ZRNO

 

A story of the bent fir tree is the story about a tree which is - on the first sight - not different from the other trees.

     FROM THE OLD BENT FIR TREE….

A long time ago there was a special bent fir tree growing in the Udin borst wood according to which the place took its name - at the Bent Fir tree.
According to the oldest inhabitants from Duplje and Strahinj villages, the Bent Fir tree was broken 80-90 years ago, but the toponym remained.

… TO THE SUBSTITUTE TREE

In the beginning of the 19th Century young Slovenian men had to serve in the French army for 7 to 14 years. Those of them that did not want to join the army hid in the surrounding woods and were called ‘outlaws’ (in Slovenian rokovnjaci). One of such outlaws’ localities from 1825 - 1848 was in the Udin boršt wood where they lived and hid in the caves. Their meeting point was at the Bent Fir tree where they had fests called -’finfranje’ and where they got married with local girls who went to live in the wood as well. At the beginning their relatives and local people brought them food, but later some of them became violent and were stealing in the nearby villages, churches and fields. So, local people became scared of them. Outlaws (Rokovnjaci) were defeated by the Austrian army in the 1853. The outlaws living in the Udin boršt wood were described in the novel At the Bent Fir tree written by a priest Peter Bohinjc in 1923.

n 1996  a big celebration took place for the 750 anniversary of the first written record of the village Duplje. In this occasion the novel At the Bent Fir Tree was discovered and republished  in the 1998. By that time the story about the outlaws hiding in the Udin boršt wood already became a legend and villagers become engaged an initiative to plant a new fir - as a substitute tree. The tree was planted nearby the place once grew the original fir for the first walking ‘At the Bent Fir Tree’.

Many paths from villages nearby are leading to the young fir tree. The local cultural and tourist organization ‘At the bent fir tree’ now takes care of it; there is even a wooden box with an inscription book for visitors. There were around 16000 visitors in 2007.

Every year at least two events are taking place At the Bent Fir Tree. People decorated it for Christmas and some of them even gather around it for the New Year’s Eve.

MESSAGE FOR THE FUTURE

The act of planting became a history. It will be remembered and continue to inspire the younger inhabitants on their history’, mentioned the oldest man who planted the new fir tree. But what are these values in  trees that are so important for the surroundings and for the locals?

With the time trees become natural forms filled with cultural content. They are living history and are bridging generations. In the case of the Bent Fir tree we saw that even if the form has gone, the content remained and some the content remained. But if we cut off the chain, we cut off the story.

Copyright 2007: Mateja Smid Hribar, The Bent Fir tree (Abies Alba) in Udin Borst Wood in Slovenia. Poster presentation at the conference Woodland cultures in Time and Space: Stories from the past, messages for the future, 3-7 September 2007, Thessaloniki, Greece.