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“Mrs Wilcox tells Margaret Schlegel of a superstition about the wych elm which grows by her family home, Howards End. The village people have embedded pigs’ teeth in it, so that if you have a toothache, chewing the bark from the wych elm is supposed to cure it. Margaret and Mrs Wilcox bond over this, whereas Henry—Mrs Wilcox’s husband who later marries Margaret—is very dismissive of that sort of superstitious folk history. The tree, and the tales surrounding it, represents a more organic and rural way of looking at the world, while Henry is more urban and modern. The two clash and, in the end, when it all falls apart and Margaret has to prop Henry up because his son is going to prison for having knocked over and killed Leonard Bast, there’s a resurgence of an older way of thinking.” Read more...
Tracy Chevalier on Trees in Literature
Tracy Chevalier, Historical Novelist
