Character Profile: Bigtwig

I have this uncontrollable habit of drawing faces on trees and standing stones. It’s just something I’ve always done (with thanks to the apple trees in The Wizard of Oz, Doctor Snuggles and Tolkien’s Old Man Willow). I mostly draw the characters as benevolent beings, who tend to be a pinch on the grumpy side. I think I’d be a little grumpy too if I could talk and think and feel, but be anchored to the one location for a couple of centuries. I mean, how wouldn’t you get a bit frustrated!

A Tree with a farm named after him

In my Middle Grade book, MARY UNFAIRY & THE QUEST FOR BRAMBLE, Mary lives in a house with a huge oak tree growing right outside her upper floor bedroom window. Mary prefers to climb down the tree rather than do something as intolerably mundane as use the stairs in the house to go outside.

The tree’s name is Bigtwig and the farm that surrounds both him and the house is Bigtwig Farm (you’ll get no points for correctly guessing that the farm grows everybody’s favourite fruit, Juiceberries). Bigtwig has been standing there, slightly grouchily, for far longer than there has been either a house or a farm there. How long he’s been there, nobody actually knows. Bigtwig himself won’t answer that question, and he tends to grow even more testy if you ask him.

What is known about Bigtwig is that he thoroughly dislikes excessive sound, folk climbing up him (Mary Unfairy excluded, of course), shovels and spades, and thunderstorms. He is deathly afraid of fire, but that is the case for all Faerie Trees, naturally. He doesn’t produce as many acorns as he did in his younger years, but Bigtwig really puts a lot of effort into the ones he does make, and would appreciate it if folk could show him some respect, Mary included in this one, and stop picking them up and throwing them at random things!

The Mystery of Faerie Trees

At the heart of all Faerie Trees is the puzzle of what they truly are and what their purpose is. Whether by choice or through mere circumstance, Faerie Trees are enigmas that keep their origins to themselves. Scholars have tried to unlock the secret of Faerie Trees, with no luck whatsoever. Perhaps due to this, pure speculation and wild guesses as to the meaning of Faerie Trees prevails:

• They are the first beings to ever exist in the Realms of Faerie and have gone a bit kooky over the ages.
• They can move along the ground, just really really really slowly.
• Their seeds and fruits are magical, but only when eaten within the first minute of falling. Plucking them directly from a Faerie Tree destroys their magic instantly.
• They can communicate with each other through their extraordinarily long underground root systems.
• They are each keepers of some magical artefact buried deep within their roots.
• They are the by-product of an immensely powerful spell that didn’t work out how an ancient wizard intended. The Faerie Trees are stuck as they are until the spell is broken.
• They can see through time.
• They always face south.

Funnily enough, two of these guesses are actually true.

Sappy Secrets

For Bigtwig, all of this talk of magic and mystery would bore him fast to sleep. He’s as much interested in things of that nature as he is in the importance of good shed maintenance. That is to say, he has need of it and would rather discuss important matters such as ways to deter Pikskies from using his upper branches as a nightly festivities location, and why in the Realms he keeps on getting an itch in the exact same spot on his back all the time.

Bigtwig and Mary Unfairy are the best friends each of them has ever known. They can talk for hours about even the most unimportant things. To them though, everything is important when you’re discussing it with somebody you care for. Bigtwig adores Mary with every leaf, acorn and root of his being. Watching her go off on her adventures, into parts and dangers unknown, fills him with such a fear that he is beside himself until the moment she returns.

Thankfully, the theory that Faerie Trees can communicate with each other through an elaborate root system is one of the guesses that has a basis in reality. So while Bigtwig does have to watch Mary walk off into who knows what trouble, there is some comfort in knowing that his cousins are keeping an eye out for her too.

One day soon though, Bigtwig will reveal another of his secrets to Mary.

Soon…