De Kozakkenlinde

There was a holy oak on this spot and when it died they replaced it with a lime. That is the register's reading, planting in 1614, following the death of the Hijligen eik that had stood here. Sacred trees were real fixtures of the Dutch countryside, marking a boundary, a court, a crossing or a spot where something had happened, and when one died the community's instinct was often to put another tree in its place rather than let the place go unmarked. That instinct is why the road is called what it is and why this tree exists. The name it carries now comes from two centuries later. In 1813, during the French occupation of Deventer, the lime is said to have served as a lookout tree for Cossacks fighting against the French. Russian irregular cavalry had followed Napoleon's retreat west across Europe and reached the Netherlands that winter, and a big lime on a rise with a view is exactly what a scout wants. Both stories are tradition rather than record. The tree is not: it is an enormous old lime on a country road, standing where somebody in 1614 decided a tree should stand. Go in July, when it flowers and hums.