The Tree of Beauty by Michael Wood

Name: The Tree of Beauty
Author: Michael Wood

A playwright, reading “Consolatrix Afflictorum” in The Light Invisible beside the sea, hears a companion praise its beauty and mystery. The companion offers a true story, though he says he can only grope after its meaning. Centuries earlier, a wealthy and devout ruler governs an isolated northern village untouched by religious change. Deeply devoted to the Virgin Mother, he has built a splendid chapel in her honour. His servants bring before him a young gipsy lad who sells songs for food. Two of the songs mock the Virgin, and the ruler orders all the songs destroyed and the boy whipped, put in the stocks, ducked in the village pond, and driven away. The lad protests that he cannot read, knows nothing of disputes between faiths, and only hoped to earn red beads for his sweetheart. His plea fails, and he escapes at sunset bruised, hungry, and humiliated. A year later the ruler travels through southern country and rides with a preacher. Their argument over religion becomes so bitter that they lose their road in a misty oak wood. They meet the same gipsy boy, who at first fears them but agrees to guide them. Though he has been abused by the ruler and by others, he speaks openly of his people’s lore and of the creatures of the wood. The ruler learns that destroying the songs left the lad hungry for three days and cost him his sweetheart, who chose another man when he could not provide the promised beads. Ashamed, he begins to see the boy’s gentleness and generosity. The lad loses his way but hears a distant campfire and leads the travellers to an ancient ring of grey stones surrounding a deep green pool. On an islet in the water stands a ruined chapel, where the boy’s sister sits by a fire with her child. She offers bread and wine but insists that the men must cross the narrow, slippery rock path barefoot if they wish to share them. The ruler crosses with the boy, seeking food and prayer before the chapel’s cross; the preacher remains ashore, disturbed by the former Popish shrine and content with the food in his wallet. Inside the chapel, the gipsy woman shares her scant bread and wine, shelters her brother, and sings first of humility and then of the “Tree of Beauty” and “Tree of Might.” She tells the boy that the song belongs to all peoples, though they sing it in different languages and tunes. The ruler prays through the night before an image of the Mother and Child, while the woman keeps the fire burning, her child in her lap and the outcast boy wrapped in her cloak. The preacher, watching from outside, sees the woman as an image of the motherhood of the world. Thereafter he abandons harsh attacks on other worshippers and preaches instead that a mother’s self-giving love symbolizes the Divine Love that nourishes and preserves every creature. The ruler enters a deeper vision. The surrounding wood becomes a vast temple with three courts: one devoted to a mother and child amid incense, ritual, and human praise; one inhabited by the hidden peoples of earth, wood, water, birds, and natural forces; and one filled with transparent, flame-like beings moving to an inaudible cosmic music. From the central shrine comes a voice declaring that the Mother worshipped in all these forms is the Mother of all Faiths: Divine Mother, Wisdom, Secret Rose, Mary, sea, space, Nature, Beauty, memory, time, humanity, and the sacred form through which people approach God. She is the source of sacred bread and cup, the womb of holy humanity, the Mother of all tales, and the Tree of Might and Beauty.

By Michael Wood · First published 2007 · Genre: Religious Allegory, Mystical Fiction, Literary Fantasy · 4,344 words

First lines

"That," said the playwright, "is a beautiful story. I suppose every one who reads it will think so; but I am not sure that more than one in a million will guess a tithe of what it means. Frankly, I know I don't. I daresay even the writer himself didn't know all that it suggests."

The book was _The Light Invisible_, and the story was "Consolatrix Afflictorum."

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The Tree of Beauty is listed on Textopian as a short story by Michael Wood, dated 2007 CE.

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Work type: Short story
Author: Michael Wood
Date: 2007 CE
Language: English
Genres: Religious Allegory, Mystical Fiction, Literary Fantasy, Philosophical Fiction, Religious Fiction
Length: 4,344 words
Structure: 1 section, 58 paragraphs
Reading fit: Fairly Easy (7th Grade)

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Similar titles

Genres

Religious Allegory — The narrative uses its characters, chapel, sacred meal, visionary temple, and Marian imagery to allegorize divine love, the unity of faiths, and the sacred presence within nature and humanity.
Mystical Fiction — Its central experience is a spiritual vision in which ordinary landscape and events disclose transcendent realities, culminating in an expansive revelation of the Divine Mother.
Literary Fantasy — The story combines realistic historical scenery with visionary perception, supernatural suggestion, symbolic sacred spaces, and an ambiguous narrator whose tale exceeds literal realism.
Philosophical Fiction — It explores religious intolerance, truth, beauty, perception, mercy, and the relationship between divine unity and religious plurality through dialogue and symbolism.