ELDER (Sambucus nigra) In June
ELDER (Sambucus nigra) In December
The elder has given names to many places in our land. In the Cornish dialect of Celtic, now extinct, it was called scau and scauan, and is preserved in Tresco, Boscawen, Penscauan, etc. In old Celtic it was trom, genitive truim, whence, as we learn from the Book of Armagh, the town Trim, in Meath, was formerly Ath-truim, the elder ford. Galtrim, in the same county, appears in the annals as Cala-truim, the meadow of the elder. Trimmer, Trummer, and Trummery are Irish place-names, all perpetuating the memory of tromaire, an elder wood. The Truim, a principal tributary of the Spey, probably was originally Amhuinn Truim, the elder river. In the Scottish lowlands we find Bourtriehill, Bourtriebush, etc., while in England it is difficult to distinguish "elder" in composition from "alder." Skeat suggests the two words are of identical origin, and in each the d is intrusive. Elderfield, a parish in Worcestershire, Ellerby and Ellerton in Yorkshire bear a pretty clear stamp.
The Hazel
To admit the hazel to rank among forest trees may seem like magnifying a molehill into a mountain; but it was a growth so important to the primitive community, as the only native tree contributing to winter provender, that it would be ungrateful to omit it. I was greatly impressed by this fact when, many years ago, we were exploring "crannogs," or lake dwellings, in the south-west of Scotland, in all of which nut-shells were found in quantity.
One instance was particularly remarkable. Dirskelvin Loch, a small sheet of water in Old Luce Parish, contained a very large crannog, built, as we roughly calculated, with between 2,000 and 3,000 trees. The loch having been drained away, we proceeded to exfoliate the crannog. In going along what had been the north-east margin of the vanished loch, I found it deeply covered with hazel-nut shells—many, many cartloads of them. Evidently they were kitchen waste from the crannog, drifted to that quarter before the prevailing south-west wind.