#tuntre

[thoughts-of-a-heathen]

"When a human died on the farm, there were a couple of different places where the soul could choose to inhabit. One place was of course heaven, but for the ones that did not enjoy the church's white painted paradise, there was another option, vårdträdet*; often placed in the middle of the farmyard, planted by an ancestor or ancestress. Vårdträdet was the place where the family history had its roots. There, under the shadowy branches of the linden, the ash, the chestnut or the rowan, grandma's soul could find peace without getting bored by the heavenly choirs."

- Per Österman, Svenska jätteträd och deras mytologiska historia

*Vårdträd, also known as tuntre, is a sacred tree that grows in the farmyard or close to the farmhouse on Swedish and Norwegian farms. The tree is home to the patron deity of the family (vård, vården). It is also a symbol of fortune and prosperity.

[thoughts-of-a-heathen]

"These trees eventually got charged with a very powerful magic and there are many local versions of the traditions surrounding them. One example that is mentioned in several sources is that pregnant women performed rituals by the tree to make [their] labour easier. After the child had been born, people sometimes buried the placenta by the tree so that vättarna (the vættir) could protect it. The child was extra susceptible to [dark] magic before it was baptized, and the placenta was a powerful tool [that could be used to] gain access to the child if one wanted to harm it."

- Per Österman, Svenska jätteträd och deras mytologiska historia

[thoughts-of-a-heathen]

Vårdträd (part 1)

alm | elm | Ulmus glabra

ask | ash | Fraxinus excelsior

lind | linden | Tilia cordata

lönn | maple | Acer platanoides

hästkastanj | horse chestnut | Aesculus hippocastanum

ek | oak | Quercus robur

oxel | Swedish whitebeam | Sorbus intermedia

rönn | rowan | Sorbus aucuparia

[thoughts-of-a-heathen]

Vårdträd (part 2): Southern and Northern Sweden

valnöt | walnut | Junglans regia | S

bok | beech | Fagus sylvatica | S

fläder, hylle[bär] | elderberry | Sambucus nigra | S¹

björk | birch | Betula² | N

¹ Skåne

² The entire genus

[mysterious-things-we-cannot-see]

I’ve always been drawn to trees... I’ve always considered the tallest, strongest one nearby my homes to be like some warden or force of protection. When I was really little, it was a willow tree at the end of our large field of a backyard and I would walk beneath it while alone, singing as I held hands with its many bladed leaves, lost in my head. Then it was a fir--tall and strong and old. It used to house an eagle’s nest, and from our porch and yard I’d sing or talk to the old tree when I felt down or worried as I grew. It hurt me when new developments and houses were built over the wilderness around us and destroyed the field there that used to be home to deer and coyotes and foxes; and it hurt again when the new neighbors didn’t like how this tree dropped needles onto their deck and demanded several of the limbs sawed off--which they did easily despite my disagreement shared to their child and my friend, since now, the tree legally belonged to someone. I’d grown up with this tree most of my life, seen it as something greater--something hard to explain, and it hurt. I cried and apologized for what happened to it. The eagles had left by then. Now, while in this new home and myself older, it’s a maple twisted deep into the dirt on the side of the mountain we sit against. I still wish these trees strength in the storms that would pass over us and to keep the land firm like they had been supporting for years and years. Communicate as I would, a bit subtler than before... While I’m an otherwise rational person, I can’t help but seem connected to these kinds of things and to nature. I’m not sure where this sense has come from within me but it’s been a part of me always.

I learned recently that my ancestors used to believe something very similar and that was wild to find out. But either way I find the almost instinctual pull kind of interesting.

[bethlehembreathes]

when i was 17 i remember         sitting in a norwegian  garden with an old couple telling me the story behind        the random tree in the             middle of their yard   they spun a tale of an old                    norse tradition as i am here chasing life by  the tail around and ‘round            the sprouted leaves  barely emerging from their            roots with one hand     extended  and the other      hidden behind my back tuntre

[stumm148]

Magne Furuholmen har laget Kjell Inge Røkkes tuntre i stål 

[mamisgarden]

Scandinavia has a very beautiful, ancient pagan tradition, wich involves the planting of a tree in the yard of your house, in Swedish called a vårdträd, and Norwegian a tuntre, or roughly translated a guard or care tree. The symbolism is that you care for the tree, and the tree cares for your household and your family, many times literally, by sheltering from the elements, and giving fruit if a fruit-tree is chosen. Also, the belief was that the tree provided a connection with the nature spirits in the surrounding, and was the carrier of wealth and happiness for the family.

There are trees that are many hundred years old in many old homesteads around Scandinavia, where this tradition is prominently. The homestead could be ever so small, and still have an impressive tree as protector.  In certain localities, a tree was planted for each child born to the household, and these trees was to be especially wellkept and cared for, for obvious reasons.

here is a small movie, here focusing on finn folklore. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QS6pgH_pfv0