The end of autumn

The Story of the Trees,

last leaves falling

The Happy Toadstools welcomed visitors

On Thursday 24th October,  about 120 children and teachers met the waking trees of Lord Ancrum's Wood for the last time before winter called the forest to sleep

There had been much preparation. Toadstools had given themselves to fungicians (mushroom beauticians). Check out the Song of the Grumpy Toadstools

Giants had allowed themselves to be spruced (and larches and popled) up for the event…

And here, we won't recount activities or the exactitude of details, but will simply slip in some more of the Stories of the Trees

bright flags marked the enchanted woodland

Monster of the Highways

Her head looks like a pine cone

You’d never know she was there

Until her brown conker eyes

Look at you.

She runs long the road

Wobbling on legs of different lengths

Sniffing with her big nose at anything she finds

Grumpy Toadstools glowered

Redbeard the Giant

The great woodland giant Redbeard is a huge but friendly person. As tall as a tree and as loud as thunder when he laughs, Redbeard is friendly and clumsy. He is so clumsy he falls over his own feet and once even slipped into the river and caused a small tsunami! But he is as bouncy as a bunny and always gets up and keeps going, whatever goes wrong!

One day, however, when he was asleep in the grass, a gardener mistook him for a small hill and mowed Redbeard’s beard with his lawnmower.

At first Redbeard didn’t mind, knowing his beard would grow again, but when the stubbles started to show, it was brown! “Oh, no!” cried Redbeard, “where is my beautiful red beard! I must have a red beard or I’ll have to change my name!”

His friends came to help and they are out hunting through the woods, looking for something that might dye Redbeard’s beard red again!

The Butterfly Giant

The Butterfly Giant lives in a castle made of tree trunks and there he lives a happy, friendly life. Or he is friendly as long as he isn’t hungry. When he gets hungry he gets very grumpy and then he will eat a whole deer or chew a tree-trunk to splinters. For a snack, he always carries a bag of woodlice sweeties: as sweet and crunchy as Crunchies themselves and they stick to his teeth in just the same way

Not very long ago, he was in a battle with some unfriendly giants when even his Guard-spider, throwing webs at anyone who came too close, could not stop Butterfly Boy getting a few cuts. If you see him just now, you’ll see the butterflies sitting like plasters on his face, holding his cuts shut with their legs

STRANGE WOODLAND PEOPLE, 7

Brown conker eyes

And a wooden mouth with wooden teeth

And a leafy tongue,

Feathery arms flap and lift

Her leafy body through the trees

Like a lumpy bird with a white stone nose

STRANGE WOODLAND PEOPLE, 8

With a seashell mouth and a seashell nose

A shell chin and pine cone ears

She watches the world through acorn eyes

Peering out from under horrible hair

And a wooden hat

the adventurers depart

peace returns with a golden tree

Poisoned Arrows

30 year old tourism posters
had a new lease of life!

A quick bit of feedback and pictures after a lovely weekend at the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh

Lake Malawi

Poisoned Arrows was a walking storytelling event where visitors were taken on a journey through the tropical glasshouses, meeting actors and storytellers among the foliage. Working with letters and journals form Victorian Edinburgh explorers who went out to Malawi (not that it was Malawi then) 150 years ago (follow the Poisoned Arrows link to a short film about the show! )


The story moved back and forth between white explorers and local people reflecting the different views, values and consequences of the expeditions

I was there to intercept people as they stumbled back into the damp cool of an Edinburgh autumn, inviting them to share thoughts arising from the stories they had heard, to pause and reflect or to make their own snippets of Malawian landscape to take home....

There was "a touch of Malawi" to look at or handle

 there were model animals to incent your own "wildlife of Malawi" quiz

 and those animals could give visitors subjects to draw for their own landscapes

A life time ago, I worked in Malawi for 3 years. The experience set an enduring love of southern Africa in motion that has taken my back to Africa, if not to Malawi itself again (yet!), whenever I can...

I wonder what has become of my students from 'way back then

adventures!

the road north from lilongwe to Kasungu

Night-time

NIGHT-TIME

Once upon a time, there was a dark night-time giant. A fierce and dangerous creature, he would prowl through the woods in the darkness looking for people or small animals to catch and crunch

One day he set out in day-light, thinking it might be easier to catch people in the sunshine. But as soon as he walked across a field, a whole cloud of purple butterflies came whirling over to him attracted by the stars and shadows on his face and landed on his skin. The giant had never met anything like this before. He hated these insects with their beautiful colours and fluttering wings.

“GET OFF ME!” he roared. But butterflies are deaf and didn’t hear what he said!

Night-time grabbed up a stick and swung it, trying to hit the butterflies. But all he hit was his own nose!

Then he jumped into the stream that runs through the wood and sunk right down to the bottom. He had forgotten he couldn’t swim and even though the water killed the butterflies, it killed him too. Night-time’s body floated on the pond covered with the remains of drowned butterflies

The other Giants collected the body of their friend and buried it deep in the woods. The next summer strange flowers grew there and on one magical morning they opened beautiful purple flowers and all the butterflies of the woods came to visit the Giant who had been scared of them

Night-time’s Grave is the most secret, most special place in all the Wood and very few people ever find it

from "The Story of the Trees", Pupils from Hawthornden Primary School, Lord Ancrum's Wood, Dalkeith, 2013

The Story of the Trees

The sun rose cold and bright on an autumn morning as the woodland woke and got ready for visitors. Toadstools sprouted, vivid and fateful, through the leafmould. Small faeries gathered, squabbling over the best vantage points to watch The Humans process through the woods. Colourful, cheerful and excited they crowded the rootholes and beech twigs. Winged faeries fluttered overhad, the vampire faeries hung themselves in grisly style over the path. Families of very small people tucked themselves under logs.

But deeper in the woods, the Tree Giants woke and lumbered into position. Grumbling, muttering, losing their leaders (again), they were relying on swarms of children to sort out who should be Monarchs of the Woods - because not everyone wanted Coombe to be King

And then the children came. There was noise

Giving presents to the woods and the river
so they would let us in to discover their stories 

a first story by an old Ice House

STRANGE WOODLAND PEOPLE, 1

Shell horns grow, 

Through beech-leaf hair,

And seed-pod eyebrows lift

Over conker-case eyelids

Guarding deep brown chestnut eyes,

A long, prickly pine-cone nose

Wavers above twig lips

With small-cone teeth

Smiling through an oak-leaf beard

Grumpy Toadstools ( see their own blog entry for their song)

everywhere, there were stories
waiting to be told

STRANGE WOODLAND PEOPLE, 2
Fatso-craig, the boulder boy,
Only three feet high, he is as wide as he is tall.
A boulder of a boy with a horn nose and a mouth as round as a cowrie shell.
Leaves grow as hair on his round stone head
And his gravel stubble needs shaving twice a day to stop it avalanching down his face

STRANGE WOODLAND PEOPLE, 5
A curving seed nose
In a green leafy face
With wooden lips and acorn eyes
She runs through the wood 
With her twiggy arms
Tickling trees
Her clam shoes leave
Strange footprints in the mud

NIGHT-TIME
COOMBE
Night-giants are fierce,
Night-giants are dangerous.
Night-giants are the wind that whistles through the woods in the dark
Night-giants are the creak and crack of trees in the night
Night-giants are the touch of a twig on your neck

And, worse of them all, is Coombe their king.
He lives apart from other giants,
In the darkest corners of the deepest wood. 
No light comes here.
No sunlight disturbs him
Even in the brightest summer day.
He lives apart, alone but for his animal friends, bats and owls,
Fierce and ferocious, he haunts the night-time woods
Hating sunlight, loving shadows

The Giant Sentinel. With only one eye,
she still sees everything that goes on in the woods

GREEN AND LEAFY
He lives deep in the forest
With a squirrel in his beard and birds in his hair
Tall as a tree, he would make friends with anyone
But as soon as people come through the woods in groups
He hides, shy as a deer.
So, walk through his woods, quietly
Carefully,Pause in the green shade and listen,
Listen for his breath in the wind in the leaves
Listen for his footsteps in the leaves on the ground.
Green-and-leafy might come to meet you!

Children read stories to each other

we found a new Leaf-King for the woodland

storytellers collecting acorns as they leave

With thanks to the Forestry Commission who organised it all, and to the delightful pupils and staff of Newtongrange and Hawthornden Primary Schools, Midlothian and  to the members of 12th Midlothian Scouts and Danderhall Brownies for goblins, faeries and some Strange Woodland People

and peace returns to the woodland

The Song of the Grumpy Toadstools

Lord Ancrum's Wood: excitement gathers under the leaf canopy as our first At Home approaches

Small People are sorting their party clothes and testing mixes of make-up, decoration and the best ways of firing hazel-nuts at visitors

Giants are gathering. Green And Leafy, Redbeard, Night-time, and Coombe have all sent themselves off for polishing.

a table-top of giants

Toadstools are sprouting enthusiastically, possibly emerging a bit early and we hope they won't have got so excited they've collapsed by Saturday (meet Newbattle College, Dalkeith, 2 pm Saturday 12th for this first storywalk through the Waking Wood).

But there is dissension.

THE SONG OF THE GRUMPY TOADSTOOL

I don't like this.

And I don't like that.

And I don't like much at all!

Conkers!

Acorns!

Crunching leaves,

Changing colour,

Falling leaves,

Collecting on top of me!

Spikey conkers,

Lumpy acorns,

Juicy apples,

Squirrels collecting nuts.

I don't like that!

And I don't like this!

And I don't like much at all!

I hate it all!

So I will sit here poisonous,

Sprouting in the leaf mould

And sulk

Other Toadstools are more optimistic but tinged with a sense of doom and the transience of flesh. These are Toadstool Songs and if you/we cannot find the rhythm and metre of them then that is more about our clumsy human sense not appreciating the subtlety of fungal song-writing. they are, after all, among the very few organisms who can effectively rhyme orange with porridge ( English-speaking humans can sometime manage it if they've got a bad cold)

necessary adjustments can be undignified

THE SONG OF THE HAPPY TOADSTOOL

I like playing in the woods,

I like collecting leaves;

(On my head)

I like conkers,

I like pumpkins,

I like juicy apples

And tasty brambles.

I like the sound of leaves under a rabbit's feet,

And watching the wild cats,

And skulls,

And Toads,

And deer sitting down in the dark,

And foxes in their burrows.

I like autumn,

Because of Hallowe'en

And watching the sky for the triangle lines of geese

I like autumn because winter is near

I would love to walk,

To go for a walk,

For a long walk

Through the tall forest.

I would love to

Jump in leaves

And swim through leaves,

Crunchy leaves, dry leaves

Beautiful leaves,

Changing colour

On cold frosty mornings.

I would be so good at trick-or-treating

I would love to do those things

If only I could.

The Story of the Trees, 3: the sad story of Night-time

Redbeard the Giant

The Trees project continues here in Lord Ancrum's Wood. This is a Forestry Commission project in these beautiful woods which they manage in partnership with Newbattle College, in Dalkeith, just south of Edinburgh

Working with schools, college students, community groups and the public, we are shaping new stories from the woods, gathering stories and images towards public storywalks on SATURDAY 12TH OCTOBER, meeting at 2pm  outside the college (follow link for directions)

Today we met some more giants (Hawthornden Primary School) and have prepared a set of vivid autumn banners (Newtongrange Primary School) that will fall into their full spectacle tomorrow

a giant receives some cosmetic attention

THE BUTTERFLY GIANT

The Butterfly Giant lives in a castle made of tree trunks and there he lives a happy, friendly life. Or he is friendly as long as he isn’t hungry. When he gets hungry he gets very grumpy and then he will eat a whole deer or chew a tree-trunk to splinters. For a snack, he always carries a bag of woodlice sweeties: as sweet and crunchy as Crunchies themselves and they stick to his teeth in just the same way

Not very long ago, he was in a battle with some unfriendly giants when even his Guard-spider, throwing webs at anyone who came too close, could not stop Butterfly Boy getting a few cuts. If you see him just now, you’ll see the butterflies sitting like plasters on his face, holding his cuts shut with their legs

Redbeard the Giant and friends

outlines ready, paint going on

an autumn flag with paint being applied

Night-time's story? it is so unspeakably sad we couldn't possibly publish it, yet. You'll just have to come and join us on Saturday!

The Story of the Trees, 2: Giants and Toadstools

Story of the Trees

Newtongrange Primary School

Woodland Giants and Grumpy Toadstools

... the strange woods and friendly classrooms of The Ancient Newton Grange, offer an insight into a wild and wonderful world....

Giants grow on tables, sprouting leaves and root-beards and pet bats

a giant taking shape

COOMBE

Night-giants are fierce,

Night-giants are dangerous.

Night-giants are the wind that 

whistles through the woods in the dark

Night-giants are the creak and crack of trees in the night

Night-giants are the touch of a twig on your neck

And, worse of them all, Coombe is their king.

He lives apart from other giants,

In the darkest corners of the deepest wood. 

No light comes here.

No sunlight disturbs him

Even in the brightest summer day.

He lives apart, alone but for his animal friends, bats and owls,

Fierce and ferocious, he haunts the night-time woods

Hating sunlight, loving shadows

Toadstools push out of foam, slowly gathering eyes and features and voices, quiet voices, just whISpers for now, almost too faint to be heard yet

I have no eyes to see with,
no mouth to speak with

I like the colours of autumn leaves

I like their crunching under my feet

I like the smell of the wind 

And the taste of juicy brambles

But one day, one day soon,
I will be able to watch you!

I hate these autumn days

And colours and crunching

And conkers and kicking

And everything....

The Story of the Trees: the story begins

Lord Ancrum's Wood

Newbattle Abbey

Dalkeith

A project begins, unfolding the untold stories of the beautiful trees of these woods...
Descriptions of strange woodland people...

1. A curving seed nose
In a green leafy face
With wooden lips and acorn eyes
She runs through the wood 
With her twiggy arms
Tickling trees
Her clam shoes leave
Strange footprints in the mud

 (first spotted by Danderhall brownies)

another character evolves

2. Fatso-craig, the boulder boy
Only three feet tall, he is as wide as he is tall.
A boulder of a boy with a horn nose and a mouth as round as a cowrie shell.
Leaves grow as hair on his round stone head
And his gravel stubble needs shaving twice a day to stop it avalanching down his face

(discovered by 12th Midlothian Scouts)

3. A sea-shell hat

 Sits on top of flower hair,
While little acorn eyes peer out 

Either side of a little pine-cone nose
And a big shell mouth
Smiles above a
Dress of long leaves and moss

(discovered by Danderhall brownies)

there should be a song
"she had pine-cone eyes and a lop-sided smile"!