Monday, February 02, 2009

I met a tree sprite in the woods

Meet the beech wood sprite. I have seen drawings depicting sprites, click here and here to see great examples, which I hope show you what I am talking about and are uncannily similar to this fellow.

This is a growth on a beech tree in the woods where I walk regularly. its a 'True Growth' (see sphaeroblast carving post 8th Jan 2009) on a very ancient tree, the traditional home of wood sprites and other mythical forest creatures.

As I walked closer it just looked for the world as though it was a sprite with spiky hair and in the right light and from quite close, discernible features, arms, facial features and horns.

No wonder early britons thought demons, sprites and Woodwose roamed the woods and they viewed forests with reverence and some fear.






















This tree sprite will not look quite the same once spring arrives and may never look like this again once new growth takes over, has at that point the sprite fled and gone to a new home?

sorry the quality of some of the pictures is poor but I thought it would be good to post anyway and I think you can see what I am getting at.

Regards Dave Posted by Picasa

2 comments:

rocketRefund said...

trees are great! I can see what you are talking about. It looks like the sprite is crawling out of the tree.

Anonymous said...

Agreed! Trees are SO cool. This was a fantastic find Dave. Thanks for posting the photo. I can totally see why folks believed/believe in these mythic creatures.
ChuckT (from WCI Forum)