In several wooded areas around the UK, passersby have been stopping for centuries, meticulously hammering small denomination coins intro trees. Most of the trees seem to be in and around Cumbria and Portmeirion. The practice might date back to the early 1700s in Scotland where ill people stuck florins into trees with the idea that the tree would take away their sickness.
5 comment(s):
Cumbria and Portmeirion? Ha!
I can tell you that's not true at all. Those trees are all over the place.
(Cumbria's a biggish area, a county, and Portmeirion is a strange little tourist-trap village in north wales, mostly famed for being the setting of enigmatic sixties tv series "The Prisoner").
There are quite a money trees a short distance away from my home on Yorkshire.
Whatever the original intention, people do it because it's done...
Like throwing coins into fountains. It's a meme, no more than that.
I can think of a few pubs too, where cracks in ancient beams are filled with coins.
One where the landlord says "If you can pull it out with your bare hands, you can have a free pint of beer". So far, he's never had to give a pint away.
oops "quite a few", I meant.
Looks like money does grow on trees.
BAD-UM TISH!
Thanks Soubriquet for the additional information.
It's not just the UK. I can think of a few in Ireland too.
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