever reason, was one which was commonly held by ancient man. To prehistoric communities, already in awe of the natural phenomena of the world around them, it was no less believable that the rustlings and movements of the branches of a tree were caused by the god who dwelt within, than that the sun should fall out of sight every night, only to reappear on the opposite horizon the following dawn. When reputably wise men claimed to be able to interpret the meanings of those movements, the concept of natural oracles was born.

EARTH ORACLES

The earliest were the earth oracles, and the part played by natural fissures, springs and trees in the ceremonies connected with them grew from their closeness to the earth.

The most famous oracle of antiquity, at Delphi, was situated at the opening of a natural cleft of rock, believed at that time to be the centre of the earth, and was originally presided over by the great earth-mother Gaia. The shrine was later dedicated to Apollo - hence its association with the Laurel, Laurus nobilis, which once grew in the cleft, for, in the legend, the nymph Diane turned into a Laurel tree rather than succumb to the advances of the god.

Another famous oracle, that of Trophonius at Lebadea, near Mount Helicon in Boeotia, was modelled on the idea of descent into the underworld.

The antiquity of this conception is found in an account of the initiation of an angur on a Babylonian tablet now in the British Museum. He was made to descend into an artificial imitation of the lower world, where he beheld "altars amidst the waters, the treasures of Anu, Bel and Ea, the tablets of the gods, the delivery of the oracle of heaven and earth and the Cedar tree, the beloved of the great gods."

TREE ORACLES

Here tree and earth oracles are seen in conjunction, but tree divinity goes back still further than that. In a bilingual text of a much earlier date we are told of, "the cedar tree, the tree that shelters the power of the incubus, upon whose core is recorded the name of Ea" (the god of wisdom).

There are several allusions to oracular trees in the Bible. The Tree of Knowledge was obviously intended to be one, and the fact that God spoke to Moses from a burning bush could be taken to indicate as being fairly common the idea of trees as means of divine revelation. A holy tree near Shechem was called "the oak tree of the fortune tellers" in Judges 9:37 and "the sacred tree of Moreh" in Genesis 12:6 and Deuteronomy 11:30.

The prophetess Deborah gave her responses under a Palm near Bethel, which was said to be marking the grave of Rachel; and David, asking God for an indication of the right moment to attack the Philistines, received His sign in "the sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry trees."

The oracle of the Pelasgic Zeus at Dodona in Epirus took the form of a very ancient tree contained within a sacred grove of Oaks. The responses of the deity who dwelt there were interpreted from the rustling of branches, the murmur of a sacred spring welling forth at its foot, or the drawing of oracle lots from an urn kept at the foot of it.

The origin of the practice is lost in the mists of time now, but it is known to have predated the dedication of the shrine to Zeus. Herodotus claims the authority of priestesses at Dodona and priests at Thebes for an account of the kidnapping by Phoenicians of two women from the temple at Thebes. Sold into separate slavery - one into Libya and the other into Greece - the women were obviously induced to give up the secret knowledge they had, for the concept of earth oracles followed them to their new homes.

The oracle of Zeus-ammon which was established in the Libyan desert was also vested in an ancient tree. That at Dodona was said to have lasted until the fourth century AD, when it was reputed to be two thousand years old. During the earlier period of its deification, it was frequently adorned with wreaths and fillets, a practice common in Egypt, where sacred trees such as Sycamore and Palm (Phoenix dactylifera) were also decorated in this way. Excavation at the site during the last century revealed lead tablets inscribed with questions addressed to the god by his votaries c. 400 BC.

THE DELPHIC ORACLE

Of all the oracles of the ancient world, however, none is better documented than that at Delphi.

According to legend, its properties were discovered when gas which emerged from a cleft in a regular stream caused convulsions in a number of goats grazing nearby. A goatherd who went to their rescue was also affected and went into a trance, during which he uttered words which were individually clear, but meaningless when strung together.

The prophet was always a woman - the Pythia. The earliest holders of the office were virgins of noble birth and good od appearance, but, after a Pythia had been seduced in the sacred cave, the qualifications were revised and subsequent incumbents were as old and unattractive as possible.

Consulting the Delphic oracle was an expensive business, usually beyond the pockets of the ordinary people. Once a year, however, the Pythia would leave the sanctuary and allow the poor to consult her on the temple steps, without any of the trimmings for which the richer people paid.

What the latter got for their money always began with the ritual purification of the Pythia, who was then escorted by priests to the chamber where the omphalos was situated. There a goat was sprinkled with holy water, and if it shivered in a prescribed fashion the auspices were considered favourable and the ritual was allowed to continue. Dressed in her sacred robe and crowned with Laurel, the Pythia would descend deep into the sanctuary, where she inhaled the vapours and chewed Bay leaves, to increase the hallucinogenic action. Then, as incense burned, the Pythia sat and awaited the visitation of the god, with a priest on hand to interpret the enigmatic message for the client who waited outside the sanctuary.

Delphi survived for at least eight hundred years, and the fact that its power eventually waned and its prophecies became inaccurate seems to argue that the opposite was once the case.

Even Cicero, who was a noted sceptic, said of Delphi that it could, "never have been so overwhelmed with so many important offerings from monarchs and nations if all the ages had not proved the truth of its oracles". The philosopher Heraclitus took a more jaundiced view, however, saying that, "the god of Delphi neither reveals nor conceals but hints", a charge later levelled at the similarly vague prophecies of Nostradamus.

The decline of the oracles set in by the second century AD. The Romans retained something of the idea, with a prophetic Ilex grove (Ilex aquifolium - the common Holly) on the Aventine Hill, sacred to Faunus and Picus, and a grove oracle dedicated to Faunus at Tibur, beside the Albumean Spring, but they lacked the reputation and the status of the earlier ones.

The oracle of Jupiter at Preneste harked back to an earlier period of history. Here oracle lots were fashioned from the wood of a sacred Oak, in a practice which was common throughout the ancient world, when Scythian soothsayers divined by the use of a number of rods which they placed on the ground, uttering predictions as they gathered them up again, one by one.

The oracular tradition was not to be preserved, however When the Emperor Julian the Apostate asked the Delphic oracle itself how it could be restored, he received its final pronouncement by way of reply. Its day was done and it would never be revived. Sadly it proved to be the most accurate prophecy of all.

If you want to know more why not buy a copy of Brian W Taylor's  e-book  Sacred plants of the world from Neolithic times until the present day - how and why they've been worshipped - or its hardback version - Gardens of the Gods. Recently given five stars by a satisfied reader.

Broad Bean Folklore

      A bright and sunny, but chilly day in Shropshire, as the cold nights continue to deter a lot of the seed I’ve sown in the garden from germinating.

       Not all the seeds though, because one plant which does seem to have a higher than usual ratio of germination to seeds sown than usual is the broad bean. And that’s a pity in some ways.

       When sowing my broad beans I followed the maxims laid down in the old rhymes associated with broad beans, which say that on St Valentines Day, they should be in the clay; that you should sow far more seeds than you need for the number of plants you hope to get – one to rot and one to grow, one for the pigeon and one for the crow – and that if you sow broad beans in the mud, they’ll grow like wood. Though that only actually rhymes if you come from north of Watford.

        What there wasn’t a rhyme to tell me, unfortunately, was what to do if a lot of plugs of broad beans you ordered from a leading nursery back before Christmas, and then forgot about, turn up after the seeds you’ve sown are in the ground.

       Try to avoid my garden when so many beans are in flower is one they ought to do a rhyme about, perhaps, especially at night, because there is an old superstition, known in some parts of the country, which says that a field of broad beans in full flower has a scent which can cause such a quickening of a person’s breathing and heartbeat, and arouse such a general feeling of excitement bordering on intoxication in them if breathed  in too deeply, that someone sleeping amongst them through the night can be driven to madness by morning.

      In the garden, perhaps not at night if it can be avoided. Trying not to breathe too deeply of any broad bean flowers there may be around. Look out for Cornus nuttallii, the Mountain Dogwood, or Pacific Dogwood, a deciduous, conical tree, which has large white bracts surrounding tiny flowers in late spring, and foliage that turns yellow, or occasionally red, in autumn.