They Cut Down a Tree, Became National Villains

On a stormy night in Northumberland, England, in 2023, two buddies committed a bewildering crime: They cut down the beloved Sycamore Gap tree by the Roman fortification called Hadrian's Wall. The vandalism set off what Rosa Lyster describes as "national mourning" in a Harper's Magazine story. She sets out to understand with some big and largely unanswerable questions: "What is a person actually guilty of when they cut down a famous tree for no reason that anyone can name, other than malice? What is the nature of the injury? Who are the victims? What is the appropriate punishment?" Appropriate or not, Adam Carruthers and Daniel Graham (widely viewed as "morons" by the British public) each received four years and three months in prison.

Lyster recounts the surreal trial, including the never-quite-explained detail of a "mythic" piece of string owned by Carruthers—before the vandalism—that was said to exactly match the tree's circumference. It was "like something out of the Brothers Grimm," writes Lyster. She links the case to a long tradition of tree-related taboos in myth and religion, where the act of harming a special tree is less about stupidity than the deliberate thrill of doing what must not be done. The men's own explanations—that one was blackout drunk and the other along for the ride—were dismissed as implausible by the judge. "The question of what it was they had actually done, and why they would have done it, remained unanswered," writes Lyster. "The piece of string was never found." Read the full story.