In times past the ancient twisted Hawthorns were familiar to all.
For this was known as May and was the original maypole around which our ancestors danced.
It is a tree that has passed into legend, but was once part of our full participative relationship with the natural world.
Here upon the mountain, one smells its heady and seductive perfume long before it comes into sight.
Once glimpsed, they appear like tiny clouds of pearlescent silver adrift in the dreaming canopy of a high Spring day.
Behind them, the intense blue of the Andalucian skydome shimmers like a cerulean mantle draped around this precious ecology.
There is a magnificent abundance to the Dehesa upon the eve of the great Celtic festival of Beltane as the bees dance around these wild maypoles in celebratory ecstasy.
Photo: Hawthorn at Saladaviciosa. Courtesy of the author.