In Cornwall, on the walk to St Nectan’s Glen near Tintagel, you may come across a fallen tree. Even from a distance, the tree doesn’t look quite right. Something about the way it looks will catch your eye. The colour and texture don’t quite look as you’d expect. Has it been turned into a bench? It is covered in a weird silvery Cornish moss? Is it merely in an advanced state of decay?
It’s only when you get closer that you’ll be able to figure out just what, exactly, makes this tree look so peculiar.
If you still can’t make out what it is, then surely the title of this post gave it away from the start.
With St Nectan’s Glen being a pagan site, over the course of many many years, many a passerby has stuck a coin into this tree for good luck. When politicians talk about the ‘magical money tree,’ this is the one they’re talking about. Probably.
Some of the coins had clearly been there exposed to the elements for quite some time. Others were a bit fresher, and stood out a bit.
And others had clearly given their wishers a bit of trouble getting them into the tree. Whether the wishes still worked is uncertain.
Likewise, I’m not sure if this one counted either.
Whilst having a look around online to see if I could find out any more information about this tree, I found a TripAdvisor review that stated that the tree made their skin crawl, and I suppose you can see why.
I can certainly see how, especially from a distance, any sufferer of trypophobia would find this tree very difficult to look at.
As it was in a wooded area, occasionally when the sun picked up the shadows of the trees lit up spots on the coined tree.
I spent a little while photographing the tree from all sorts of angles.
I ended up with a decent assortment of images, which you can see in the gallery below, if it all doesn’t make you feel too uncomfortable.
