The Mythology, Utility and Future of the Ash Tree
I’m finishing up a box I’m making out of ash. Ash is one of my favorite woods to work with. It’s native to eastern South Dakota and very plentiful. The wood grain is very pronounced and beautiful when the piece is finished.
Ash is uniquely good for tool and axe handles. It’s tough, light, and flexible. This means it doesn’t add weight, and the flexibility means it doesn’t cause as much fatigue from continued use. The YouTube rabbit hole of making ash tool handles has captured me. I recently bought a draw knife, and I will tune up. The draw knife is a crucial tool for making tool handles. I’ve also been learning about building a shavehorse that holds your work and makes it easy to use tools like draw knives and spokeshaves.
Woodworkers use the Janko scale to compare wood hardness. Ash is harder than walnut and falls between the hardness of red oak and white oak. It’s below maple as well.
I have carved spoons out of ash, which is commonly used for kitchen utensils due to its straight grain. I really like how these spoons look.
Yggdrasil, a massive ash tree in Norse mythology, is central to the cosmos, connecting the Nine Worlds through its branches and roots. It is often called the Tree of Life and represents healing, life, and the interconnectedness of the universe. This imagination-inspiring ash tree has its branches in the heavens and its roots in the underworld. The mythology surrounding Yggdrasil intertwines dark and light images. It’s both the tree of life and the sustaining source of two wells, but also the tree in which Odin hanged himself to gain knowledge.
One of the reasons ash is plentiful right now is the expanding impact of the Emerald Ash Borer, an invasive beetle from Asia. Ash trees were also very popular with communities and homeowners in the 70’s because they look good and are relatively fast growing.
The combination of preferences by communities and homeowners and the death caused by the beetle is causing tree management issues in many communities. I hope communities replace these trees with a diverse selection rather than rely on one favorite tree species.
This means there’s a lot of ash being used as firewood, and small sawmills have access to a good number of trees. I do hope that if you have a nice ash tree you need to remove, you look for a sawmill and preserve this wood as material for craftspeople.
Also, please be aware that the main way of spreading the insect is through the transportation of firewood. https://emeraldashborerinsouthdakota.sd.gov/
I get sad when I think about this because I admire the utility and beauty of this tree. For right now, I’m going to enjoy having a readily available wood that I like to use.
This tree’s story is wrapped in both mythology and utility. To me, this represents questions I have about my existence. I am both a being of thought, faith, and creativity as well as a creature of utility who manipulates and changes the physical world. Basically, asking the question I asked my 12-year-old self, “Why am I here?”
