QUEEREST VILLAGE.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20629, 1 June 1935, Page 25 (Supplement)

QUEEREST VILLAGE.

Where the Arrow Killed William Rufus. A "BURSTING” OAK. o* E of the queerest, most old-\vorl< villages in England is Cadnarr where there are things that nobod; understands. There is an oak tree that bursts int< leaf every year during the night o January 5-6 (the old Christmas Day). In a few hours the leaves wither an< drop off, and the tree comes int> bloom normally with the rest of th oaks in the spring. An oak and a beech grow out ol apparently, one root. No one can tel which is which. Two beech trees about five feetapar are* joined by a horizontal branch. I looks as though a branch has grown from each tree, the two have met an< fused. There is not the faintest sign o a joining. A Scotch fir six feet tall is growinj out- of the branch of an oak tree. Botl trees are flourishing. and the fir i growing larger. Monk’s Curse. How do all these queer things com to happen in one village? Nobod; knows. But the villagers point to “ Rufus’ Stone ” and remember the legend o the monk’s curse. They say that when William the Con queror ruthlessl}' hounded the hard working Hampshire peasants out o their homes so that he could plant ; forest for the royal hunt, the monk put a curse on the forest. They prc phesied vengeance on any royalty wh rode in it. William’s son Rufus was killed then while hunting. The spot where tb arrow felled him is marked with ; stone—in Cadnam. “ No Fairy Tale.” They take their freaks for grantee now, except the bursting oak. Ever year villagers stay up on the night o January 5 to gather green leafed sprig* “It is no fairy tale, the oak tree, Mr Frank Gulliver, the woodman, sail to a “ Sunday Express ” representative “It bursts into leaf every January for one night. We have all had spray of it. “ In the morning the leaves are dea< and the tree is just as bare as th others. “ But the forest round here is full o peculiar things. “ I was born and bred in it and hav lived in it for sixty-five years, but don t pretend to understand some o the queer things that happen in it. There is the story of the monk’ curse. I don’t know what there ma; be in that, but I do know nothing voi could show me in the forest would sui prise me.”