Son of the Tree

Once upon a time in a small village there lived a man and a woman with their young daughter. The little girl loved a tall silver poplar that stood near a pond and every day she would sit beneath its branches. In time, the girl grew up and became a woman, but her love for the tree never ceased. Then, one day woodcutters carrying axes and saws came to cut down the tree. The woman fell to her knees and pleaded with them to let the poplar live.

“If you cut the poplar, I will also die”, she said.

But the woodcutters didn´t listen and they began to chop and saw. When they finished their work the dead tree fell heavily to the ground.

At once, the woman cried out and dropped down beside it. The men put down their tools and carried the woman to her parents´ house in the village. She wasn´t dead and that very night she gave birth to a son. In the morning she died.

The priest refused to christen the child. He said that there was no place in the church for a creature that was born of a human and a tree. People would make the sign of the cross whenever they saw the boy; nobody dared touch him. Even his own grandfather and grandmother were afraid of their grandson, and they made him sleep by himself in the barn. They were frightened that he would bring evil to their house. They didn´t give him a name and everybody called him “Son of the Tree”. Because he wasn’t allowed to go to school with the other children, he spent his days alone wandering about the countryside. The only place where he felt happy was a little hill at the edge of the forest from where he could see the whole village.

One day a bull escaped from its pen, and as it ran through the village, it destroyed everything that stood in its way. People everywhere were screaming and running for cover, but Son of the Tree stood calmly in the middle of the road and waited. When the bull saw Son of the Tree, it raised its front legs and then bowed to him. The Son of the Tree took hold of the ring in bull´s nostrils and led him back to the stable.

People had never felt comfortable with Son of the Tree and they had always tried to avoid him; but now, when they saw how powerful and how strong he was they were terrified and they began to hate him.

The whole village gathered in the evening and the people decided to drive Son of the Tree out of their village. With burning pitchy branches in their hands they went to the barn where Son of the Tree slept.

First, they shouted and cursed him but Son of the Tree didn´t appear. Then someone from the crowd cried out, “He isn’t a human being! His father was just a piece of wood. Let´s set him on fire!” And the people, one by one, started throwing their fiery branches on to the roof of the barn. In no time it was ablaze.

Son of the Tree stood looking down at the village and watching everything from his little hill near the edge of the forest. Tears were running down his cheeks. Then he raised his arms, looked up, and with his eyes embraced the dark tops of the trees above him.

“I was trying to be a human being for a long, long time,” he whispered. “Now, I want to be a tree.” The leaves of the trees rustled softly and Son of the Tree could hear a murmur from the forest. It was welcoming him.

The boy’s legs grew into the earth and became roots; his body became the thick trunk of a tree, and in place of his arms long thin branches sprouted. The tall silver poplar rose up on the little hill at the edge of the forest.

BACK HOME