Growing in the middle of a football field on Saaremaa is an oak voted European tree of the year in 2015. Someone had a sense of humour. The pitch was built around it in 1951, Lonely Planet says, when the tree was 80 years old. “When tractors came to remove the tree, the tree won the battle (although it still bears the scars). Players simply kick around it.”
A 150-year-old oak tree in a football field at Orissaare, Saaremaa
Joke or not, the Orissaare stadiooni tamm holds its own in country that reveres oaks, and names the biggest or more interesting ones. A cycle tour of oak trees would be one way of seeing the country. They are everywhere. The thickest is the Tamme-Lauri tamm, situated in a paddock in southern Estonia.
“Its hollow core is filled with concrete to stop the tree falling apart,” my diary says. “It looked healthy enough. It was impressive and it has to do with our culture.”
Standing 17 metres tall, its trunk 8.3 metres round (Wikipedia), the Tamme-Lauri tamm was planted in 1326, making it also the oldest known oak in Estonia.
Repeated lightning strikes over centuries took out the top of the tree, damaged branches, and hollowed out the core. In 1969 tree restorers found traces of a hideout of the Forest Brothers.
“Its name is thought to derive from Laurits, a fire spirit related to St. Lawrence in Estonian mythology, believed to inhabit the tree,” says the International Oak Society. “Oaks are a big deal in Estonia.”
Oak trees are a big deal throughout European cultures, in fairness, whether among Roman worshippers of Jupiter, Spanish herders of pigs snuffling for acorns, British shipbuilders of times past, or designers of coats of arms. They are beautiful trees. Certainly so in Estonia.
On a day cycling south on Saaremaa, battling rain and wind, we arrived at a grove of oaks near the coast. They looked somewhat stunted – perhaps, the soil was infertile – even so, venerable examples of their kind, many exceeding 100 years old. Some were named after Estonian national heroes; an oak with a twin trunk celebrates the Aavik brothers; one an innovator of the Estonian language, the other, a teacher. Another tree recalls Erik Haamer, an illustrator of the national epic, the Kalevipoeg.
“An extraordinary feeling to be among these trees,” my diary records, “these plaques were installed after the Soviets left Estonia. The Estonians have their knowledge and culture; they don’t need the Soviets to interfere with their legitimate pursuit of their national identity and wellbeing.“
The last word on this subject belongs to my book on Estonian mythology, in which the oak (among other tree species) offers a natural hive for honey-bees. As the oak looks after the bees, so the bees feed people who care in turn for the oak trees.
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