The tree of life

Silas was fifteen when his father took him into the forest to give him his tree.

Silas’s father Dan was a woodsman as had been generations of the family before him, each steeped in the lore of the woods and the passing of the seasons. Silas was known in the village as Silas the wise for he had been the first in their little community to receive schooling, he had book-learning and was therefore governed by a greater knowledge and worldly things.

Dan led his son to the clearing in the middle of which stood a giant oak, perhaps the largest in all of Wessex, a tree that had been passed down from generation to generation until finally it was felt that Silas was the son to do best with and by the mighty oak.

‘This is your tree Silas’. Said Dan, in a reverential tone. ‘Manage it well and it will last you a lifetime.

For the next few days Silas fashioned a hut on the edge of the clearing and ferried his meagre belongings from his parent’s cottage.

On the fifth day he set about his tree. Taking his saw he climbed to the first of many elephantine limbs, sat astraddle and began to saw! It took him a day and a half to cut through that branch and as he had been working with the saw between himself and the tree, when the branch fell he fell with it. Breaking his left arm in the process.

After having his arm set by the village doctor Silas spent the next six weeks recovering, spending his time chopping up the smaller branches with his right hand by day and acquiring more knowledge and wisdom from his books by candlelight at night.

When his plaster was removed Silas trimmed the fallen branch, sold the main baulk to the wood dealer and stacked the smaller stuff in his charcoal clamp. He then set about the second mighty branch!

When the second branch fell it broke both a leg and his right wrist in the process.

The third branch re-broke the left arm and his collar bone.

The fourth branch broke his pelvis. During each convalescence he returned to his books and his thirst for wisdom.

After the broken pelvis the curious doctor visited Silas at his clearing and when he saw and heard how the boy had broken so many bones he offered the benefit of his wisdom and suggested Silas cut the whole bloody tree down before he lopped off the branches.

After the doctor had left Silas sharpened his saw and set about chopping down that fabulous tree which in the process of falling killed him stone dead.

When his father arrived having been summoned by Gustav the poacher, he stood sucking his teeth. Finally he looked at his son’s broken body and then at the fallen oak.

‘I was right’ He said. I told him it would last him his lifetime!