Refresh -- and asking again (maybe there is someone new here who know a story of the Dram Tree in Edenton Harbor, North Carolina).

This time though, I'll expand the question, and give a little background.

I came upon this story-snippet after re-reading the Grimms' version of Ashputtle (which, thanks to Disney, many of us know better as Cinderella, which is actually taken from the version written by Perrault). In the Grimms' version, it's not a "fairy godmother' who helps the heroine, but a magical hazel tree which the heroine planted. It's not stated directly, but it seems (to me, at least) that the spirit of the mother is living on in the tree, and helping to make sure that her daughter gets justice.

An English translation of the 1812 version of the Grimm's "Cinderella" can be found here

There seems to be a similiar thing going on with the Dram Tree -- it seems like the tree was weeding out the just from the unjust -- or perhaps the ghost of someone who lived in the tree was meting out the justice.

I also wonder if this is what was happening with the Old Man of Halfway Rock, which MMario brought up earlier in this thread. Does anyone out there know more about this story, and who the Old Man might be?

Or, does anyone have any other stories out there where trees, or rocks, or other Beings of the non-human world watch over us and make sure that justice is done?

In the storytelling workshop I'm doing, I'm focussing on how stories are used to help us find a balance with the wild, and so these sorts of stories are of particular interest to me...