Reserve Manager Paul Shepherd tells us why the Ash tree is one he admires the most out of all native trees in the country.
As well as being a dominant feature at Castle Eden Dene, the Ash provides a majestic figure in the North Yorkshire countryside where I live. Mature Ash are a regular site amongst the hedgerows, with their grand structure of canopy and its gnarled, rippled characteristic bark giving the branches and trunk a presence of beauty. It provides a fantastic habitat for other species that live within the woodland and fields around it. They say that the Ash is the last to wake up in the spring and the first to loose its leaves and go to sleep in the autumn. But whether it is in full leaf in summer or standing bare in winter, the Ash tree is an incredible tree to look at.
Ash is a deciduous tree that can grow up to 40 metres high.
The tree feels like it has a spiritual presence about it. The Vikings called it “Yggdrasil” or ‘the world tree’ in Norse mythology, an immense mythical tree that is at the center of the cosmos visually depicted as on an island surrounded by the ocean.
“The Ash tree’s trunk reached up to the heavens, its boughs spread out over all the countries of the Earth and its roots reached down into the underworld. A deer fed on the Ash leaves and from its antlers flowed the great rivers of the world and Odin and the other gods held their councils under its canopy.”
I can truly understand why this tree has had such special meaning over the ages both spiritually and functionally.
Yggdrasil
Image courtesy of Frayah Humphries