BEECH TREE - ETCHING

BEECH TREE - ETCHING

Beech tree etching – black ink and printed onto white fine textured etching paper.

The copper plate for this etching is A4 size took me 20 hours to work on it with an etching needle. Each print takes 1 hour to ink up and polish before printing.

This tree seems to have a life of its own and is so magical. This etching is from a sketch I did in the Norfolk village of Withersdale Street.

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BEECH TREE – AL PHAGOS – QUEEN OF THE WOODS

ANCIENT PAGAN WISDOM

The Beech tree traditionaly known as the ‘Queen of the Woods’ beacause of its beauty and femininity shars its honour with the Kingly Oak . Local British traditions associate it with serpents, probably because of its serpentine root system, which are revealed by soil erosion when they are planted on hills or slopes. Behind this again lurks the notion of the wise serpent giving knowledge to those who ask for it. Several altars to the beech have been discovered in the French Pyrenees, suggesting its important to the Celtic tribers who lived there. It is said that no harm would ever befall a traveller shelting beneath its branches, while prayers uttered in its shade were bound to be answered, just as any curse spoken there was said to be more effective. Slivers of beech wood and leaves were once carried as talismans to bring good luck and increase creative energy. Wishes carved on beech wood wands which were subsequently buried in the earth, were said tto be particularly effective and, as the wood rotted away in the earth, the wish was released to bear fruit in the outer world.
Thin leaves of beechwood are said to have been bound together to form the first book, which is ceretainly in line with its central association with writing and the transmission of lore. The Anglo-Saxon word for ‘beech’ was bok (which became book), in German Buche is ‘beech and Buche us ‘book’, While the Swedish word ‘bok’ means both ‘book’ and ‘beech’.

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