This old Limburg ritual with the pine tree as a fertility symbol does not go well with nature management

It’s called fetching a pine tree: a ritual in the South Limburg village of Banholt that lasts more than half a day and revolves around a pine tree. At six o’clock in the morning, last year’s pine is taken down and cleared away. At half past seven, the pastor treats the board of the youth – the club of unmarried men from the village – to bacon and eggs.

Then those young guys go into the forest for a new Norway spruce of about thirty meters high. That trip lasts until at least the end of the afternoon, also because there is heavy drinking at various places along the way. Around seven o’clock the tree will be placed in the heart of Banholt. Correcting this fertility symbol is up to the married men.

To outsiders the collection may seem like a strange event, but in part of the Limburg Hills it is a cherished event. The use is also on the UNESCO list of intangible heritage worthy of protection. On the other hand, there are concerns among site managers in the region, such as Staatsbosbeheer, Natuurmonumenten and Limburgs Landschap.

Staatsbosbeheer announced four years ago that it would no longer give permission for the removal of pine trees. Almost all forests of Staatsbosbeheer are in the Natura 2000 area. Norway spruces are becoming increasingly scarce there as efforts are being made to create varied deciduous forests. In addition, an advancing beetle, the spruce beetle, is eating more and more trees.

Breeding season

But there is another objection, says Marcel van Dun, spokesperson for Staatsbosbeheer: “Cutting takes place in the breeding season, when nature is most vulnerable.” The organization found that agreements in the past were not always properly fulfilled: sometimes other and more trees than agreed died and damage was caused to other plantings when they were removed from the forest.

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Staatsbosbeheer says it would like to restore the tradition, but in consultation with the province of Limburg and the municipalities involved. Objective standards must ensure that the achievement is done safely and does not disrupt natural values.”

To circumvent Dutch rules, the youngsters of Noorbeek, Mheer and Banholt, village centers in the municipality of Eijsden-Margraten, got their Norway spruce this year from a forest just across the border in the Belgian Voer region. Things are easier there, two sources confirm.

The youngsters themselves do not want to cooperate in this article after mutual consultation. They are afraid that publicity will lead to new problems. Whether it is not with the acquisition of the annual tree or with the use of draft horses to collect the pine. They have sometimes been criticized for this in the past by fanatical animal lovers.

‘Occupational therapy for young men’

Joep Leerssen, nationalism expert and emeritus professor of European studies at the University of Amsterdam, hears it with some surprise: “They are draft horses, aren’t they?” He also finds the objections raised regarding the felling of “three or four pine trees” to be “a bit of quibble. That can’t cause so much damage, can it?”

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Leerssen (70) comes from Mheer and lives there. He knows the tradition well: “As an unmarried young man I went to collect the pine. As a married man I often stood it up. Because of my age I no longer participate in that. There are plenty of younger, married men for that job.”

Leerssen sees the fetching not only as a fertility ritual in a period of spring, when everything suddenly grows and blooms. “It is also a kind of occupational therapy for young men at an age when they have a lot of energy that they need to release. Traditionally, fetching the pine has probably also been a way to tire them out a bit at a time when there was not much to do on and around the farms: the plowing and sowing was done, but in order to harvest everything had to grow a lot first.”

The tradition of fetching pine trees has existed in some villages in the Heuvelland for more than three hundred years. However, according to Leerssen, there is a persistent story that the origin goes back much further, to Germanic, pagan rituals around the beginning of our era.

“That goes back to stale and nationalistic cultural thinking from the 1920s by scholars who also regularly went in the dark direction in the years that followed,” says Leerssen. “There is no evidence for this: 1,500 years of extra history is simply added based on speculation.”

Limburg deputy Léon Faassen (BBB, Landscape and Nature) says he is very supportive of the move. “It is wonderful to see how traditions connect Limburgers, from generation to generation. At the same time, we see that traditions move with the times and can change.”

Solution with three conditions

Together with nature management organizations and involved municipalities, Faassen points out a solution according to an existing procedure that has three conditions. A felling notification must be submitted, a declaration of consent is required from the site manager and a flora and fauna check must be carried out.

These are rules that must be adhered to, according to Faassen. “And if there are any youngsters who come across suitable trees on land in the province of Limburg, the province is also prepared to help them find a tree. Provided that this is done in accordance with the rules.”

Leerssen believes that the ritual fetching of the pine will survive the current problems: “Details of the ritual and the value attached to it are constantly changing. In my time as a young boy, we simply went to fetch the pine with a tractor. They have now – out of a kind of nostalgia and a penchant for folklore – become draft horses again. My own protest generation proves how strong the tradition is. We, the long-haired young people of the village, were faced with all kinds of obstacles, but we managed to make it.” just as we will always cherish the local dialect.”

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