SUPERSTITIONS OF THE GROVE.
"Oh the Oak, and the Ash, and the bonnie Ivy tree
Flourish best at hame in the North Countrie."

In the present chapter we propose to give a few of the legends with which groves were enriched when the worship of the sun (Baal) was the religion of the world—legends yet remembered in Aran. In the groves they offered sacrifices, and "burnt," writes the Prophet Hosea, "incense under the oak and the poplar and the turpentine tree [the pine], because the shadow thereof was good."[20] And we are told that "Abraham planted a grove in Bersabee, and there called upon the Name of the everlasting God."[21]

The selection of such places originated, no doubt, in the fact that the gloom of the forest was calculated to excite awe, and because they considered that the spirits of the departed hovered over the places where the bodies were buried; and it was common to bury the dead under trees, as appears from the eighth verse of the thirty-fifth chapter of the Book of Genesis, where it is stated that when Deborah, the nurse of Rebecca, died, she was buried at the foot of Bethel under an oak tree, and the name of that place was called "The Oak of Weeping;" and when Saul, the first King of Israel, fell at the battle of Gilboe, his bones were buried under an oak tree at Jabesh.[22] Amongst the Hebrews it was common, before the time of Moses, to plant groves. But the idolatrous nations planted them also; and groves and the places of idol-worship soon became convertible terms. For the purpose, therefore, of extirpating idolatry, the Lord thus spoke through Moses: "Thou shalt plant no grove, nor any tree near the altar of the Lord thy God."[23] And in after-centuries, when Josias abolished the worship of Baal in Judah, and destroyed them that offered incense to the sun, and the moon, and to the twelve signs, he caused the grove to be burnt there.[24]

Whether the groves of Aran were destroyed at the time of the destruction of the religion of Baal and of the introduction of Christianity, or in after-ages, it is impossible now to state. That great trees had existence in the islands in 1618 is certain, as appears by a partly hereinbefore recited indenture of that date, when Henry Lynch did demise a moiety of the three islands to William Anderson, his executors, etc., for a long term of years, excepting thereout great trees.

The Oak.—The chief object of worship was the oak, which has not inaptly been called "the king of the forest." With its life was bound up the life of a nymph, for the nymphs of trees, called in classics Hamadryades, were believed to die together with the trees which had been their abode, and with which they had come into existence. Those that presided over woods in general were called Dryades, as the divinities of particular trees were Hamadryades. Not unfrequently has the axe of the woodman been stayed by the voice of the nymph breaking from the groaning oak.

That misfortune was believed to follow in the footsteps of those who wantonly felled an oak is abundantly proved by the soothsayers in the olden time. Often have oaks become attached to the lords of the house with whose existence they were bound for hundreds of years. If the leaves in a living state have prophesied touching the affairs of men, so did the dried timbers, as in the case of the Argo, when they warned the Argonauts of the misfortunes that awaited them. Not unfrequently has the falling of a branch of the oak tree warned the protecting family of coming disasters. The idols in idolatrous times were manufactured from its wood, though more frequently from that of the ash, and from it was cut the yule-log which served to maintain the perpetual fire. Once a year all fires and lights but one were extinguished, and that was the oaken log, from which every other fire in the islands was with much ceremony relighted.

The medicinal qualities of the tree, and the charmed life it bore, prophetic, as we have said, and causing diseases to depart by its spells and incantations, must have made its existence, if it knew anything at all about it, a happy one. The Irish of the "oak" is Dara, and many an Aranite bears that name.

Now, there was a blessed Saint, "Mac Dara," who lived in those islands long ages ago, and there was a renowned statue of him made of oak, which the people venerated with an idolatrous veneration. It was in vain that the Catholic clergy called on them to desist from kneeling before the graven image, and from swearing on it rather than on the Book of the Gospels, on which all men swore. Malachy O'Queely, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Tuam, was, however, resolved to put down an exhibition which he considered a scandal to the Catholic Church, and so, coming to the islands in 1645, he tore down the statue and flung it into the sea; but ill luck awaited him. In the same year he was sent by the Supreme Council of Kilkenny to accompany the confederate troops to Sligo, which had been lately taken by the Parliamentary forces. He did so, and the warrior archbishop rushed to the relief of the town, and for a season dislodged the enemy; but the tide of victory turned, the Irish were routed, and the body of the prelate was literally cut to pieces. Upon him was found that treaty with Charles I. which afterwards helped to bring the unhappy king to the scaffold.

Another of the superstitions that attaches to the king of the forest is that, if his majesty leafs before the ash, the coming season will be dry; if, however, the ash leafs before the oak, then the coming season will be wet.

"If the oak's before the ash,
Then you'll only get a splash;
If the ash precedes the oak,
Then you may expect a soak."

Of the Irish oak and of the horror that insects have of that tree, we may form an estimate from Hall, who, in his Chronicles, says that "William Rufus builded Westminster Hall, and the oaks with which the said Hall was roof'd were felled in Oxmanstown Green, near Dublin, and no spider webbeth and breedeth in that roof of oak even to this day." Of the remote pedigree of the oak we need not speak further than to remind those who are curious about such matters that the oak all over the world is said to be the first created of all trees, and next to it comes the ash.

The Ash is "the Venus of the forest." On ashen sticks (dreadful in matters of witchcraft, as appears from the evidence given in the case of "the Dame Alice Kettler," tried for witchcraft in Kilkenny, in 1324) witches were wont at night to ride "through the fog and filthy air." To love-sick maidens the even ash leaf—that is, where the leaflets of the leaf are even in number—is of priceless value, "and note that if a youngster meeteth and plucketh an even ash leaffe and a four leaffed clover [shamrock], they are most certaine to meet their husband or wyfe, as the case may be, before the day passeth over;" and so runs the old saw—

"And if you find
An even-leaved ash and a four-leaved clover,
You'll see your true love 'fore the day is over."

Strange that the mountain ash, the rowan tree, should be held in horror by witches. "Of it whip-handles are made, for the bewitched and stumbling horses thereby become unbewitched and unstumblers." So also the housewife should, before turning the cows out to grass for the summer, tie a switch of mountain ash with a red worsted thread around the cow's tail. The churn, so often bewitched of its butter, is certain to withstand the evil eye when the churn-staff is manufactured of the rowan tree. The roots of the ash or the mountain ash, in Aran, are of rare occurrence; we shall, therefore, pass on to the aspen, of which it is said that it alone refused to bow, as the other trees did, to the Redeemer, and that for such conduct the aspen leaf all over the world trembleth even to this hour.

The Elder.—The most unlucky of all trees is the elder, now a mere bush; for out of it was made the cross of Christ, and from one of its boughs Judas hanged himself. In Scotland this tree is known as the bourtree, and hence the rhyme—

"Bourtree, bourtree, crooked wrung,
Never straight and never strong;
Ever bush and never tree,
Since our Lord was nailed to thee."

The mushrooms growing in or near the elder are known as Judas's ears, of wondrous virtue in curing coughs.

"For a cough take Judas' ear,
With the parings of the pear;
And drink this without fear."

The superstitions attached to this tree are many, and to tell them would fill a volume.

Stumps of Pine and Fir are numerous in the Aran islands. The fir tree has been ever highly esteemed. It was amongst the materials employed in the building of Solomon's temple. Together with the pine it was held in such veneration in France, that St. Martin met with the strongest possible opposition when he proposed the destruction of the holy fir groves. The fir grew luxuriantly in Palestine; and the Prophet Hosea saith that the Lord will make Ephraim flourish "like a green fir tree."[25] And another prophet, Ezechiel, informs us, in the fifth verse of the twenty-seventh chapter of his prophecy, that the navy of Tyre was constructed of this tree, whilst the masts were from the cedars (pines) of Libanus. It was the timber, too, used for the manufacture of musical instruments in Israel; for in the Second Book of Samuel (ch. vi. 5) it is written that "David and all the house of Israel played before the Lord on all manner of instruments made of fir wood, even on harps, and lutes, and timbrels, and cornets, and cymbals." And when Hiram, King of Tyre, sent timber to Solomon for the building of the temple, it was the cedar and the fir[26] he sent, for which he was allowed twenty thousand measures of wheat. It was, in Palestine, a tall tree, on the tops of which, we are informed somewhere in the Psalms, the storks built their nests.

The Holly, or Holy, and the Ivy are indigenous in the soil of Aran. In idolatrous times holly was planted, according to Pliny, in the neighbourhood of dwelling-houses, to keep away spirits and all manner of enchantments. There can be no doubt that those who believe dreams to be other than the wanderings of the fancy can on any night have steady sensible dreams of a reliable nature if they bring home in their handkerchief (observing the strictest silence all the time) nine leaves of thornless holly and place the same under their pillow. Amongst the conversions of the trees of the forest from the pagan to the Christian faith, that of the ivy was the most remarkable; it no longer adorns the brow of a drunken Bacchus, but is now entwined in wreaths over the altar at the midnight Mass on Christmas night. Nevertheless, they that would look into futurity can still read in the ivy leaf of what is coming to pass in after-times. Place a leaf, on New Year's Eve, in a basin of water, and take it out on the eve of Twelfth Night; if it come out fresh, health is on the house; but if it come out spotted, sickness and death are sure to follow.

The Hawthorn and Blackthorn grow freely in the islands. Need it be told that the antipathy between these shrubs is so great that the one is never found to be growing naturally near the other? Of course, if planted together, they will struggle on for a time; but one or other generally sickens and dies; for there is a controversy between them as to which had the misfortune to supply the crown of thorns to Christ on the night of the Passion. The peasantry in England, Scotland, and France believe it was the hawthorn, and they look on it as an outrage to bring in flowering hawthorn in May to their houses, it being unlucky and accursed ever since that dreadful night preceding the Crucifixion. So also the blackthorn in Austria and the south of Europe is considered unlucky; as it is there insisted on that it supplied the thorns, wherefore it is doomed to blossom when no other tree of the forest dares, in the teeth of the poisonous Eurus, so to do. On which side the truth lies we shall not venture to speculate; but our astonishment is great when we learn that the walking-stick of Joseph of ArimathÆa was of hawthorn, that in Glastonbury he stuck it accidentally in the ground, and that ever since it and its descendants bud, blossom, and fade on Christmas Day!

The Rose.—"I am the Rose of Sharon." In the East it is the pride of flowers for fragrance and elegance. It was used amongst the ancients in crowns and chaplets at festive meetings and religious sacrifices. A traveller in Persia describes two rose trees fully fourteen feet high, laden with thousands of flowers, and of a bloom and delicacy of scent that imbued the whole atmosphere with the most exquisite perfume. Originally it was white, and the white moss-rose was suspended over the door of the Temple of Silence; whence it is that secrets are said to be told "under the rose." At convivial banquets in Greece the guests not unfrequently wore chaplets of roses, and anything said by them whilst wearing the emblem of silence was not to be repeated. The white rose was the emblem of purity, and the term "Mystical Rose" is applied by the Catholic Church to the Virgin Mary. Under the cross there grew, amongst the wild flowers of Calvary, a multitude of white roses, some of which were reddened with the blood of Christ. From these comes the red rose, emblematic, not alone of purity, but of martyrdom.

The tomb of the Virgin (the Rose that never fades) was found by the apostles to be filled with roses after the Assumption. Her altars ever after have been decorated with roses, and it was a high privilege in the Middle Ages to have a garden where no other flower was admitted. These gardens, called rosaries, may have suggested to St. Dominic the name given to that collection of prayers which he arranged, and which he called the Rosary.

The love of the nightingale for this flower is proverbial in the East. It is unnecessary, of course, for us to remind our readers that the white and red roses were the badges of the rival houses of York and Lancaster.

As for the elm and the beech, countless superstitions are attached to these trees, but as we fail to find that they existed in Aran, so we shall not prosecute further our inquiries on this head.

Ferns.—Not the least interesting amongst the botanical curiosities of Aran are the ferns, that carry their seed on their backs—a seed that has, it is said, the extraordinary property of making the person in whose shoes it is placed instantly invisible to all but himself. So Shakespeare has it, too, in his play of "1 Henry IV.," act ii. scene 1:

"We have the receipt of fern seed, we walk invisible."

A painful illustration of this property occurred, it is told, when once upon a time a man was looking for a foal that had strayed from his stable. He happened to pass through a meadow just as the fern was ripened, some of the seeds of which were shaken into his shoes. After a wearisome and fruitless search during the night he returned all travel-soiled in the morning, and sat down in his house to join the family at breakfast. He was amazed to see that neither wife nor children welcomed him home, nor showed the slightest concern at the night he had spent, nor even inquired about the result of his search. At length, breaking silence, he said, "I haven't found the foal." All were startled, and they looked everywhere to see where he was hiding. Believing that his family were treating him with contempt, he repeated, in a towering passion, "I have not found the foal!" They all sprang to their feet, and his wife called him by name to give over that nonsense, and to come out from his hiding-place. The creaking of his shoes was distinctly heard, though the wearer thereof could not be seen. At length, in a voice of anger, he repeated, as he planted himself opposite his wife at the foot of the table, "I say, I have not found the foal!" Need we tell the terrors of the family? But just then he remembered that he had, on the previous night, crossed a meadow loaded with ferns, and that some of the seed might have got into his shoes, and that he was therefore invisible. Flinging them off, he at once became visible to everybody.

Fern seed has also the valuable property of doubling a man's power in the working field, several examples of which are given by writers on this interesting subject.

The Fairy Flax of Aran we have frequently spoken of in the preceding pages, and that flax may be spun from year's end to year's end, and little realized thereby, unless, indeed, "the good people," as the fairies are called,[27] take the spinner under their protection. Now, there was once a man in humble circumstances, who had an only daughter, the most beautiful creature that ever was seen. She spent much of her time spinning, but to no purpose. At length a hideous dwarf, lame and blind of an eye, came to her one day as she was spinning, and presented her with a distaff full of flax, upon which, he said, there was enough for her whole life, if she lived a hundred years, provided she did not spin it quite off. On she went spinning, but never spinning to the end, and her loom produced the choicest of stuffs, for which she received prices almost fabulous! Day by day her wealth increased, and after a time she felt assured that the produce of her labour had now secured so sure a market that it made little difference whether she spun the fairy flax right off or not; so, to try what would be the effect, in her curiosity she spun it to the end. In a moment the wheel stopped, and she had ever after to repent the curiosity that stripped her of immense wealth.

The spinning-wheel in Aran, the old crones say, should never spin on Saturday. Whence this keeping holy the Saturday I know not; but it does look as if they who kept the Saturday holy, were of Israelitish descent—were, perhaps, of the lost tribes carried into Nineveh at the time of the Captivity by Salamanassar, 730 b.c.![28] Now, there were two old women indefatigable spinners, whose wheels never stood still, though they were by the wise men warned not to spin on Saturdays. At length one of them died, and on the Saturday night following she appeared to the other, who was as usual busy at the wheel, and showed her her burning hand, saying—

"See what in hell at last I've won,
Because on Saturdays I've spun."

Hemp.—I don't remember seeing hemp growing in Aran to any great extent. Sowing the seed of hemp on All Hallows' Eve in some parts of the country, and on St. John's Night in others, is described in the following lines from Gay's "Pastorals":—

"At eve last midsummer no sleep I sought,
But to the field a bag of hemp seed brought:
I scattered round the seed on every side,
And three times in a trembling accent cried,
'This hemp seed with my virgin hand I sow,
Who shall my true love be the crop shall mow.'
I straight looked back, and, if my eyes speak truth,
With his keen scythe behind me came the youth.
'With my sharp heel I three times mark the ground,
And turn me thrice around, around, around!"

The Hazel, one of Thor's trees, is generally used as a divining-rod to discover mines and lost treasures supposed to be hidden underground. The person who seeks for the treasure takes a hazel rod with an end in each hand, and then slowly walks over the ground, keeping the rod in a horizontal position before him; when passing over the spot it bends down like a bow in the middle, towards the place as if it were magnetized, as the needle turns to the pole. Beyond a doubt the hazel is known to miners, and to those who look for minerals underground, as the divining-rod.

And now, bringing our legends to a close, we shall bid farewell to these lonely and lovely isles, and in bidding them farewell we shall merely ask how it is that the travelling English public travel not into these islands, where frosts never wither, where snows never rest? And so farewell to Inishmore, the island-home of St. Enda—Inishmore—once

"Notissima famÂ
Insula dives opum, HiberniÆ dum regna manebant
Nunc tantum sinus, et statio mala fida carinis."