Arbre aux épousailles de Lucheux

Lucheux

In the middle of the Place du Jeu-de-Tamis, an enormous lime tree splits almost at ground level into two gnarled trunks, which leave between them a narrow cleft that one can only pass through by squeezing. It looks like two old limes tangled and fused together, or perhaps a single tree split by age; the trunk measures about eight metres round (3.45 m according to the A.R.B.R.E.S. association). Custom gave it its name. According to the tradition reported by the commune, the newly-weds, on leaving the church, walked under a stretched sheet to the square; the first of the two to get through the opening became, it is still said, "the master of the household". The young wives, slimmer than their husbands, usually went through first, much to the dismay of their mothers-in-law. A saying sums it up, "Premier passé, maître sera" (first through, master will be), and a nursery rhyme quoted after G. Jacquiot sings it: "On the wedding day there is an old custom: to be well married, both must pass under the tree; whoever passes first will always be the master." The tree's age is uncertain: the commune gives it three hundred years, tradition takes it back to the early 1600s, and another hypothesis, reported after a study of 1936, makes it a liberty tree planted in 1848. It was listed among protected sites under the name of "marriage tree", by order of 18 September 1926 according to the DREAL database, in 1930 according to other sources, and in 2005 it received the Arbre remarquable de France label.

Commune de Lucheux — Que visiter ↗

Getting there : In the village, on the Place du Jeu-de-Tamis, a public square that also holds the wayside cross; free access. Benches and picnic tables are set around it.

Opening times and access details are given as a guide only: check before you set out.

Ambient sound