“It’s incredible – anyone would think that those guys committed genocide! All they did was cut down a tree!” observes radio talk show host Mile Proon, commenting on the level of vitriol being directed by callers to his show against the two men recently convicted of illegally cutting down the ‘Sycamore Gap Tree’ at Hadrian’s Wall. “Honestly, I’ve had people phoning in demanding that they be publicly hanged – preferably on a gallows constructed of wood from the tree they felled! It’s utterly insane!” Proon, who broadcasts on Pamber FM – ‘The Voice of North Hampshire’, has been shocked by the levels of outrage and outpourings of pure hatred that seem to have been triggered by the felling of the tree. “Sure, I know that a large proportion of the people who call local radio phone ins are extreme right-wing kooks who think not standing for the national anthem should be a criminal offence, but a surprising number of these callers are apparently perfectly sane, respectable people,” says the host. “We’re talking about, doctors, solicitors, school teachers and retired bank managers, here! They all seem to have completely lost their minds over a bloody tree, calling for these two guys to be, quite literally, hung, drawn and quartered!” Proon is at pains to emphasise that he is in no way defending the convicted men, but rather that he is simply highlighting the general overreaction to their crime. “Make no mistake, they are mindless vandals who deserve to be punished,” he opines. “But people need to start putting this all into perspective: they cut down a tree, an inanimate object, They didn’t kill or injure anyone and their punishment should reflect that! You don’t get a life sentence – the mildest suggested punishment I’ve heard – for illegal tree felling!”

The opprobrium, however, hasn’t been limited to radio phone ins and traditional media, with social media also awash with simmering hostility in the wake of the guilty verdicts. “While, as with the radio phone ins, such reactions of this sort from those on the right are hardly surprising, we’ve also seen social media accounts belonging to those identifying as liberal or left-wing expressing similar sentiments,” points out Dr Willard Freans, Head of Social Media Studies at the Chilbolton College of Topiary. “The roots of the anger of those on the right is straightforward – it’s the usual reflection of their belief that society is collapsing, whether that is because of immigrants, the welfare state, the EU or the legalisation of homosexuality. For them, an act of mindless vandalism like this is simply an expression of how far things have degenerated and serves to reinforce their prejudices.” For those on the left, though, the causes of their anger are less straightforward. “I think it has to do with the fact that these social media leftists are essentially middle class and like to position themselves as intellectual aesthetes who believe they are part of a mission to ‘improve’ the lower classes,” muses Freans. “They have all sorts of idealised notions about the ‘nobility of work’ and when they encounter real people from the so called ‘lower classes’ they are inevitably disappointed. They are especially disappointed when they find them committing crimes or engaging in anti-social behaviour. Their anger is triggered by their outrage at having been ‘let down’ by the lower orders they are trying to help. Ultimately, of course, they blame it all on the corrupting nature of the capitalist system.”

Fellow academic Professor Eric Huntley-Palmer, Chair of Penal History at the University of West Ruislip, disagrees, believing instead that the key to the anger aroused by the felling of the ‘Sycamore Gap Tree’ is the very fact that it was an inanimate object. “Here in the UK we’ve been brainwashed into the idea that crimes against property are more heinous than those against persons, he explains. “Just look at the way British law is skewed to protect property over persons – which is hardly surprising as, for centuries, these laws were framed by wealthy landowners concerned with keeping the great unwashed away from their valuables.” Consequently, he argues, the felling of an old tree, although it was situated on publicly owned land, triggered deeply rooted conditioned responses in ordinary people, across the political spectrum. “The message that property is more valuable than human life has been deeply indoctrinated into non-property owners via the law,” says Huntley-Palmer. “In the past it was used to ram home the point. After all, it wasn’t so long ago that stealing livestock was rated as being of the same magnitude as murder – you could be hanged for both. Except, of course, if you were a landowner who, say, shot a peasant while they were allegedly stealing your sheep – in which case the landowner would be given a pat on the back and the peasant hanged regardless of the fact that they were already dead.”

But is there another, more sinister, explanation for this outbreak of apparently irrational hatred for tree fellers? “What I found really disturbing were the number of callers demanding that these two guys be burned in cages as a punishment,” recalls Proon. “I mean, that sounds more like the sort of thing religious fanatics do to punish heretics and defilers of their faith!” For top occult investigator Harry Creame, these references to execution by fire provide an important clue as to the real cause of the wave of hatred set off by the felling of a sycamore tree. “It’s quite clear to me that this whole campaign has been orchestrated by a cult of tree-worshipping druids,” he declares. “The sycamore tree was sacred to this ancient religion, with only their high priests permitted to cut its branches with a golden sickle. For anyone else to damage or destroy such a tree would be blasphemy of the highest order!” Creame contends that the druidic religion – brutally suppressed by the Romans – has survived underground, into modern times. “I’m not talking about those idiots who dress in sheets and mumble nonsense at sunrise at Stonehenge every solstice, mind,” he says. “I’m talking about a secret, yet widespread, group, with members in all walks of life, who covertly continue their ceremonies. I think that it’s a fair bet that the ‘Sycamore Gap Tree’ was a sacred site for them – a venue for midnight naked ceremonies and orgies!”

Burning to death in a cage, the occult expert notes, is a traditional form of ritual sacrifice practiced by the druids. “It’s my bet that they’ll try to kidnap those two blokes on their way to prison, take them back to the site of the tree felling and burn them alive,” Creame speculates. “They probably hope that by doing so, they can somehow summon the ‘spirit’ of the tree in order to physically reconstitute it from the ashes of the sacrificial victims!” Proon, though. doubts if any of these theories adequately explain the wave of hatred toward the ‘Sycamore Gap’ tree fellers that he has experienced on his show, suspecting that there might be a simpler explanation. “The more I think about it, the more I think that it is some kind of mass hysteria whipped up by the media,” he says. “After all, the media are always looking for scapegoats to blame for all of society’s ills – these guys could only have been better targets if they’d been immigrants!”