IX: Pussywillow
Let's talk about sex and church.
Good morning. Today is nonidi, the 9th of Ventôse, Year CCXXXI. We celebrate le marsault, a tree with some rather hairy habits.
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Most English interpretations of the calendar list this day as "goat willow," a specific variety of pussywillow (salix caprea) common in Northern Europe, but the other main varieties are the grey willow (native to France) and American pussywillow (native to Quebec), and the French term marsault has fallen into obsolescence in favor of the (possibly related?) term saule, so it's unclear which version of the tree was being referred to, or if any distinction had yet been clearly drawn in the popular mind during the French Revolution.
The pussywillow is one of the strangest looking trees. The trees that sprout these fuzzy catkins are generally called just "willow" for most of the year, but when they suddenly sprout their fluffy tails near the end of winter, they become, for a season, their true selves.
