A pretty awesome subject for a contest about trees. There is a lot of character and a sense of age and edginess to it. Like there might be something besides nature at work. :)

It doesn't help that I went looking for the potential significance of the tree, or something that might tell how it got into its condition. Instead of any of that, I found this passage from a free sample of an ebook novel online entitled: The Time Element by K. L. Freeman:

Something in a nearby sycamore tree had caught the young man’s attention. He had looked into the large hole in the gnarled trunk. Suddenly he had cried out in terror. Then he had turned and seen something else. Something he had never experienced in his short life. Although it was a mild evening he had shivered, and a terrible feeling of dread had closed around him. His body had stiffened and his scream had broken the silence. It had echoed on the moist night air through the very stones of the church and against the gravestones and crypts. Suddenly, he had run down the north-west path as though the devil was after him. In fact, that is exactly who he thought pursued him.

Could be an entirely different tree, but it seems to describe this one quite well. And, the story takes place in 1869, so nearly 150 years ago.