Coin Trees or Wish Trees, Portmeirion

Since I had to delete my old account (formerly known as So Lost in Words, now S P Oldham, Author) I am sharing some of the content here that I had on my old blog, simply because I think it is interesting.

We went on holiday earlier this year. While we were away we paid a visit to Portmeirion, where we came across an old tree stump, full of coins that had been buried in it. This intrigued me as I had never seen it before, so I made a point of researching it when we got home. Below is the post I wrote as a result

One of the coin trees we found in the woodland walk area of Portmeirion.

As a friend suggested to me, I might well end up having a go at a short, scary story based on this piece of historical folklore. (Photographs are mine. Feel free to use them but please quote either S P Oldham or solostinwords.com if you do. Thank you.)

Some of the mysterious 'wish trees' in Portmeirion. Apparently there are seven (we found three or four) and there are others like these in other places. I have never seen this before. "...coin-covered trees (date) back to the 1700s, when they were apparently used as wishing trees. People believed that a person suffering from an illness could hammer a coin into a tree trunks and the tree would take the illness away, but if someone removed the coin, they themselves would become ill. Whether some folks still believe this legend, or they do it simply because it’s fun is still a mystery, but the fact is this bizarre habit has spawned some pretty unbelievable sights that apparently unique to the UK" Quote from Oddity-Central, the article is here: https://www.odditycentral.com/.../britains-mysterious...

#folklore#dark dark folklore fairy tales dark fiction myths and legends folklore witches devil ghosts#wish tree#portmeirion#dark fiction#short story ideas