Seton - How the Shad Came and How the Chestnut Got Its Burrs - Keeping the Public in Public Domain

If you take a walk in the woods with your dog, expect to remove burrs or other prickly bits intended to cling to your clothes and that dog's fur. It's nature's way of planting more of the plants that made them. The chestnut tree has some that are large enough to contain an edible nut. 

Ernest Thompson Seton, in his Woodland Tales gives an interesting legend about how they came to be. He also mentions a fish, the Shad. (I confess to needing to look it up as they aren't common around here.) 

https://www.summitpost.org/american-chestnut-burr/349354

The online site where I found the picture to accompany Seton's tale says that Chestnut trees once were so numerous there were 4 billion of them, but a blight nearly wiped them out. According to Wikipedia "In the 1970s, geneticist Charles Burnham began back-breeding Asian chestnut into American chestnut populations to confer blight resistance with the minimum difference in genes.^" It goes on to say today demand outstrips supply. 

I say the tree and maybe the nut are worth the supply, but hate removing the burr and others of the sort clinging to fur and clothes.

How the Shad Came and How the Chestnut Got Its Burrs

In the woods of Poconic there once roamed a very discontented Porcupine. She was forever fretting. She complained that everything was wrong, till it was perfectly scandalous, and Wahkonda, the Great Spirit, getting tired of her grumbling, said:

"You and the world I have made don't seem to fit; one or the other must be wrong. It is easier to change you. You don't like the trees, you are unhappy on the ground, and think everything is upside down, therefore I'll turn you inside out, and put you in the water." And so the Porcupine was turned into a new creature, a fish, called the Shad. That is why he is so full of little sharp bones.

Then after the old Porcupine had been turned into a Shad, the young ones missed their mother, and crawled up into a high Chestnut tree to look for her coming. Wahkonda happened to pass that way, and they all chattered their teeth at him, thinking themselves safe. They were not wicked, but at heart quite good, only badly brought up; oh, so ill-trained, and some of them chattered and groaned as Wahkonda came nearer. Then Wahkonda was sorry for them, remembering that he had taken their mother from them, and said: "You look very well up there, you little Porkys, so you had better stay there for always, and be part of the Chestnut tree." And he touched each one with his magic wand and turned it into a burr that grew tight to the tree. That is how it came about. There they hang like a lot of little Porcupines on the twigs of the tree. They are spiney and dangerous, utterly without manners, and yet most of them have a good little heart inside.

***

Hearing about how chestnut trees nearly disappeared makes the use of the word "chestnut" to describe something old and common seem a bit in conflict with reality.

******************* 

This is part of a series of postings of stories under the category, “Keeping the Public in Public Domain.” The idea behind Public Domain was to preserve our cultural heritage after the authors and their immediate heirs were compensated. I feel strongly current copyright law delays this intent on works of the 20^th century. My own library of folklore includes so many books within the Public Domain I decided to share stories from them. I hope you enjoy discovering them.

At the same time, my own involvement in storytelling regularly creates projects requiring research as part of my sharing stories with an audience.  Whenever that research needs to be shown here, the publishing of Public Domain stories will not occur that week.  This is a return to my regular posting of a research project here.  (Don't worry, this isn't dry research, my research is always geared towards future storytelling to an audience.)  Response has convinced me that "Keeping the Public in Public Domain" should continue along with my other postings as often as I can manage it.

See the sidebar for other Public Domain story resources I recommend on the page “Public Domain Story Resources."