The Folkloric Uses of Wood Part VIII : Basswood

We only have only been in the New Year, according to the Gregorians, for a little while. Now we can bid farewell to 2016. And what a year it has been. I have heard on almost every front, that this year has been the hardest, most difficult year most can remember. It has been for me as well. Though I have not suffered nearly the pain of those in Gatlinburg, Standing Rock, Syria, and the list goes on and on. There is much suffering in the world right now. And I open my arms to you.

I will not be silenced by pain. I will not stop foraging, doing magic and listening. And so, we go on. I'd like to forge ahead and wrap up our Folkloric Uses of Wood series, for we've only two more to go, and much more to explore and gather. Our next magical tree will be Basswood.

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Wilhelm Müller:
​The Linden Tree

At wellside, past the ramparts, 
there stands a linden tree. 
While sleeping in its shadow, 
sweet dreams it sent to me. 

And in its bark I chiseled 
my messages of love: 
My pleasures and my sorrows 
were welcomed from above. 
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Today I had to pass it, 
well in the depth of night - 
and still, in all the darkness, 
my eyes closed to its sight. 

Its branches bent and rustled, 
as if they called to me: 
Come here, come here, companion, 
your haven I shall be! 

The icy winds were blowing, 
straight in my face they ground. 
The hat tore off my forehead. 
 I did not turn around. 

Away I walked for hours 
whence stands the linden tree, 
and still I hear it whisp'ring: 
You'll find your peace with me! 

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Lime tree in Kaditz, c. 1840

The Basswood (Tilia americana ) has many names and many species. Known as Linden or Lime (nothing to do with the citrus fruit) in Europe, it has a long history of use and much folklore surrounding it. It is a medium to large deciduous tree reaching anywhere from 60 - 120 feet in height. It grows very quickly, actually twice as fast as beech and birch. They are long lived trees, with a life expectancy of about 200 years.  

The leaves are simple, alternately arranged, ovate to cordate, asymmetrical, unequal at the base, long and broad, with a long, slender petiole, a coarsely serrated margin and an acuminate apex. They open from the bud conduplicate, pale green, downy; when full grown they are dark green, smooth with pale undersides, with tufts of rusty brown hairs in the axils of the primary veins; the small stipules fall soon after leaf opening. The fall color is yellow-green to yellow. Both the twigs and leaves contain mucilaginous sap. The flowers are small, fragrant and yellow-white. Basswood flower from May until June, usually 1 -4 weeks after the leave first appear.

If you know me, and I mean really know me, you’ll know I am really into coppicing. That being said, basswood coppices well and it’s stump sprouts are useful for saw timber. There is a a coppice of Tilia cordata in Westonbirt Arboretum in Gloucestershire is estimated to be 2,000 years old. In North America,traditionally it was used to make boxes, toys, treenware, drawing boards, veneer, venetian blinds, excelsior, and pulp. It’s most well known uses, however, is how it got its american name. Bast. The fibrous inner bark makes a fine cordadge, and was woven into mats, fishnets, baskets and other useful things by Native Americans and settlers alike.

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(Photo By: N p holmes / Wikimedia Commons)

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Madame Grieve tells us,

“The wood is useful for small articles not requiring strength or durability, and where ease in working is wanted: it is specially valuable for carving, being white, close-grained, smooth and tractable in working, and admits of the greatest sharpness in minute details. Grinley Gibbons did most of his flower and figure carvings for St. Paul's Cathedral, Windsor Castle, and Chatsworth in Lime wood.

It is the lightest wood produced by any of the broad-leaved European trees, and is suitable for many other purposes, as it never becomes worm-eaten. On the Continent it is much used for turnery, sounding boards for pianos, in organ manufacture, as the framework of veneers for furniture, for packing cases, and also for artists' charcoal making and for the fabrication of wood-pulp.”

The wood was also traditionally used for lasts and shoemaker’s tables. It also was used to make charcoal for gunpowder. Fiber and shoes were even woven from it since prehistoric times like other bark fabrics (nettle). Anyone want to venture a pair of woven shoes with me?

In Appalachia, Basswood was and still is an indicator or “pointer” plant. Plants like black berry, black cohosh, “three way fern” and basswood are all thought to indicate places ginseng grows in Appalachian folklore. The blossoms are used for tea or used in fruit desserts and candy. Tea from the bark was used for colds and flu as well. Other uses basswood had before the white settlers arrived can be seen in this excerpt from, “American Indian Fairy Tales”, by Margaret Compton (1907), p.110,

“"Ugh!" said the Hare. "You all say that no canoe could be made without you. You, Linden, you have no part in these canoes; what are you good for?"

"I," said the Linden, "am for the cradles of the children. Without me where could they be rocked and put to sleep when the beautiful red has gone from the sky and the night comes? From me you take the basswood for your bowls and your drinking-cups."

Native peoples in the Southeast also made other items from basswood fibers include tumplines or burden-straps (used to carry heavy loads), fine twined storage bags and woven mats used to strain maple syrup. Sheets of basswood bark were also used as winter coverings for wigwams and other shelters.

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The author wearing and making more cordage!

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Chaucer called this tree Linde. Linde comes from a word for ‘bands made of bark’.
They used the inner bark, (bast), to tie plants in gardening. 

Germany had many folk beliefs about the Linden tree. They believed the Elf King lived under a Linden tree and that dwarves also loved it, while heroes fell into enchanted sleep beneath it. Even dragons were said to rest in it’s shade, so much so they themselves were called “lindenworms”. In Germany and Hungary they planted the Linden outside of their houses to keep witches from entering. It was believed that the flowers could not be brought indoors, or else they would give the girls of the house erotic dreams. How exciting!

Many hamlets in Germany have their own “town Linden”. Young and old would gather on warm summer evenings beneath it to gossip, dance or romance. Under the Linden tree was also a place to hold Old German judicial thing meetings. It was believed that the tree would help unearth the truth. Thus the tree became associated with judgement even after Christianization, such as in the case of the Gerichtslinde, and verdicts in rural Germany were frequently returned sub tilia (Unter der linden) until the Age of Enlightenment.

In the Nibelungenlied, a medieval German work based in oral tradition recounting events amongst the Germanic tribes in the 5th and 6th centuries, Siegfried gains his invulnerability by bathing in the blood of a dragon. While he did so, a single Linden leaf sticks to him, leaving a spot on his body untouched by the blood and he thus has a single point of vulnerability, kind of like a Teutonic Achilles. 

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"Under the Village Linden Tree" a 16th century engraving by Kandel.

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This association of the Linden with love and romance goes back farther than the Middle Ages to the Greeks. One could even say the Doctrine of Signatures destined this tree to be aligned with matters of the heart by bearing heart-shaped leaves.  It may have been one of the factors rendering it sacred to Venus. In Greek mythology Homer, Horace, Virgil, and Pliny all mention the Linden tree in their works. In Ovid’s telling of the old story of Baucis and Philemon, she was changed into a linden and he into an oak when the time came for them both to die. This association of the feminine with Linden and Masculine with Oak can be seen in other cultures as well, such as in Lithuania.

In the Slavic world, they believed the souls of women moved into linden and fir, and women’s graves were marked by a linden cross. In the Slavic Orthodox Christian church, limewood was the preferred wood for panel icon painting. Its wood was chosen for its ability to be sanded very smooth and for its resistance to warping once seasoned. In Poland, many villages have a naming practices influenced by or derived from "Święta Lipka", which literally means "Holy Lime". It is also the root for the name of the German city of Leipzig, taken from the Sorbian name lipsk.  The southern Slovenian village of "Lipica" means "little Lime tree" and has given its name to the Lipizzan horse breed, which if you've never seen are beautiful white beasts.
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In Baltic mythology, there is an important goddess of Fate called Laima. The Linden is her sacred tree. She even dwells in a Linden in the form of a cuckoo. For this reason Lithuanian women prayed and gave sacrifices under Lindens asking for luck and fertility. It is said they treated these trees with respect and talked with them as if they were fellow humans.

In Biblical record, Mary Magdalene’s penance from Christ was that she “should have no other food and sleep on no other bed save one made of it’s leaves” ...“For Magdalene had loved much, and therefore her penance was by means of that which is a symbol of love”. It is no small wonder that this folk magical belief became entwined with a biblical story. But that is a thought for a longer article.

Medicinally, in Old Europe the tea made from the blossoms was used for headaches. In France “tilleul” (Linden Tea) was used often as a sedative drink. Taking a hot bath in the flowers was a remedy for insomnia and nervous irritability, which if you have ever smelled their sweet scent, sounds quite lovely. A distilled water of linden was also used for epileptics and even sitting beneath the tree was seen as helpful for the condition. Its flowers have also been known to make an excellent, clear honey.

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Tilman Riemenschneider, St. George and the dragon. 1485-1490. Carved from Linden.

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The Basswood’s uses don’t stop there. It are also edible. The leaves make a lovely salad green when fresh in spring, as well as the new shoots and buds. The cambium is also edible, though this will will the tree if you endeavour to take a bite. Interestingly enough, the Ojibwa were the only tribe known historically to eat parts of the Basswood. Others very well may have,  but there is sadly no record of it. Us modern folks with proclivities to forage may actually eat more of the tree than the people of the First Nations did. However, the tree was a major source of fiber for certain tribes among the First Nations and that’s where the common name, Basswood, comes from as I mentioned above.

“Bass” is a corruption of “bast” which is a type of fiber. Green Deane tell us,

“The Indians soaked the bark for two to four weeks to loosen long fibers. They used the fibers for many of their needs: Bags, baskets, belts, fishnets, house mats, snowshoe netting, ropes, sewing thread and even suturing wounds. It was used where a lot of fiber strength was not needed. The Ojibwa ate the young buds raw or cooked as greens and they used the sweet sap, boiling it down to a syrup.”

Basswood is a remarkable tree with much more lore and useful applications, but we'll stop here. What have you done with Basswood or Linden?

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What can I make with it?

Practical:
Flowers: Dry them and save for tea during cold and flu season.

Wood: Hand carvings, small wooden implements, boards for painting. Clapboards for your shack, musical instruments, all manners of things that call for wood that can be sanded fine and resists warping. 

Bark: Use the fibrous bast to twine a variety of things like mats, bags, cord for clothing and other adornments.

Magical: Basically everything above for use in ritual, and:

Wooden figurines, masks, boards for altar pieces or icon painting, wands for use in matters of love, truthfulness, judgement, feminine matters, and luck. Flowers and wood chips for magical workings on love, conjugal affection, and as a healing tea.

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Works Cited:

Deane, Green. "Basswood Tree, Linden, Lime Tree." Eat The Weeds and Other Things, Too. Green Deane, n.d. Web.

Grieve, M. A Modern Herbal; the Medicinal, Culinary, Cosmetic and Economic Properties, Cultivation and Folk-lore of Herbs, Grasses, Fungi, Shrubs, & Trees with All Their Modern Scientific Uses. New York: Dover Publications, 1971. 

Prindle, Tara. "BASSWOOD - NativeTech: Indigenous Plants & Native Uses in the Northeast."BASSWOOD - NativeTech: Indigenous Plants & Native Uses in the Northeast. Native Tech. Web.

Skinner, Charles M. Myths and Legends of Flowers, Trees, Fruits, and Plants: In All Ages and All Climes. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1939.

Watts, Donald. Dictionary Of Plant Lore. Amsterdam: Academic Press, 2007.

Wigginton, Eliot. Foxfire 3: Animal Care, Banjos and Dulcimers, Hide Tanning, Summer and Fall Wild Plant Foods, Butter Churns, Ginseng, and Still More Affairs of Plain Living. Garden City, NY: Anchor, 1975.

Wikipedia: American Basswood.

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