The Eye of the Silver Birch

She believed all the myths about the trees of the forest: especially the ones about the silver birches. The old, wizened, elders of her village told such convincing stories around the campfires, in the deepest winters of her youth, that she now scrupulously followed their teachings.

On passing the first birch of the day, she would always stoop down beside the slender, white giant and pass her hands over its scaly bark and look deep into one of the black boomerang-shaped ‘eyes’ which adorned its surface.

With her eyes pressed against ‘the eye’ she hoped to see some of what the tree had witnessed over the maybe one hundred years it stood in that exact spot in the forest. The elders often said, that some individuals were gifted with also being able to see what was yet to come and this was what she hoped to see now.

On this occasion, she fancied the birch beckoned a pleasant summer with ample food for her village and abundant leisure time to dance around the clusters of white-flowered yarrow in the meadows.