THE coming Sunday was formerly known as Holy Rood Day or Rood Mass Day, the word rood meaning cross. The festival’s official title was Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross and it began when the Emperor Constantine of Rome saw the figure of a blazing cross in the noon sky.

The name appears in rood screen which in pre-Reformation times was a screen inside a church; it divided the nave from the chancel and was usually topped by a large cross, hence its name. The cross was sometimes flanked by statues of the Virgin Mary and St John, both of whom were present at the Crucifixion, and churches might also add statues and other adornment which had connections to the parent church, e.g. a statue of the patron saint.

The screens had a practical purpose too. They prevented animals such as dogs (which were allowed in church in pre-Reformation times) from entering the area around the altar and also prevented people from wandering in what was considered a most holy part of the church. Most screens had three doors, the central one leading to the altar, the left one to the area where the gifts for holy communion were prepared, and the one to the right admitted people to the place where sacred vessels were stored and cleaned, and sometimes where books and vestments were kept.

During the Edwardine Visitations of 1547-53, the child king Edward VI, aged nine and son of Henry VIII, embarked on stripping from churches all things Catholic such as statues, altars and wall paintings. Rood screens were also removed and destroyed although some were saved by congregations and stored in safety.

They were later reinstated, although the Victorians created their own rood screens during their massive rebuilding programme; it seems they liked the medieval atmosphere of the older churches and tried to replicate it in Anglican church architecture.

One interesting screen is in St Andrew’s Anglican Church at Aysgarth, although the screen’s history is somewhat uncertain. It has been reconstructed along the south side, and is said to date from the 15th century when it stood within the church at Jervaulx Abbey. One theory is that it was removed during the carnage caused by Henry VIII’s Dissolution of the Monasteries and stored in safety, to be later reconstructed in Aysgarth Church whose “restoration” was completed in 1864-66. This beautiful old church dates from the 13th century and at one time was “mother” church to others in Upper Wensleydale.

The screen was said to have been carried, without being divided into smaller sections, from Jervaulx to St Andrew’s by a team of 20 strong men. Whether this is true or not is open to conjecture although the screen is said to bear the initials of two abbots of Jervaulx, Adam Sedburgh and William de Heslington. This church belonged to Jervaulx before its dissolution but the famous screen must have remained hidden for many years before its transfer to Aysgarth. Certainly there are mysteries to be solved.

However, Holy Rood Day has another name – Nutting Day. There is a long tradition that children would collect hazel nuts on Holy Rood Day but their work had to be achieved with a good deal of caution because it was said that The Devil also went a-nutting on this day. In collecting the nuts, the youngsters had to be aware of the dangers around them, and be careful not to injure themselves.

Down the centuries, hazel nuts have been one of our most popular free crops and in my part of the world, an abundance of nuts can still be found, provided the squirrels, pigeons, jays and even pheasants haven’t found them first. Squirrels are particularly adept at biting holes in the ripe nuts so they can reach the kernels but I’m not sure how the birds manage to abstract the contents.

I did once hear a story of starlings carrying ripe hazel nuts and flying over traffic which was stationery at traffic lights. They would drop the nuts onto the road ahead of the waiting vehicles, and when traffic moved as the lights turned to green, their wheels would crack open the nuts and expose the contents. When the lights turned to red again, the birds would swoop down to collect their trophies.

Whether this is true or not, it is a good story and, as some writers say, one should never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

Birds galore

During the spring and summer months, we have been surprised by both the numbers of birds that have visited our garden but also the variety. Our garden is not particularly large but it does contain a thick beech hedge, a rowan tree, a cherry tree, lots of garden plants that provide shelter around the borders along with a fish pond and plenty of undergrowth.

This year we had two blackbird nests within our garden, one thrush nest, one robin’s nest, one dunnock’s nest, possibly a greenfinch nest and a nest box which hosted a blue tit’s nest. We were fortunately in watching the blue tit chicks fly the nest, popping out like ping-pong balls being blown out of a tube, and flying off as if they had had lots of practice. The flights we witnessed were their first, and we think the family has remained in and around our garden – lots of young blue tits are visiting our feeders.

They are recognizable as youngsters because their caps are rather more green than blue, and their cheeks are yellow instead of white.

As a general practice, we do not feed the birds during summer but this year we relented due to the poor weather in the early weeks plus the quite clear demands of the birds as they waited hopefully near empty food containers. It’s amazing how many blue tits have been visiting us, but also greenfinches, goldfinches and chaffinches, along with great tits, coal tits, long-tailed tits and a pair of marsh tits. Magpies are visitors on occasions, along with starlings, jackdaws, crows and a great spotted woodpecker; we’ve had a goldcrest and a nuthatch, while a hoopoe was spotted nearby but didn’t visit our garden.

A year or two ago, a heron visited our fish pond and managed to take some goldfish while wood pigeons and collared doves drink from our pond. One or two racing pigeons have also rested here.

Other species in our garden include robins, wrens, chiff chaffs, willow warblers, thrushes, blackbirds, with dunnocks skulking around in the undergrowth and swallows dipping into our fish ponds while swifts hurtled around the heavens. As I write these notes, the swifts have returned to Africa, but the swallows remain, and we have not had any house martins this year.

Among the birds of prey, we’ve had a sparrow-hawk, a kestrel hovering above, a peregrine and even a visiting goshawk that remained long enough for me to get my reference books to find out what it was. Regular visitors in the skies above our garden include buzzards, rooks, migrating geese, various gulls and a pair of what appear to be huge seabirds that regularly fly over in a very stately manner, but which defy identification. They seem to be making a regular trip for we’ve seen them on several occasions, but so far they’ve not broken their mysterious journey at our fishpond.