Botanica Fabula Amanda Edmiston

Into the Lime tree arbour

Amanda Edmiston

Stories of floods have eddied across my path over the last couple of weeks. It started when I shared an Anishinaabe legend in which Thunderbird creates a great flood to teach people a lesson. It was a story I'd not told for a long time, but it popped into my head, and it just seemed like the right thing to share with the children in Inverness. The long, languid days of summer always seem a good time for people to be reminded to respect their natural environment. Then, I was asked to write was a piece for a project looking at vanishing habitats. As we have a small natural floodplain meadow a short distance from home, it seemed valuable to my creative process to walk it again. I've walked that meadow in all seasons, several times a week, for the past seven years. This year, the meadow had become more flooded than usual; the snow-melt heavy waters of the river had all but submerged the entire teardrop of land. I had reflected at the time on the loss of several immense trees, not far upstream, and the valuable role trees play in keeping a fluid equilibrium. But I hadn't noticed the loss of one particularly ancientlooking Linden tree (Tilia cordata) until, a few days later, walking half a mile or so upstream, I realised the intoxicating, sweet scent of its blossom was missing. I felt a pang of loss. The cracked, open shards of a stump were all that was left of a tree that had possibly been a thousand years old. So, maybe it shouldn't have come as a huge surprise when, researching for this column, instead of stumbling across love, the goddess Freya, soothing tilleuls or Lindenblüten tisanes, I encountered stories that firmly rooted the Lime trees of legend in amongst stories of deluge, myths of great floods.

Zeus, of course, has a part to play. It's almost impossible to walk through any natural landscape without tripping over one being or another, turned into a plant of some form by Zeus or one of his cohorts. After all, the Cyprus tree (Cupressus sp.) was once a prince, Frankincense (Boswellia sacra) a princess, Smilax (S. aristolochiifolia) a nymph and the Grape vine (Vitus vinifera) either a satyr or a nurse of Dionysos, depending on which transformational myth you go with. The Linden tree, however, was not a spurned nymph lover, nor a youth meeting an unfortunate end, but— rather beautifully —one half of a devoted elderly couple. Philemon and Baucis offered Zeus and Hermes the hospitality of their home when others had turned them away. Grateful for their generosity and trust, Zeus saved them from encroaching floodwaters and, on their deaths, transformed them into trees; Philomen into an oak, and Baucis a Linden. The Linden, once again, associated with enduring love.

The Oak (Quercus robur) and the Linden are both trees which frequently appear in fairy stories across Europe, offering gifts if people preserve them. A lovely Russian story, from the Mari-el region, often ends with retribution and loss when a woodcutter tries to take too much from the Lime tree. But, as with other stories surrounding this forgiving, blood pressure lowering, diuretic tree, the overwhelming message is of a plant that offers gifts, survives floods and the axe, can regrow from a stump, and whose blossom scents the early summer air so sweetly.

In Lithuania, a nine boughed Linden is the home of Laima, a goddess associated with luck, motherhood and childbirth. I loved uncovering that association, as a nightly infusion of Lime flowers had been my favourite blend in the days following the birth of my own children. Laima is also said to have saved an elderly couple from a great flood, sent by the god Pramzimas when he sees the earth abused by mankind’s injustices and wars. This single, devoted old couple then jump over the bones of the earth nine times, creating the nine tribes of Lithuania. Once again, the Lime tree is connected to regrowth, re-balancing, and love. After this piece is done, I'll be walking back through that floodplain meadow. Back up the river, as the waters— now abated —reveal the sun-dried stones of the riverbed. I’ll seek out that Lime tree stump, just to see if it's started to regrow yet. Because there’s every chance, if the environmental conditions are right, that it will. Maybe, in another seven years’ time, I'll be able once again to pick the perfumed flowers and add them to a soothing tisane.

Image: Stormy Landscape with Philemon and Baucis, by Peter Paul Rubens (1620). Kunsthistorisches Museum collection. Reproduction rights secured by author, via Wikipedia Commons.

References Baucis and Philomen, Ovid VIII: 611–724 Greimas, A. J. (1992) Of Gods and Men: Studies in Lithuanian Mythology. Indiana University Press

One translated version of the Russian, Mari-el story of the Lime tree, as told by Nikiuk, can be found at spiritoftrees.org/the-mari-and-thelime-tree Insights into the importance of trees in preventing flooding can be found at www.woodlandtrust.org.uk