Trees in Anglo-Saxon England: Literature, Lore and Landscape by Della Hooke (review)

It is a welcome development to see this 2010 title now reprinted in paperback, given the wide appeal of this study. Della Hooke is well known as a scholar of the Anglo-Saxon landscape, having produced several monographs and numerous articles in the field of study over the past thirty-five years. Here, the trees of Anglo-Saxon England, individually and collectively, are discussed from all conceivable points of view, including religious, folkloric, medicinal, economic, and geopolitical, in a manner accessible to the non-specialist.

Part I, ‘Tree Symbolism’, explores, across four chapters, trees and groves in pre-Christian belief, the tree in Christian tradition, and the syncretism of Christian and non-Christian beliefs in Anglo-Saxon England, moving on to trees in Anglo-Saxon literature, and the continuing mythology and folklore of trees in England up to the present. The narrative tends to the eclectic at times, but the virtue of this part of the book is its breadth, and its usefulness as a summary of ideas such as the World Tree, and the function of sacred groves as sites of worship. The chapter on literature provides an extensive anthology of passages dealing with trees. The focus is predominantly upon writing in the Old English vernacular, but Irish texts are included also. In a few instances, the sources relied upon could have been adapted and clarified for the lay reader. Cardale’s 1829 Boethius is cited both for the OE text and the modern English translation; Sedgefield’s later edition and translation would have been a better choice (superseded by Godden and Irvine’s new edition, of course, but too late for this publication).

Part II, ‘Trees and Woodland in the Anglo-Saxon Landscape’, is based on the kind of multidisciplinary research that is at the core of Hooke’s work. The archaeology of field systems, pollen and soil analysis, and related methods of study have demonstrated that modification of the forest landscape is apparent as far back as the Mesolithic period, and significant by the late Bronze Age, when the amount of woodland present had been reduced to little more than is found today. Nor did the Anglo-Saxons encounter large tracts of dense regenerative forest when they arrived. Rather, the available evidence suggests a continuity of agrarian practice, within which woodland was managed and exploited for fuel, fodder, and building materials, with varying kinds of practice and degrees of intensity as populations and patterns of settlement evolved. For the latter part of the Anglo-Saxon period, documentary evidence provides new insights in the form of place-names involving tree species, or references to kinds of woodland, and of charters, where references to individual trees or woodland appear frequently in the boundary descriptions. Law codes, too, provide information. Place-name elements like the ubiquitous leah (see fig. 7) present many problems of usage and interpretation; Hooke takes the reader through the relevant research and debate with admirable clarity. As fig. 14 (showing the distribution of references to oak and ash in charters and place-names) demonstrates, the evidence from charters is largely from the south and west, and within the charters themselves, the focus is on trees that are liminal rather than central to the estates in question. Yet such materials can be a source of rich insight when carefully handled as they are in this book.

Part III examines the distribution, use, mythology, and folklore of individual tree species, organised according to their usual environment: wood-pasture (‘forest’), wet places, open or planned countryside, and others mentioned in charters and place-names such as the fruit and nut species. The section on the apple, for example, provides a fascinating overview of the tree and its fruit. In OE folklore, it is mentioned in The Nine Twigs of Woden, and its mythic potency in Celtic and other mythologies...