Silver Birch Path

𝐈𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐠𝐨 𝐝𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐨𝐨𝐝𝐬 𝐭𝐨𝐝𝐚𝐲.…

𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝟑

𝐒𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐫 𝐝𝐞𝐬 𝐁𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐮𝐱 - 𝐁𝐞𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐧𝐩𝐚𝐝

The Forest is forever changing, not just with the seasons, but in adornment. The last two instalments have shown places which are still recognisable today from photographs taken a hundred years or so ago but not here.

This place was well-known to Stevens. I’ll quote from the Guide:

<<À gauche, dans le peuplement, le bouleau est l’essence dominante en mélange avec beaucoup de hêtres et de chênes, mais par endroits à l’état pur. Les troncs blancs zébrés de noir, en bataillon serré, donnent à ce FOND DES BOULEAUX un aspect mystérieux, féerique, hallucinant parfois. Le feuillage de cette essence de lumière est si léger que le sol n’en est point assombri ; il se couvre de bruyères et de myrtilliers et par endroits s’enchevêtrent de véritables fourrés de fougères aigles où l’on disparaît en été jusqu’aux épaules.

Cet endroit se montre plus magique encore parmi les ors de l’automne, ou par les brumes hivernales qui accrochent une dentelle humide aux frondes roussies des fougères, lorsque de la gamme cuivrée, éclatante et sonore des feuilles marcescentes des replants de hêtres jaillit l’éclair blanc des bouleaux.>>

In English this reads as:

“To the left, within the stand, birch is the dominant species, mingled with many beeches and oaks, though in places it grows quite alone. The white trunks, streaked with black and drawn up in close ranks, lend this FOND DES BOULEAUX a mysterious, fairy-like, at times almost hallucinatory air. The foliage of this tree of light is so delicate that the ground beneath is scarcely darkened; it is carpeted with heather and bilberry, while here and there great tangled thickets of bracken rise so high that in summer one disappears into them up to the shoulders.

Yet the place becomes more magical still amid the golds of autumn, or in the winter mists that hang a damp lacework upon the russet fronds of the ferns, when, from the brilliant, resonant coppery range of the withered leaves still clinging to the young beeches, there bursts forth the white flash of the birches.”

Although the valley still has a slightly magical feel to it and one could almost see it being used as an outdoor filming location, the Birch have all gone.

Original image from Stevens and Van der Swaelmen’s 𝐺𝑢𝑖𝑑𝑒 𝑑𝑢 𝑃𝑟𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑢𝑟 𝑑𝑎𝑛𝑠 𝑙𝑎 𝐹𝑜𝑟𝑒̂𝑡 𝑑𝑒 𝑆𝑜𝑖𝑔𝑛𝑒𝑠, produced by the Ligue des Amis de la Forêt de Soignes, first published in 1914.

𝑁𝐵. 𝑊𝑎𝑙𝑘𝑠 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑟𝑡 𝑎𝑔𝑎𝑖𝑛 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑚 𝑚𝑖𝑑-𝐴𝑢𝑔𝑢𝑠𝑡.