The Witch Tree of Black Kate

A forester working on its estate has said on record that its species is nothing special and its legend is made up. It came fourth in Europe anyway: 18,452 votes in the 2020 European Tree of the Year, after the Dutch title in 2019. The reason is its shape. The trunk is short, the crown twists off in every direction, and the roots sit partly on top of the ground, as if they never managed to get into it. Hard clay in the subsoil is one cause; the feet of its visitors are the other, which is why a low fence has circled the trunk since 2019. The estate's manager says walkers at dusk have been startled by it. The legend explains the shape differently. In 1852 the Bladel-born writer Renier Snieders published a tale about Zwarte Kaat, Black Kate, a robber chief who stole the child of the lord of Ten Vorsel. Caught years later and beheaded, she was refused a grave in consecrated ground, so the story goes, and buried on the heath under a young beech. This, supposedly, is that beech. The register is less gothic. It dates the tree to around 1890, which makes it about 130 years old and younger than the book. It stood alone on open heath and was kept when the land was planted as forest in the early 20th century. It stands near Bladel, about 16 km from Hilvarenbeek's lime: a separate trip by car, not part of the same walk.