The Witch's Ash
How do I find it? You can recognise it by its trunk, reading as several stems grown into one with a distinct lump where legend places a witch's knot. It stands in Plateliai Manor Park, on the shore of Lake Plateliai.
Lithuania's thickest ash looks like four trees knotted together, and by local tradition it once was. A witch is said to have bound four saplings with her scarf, and the lump on the trunk is where the knot sat. A second version has a woman lured out at night by witches, falling asleep against the tree, and a witch hurling a loaf of bread at it in fury when the roosters crowed. That loaf left the lump. Both are stories rather than history. What is real is the shape: one trunk that reads as several grown into each other, which is where the name Raganos uosis, the Witch's Ash, comes from. The numbers are 7.41 metres round in a 2016 survey and 7.30 in an earlier one, 32 metres tall, with a crown 27 metres across. Over 200 years old, which is a long life for an ash. It had already passed its natural maturity when a storm in 2008 broke its central trunk, and it carried on regardless. It grows in the old manor park at Plateliai, on the lake shore inside Žemaitija National Park, and it is a fixed stop on the park's main excursion route rather than something you have to hunt for. The state protected it in 1960 and made it a nature monument in 2000. Plungė is 13.6 kilometres away, so this is a drive, not a walk from town.
- Species
- European Ash (Fraxinus excelsior)
- Girth
- 7.41 m
- Location
- Plateliai Manor Park, Plateliai, Plungė district, Lithuania, within Žemaitija National Park (Plateliai, Žemaitija National Park)
- Access
- Free, public. Stands in the former Plateliai Manor park, on the shore of Lake Plateliai within Žemaitija National Park; it is one of the park's main tourist attractions and sits on the principal excursion route through it. No gate or fee for the tree itself, though some national park facilities nearby are ticketed.
- Getting there
- In Plateliai village, Plungė district, north-west Lithuania, about 13.6km from Plungė town (Plungė Manor Park cluster, plg_001-004). No direct public transport confirmed between the two; treat as a day-trip addition to a Plungė visit, reached by car, not a walk from the town centre.
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