 to rub your hands with a piece of oak bark on Midsummer’s Night, this had to be carried out in complete silence.
The oak tree has also been linked to the Norse God Thor who amongst other things was the god of thunder. Accordingly, this gave rise to the tradition of acorn shaped knobs being tied to the bottom of window cords. It was thought any house that sported and in many cases still sport such ornaments would be protected from being struck by a thunder bolt. This belief also applied to the tree which is why occasionally you hear that it’s safe to shelter under an oak tree in a storm – personally I wouldn’t recommend it! There is a suggestion that the association with the oak tree and thunder came about because of the loud creaking and cracking sound the tree emits when being felled. In the 1600’s John Aubrey noted; “When an oak tree is felling, before it falls it gives a kind of shreikes or groanes that may be heard a mile off“.
A well known cure for toothache was to hammer a nail into an oak trunk, at the same time as the last blow hit the nail the toothache would disappear.
For obvious reasons acorns were known as ‘cups and saucers’ and these too had many mystic properties. Young girls would permanently carry one on their persons as it was said to preserve their youthful looks. The acorns also had the ability to predict the length of any relationship. Two acorns would be taken and each one named after the boy and girl, these were then placed together in a bowl of water and if they floated towards each other then the romance would end in a wedding. Conversely, if the acorns drifted apart then the signs were not too good and it was unadvisable to go buying a ring.
The subsequent result of a gall fly is a hard, round gall which is known as an ‘Oak Apple’. If ever a spider was found in a gall it was said to portend a coming illness for the finder, a worm would mean a life of poverty. On the brighter side, warts could be cured by the application of a mixture of crushed oak apple and vinegar.
There are two oak trees on Dartmoor which have been officially classified as ‘Historic Oak Trees’ these are; the Hawson Cross Oak (known as the Stumpy Oak) and the Meavy Oak. Three more are located just outside the National Park boundary and these are the Shilstone Oak, the Ashton Oak and the Honour Oak at Tavistock.
If anybody would like to explore the history of the oak tree then I can thoroughly recommend a book published in 2003 entitled ‘Oak – A British History’. This was written by Harris, Harris and James and published by Windgather Press.