With its little cracks and licks, the log fire sings in the hearth. Ferreted out from woods, hedgerow and beck banks, each fallen bough had been carried home from up to a mile away before being sawn.Amazing how the human shoulder bears the long weight of even thick branches. Did the angular length of the human scapula evolve to carry fuel? I throw another log on the chuckling flames.Folklore is full of firewood advice. Avoid elder trees – unlucky; use oak for a good heat. Instead of chemical air fresheners, our forbears were advised to burn apple boughs whose fragrant smoke always scents a room. Elmwood was said to have no flame at all, as well as troubling a fire like a handful of churchyard mould. It’s one of the hardest to cut, too – half an hour to saw each single lo