I’ve been looking at trees lately, well, that’s no real surprise, I often look at trees. However I’ve been looking at them a bit closer than usual

Troll sat alone on his seat of stone,
And munched and mumbled a bare old bone;

On Ederachillis’ shore
The grey wolf lies in wait-
Woe to the broken door,
Woe to the loosened gate,
And the groping wretch whom sleety fogs
On the trackless moor belate.

The lean and hungry wolf,
With his fangs so sharp and white,
His starveling body pinched
By the frost of a northern night,
And his pitiless eyes that scare the dark
With their green and threatening light.

He climeth the guarding dyke,
He leapeth the hurdle bars,
He steals the sheep from the pen,
And the fish from the boat-house spars,
And the digs the dead from out of the sod,
And gnaws them under the stars.

Thus every grave we dug
The hungry wolf uptore,
And every morn the sod
Was strewn with bones and gore:
Our mother-earth had denied us rest
On Ederchaillis’ shore

It’s an excerpt from a poem in The Book of Highland Minstrelsy, 1846, and if you’ve got a copy lying around please feel free to forward it my way

Anyway, this is a quick painting to get me in the mood…