There's an aged, gnarled, twisted, long dead tree at the bottom of a friend's field. We called it the 'Devil Tree' as kids, on account of a figure we saw in the midst of it. We imagined that it was trying to wrest itself free, and that should it ever succeed, baleful things would befall us.

The figure's still there, 35-ish years after I first saw it, though it doesn't seem nearly so malevolent any more.

Now it feels like an old friend.