Yew wouldn't believe it

You don't have to travel half way round the world to find interesting places. There's probably something interesting just on your doorstep. [There often is for us if the cat has been out all night! :-) ]

Seriously, though, many people (no matter where they live) are often blissfully unaware of what is in their own neighbourhood. It is especially true of people who live near to so-called tourist attractions. Although thousands, even millions may flock to see these attractions, the locals often have never visited them for themselves.

The picture above is not exactly on my doorstep. To be totally accurate it is 100 miles from my door. But in the grand scheme of things that is not far. Nor does it seem a particularly special place from the photograph. However, there is a story attached.

The location is Perthshire, and what you see is the so-called 'Fortingall Yew' reputed to be the oldest tree in Europe and dated at around 5000 years old. I reckon that is pretty special, even for a tree.

But it is also a special tree for one particular young couple who asked for my help when arranging their wedding a couple of years back. The bride-to-be was the daughter of very close friends of ours. I'm a kind of adopted uncle. The place was special to them because that's where the proposal of marriage was first put- in the shade of this ancient tree. Aaaw... how romantic, you say! And it is.

How was I to help? To conduct the wedding? No- her uncle, who is also a minister, would be doing that. I was asked to paint a picture of the tree that could be used on the Wedding Invitations and Orders of Service. A great honour and privilege, although I hadn't lifted a paintbrush for many years and actually had to go out and buy some new watercolours. (Somewhere in the intervening years my watercolours seemed to have been used up by one or more of my daughters.)

Although I had heard of this tree, I had never seen the Fortingall Yew before, so it meant a day trip to Perthshire with the camera. Fortunately, although it was bitterly cold, it was a cloudless Saturday afternoon. I couldn't complain about the weather, but when I saw the tree it looked to me like a half-chewed stick of broccoli and not exactly picturesque. Furthermore, I was under strict instructions not to include any gravestones in the painting. After all, they were not likely to set the right tone for a wedding.

It was, at every level, a major challenge to me, and since the people concerned were much more special to me than the place I was seriously worried that I might let them down. However, as a friend once said to me 'deadlines are lifelines' and the looming deadline of the date for printing of the invitations spurred me into life.

The result is no masterpiece but I was pleased enough with how it looked when printed up and I was able to give the original as an extra little wedding gift.

But that is not the interesting part of the story.

If you follow the link above you will see that the location of this tree is also associated with the birth of the notorious Pontius Pilate who, as Roman Governor of Judaea, washed his hands of his responsibility in ordering the execution of Jesus.

The article says: "Nowhere else in Scotland, or for that matter in the British Isles, has an oral tradition and association with the birth of Pontius Pilate; so why should the tiny and obscure hamlet of Fortingall lay claim to this tradition, unless there is an intrinsic element of truth in what would otherwise be deemed as an audacious presupposition."

Well, don't tell anyone this... no, I mean it, keep this a secret, please....
a friend of mine who lives in the city of Perth (and whom I trust implicitly) recently told me that she knows the man who, in her words 'invented the Fortingall Pontius Pilate legend.' According to her, this man at the time worked for the local tourist authority (whatever its title was in those days) and he was looking for a way to get people interested in visiting this part of Perthshire. Now, given that the Romans were stationed in many parts of this country more than 2000 years ago, it is not at all impossible that someone like Pontius Pilate might have born in such a far-flung corner of the Empire. (Just his recurring bad luck, then, that as an adult he got posted to another obscure outpost called Judaea.) There is, of course, no independent evidence either way. It remains "a local oral tradition."

But I wonder, could it be, after all, only 'an audacious presupposition'?

Just a pity the man himself was no Dan Brown. He might have made a fortune writing a book about it.