A well known and widespread saying suggests that if oak ( Quercus) trees produce their leaves before those of ash ( Fraxinus excelsior) trees emerge a dry summer is foretold: The Ash tree features prominently in world mythology, I have selected some better known examples from the UK to whet your appetites towards learning more about these marvelous trees. The First Man Created by Odin But the narration is still dominated by the cataloging of trees, birds and butterflies, and his painstaking project to rewild his garden. As he comments, in a rather neat reference to the movie from which his publisher takes its name: The spiritual appreciation of oak did not cease with the advent of Christianity. However, early Christian churches supplanted many oak groves. St. Columba was said to have had a fondness and respect for oak trees and to have been reluctant to fell them. Even so, his early chapel on Iona was constructed of oak from the nearby Mull oakwoods. St. Brendan was divinely inspired to use oak boards instead of traditional hides to cover his coracle. Legend says this small vessel may have carried him to the New World some thousand years before Columbus.

Young girls in Northern Counties eagerly awaited the first blossom and the girl who found it would break it and leave it hanging. That night she would dream of her future husband. If she found it again she would keep it as a charm until her husband appeared. Rowan There are more oaks in England than any other woodland tree. Their distinctive shape makes them easy to spot in the English landscape. Because of their size (they can grow to over 30 metres) and the fact they can live for over 1,000 years, much of the folklore surrounding these mighty trees concerns individual oaks.

The awakening forest

The people behind this celebration of the uncelebrated say that dandelions “have importance for biodiversity around the world, yet it is also sadly one of the most hated ‘weeds’.” They will therefore be delighted to know that the dandelions of Roundshaw appear to be on their second flowering of the year now. Those earliest of flowers – which provided emerging bees with nectar in late March – have gone to seed and new plants are flowering, too, alongside the first buttercups of the year, forget-me-nots and some purple clover, too.

That said, the timing of the respective leafings of these two stalwarts of the British forest does tell us some extremely pertinent things about our weather and our woodlands. But most of the other trees, too, now have their fresh, bright, light green young leaves opening out for the first time. Jeremy Deller and Alan Kane, artists I admire, illustrate burry men in their book Folk Archive and state in the introduction: ‘As artists we engage in an optimistic journey of personal discovery (albeit often very close to home).’ The most brutal example a long gap in June-July 2002 which we gradually learn was due to an unsuccessful suicide attempt, followed by treatment both for the self-inflicted injuries but also ECT therapy. Well, although more efficient, the strategy of ring-porous trees is also significantly riskier. Where diffuse-porous trees may use 10 growth rings to transport water up to the leaves, ring-porous trees often transport the majority of water through the newest growth ring alone. Since this can be only a few millimetres wide in mature trees, any damage to this outer ring can have a significant impact upon a trees hydraulic capacity.

Collecting the folklore and uses of plants

For the last three years, I have been blessed to have large mature Oak and Ash specimens at the bottom of my garden. Because of my own personal interest in weather and other folk magic, I have been keeping an eye on the trees each year. Each year, without fail, it has been the Oak that got its leaves first – sometimes two or three weeks before the Ash. It matched the saying – as we had three hot and dry summers with only a “splash” of rain. But this year was different – the Oak and the Ash came into leaf on the same day – on Sunday there was only a hint of leaves, but by Monday evening both trees were verdant with their fresh emerald green leaves. So who is this man? Jeremy Cooper? Perhaps much of what is contained in this diary-as-novel happened to him. It doesn’t matter. We read it for its own worth and that worth is not contained in a name. Declan O'Driscoll Rain before seven, fine by eleven." 32% of the British population think that it will stop raining by 11am if it had started raining at 7am. The Met Office affirms that this is often true because four hours is usually enough for a UK weather system to pass. But, sometimes the rain can last much longer due to the wind speed.

Quite unlike any other novel published this year: a bold, radical, almost embarrassingly direct assault on modern complacencies, both political and artistic.’ The Cambridge scientists’ discovery of the ‘thermometer molecule’ caused surprise among other scientists. Next time you hear the well-known “ If the Oak before the ash …“, think as well about the ash before the ash before the ash ….

The Ash in Folklore and Myth

We learn a few scattered facts about the narrator. He was married once, but left the marriage more than twenty years earlier, afraid of intimacy. He used to work at Sotheby's and his specialty was nineteenth century bronze sculpture. At the same time, he's friends with Gavin Turk, one of the rebellious Young British Artists, and he seems to follow the contemporary London art scene. How these and a handful of other random biographical tidbits are supposed to add up is never hinted at.