The Hand Tree

This tree, standing on a hill in a park or cemetery, would have carved wooden hands hanging from the low branches and the following tale inscribed nearby:

Once upon a time, alone on a hill, not far from town, there grew a tree. It was an ordinary tree with ordinary branches and leaves, that is until the day of the terrible thunderstorm. That day, dark clouds covered the sun, wind rocked the branches, rain pounded the trunk and thunder shook the ground. With a sudden flash and boom, lightning hit the tree. Then a strange thing happened; the branches had changed shape and looked jagged, like lightning bolts.

Several days passed before a moose wandered by and started eating some of the tree’s foliage. The moose walked on and the branches now looked like antlers.

The next morning, a spider crawled up the trunk to weave a web to catch breakfast. When the web was finished, the tree had branches in the shape of spider legs.

Two days later a spotted dog chased a striped cat up the hill. The cat scurried up the tree and its branches then resembled whiskers.

Later, two weary crows, looking for a place to spend the night, landed in the tree giving it branches that looked like wings.

A week passed before a cow with an itch came by to rub against the bark. Tail shaped branches were the result.

A day later, a boy walking past, decided to climb the tree. As the boy vanished among the branches, they changed shape, this time to resemble hands.

All was quiet around the hand tree for three weeks, when a man climbed the hill and sat down under the tree weeping. He couldn’t find his son who had been playing outside several weeks earlier and had never come home. He looked up and noticed a branch that liked like one of his boy’s hands. The father slowly reached up and held the branch in his hand. Suddenly he was surprised to see his son climbing down out of the tree. The father, with the boy on his shoulders, hurried happily home. A spider, two crows and a striped cat also left the now once again ordinary tree with ordinary branches.