| A Word Edgewise
by Mary Joe Clendenin |
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SAVE BLUE BOTTLES FOR A BOTTLE-TREE
For sure, they are rare trees. I've seen only four or five growing proudly in yards, the flamboyant blossoms adding reds and cobalt blues to the sun's rays, but I never knew they had a purpose other than the expression of someone's love of color and the unusual. I'm talking about bottle trees.
In most cases, the ones I've seen have been created by peeling the leaves and twigs from pencil-sized limbs growing up-right on small trees. Then, colorful bottles such as Milk of Magnesia bottles, glass Seven-Up bottles, and other colored bottles stuck down over the limbs. Sometimes the trees are untrimmed and the bottles tied on. All shapes and sizes of bottles are added.
Mom had a bottle collection, most of which I inherited--maybe she was saving to make a bottle tree. A few of the cobalt blue ones, including a couple of the MoM variety add pretty color to my window, but I hadn't thought of the necessity of making a tree to hold them.
Like many other bits of Americana, such as lucky horse shoes, bottle trees have Old World origins. In this instance, the tradition arrived from Africa. Some folks say the colored bottles catch both sunlight and evil spirits. Early dwellers in this new country created bottle trees by their pioneer homes to cleanse the land of unwanted spirit influences, with hopeful splashes of blue, brown and green. They wanted to make their acres safe from evil spirits as well as thieves, and other interlopers.
Most bottle trees are created by using trees, alive or dead, already in the yard, but some newer ones are made by using a post or 4 x 4s with long nails to hold the bottles. I don't know, perhaps they are just as effective in preserving spiritual peace as the natural ones.
According to old Southern folk beliefs, the color blue wards off evil and brings good luck. I'm not sure why the other colors were used, but maybe they are just in case some evil spirits are color blind. Some folk go even father to capture the spirits by greasing the throats of the bottles with fat to better entrap the evil spirits. Once sucked inside, it is believed that the spirits cannot escape, the morning sun seals them inside. When a strong wind whips through the bottle tree causing it to emit a low whistle or moan, that signifies the death of the imprisoned spirits. During the 1878 yellow fever epidemic in Memphis, Tennessee, families where the disease was raging hung blue medicine bottles on tree limbs outside their homes to ward off spirits associated with the plague.
Some early settlers even protected fruit trees from thieves by hanging colored bottles in the trees to cause the thief all kinds of troubles. They believed that the stomach of a thief who got fruit from a protected tree would explode, or he would have hernias.
Wonder if genies who make homes in bottles and come forth to grant wishes to believers are kin to the spirits in bottles on bottle trees? Maybe the ones in trees are the "black sheep" of the spirit world.
As I said, bottle trees are rare these days. We have a tendency to make fun of such things, to shake our heads and feel sorry for such ignorance. We take the lucky penny out of our pocket or purse, give it a shy rub, and think how fortunate that we don't live with such superstitions.
What is luck, anyway, except some superstition we have created to explain the unexplainable. Consider the basketball player who must wear his lucky socks to win the ball game. Maybe they give him a certain assurance that helps him play better. Think of the black cat that crosses the road and causes a driver to turn and take another route, lest he have bad luck. If he doesn't turn and something bad does happen during his day, he blames the black cat.
It would be mighty difficult to avoid all the superstitions. To name a few: break a mirror and have seven years of bad luck, find a four-leaf clover and have good luck, avoid beginning a journey on Friday the thirteenth lest it end in disaster, cross your fingers while telling a lie and it doesn't count, put a tooth under a pillow for the tooth fairy.
Who knows how such things get started. The basketball player just happened to notice his socks the day he played well--if they were dirty, he wouldn't wash them for the entire season.
Remember these: drop a knife and man company will come, drop a fork, the company will be female, a spoon signifies children coming. If you really want it to happen, knock on wood.
Well, I hope you don't forget any of these ways to make your week a happy one. Maybe you have a horseshoe over your door. I've forgotten if the open end should be down for good luck, or if it should be up. Better be sure. Garvin Wood of Seldon can set you straight. Good luck, and may your bottle tree protect you.