Legend has it that in about 1632 (no one can be totally sure), in a small region of the country that is now Slovenia, there was a young man….he couldn’t have been more than 34 (although legend has it that he was prone to lie about his age)….who decided to go for a walk to clear his head (the chat was that he had all sorts of troubles on his plate (not least of all that he had just broken his last plate and was too poor to buy another). This walk took him deep into his local forest. It was a scary forest but one that he was happy in because he knew it very well, or thought he did. Within about an hour of his walk he started to get an eerie feeling….he couldn’t quite tell where he was, it was gloomy, there were noises he didn’t like, there were dark shadows that he was convinced could have hidden all manner of nasty beasts.
Our hero stretched wide his eyes to let in all the light he could and held his breath trying hard to get his bearings and to use all his senses to work out what was hidden, to hopefully reassure himself that he wasn’t about to be the victim of some horrible faceless monster! He picked up his pace and even started to hum a tune….anything to distract him and to find comfort in the dark. Every branch he snapped echoed and added to the feeling of doom; every dip in the ground sucked his stomach down deeper into a doomy pit of despair. Then, all of a sudden (there was a lot more scary stuff that happened but to cut to the chase- not literary the chase (it’s a 1632 legend not Die Hard)….he saw some light- not from the sky but from within the forest. Not a light, more of a glow. He was drawn to its warmth. There in front of him was a tree like no other he had ever seen….it was red- all over. In Slovenian the light from the tree was like Kri življenja….the blood of life. In an instant this light spread around the forest, our hero felt energy that was wrapped up with excitement and potential. He could not only see where he was, clearer than he had ever seen before but he could see where he was going. Not just back to his home but beyond that, to new places, to new adventures, and to the plate store where he knew that the manager would give him a good deal….hence the legend of the Red Tree.