A-Z Challenge 2013 - 'E' - Elderberry

My A-Z posts this year are based on my garden – flowers, animals, the birds and the bees, butterflies - with a bit of poetry thrown in. For some letters I am expecting to cheat somewhat – wishing they were here.

E - Elderberry, Earthworm, Earwig

This post has no birds – perhaps this is strange because they do like the elderberries.

Elderberries

In Denmark there is a tradition of a female elf in the elder tree. She leaves it at midnight; strolls around the fields, but returns to it before morning.

Elder Flowers

 The winsome, winsome elder tree,
Beneath whose shade I sit reclin'd;--
It holds a witch within its bark,
A lovely witch who haunts the dark,
And fills with love my mind.

What I did not know about the elder was its association with death, even Wordsworth recognised this.

 The Elder-tree that grew

Beside the well-known Charnel house had then

A dismal look

An unsung hero of any garden is one that works below the ground.

When the earth is turned in spring

The worms are fat as anything.

Earthworm

And birds come flying all around

To eat the worms right off the ground.

They say that the early bird gets the worm but worms take a different view; for them the early worm gets the bird!

Earwigs are readily recognized insect pests in gardens. Although they can devastate seedling vegetables or annual flowers and often seriously damage maturing soft fruit, they also have a beneficial role having been shown to be important predators of aphids.

Female earwig in its nest with eggs

 This nest was found underneath a house brick in a Chester garden.

A silver trail across the monitor;
fresh mouse-droppings beneath the swivel-chair;
the view obscured by rogue japonica.
Released into the wild, where earwigs dare

Poems:

• The Elder-Witch – George Borrow
• Elder-tree – Wordsworth (Growth of a Poet’s Mind – Book VIII)
• The Worm – Ralph Bergengren
• Where Earwigs Dare – Matt Harvey

Photo attributions:

• Earthworm – 2011; by Rob Hille – Public domain
• Earwig - Nabokov at en.wikipedia – CC BY-SA 3.0