The Legend of the oak tree

There is a huge old oak tree in Cajvana that can be barely embraced by five men and some
people say that it is there sice the time of Stephen the Great, a sign left by the Moldavian vaivode
when he stayed one night at some villagers who treated him properly.

Others say that the oak tree would be even older and that it was planted there at a time when the
village was scorched by the Tartars. As the villagers refused to give them their cattle and the wealth
they had, the Tartars killed them. When the villagers who could escape came back, they had no time
and no power to carry the dead bodies to the graveyard, so they dug a great ditch and they threw
the bodies into it. And so that they wouldn’t forget that place, they planted an oak tree.

Others say that the oak was not planted by anyone, that it came out as a sign from God, or from the
dead bodies.

Who knows?

But people talk. So, it is said that when the sky and the graves open, the souls would gather to tell
each other what has been happening in this world.

One night, a young man passed by the oak tree and he heard some voices. He got closer to the oak
and listened. He heard the oak tree talking. In order to figure out that he wasn’t hallucinating, he cut
a branch from the tree. The voices stopped. When he arrived home he saw with horror that from the
branch was dripping blood. Then he realised that he cut an ancestor’s soul. All our ancestors have
gathered in the oak for centuries, which is why it is always young.

The young man told the villagers what happened and since then no one wants to cut any branch
from the oak.

This is the story of our old oak tree.