The Red Tree

The first concerns British Anglican occultist, poet, and novelist Evelyn Underhill (1875–1941), who, I will note, was briefly a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (along with such Edwardian luminaries as William Butler Yeats, Florence Farr, and Maud Go

The last instance of leafy manifestations which I will here discuss is surely one of the most grisly episodes associated with the red tree. And yet it is also one of the most obscure episodes in this mystery, and my only records of it, beyond the memory of locals I have interviewed, is recorded in a pair of short articles in the always dubious pages of the Fortean magazine Fate(which has, over the decades, noted the odd goings-on associated with the tree in a number of articles)—“The Vampire Tree” (January 1982) and “Rhode Island’s Killer Oak!” (October 1983) — both pe

To summarize, according to these two articles, on January 17, 1981, a man from nearby Rice City (just south of here), a goat farmer and cheesemaker named in Fate as George Farrell, went to the Blanchard farm on business. He knew of the tree’s strange reputation, and at some point on that day, he visited it in the company of one of the landowner’s sons (the son is, by the way, the current owner of the property, though he professes no recollection of Farrell or the events described in Fate). Farrell was reportedly disappointed by what seemed a perfectly ordinary oak, and to show his contempt for the local tall tales, used a pocketknife to carve his initials into the bark, above the altar stone. Three weeks later, so both articles report, Farrell’s goats began to give extremely bitter milk. In the weeks to follow, three of the animals began to waste and finally died. Both pieces (which differ very little, and almost amount to reprints of the same article twenty-two months apart) state that the animals were summarily autop sied by a veterinarian from Coventry, who discovered that the they were each missing a “considerable quantity of blood” and that “their udders were distended, and, when opened, it was discovered that they were filled with a dark viscous material that stank of rotting vegetable matter, but, more remarkably, with the undigested acorns and leaves of a Northern Red Oak (Quercus rubra).” The January ’82 article states, “The acorns of this species of oak are notoriously bitter and astringent, though they are still eaten by deer and other wildlife. The bitter flavor of the acorns is the result of high levels of the polyphenol ta

The articles state that Farrell was so “angry and disturbed” by the unexplainable deaths of his goats, that he visited the Blanchards again, this time with a hatchet and three cans of gasoline, “. prepared to put an end to the demonic oak.” Fortunately, less hysterical heads prevailed, however, and he was discouraged from seeking his revenge upon the tree. However, Baumgartner’s articles state that, in his efforts to calm the man, Blanchard agreed to remove the section of bark that the goat farmer had carved his initials into, and it was reportedly then delivered to Farrell, who is said to have had it blessed (!) by a Catholic priest before he burned it to ash (in a twist reminiscent of the infamous Rhode Island vampire “epidemic”). The ashes he then buried in a sealed tin box in consecrated earth, possibly in the Greenwood Cemetery in nearby Coventry. The articles both claim that the lid of the tin box was engraved with a cross. In my interviews with locals, I have heard several variants of the story of the poisoned goats, however, in true urban-legend fashion, the details never match, and it is always attributed to the ubiquitous “friend of a friend.” Moreover, I can find no record of a goat farmer and cheesemaker named “George Farrell,” though it is possible that his name was changed by the editors of Fate(who, so far, have not replied to my inquiries for more details on the case, assuming, of course, that their files contain any additional information).

Having transcribed all that, one thing that sort of leaps out at me is the surname of the possibly pseudonymous Fate“ journalist”— Baumgartner. Anyone with even a smattering of German will see what I mean, that Baumgartnertranslates to “tree gardener.” Odd that Harvey missed that; it certainly would have bolstered his assertion that the name was merely a nom de plume. Or, I don’t know, maybe he did catch it, but appreciated the wordplay too much to spoil it for those among his readers who’d get it on their own. Also, I wonder if I ask Blanchard about this George Farrell fellow, if he’d be any more forthcoming with me than he was with Dr. Harvey. That is, assuming that there’s something here to be forthcoming about. It all smacks of “witch trial” histrionics to me, and if not for mine and Constance’s lost picnic, that damning firsthand experience with the tree, I wouldn’t be disposed to believe a word of this, giving the tales in the typescript no more credence than I’ve given the stock-in-trade of supermarket tabloids — Elvis sightings, Nostradamus, Bible prophecies, women who claim to have been impregnated by Bigfoot, UFOs communicating via crop circles, astrology, the Bermuda Triangle, and so forth.

Oh, there’s quite a bit more here about all the attempts over the years to burn and cut down the tree, I just don’t feel like copying it. But there have been manyunsuccessful and aborted attacks upon the oak, it would seem. It strikes me as just shy of miraculous that the thing is still standing more than three centuries after the first word of it reached the ears of white men. You’d have thought, if nothing else, some bunch of teenagers would have cut it down and or something as a prank. Maybe I should not be so awed at the tree’s apparent wickedness as by its resilience. Then again, maybe they’re one and the same.