the holly and the ivy

Last night's woodland charity talk was fine.  It was at a garden club where I've spoken before, about other things, so it felt like talking to old friends, and I had the comforting feeling that if they didn't like my talks they needn't have booked me for a fourth time.  To give it a touch of seasonal appeal, I departed from the usual script to add a few thoughts on how native trees feature in Christmas stories and songs.

You must know The Holly and the Ivy, everybody does, but did you know that when the Green Knight arrived at Arthur's court in the middle of the Christmas festivities, riding his green horse, he carried a holly sprig in his hand as a token that he came in peace?  I gleaned that nugget recently from Simon Armitage's translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, which I asked for (and received) for my birthday after hearing extracts from it at his poetry reading at Ipswich in the summer.  It is a cracking story.

Most people must have heard The Cherry Tree Carol.  I've got four different versions of it on various CDs, but I don't think I've ever sung it.  'Let him gather thee cherries that got thee with child' and 'Up spake the child Jesus from within his mother's womb'.  No, we definitely didn't do that one at school.  On the other hand, probably only die-hard folkies have heard The Bitter Withy.  This was recorded by Mike Waterson and originally released on the Watersons album Sound, Sound Your Instruments of Joy.  The Systems Administrator and I have it on a re-released CD containing tracks from that that plus all of Frost and Fire, that we listen to without fail every Christmas Eve.  The young Jesus goes out to play, but is snubbed by three rich lords' sons, so gets his revenge by building a bridge out of the beams of the sun, and luring them over it to their deaths.  Their mothers complain to Mary, who punishes Jesus by beating him with a withy rod, and Jesus curses the withy. 'Oh bitter withy, oh bitter withy, that has caused me for to smart.  And the withy shall be the very first tree to perish at the heart'.  Which is well observed, as willow makes hopeless timber and does indeed rot at the heart.  I hope it was OK mentioning that sort of pagan stuff in the Methodist Church Hall.

Addendum  I heard a horrible story yesterday on the radio, which is also in the papers, about a woman who microwaved a kitten to spite the owner, and was given a custodial sentence of 168 days.  Quite right too, even though she'll presumably only spend half of that actually in jail.  On the same day I read in The Telegraph about how a pack of hounds had run on to private land, and killed the householders' 18 year old cat Moppet.  The huntsmen removed the dead cat and went on without telling the owners what had happened, returning the body two days later after the owners asked about it, in a dog food bag.  The incident was reported to the police, who said that it had been investigated and no further action would be taken.  Excuse me?  Hunting with dogs is illegal.  You may or may not agree with that legislation, but if permitting a pack of 27 hounds to run on to private land and kill a pet they find there isn't hunting with dogs I don't know what it is.

You could say that the kitten had its life ahead of it, whereas at eighteen Moppet was not long for this world anyway.  You could consider that the kitten's death was prolonged and agonising, whereas Moppet's, while terrifying, was probably quick.  You could say that the hunt was entitled to use the bridleway, and people who have cats in areas where there are hunts shouldn't live in houses on bridleways.  You could say that Moppet's fate mirrored that of countless small rodents and birds caught by cats, and that such is nature.  But the fact remains, hunting with dogs is against the law, and indeed this very day the Sentencing Council for England and Wales is reviewing the application of the dangerous dogs act when it comes to dogs running out of control and causing injury.  Is there no sanction at all against the hunt?  If not 168 days in jail for the Master, or the whipper-in, or whoever was supposed to be in charge of the hounds when they ran into somebody's garden and killed their cat, then what about saying that the hunt has to be kennelled somewhere where they won't have to pass through private gardens to go hunting (or whatever it is they do given that hunting with dogs is illegal).

OK, it was only a cat.  I am irrationally fond of cats.  But let's play a thought game for a moment.  Re-run this scenario, only this time it is not an eighteen year old deaf pet cat in the garden.  It is a two year old child.  The owner of the cat very generously says that the hounds are not vicious to people.  That is not an experiment I personally would wish to make, if it were my two year old.