Both pagan and Christian mythologies have endowed the Apple with wonderful virtues. It has possessed a symbolism for man in all stages of civilization. Standing for the type of the earthly in its contrast with the spiritual, it represented the idea of that conflict between Ormuzd and Arimanes in which the evil principle is continually victor. The stories of Eve, of Paris, the Hesperides and Atalanta all emphasize this thought, showing the Apple to have been a reward of appetite over conscience.

The allegorical tree of knowledge bore apples guarded by the serpent, and the golden fruit of the garden of Hesperides was apples protected by the sleepless dragon, which it was one of the triumphs of Hercules to slay. The Assyrian tree Gavkerena, the Persian “Jima’s Paradise,” “Indra’s heaven” and the Scandinavian ash tree Yggdrasil, all prefaced the story of Paris and the apple of discord which Ate brought to the banquet of the gods. In Greece it became the emblem of love, being dedicated to Venus. Aphrodite bore it in her hand as well as Eve, and it is said that Ulysses longed for it in the garden of Alcinous, while Tantalus vainly grasped for it in hades. The fruit was offered as a prize in the Grecian games given in honor of Apollo.

Among the heathen gods of the north there were apples fabled to possess the power of conferring immortality, which were carefully watched over by the goddess Iduna and jealously preserved for the dessert of the gods who experienced the enervation of old age. Azrael accomplished his mission by holding the apple to the nostrils of his victims, and the Scandinavian genii are said to have possessed the power of turning the fruit into gold.

The ancients better appreciated the importance of the apple than do the moderns, who treat it chiefly as “the embryonic condition of cider or as something to be metamorphosed into pies.” It is said to be indigenous to every part of the inhabited globe except South America and the islands of the Pacific. It is equally at home in the fierce heat of the equator and among the frosts of Siberia. In olden times, the fig was the index of a native civilization. Later on, the vine was king, but at the present time there are many who maintain that the Apple is the only genuine index of civilized man, and claim that it flourishes best in those regions where man’s moral and intellectual supremacy is most marked.

The Athenians made frequent mention of the cultivation of the Apple, and Pliny enumerates twenty varieties that were known in his day. It is generally supposed that the Goths and Vandals introduced the manufacture and use of cider into the Mediterranean provinces and references to it are made by Tertullian and the African Fathers. The use of cider can be traced from Africa into the Biscayan provinces of Spain, and thence to Normandy. It is supposed to have come into England at the time of the conquest, but the word “cyder” is said to be Anglo-Saxon, and there is reason to believe that it was known in the island as early as the time of Henghist. As the mistletoe grew chiefly on the apple and the oak, the former was regarded with great respect by the ancient Druids of Britain, and even to this day in some parts of England, the antique custom of saluting the apple trees in the orchards, in the hope of obtaining a good crop the next year, still lingers among the farmers of Devonshire and Herefordshire. During the middle ages, the fruit was made the pretext for massacring the oppressed tribes of Israel, as it was supposed that the Hebrews used apples to entice children into their homes to furnish their cannibal banquets.