Der Spanbaum: Shaved Trees
A small tree whose branches are curls of wood, lifted one by one from a single turned cone of linden. It is made in the country around Seiffen, and one slip of the blade ruins it.
Styles
Shaved trees come in many sizes, from a few inches tall to the centerpiece of a Christmas scene. Most stand on a turned base; some go to pyramid makers to become part of a pyramid. They are left in the pale color of the wood or tinted, and set beside turned animals, villages and nativities.
The story
Pattern books of around 1850 already show little trees made of shavings. But the craft nearly vanished: by 1914 almost no one near Seiffen still cut them, because merchants preferred cheaper trees for export, made of green-dyed loofah on a stick. Around 1920 Seiffen’s toy school revived the shaved tree and developed the forms still made today.
Seiffen tells its origin this way: the school’s director took up an old miners’ technique, cutting shavings into logs so that they burned better for fire-setting, the old method of cracking rock underground with fire. The story is the town’s own and has not been confirmed elsewhere. In local dialect the craft is called Beemel-stachen, roughly “pricking little trees.”
When Saxony nominated the Erzgebirge’s woodcraft for Germany’s national register of intangible cultural heritage in 2024, it named the shaving of these trees, with ring turning, among the craft’s special techniques. The craft was entered in 2025.
How it’s made
The maker starts with a cone-shaped spindle of straight-grained linden, turned on the lathe. The blanks are kept in a cellar for four or five months so they stay moist and pliable. Then the spindle is clamped in a vise, and with a chisel the maker lifts one thin shaving after another, all the way around, so that each curls into a spiral branch the same length as its neighbors. A single broken shaving spoils the tree, and it cannot be sold.
Use and care
The curls are thin and fragile. Lift a tree by its base, never by its branches. To dust it, blow gently or use a very soft brush from the top down, following the curls.
Shaved wood catches fire easily: keep a shaved tree well away from candle flames, including those of a pyramid. Keep it out of direct sun, which bleaches the wood, and store it in its box in a dry room.
Related pieces
No. VIIReifentiere
Ring-turned animalsA herd split from one turned ring of spruce, a craft found only around Seiffen.
No. IIDie Weihnachtspyramide
The Christmas pyramidA carousel of figures on tiers, turned by nothing but the warmth of its candles.
No. IVDer Schwibbogen
The candle archAn arch of lights for the winter window, first forged in iron in 1740.