by David N. Guy
It is often tempting for outside observers to judge a society or community solely by its traditions, rituals and festivals, to bestow a significance and seriousness onto events that is not there for the participants, to see superstition and fear in theatre and frivolity. Equally, the reverse can often be true for those involved.
The ritual of the crow tree is one of the community’s least talked about rituals, and consequently can be assumed to be among its most serious. Indeed, there appears to be no written record of the ritual at all, although there are verified accounts of the tree itself dating back to the 15th Century. While the community’s folklore suggests the ritual has always taken place, nothing about its origins are recorded, and no speculations about its meaning would be offered to me.
The ritual takes place on February the 29th, during the second leap year after the birth of a man’s eldest daughter. The distinction of it being the father’s eldest daughter is an important one, as it means no man can participate in the ritual more than once, whereas a woman might well be required to participate both as a child and as a mother, and on multiple occasions if the conditions allow. For example, a mother’s first daughter might not be the father’s first daughter, and in this case the ritual would not be needed. However, this mother’s second daughter might be fathered by a different man, one who has not fathered a daughter before, and so it would be this birth that would necessitate the ritual. Indeed, in convoluted circumstances it is possible for a mother to have to participate in the ritual with each of her daughters. A different mother might never have to participate, no matter how many girls she gives birth to.
Due to the fixed timing of the event combined with the unfixed timing of a child’s birth, the daughter can be anywhere between the age of 4 and exactly 8 when it is time for her to perform the ritual. A child born on February the 29th would be the eldest possible participant, and a child born on February the 28th during a leap year would be the youngest. If the child, the father or the mother have died before the ritual has taken place a lament is sung by the surviving members of the family at the edge of the field where the crow tree resides. In these circumstances it is not permitted for them to approach the tree during the day.
In recent years, due to the decline in births within the community, it has been rare for there to be more than one family needing to perform the ritual in any given leap year, and indeed in some years the ritual has not taken place at all. In times of a more populous community, however, when multiple rituals were to be carried out during the same day, the participating families were ordered by the age of the daughter, with the eldest girl first and the youngest last, a reflection of the length of time they had been waiting to perform. On busy days it was said that, despite there being no apparent communication between families, each group would arrive in the correct order, equally spaced apart, and that all the rituals would be finished in good time, well before the sun set.
The ritual itself is one of the most sombre events in the community’s convoluted calendar. It is traditional for everyone who is not directly involved to stay inside their own houses, although this is not compulsory. No costumes are worn, and the tools used are not ceremonial objects in any way, instead being everyday household or workplace items.
The ceremony starts with the father leaving his house at dawn. He makes his way to the edge of the crow tree’s field and waits by the gate. The mother and daughter do not hurry, although usually they will arrive before noon, and always before dusk. The mother carries with her a pail filled with breadcrumbs, offal, fish guts, bones. The daughter carries a length of rope and a knife. When they arrive at the gate to the field, the father wordlessly leads the way in and they walk together to the centre of the field and stand by the crow tree.
The crow tree is a long dead oak, its trunk and branches bleached bone white by the sun. Other dead oak trees dot the field but the crow tree is the only one that remains completely bare of ivy and lichen. It is believed that the trees were killed by the sea hundreds of years ago, although the field is many miles inland. The trees themselves are so cold and solid it is tempting to believe that they have petrified somehow.
The father stands with his back to the tree. The rope is tied around his left wrist, looped round the tree, and then secured around his right wrist. The daughter pushes the knife into her father’s belly as deeply as she can.
“Speak,” she says, and her father speaks.
They listen. Eventually he stops. His words go unrecorded.
“Sleep,” says the mother, and, after removing the knife from his belly, she slits his throat.
His body is cut down from the tree and dragged a short way from the trunk. The food from the bucket is spread in a circle around him. The knife is placed in the pail, and the women leave.
Overnight the crows come down from the tree and feed. In the morning, as the crows return to their roosts, the father is reborn.
