B Is for Beeches & Broonies

#2 on the April 2014 A-to-Z Blog Challenge.

B: Beith, or Beech in the Scottish Gaelic alphabet.

Each letter's linked to a tree or shrub.  

Incredibly useful, beeches were called the “Queen Tree,” consort of King Oak. The wood's good for fencing, furniture, and drums; as yule logs burns with a bright, calm flame. 

Beech-nuts (mast) fattened swine in forests for centuries and  a human food source. Cresoline, the nuts' oil, is used externally on wounds to reduce swelling.The French used leaf-stuffed mattresses, lilts de parlement  (“speaking beds") .  Bark strips were woven into pottles, strawberry baskets.

Folklore: Beeches were “wish-trees,” part of Celtic tree-worship. 

Stack of Beech Slabs

Symbolic of  knowledge and wisdom to Druids; Ogma the Artificer carved the Ogham letters on beech tablets. “Book” comes from boc, beech. Early books were written on slabs of beechwood. Henwen the oracular sow (origin of the pig in Lloyd Alexander’s Prydein Chronicles) grew wise  eating sacred beech-nuts.

Ancient Beech Roots

The surface roots of beeches look serpentine, tying into Celts’ mythic belief that snakes symbolize wisdom and rebirth. 

Avenue of Beeches in Co. Antrim

Do I tell beech stories ? No, but you never know when research'll t come in handy! 

Why do I link beeches with Broonies? And what're broonies, anyway?

Because both begin with the letter b, and because both are useful!

Palmer Cox's English Brownies

The English house-helpers in Palmer Cox’s The Brownies, aren't like the Scottish ones my granny told me about!

No, the broonies are short stocky folk, with large hands and feet, long hair and beards, round rosy faces, brown clothes, the only Faery folk who can stand Cold Iron, and love to help and be useful.

Beardless Broonie

But they're shy; they'll only come out at night when the household are asleep in bed. They may stay for centuries, content with some simple foods left for them each day. If offended by violence or falsehoods, they’ll depart forever. Don't make them  a new suit of clothes in thanks, they'll be  offended, knowing their work's worth better than mortals. 

It’s unwise to arouse their ire; they'll get revenge! 

I prefer to tell about broonies as kind helpers. 
Some tales can be found in Duncan Williamson's wonderful Broonies, Silkies & Fairies collection, or "The Lairdie with the Heart o' Gold," in Sorche nic Leodhas' Heather & Broom.

Wouldn’t it be lovely to have a broonie? Maybe they'd make things from beechwood!