Tree falling in front of you
A tree crashing down ahead of you seems sudden, but most falls are years in the making, from rot hidden inside the trunk or roots. In old Alabama belief, a tree that fell to your right foretold a journey.
What it may mean
A falling tree gives almost no warning at the moment it goes: a sharp crack, a rush of leaves, and the trunk is down across the path or the street. Yet the fall is rarely sudden in any other sense. Most trees that come down have been weakening for years, with fungus eating the heartwood, roots rotting in wet soil or a split widening a little every winter, all of it hidden behind bark that looks fine. Arborists learn to read the small clues: mushrooms at the base, dead limbs high up, a lean that was not there last year. After the shock passes, it is worth looking at what around you seems sturdy only because nobody has examined it in a while, from the porch steps to a long friendship you take for granted.
Depending on how you saw it
Falling to your right
In Alabama lore, a tree that fell to the right while you watched foretold a long journey before the year was out and some unexpected good fortune. Whichever way it fell, your body probably decided before you did. What did you notice about the tree only after it was down?
On a still, windless day
Trees and big limbs sometimes come down in calm weather, even on hot summer afternoons, which arborists call summer branch drop. No wind is needed when the weakness is already inside. Where has something given way around you without any storm to blame?
Across the road after a storm
A trunk lying across your usual route forces a detour through streets you never take. Crews often clear the road within hours, but the drive is different that day. Which detour that you did not choose ended up showing you something new?
A branch crashing against a window
In England, the fall of a branch against a window was once read as an ominous sign of misfortune. In practice it is the branches overhanging a house that come down on it most often. Which overhanging problem near your home have you put off trimming back?
Why it happens in nature
Most trees that fall have been weakened for years by decay in the trunk or roots, often invisible from outside, and then go over in wind, after heavy rain softens the soil, or under the weight of ice and snow. Large limbs also drop occasionally on hot, still days, a known but poorly understood pattern called summer branch drop.
What folk beliefs say
Alabama, United States
In Alabama, if a tree fell to the right while you were looking at it, you were going on a long journey before the end of the year and would have some unexpected good fortune.
Source: Cora Linn Daniels; C. M. Stevans (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World, vol. 2 (1903), vol. 2, p. 851. View the page
England
In England, the fall of a tree branch against a window was taken as an ominous sign of misfortune.
Source: Cora Linn Daniels; C. M. Stevans (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World, vol. 2 (1903), vol. 2, p. 771. View the page
To reflect on
What around you looks sturdy only because nobody has checked it lately?