The avenue de Brassine, that was built in the early 20th century (there is a former post with more details) can be seen in red coming in from a 10 o'clock position on the 1910 map. It was made to link the Chaussée de Waterloo to La Belle Etoile, an established relais where several establihed routed merged. For example, we have the Drève St. Cornelius running North to South. The Chausée de Mont St-Jean was later to become The Ring and when it did, the old paths became disconnected and if you go to the Belle Etoile today, there are scarcely any echos remaining of its previous pivotal role. An earlier post covered the history of the Avenue Brassine, and, while some needs updating, is largely good. If you need the link, sign up to the Newsletter and request it.

At the edge of the Forêt de Soignes, in the commune of Watermael-Boitsfort, lies a series of still, green ponds with a name that makes you pause: Les Étangs des Enfants Noyés — the Ponds of the Drowned Children.

The story most often told is tragic. A woodsman’s three sons, so the tale goes, drowned here on the same day, and their loss was fixed forever in the place name. Generations of walkers passed the legend on, and the ponds became a quiet memorial, a cautionary story whispered through the trees.

Yet history tells us otherwise. The name is not born of a drowning at all, but of a family — the Verdroncken millers — whose surname in Dutch means “drowned.” Their estate and mill gave the ponds their name. Over time, through mistranslation and retelling, the “children Verdroncken” became “drowned children.” What began as a surname hardened into myth.

Today, the ponds are part of a protected reserve: Étang du Fer à Cheval (Horseshoe Pond), the Étang des Canards Sauvages (Wild Ducks' Pond), and the Étang du Clos des Chênes (Oak’s Enclosure Pond). Neolithic tools have been found nearby and the Neolithic tumuli can be seen a short distance away, reminders that long before the legend, this land was already marked by human story.

A name carries weight. Sometimes it is history, sometimes sorrow, sometimes nothing more than a twist of language. And yet, when you stand beside the dark surface of the Étangs des Enfants Noyés, the legend of the drowned children is hard to shake.

Planted in the last years of the 19th century, when the Arboretum of Groenendaal was still a bold experiment in forestry, the Canadian Poplar known as Dikke Eugène grew into one of the most recognisable trees of the Forêt de Soignes. Nobody remembers quite when the nickname began, but it stuck — a nod to his massive girth, over six metres around, and the way he stood with the quiet authority of an old village mayor.

The arboretum itself was part of a grand plan: Leopold II’s drive to fill these hills with the world’s trees, testing whatwould thrive in Belgian soil. Poplars were fast, generous growers, and Eugène wasted no time in making himself indispensable to the skyline, his straight trunk and silver-green leaves marking the change of seasons for more than a century.

In 2011, a storm took him. The fall was not a slow dying, but a single, decisive moment — a crack, a thud, and the end of an era. Where he had stood is now open sky, yet the trunk still lies where it fell, softening into the grass, becoming once again part of the forest floor.

People still stop when they see it. Not for the grandeur he once had, but for what he represents — how even the tallest and thickest among us eventually yield, and how memory holds a shape long after the wood is gone. Poplars are relatively fast growing, so the wood is less dense and decomposes much more quickly than an oak or a beech - this is why there is surprisingly little left after just 14 years. That and souvenir hunters.