REE - TREES Stories, Folktales, Folklore, Fairy Tales, Legends, Myths, History, Nursery Rhymes, Fantasy & Facts

Scroll down or click on your choice below: SOS-Searching Out Stories/Info- Trees Advice, Comments and References from Storytellers, Teachers and Librarians

SOS - SEARCHING OUT STORIES AND INFORMATION - PINS AND NEEDLES Advice, Comments and References from Storytellers, Teachers and Librarians (excerpts from Storytell posts plus original research)

Book titles and online links are in dark blue and underlined. Click on them to get more stories/information. In performance, always credit your sources. To retell these stories, get permission from the copyright holder if the material is not in the public domain. Posts are listed chronologically as they are received by Story Lovers World. NOTE: A very helpful and comprehensive website about trees is at: http://www.spiritoftrees.org/spirit_of_trees.html

1) Christmas story by Florence Holbrook entitled Why the Evergreen Trees Never Lose Their Leaves. http://www.osmond.net/chill/christmas/stories/74.htm

2) Soft Figs. A king, leading his army to war at a distant battlefield, passed an old man planting fig trees for future generations. 3) The Useless Tree by Chuang Tsu (China) -- carpenter distains huge oak tree who defends itself to him in a dream. 4) God's Creation - a Biblical midrash from Genesis Rabbah - When God created Adam, he walked him through the Garden of Eden, showing him all the trees that He had created. "See how beautiful are the works of My hands," he told Adam. "Take good care not to ruin or destroy my world. For if you destroy it, there will be no one after you to repair it." 5) A Blessing - a Talmudic tale from Tractate Ta'anit Rabbi Nachman and Rabbi Isaac were sharing a meal together. Rabbi Nachman asked Rabbi Isaac to teach him words from the Torah. Rabbi Isaac assented and plied his listener with commentaries and parables that contained deep wisdom. When they were about to part, Rabbi Isaac asked Rabbi Nachman to give him a parting blessing. "Now I'll tell you a parable," said Rabbi Nachman. "A man was walking through the desert, and he was hungry and tired and thirsty. He came upon a tree that bore ripe fruit, gave good shade, and had a stream of water running past it. He ate the fruit, drank the water, and rested in its shade. When it time to go, the man said to the tree: "O, tree, how shall I bless you? If I were to wish you sweet fruit--your fruit is already sweet. Good shade?--you already give good shade. Were I to say, 'May a stream of water run past you'--a stream of water already runs past you. So I wish for you that every sapling taken from you turns out exactly like you." "So, Rabbi Isaac--how shall I bless you? If I wish you the fullness of wisdom--you are already full of wisdom. Wealth?--you are already wealthy. Were I to say, 'May you bear children'--you have already borne children. So I wish for you that all of your children turn out exactly like you." 6) Daphne and Apollo - Greek mythology - How it came about that Apollo wore a laurel wreath. 7) The Tree's Wife from Dream Weaver by Jane Yolen. 8) The Man Who Planted Trees, Page 33, from Stories of the Spirit, Stories of the Heart, edited by Christina Feldman and Jack Kornfield. This is a Chinese version, there's also a European one, by Jean Giono(?). The latter is a very beautiful story about a man who single-handedly reforests a devastated countryside... 9) Ulu and the Breadfruit Tree from Polynesia from Storymaking in Education and Therapy by Alida Gersie and Nancy King 10) The Young Man, The Lion and the Yellow Flowered Zwartstorm Tree, a Bushman's tale from South Africa from Earthtales by Alida Gersie.

11) Greek tale of the Goddess Ceres and her Sacred Forest. 12) Mysterious Tales from Japan - Rafe Martin. 13) The Magic Pear Tree from Jane Yolen. 14) Baucis and Philemon from the Greeks 15) The Great Kapok Tree by Lynn Cherry. Try stories about rain forest creatures. 16) Stories about Johnny Appleseed. 17) Genesis (the old Tree of Life?) 18) Swiss Family Robinson. 19) Connor and the Leprachaun by Jay O'Callahan 20) "True" stories, the story of Morton, the guy who started Arbor Day. http://www.arborday.org/arborday/history.html 21) Three Wishes for a Forest. 22) The Tale of Three Trees - A traditional folktale retold by Angela Elwell Hunt (1989) Lion Publishing Corporation. It is essentialy a story about the birth of Christianity with the trees each representing one aspect of Jesus' life journey - the feedbox (manger), fishing boat and the cross. 23) Abraham Apple Tree From Seed to Tree A sound story, developed and written by Mabel Kaplan, 1995 This story can be used as a sound story. Use your own voice OR any musical instrument/sound from which you can produce a scale e.g. a piano, a keyboard, a xylophone, a mouth organ or kazoo. Suggested sung or instrumental musical sounds are given in the square [...] brackets. But you may like to try out some of your own.

24) Myths of the Sacred Tree, by Moira Caldecott. Destiny Books, 1993. It has around 40 myths/stories from around the world. Sources are given, and each myth is followed by a commentary which ranges from basic psychological and symbolic interpretation, through a little philosophy, to useful background facts. ISBN 0-89281-414-4

25) Sacred Trees, Nathaniel Altman. 26) Hidden Stories in Plants, Anne Pellowski. 27) Native Plant Stories, Joseph Bruchac. 28) The Tree in the Moon, and Other Legends of Plants and Trees by Rosalind Kerven. 29) Dan Hall from Westport Connecticut has a great tree song on his tape-there is a tree for every letter of the alphabet- might be Earth Songs-lots of great material for recycling too! 30) The Direction of the Road by Ursula LeGuin. It's found in her collection The Wind's Twelve Quarters, Bantam, 1976. The tree in the story is an oak and the first person narrator of the story. It stands by the highway upholding the "law of relativity." 31) The Lore of the Forest, by Alexanmder Porteous, published by Senate 1996 (Random House, London). It was originally published in 1928, titled Forest Folklore. It's full of interesting facts, leads, bits of mythology and lore etc. It isn't a source of good stories, since it's a reference book. 32) The Magic Listening Cap (in a collection of the same title) features a magic cap that allows the wearer to hear understand the speech of plants & animals. It features a prominent camphor tree. 33) The Ancestor Tree by T. Obinkaram Echewa. The cover reads "In the African Villare of Amapu, there lives an old man who rises before the sun." 34) Erysichthon. A version of it is in Classic Myths by Charles MIlls Gayley and also in The Meridian Handbook of Classical Mythology by Edward Tripp. 35) The Apple Thieves can be found in The Family Storytelling Handbook, by Anne Pellowski, page 85. This paper cutting story is very much liked by young children, 36) Earth Care - World Folktales to Talk about by Margaret Read Macdonald. There is a section in the book that deals with Caring for the Forest. The stories are: Beast and Tree, Who is King of the World, Mikku and the Tree Hold Tight and Stick Tight, Spider and the Palm-Nut Tree.

37) West Indian Folk-Tales, retold by Philip Sherlock, Oxford Univ. Press, has a great story called The Coomacka-Tree that explains the origins of food plants in the Caribbean from one great marvelous tree. ISBN 0-19-274127-6 38) Native American Gardening, Michael J. Caduto & Joseph Bruchac, Fulcrum Publishing, has several stories about food plants from different Native American traditions. ISBN 1-55591-148-X 39) Finnish folktale on trees The Talking Spruces. 40) Tree Stories: A Collection of Extraordinary Encounters, edited by Warren David Jacobs and Karen I. Shragg, and published by SunShine Press of Colorado. Here is the back cover description: Tree Stories is a unique gathering of stories and poems, written by adults and children, about a special tree in their life. Reading of these healing, heartfelt connections nurtures our human spirit and reminds us of the simple beauties of life. They honor the personal, material and spiritual values that trees play in our lives. These personal tributes also encourage us to sanctify life in all its dimensions--human, plant and animal--and strengthen our resolve to protect our planet. 41) Australian Folktales -- Talwalpin and Towinka 42) Little pine tree where the tree wants to have other kinds of leaves and he doesn't belive when they tell him in winter he'll lose leaves. Well he does, and he's sorry he ever wanted another kind of leaf. When spring comes, the angel of the trees put his own shiny green pine needles back on him and after that he doesn't ever want to be any other kind of tree again. 43) Cristy West's new website Spirit of Trees, an excellent resource! http://www.SpiritofTrees.org Additional info: Margaret Read MacDonald's Mikku and the Trees might be one to consider http://www.spiritoftrees.org/folktales/macdonald/mikku_trees.html Or Anne Pellowski's Why Plants have Human Characteristics at http://www.spiritoftrees.org/folktales/pellowski/plants_human_character.html Since the launch a few week ago, there are about two dozen new links and a few new "Featured Tales," too. One of these is Alton Chung's The Old Man Who Made the Trees Blossom, a tale about cherry trees at http://www.spiritoftrees.org/folktales/chung/old_man_who_made_trees_blosso m.html Here in DC, the cherry trees are now blooming and the cherry blossom festival is in progress so this is quite relevant. There are a couple of other Japanese cherry tree tales, too, to be found in the story links section of Spirit of Trees-http://www.spiritoftrees.org/folktales/story_links.html

such as the Cherry Tree of the Sixteenth Day (Jui-Roku-Zakura) http://www.sacred-texts.com/shi/kwaidan/kwai14.htm and Ubazakura (or the Cherry Blossom Nurse) at http://www.sacred-texts.com/shi/kwaidan/kwai05.htm Indeed, many tell The Peddlar of Swaffam (Peddlar's Dream) as a Cherry Tree story-though for others it is an Apple Tree story. Earth Day is on April 22. And here in DC Arbor Day comes just a few days later on April 25. Every state is different--to the north, later, to the south, earlier--around the time trees are leafing out. (Info about Arbor day at the Arbor Day Foundation--another link) Beyond that, well, don't forget the solstice. At http://www.Spiritoftrees.org, there's now a neat new link in the section for curricular resources. This goes to Diane Edgecomb's site and shows numerous photos of Diane performing her Tree Lore and Solstice Legends show at the Arnold Arboretum near Boston-Let this be an inspiration!! And one of the tales she describes, The Dancing Spirit of the Birch Grove, is the same one I have posted at SOT as The Lady in White. http://www.spiritoftrees.org/folktales/west/Lady_in_white.html 44) This is VERY definitely an audience participation story. As you begin the story, you ask for volunteers to help the audience "see" the story. When I told it at a church party, I enlisted the help of a friend who kept interrupting to tell me that she couldn't see the scene so I proceeded to show her. It was springtime in the forest. There was a special warmth in the air and birds sat in the trees singing. There was a weepinging willow (someone pretending to cry), a pear [pair] tree (two people standing with arms around each other), a nut tree (someone acting silly), a pine tree (someone with a sad expressing on their face), quaking asps, etc. [What other kinds of trees could we use?] There was a babbling brook wandering through the trees. (Ask someone to wander through the trees saying "babble, babble,") A gentle breeze wafted through the forest. (Ask someone to do their interpretation of "wafting" as they follow the brook through the forest.) Ask for one more volunteer (pick someone you KNOW is a good sport) and ask them to follow the brook and the breeze through the forest. Then you say, "Looks good. Now I know it is springtime because when it is springtime the sap starts to run in the forest." Obviously this is a story to use in a situation where you know the people but I couldn't resist posting it. I had a lot of fun with it. No one suspected a thing since I always tell a story at the annual church talent show. 45) Maple trees: Linking through the Spirit of Trees website, this one comes up. http://www.mainlesson.com/display.php?author=olcott&book=indian&story=ma ple This is a more ornate telling than many Native American versions. Also, Joe Bruchac has a story about maple syrup -- how it used to flow so readily from the trees, but the people got lazy and began to lie around under the trees and let it drip into their mouths. So Nanabozho (trickster) poured lake water over the trees until the sap ran thin and it required time and effort to get the sweetness boiled down. It may be in Keepers of the Earth.

46) Maple trees: I have two tales to share and one that Lorna Coranza sent to the list awhile ago. a) The first I heard at Helmer's Nature Center in W. Irondequoit, NY. It was told by one the volunteer guides on a maple sugaring tour for a school group. Think I have seen a written souce for this, maybe in one Parker's volumes on Seneca stories. It's about Why Maple Sap Is... well, that's an explanation, not a title as I heard it not as a story, but there is a story "about." Bones of Why Maple Sap... Long ago, maple trees used to give sap that pure syrup. The people loved the sweet syrup and soon came to lie under the trees in the spring, open their mouths, and get fat and fatter on the syrup. When the Creator saw how his people were not working, he changed the trees by adding water to the sap. Sap that then had to be boiled and boiled to get a bit of pure syrup. b) There is another story that was told recently at the same center. In that story it is a little boy who discovers that something sweet comes out of the trees. Perhaps because his arrow missed its mark and hit the tree. Don't know a written source for that one. c) Why the Maple Wears a Beaded Dress From: LCzarnota Subject: Re: Oak trees I just thought of a Native American story. I don't have a source though, and it is mostly about the Maple with mention of the Oak. I think it is Seneca. If I recall it went something like this in basic form: Why the Maple Wears a Beaded Dress: Maple Maiden went to fetch water one beautiful day. As she walked she saw a handsome warrior by the road. He stood straight and tall. "Dear Maiden," he said "Would you give me a drink of water?" He held out his bowl and she poured some cool fresh water for him to drink. "I am Oak warrior." he said. And they exchanged smiles. He was grateful for Maple Maiden's kindness and so, when he had drained his bowl, he filled it with beads from his own headdress. Maple maiden sewed them onto her dress and wore them with pride. And of course, ever since that day, when you see Maple Maiden, you will find Oak warrior not far away. 47) Greetings all! Just to say that there is a delightful new "featured folktale" posted at Spirit of Trees, The Harper in Fairyland, from Beth Vaughan. http://www.spiritoftrees.org/folktales/vaughan/harper_in_fairyland.html In her very generous commentary Beth discusses three different kinds of workshops she has created around this particular story. A good example of workshop possibilities that can be derived from a single tale. Looking for a good tale to tell around the winter/Xmas season? If so, I especially recommend Silver Pine Cones, an offering from Sheryl Ann Karas at Spirit of Trees-http://www.spiritoftrees.org/folktales/karas/silver_fir_cones.html Last year I told this tale to assembled family members on Xmas eve and then handed out some pine cones I'd carefully painted with silver spray paint. It seemed to be a hit . Other seasonal tales at Spirit of trees can be found in the section for story links-http://www.spiritoftrees.org/folktales/story_links.html Why Evergreens Keep Their Leaves in Winter (three versions, including one in audio from Odds Bodkin) and The Thunder Oak.

48) The Tree That Survived the Winter by Mary Fahy Story: The tree awakened earlier than usual one morning and stretched her arms toward the horizon as if to invite the early rays of dawn into her world. She shivered with delight, wiggling her roots in the muddy earth, which had only recently yielded its frozen hardness. She sensed something was different. Her roots seemed to be extending further and more firmly into the soil. Her arms seemed to embrace more of the world, not with the timid gestures of a sapling afraid of tangling with the wind, but with the freedom of knowing that the wind could not topple her. "I have survived the winter!" she marveled aloud. "How wonderful," whispered the dawn, who had a facility for appreciating new miracles no matter how often they occurred. She swirled around the tree in a ritual of blessing, enveloping her gently, making her feel very special. "How very different this feels," mused the tree, for a few short weeks ago the melting earth beneath her roots had sent shivers of panic through every single branch, She had cried out in alarm then, sensing that she might sink into the earth] and lose herself. often during the cold winter...., while she had trembled with anxiety she had felt an inner voice -- a small but steady voice -- which remained fluid and alive when everything else in her seemed paralyzed. But now -- now! -- she was filled with the realization that her inner life was in harmony with the world outside. She relaxed the tight fibers of her being which she had unwittingly held rigid during the cold gray months. "I have survived the winter!" she exulted. "You have survived the winter!" the birds echoed, hopping eagerly from branch to branch, bouncing on the tender extensions of herself that the tree had not even noticed. "Oh!" This one word, spoken softly and reverently, was all the tree could manage as she examined the white buds beginning to show through the tips of her branches, once held hard-clenched against the winter winds. "I have survived the winter," the tree sighed, "and I have grown!" Days passed, and the energy within her fairly exploded, spilling out into dusters of lovely blossoms. She watched each day as they grew larger and more beautiful. Spring rains showered her with congratulations and encouragement. "You have survived the winter and you are growing, growing, growing..." "Growing! Yes, I am growing," the tree acknowledged. "I have survived the winter and I am growing." She shivered with delight as she admired her new appearance, letting a few

raindrops fall on the violets that enjoyed the shelter of her trunk. "It is good to be alive," she told them. "Indeed," said the sun, appearing suddenly from behind a rain cloud, "you have survived the winter because you are very much loved!" The tree could feel the warmth of the smiling sun penetrate deep into her branches, even through the bark of her trunk. But then she stopped. For the memory of the hard winter sent through her a stab of anger and pain that she thought the spring had healed. "Where were you when I needed you?" she cried to the sun. I needed you! I needed you so badly and you weren't there," she sobbed. "You've been gone so long, and I've been so cold and lonely and scared. The days were so gray when you weren't there, and even when I could see you in the distance I couldn't feel your warmth or seem to reach you with my voice. Didn't you see me shivering? I became so brittle I was afraid of breaking, and my roots became paralyzed in the earth. She could no longer go on except to cry out: "...and I missed you-- terribly!" The sun's glow only intensified and the message was repeated. "You have survived the winter because you are very much loved." The sun continued. "The chills and ice and bitter cold have toughened your timber to just the right degree, for you needed to be strong to carry the fruit that will appear on your branches. If I had stayed close all winter, you would not have grown this strong. But now -just look at you! A blush of pink coursed through her petals. The tree stood speechless. You have survived the winter because you are, and were, and always will be very much loved," said the sun. "For that small place deep within you that remained unfrozen and open to mystery, that is where I have made my dwelling. And long, long before you felt my warmth surrounding you, you were being freed and formed from within in ways so deep and profound that you could not possibly know what was happening." "I...I...I had hope," she whispered, noticing that the words seemed to come from that inner space deep within her. "Yes, you had hope," sparkled the sun. You trusted in life and that is what enabled you to grow. For if you had no hope and trust in the center of your being, you could not have blossomed into you." This was almost too much joy for the tree to hear. No words would come, and no words were necessary. Weeks passed and the tree became a part of life in the meadow. She caught the kites of children who gathered nearby, and happily tossed them back gain. "You are a good sport," they said to her. "We will call you Friend."

A young couple sat in the shade of her thickening leaves and spoke of their love for one another. "This is a special place," they said, and they left their initials on her toughened bark. "We shall call you Keeper of Secrets," they said to her. A tired woman, bent with care, walked silently through the meadow, oblivious to everything except her own worries. She did not notice the tree. "Come and rest for a while," whispered the tree, but she finally had to toss a piece of fruit onto the path before the woman saw her. Wearily, the woman sat and ate the fruit, and pondered deeply. The tree could feel the woman relax as she rested against her trunk. Finally the woman stood up. "Thank you," she said and embraced the tree. The tree winced, for the woman had touched a spot that had not healed from the winter's ravages -- a spot that remained vulnerable even though the spring and summer months had been good to her. The woman seemed to notice and caressed the spot thoughtfully. At that moment there was a oneness -- a sense of understanding between the troubled woman and the free. "I will call you Hope," whispered the woman, and touched her again with affection and gratitude.