TREE: Walnut
LOCATION: University Union
The tree is the “last relic” of the Holy Name school – a Catholic school established by theJosephite sisters, which stood on that spot between 1932 and 1969 (before the University swelled again and overtook the space). The school closed down and the tree remained. The area around it was concreted. New buildings popped up on every side. Perhaps once a place of contemplation and prayer, it now serves dutifully in the centre of the union area.
An octagonal seat has been built around it, a humble, scarcely-noticed stone plaque was added at it’s base in the 90’s. Service vehicles rumble equipment past it. Students sit, eat, laugh and leave. For a long time it was the centre of the regular ‘4:20’ cannabis smoking protests. As I type, the tree (almost visible from my office window) is enduring the un-melodic howlings of nearby bagpiper. What a saint.
I learned a peculiar thing about walnut trees today; they are entangled with traditions of beatings. Not beating people, but beating the tree itself.
Alciato’s Emblem 193, based on the fable. (Source: wikiwand.com)
The is traceable to a Greek fable by Aesop, where a fruitful walnut tree is attacked with sticks and stones by passing people who seek it’s bounty. The tree laments, and scolds. It is often taken for a fable about gratitude (or the lack of it). Yet this seems to have been the foundation for a later Latin Proverb about things that are ‘better for the beating’, i.e. recorded in 1574: “‘A woman, an ass and a walnut tree, Bring more fruit, the more beaten they be'”.
By the reckonings of some gardeners the saying relates to an older Continental practice of harvesting walnuts using large poles. This method also knocked loose dead branches, and limited the spread of fungal infections, while also stimulating the formation of new shoots.
I had no intention of beating this out-of-place saint – already heavy with her slow green fruits, and an overlooked grace.
I hugged her instead.
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