Pärnade (Pärnad [pl.])

Aka (Sing.) harilik pärn, small-leaved lime, little-leaf linden or greenspire linden, Tilia cordata. Its fragrant flowers are very popular with bees and makers of herbal tea. The bottom layers of bast used to be used for mats, cord, and viisud, peasant shoes/slippers made from bast (which sometimes only lasted a day or so), hence one of its other names: niinepuu, lit. bast tree. The oldest lime tree in Tallinn (if its grandson is to be trusted) is believed to be the one near Niguliste, known as Kelchi pärn after the church’s almost pastor and early historian of Livonia Christian Kelch (1657-1710) who reputedly died of the plague and was buried beside selfsame tree shortly before employment but well after completion of Liefländische Historia, oder kurtze Beschreibung der Denkwürdigsten Kriegs- und Friedens-Geschichte Esth- Lief- und Lettlandes [...] biss auffs 1690 Jahr (1695), a chronicle which mysteriously sold fewer copies than Barbara Cartland’s rather predictable Revenge of the Heart (1984) and only goes to show there’s no accounting for taste.