The Sacred Tree; or, the tree in religion and myth

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I TREE-WORSHIP—ITS DISTRIBUTION AND ORIGIN
Primitive conception of the tree-spirit—Illustrations of the evidence for tree-worship: from archaeology, from folk-lore, from literature, from contemporary anthropology—Earliest record of tree-worship, the cylinders of Chaldaea—The symbol of the sacred tree; its development—Meaning of the symbol—Tree-worship amongst the Semites—Canaanitish tree-worship—The ashÊra—The decoration of the Temple at Jerusalem—Tree-worship in ancient Egypt—The sacred sycamores—Survival of the worship in the Soudan and in Africa generally—Osiris, originally a tree-god; compared with other vegetation spirits—Tammuz, Adonis, Attis, Dionysus—The sacred trees of the Persians—Tree-worship still existent in India; evidence of its ancient prevalence—Its incorporation in Buddhism—Other instances of tree-worship in the East—The evidence from America.
Greek and Roman tree-worship—The German religion of the grove—Persistence of the belief in tree-spirits in Russia, Poland, and Finland—Sacred trees in mediaeval France—The rites of the Druids—Evidence of tree-worship in Saxon England; its survival in May-day customs—General conclusions as to the ancient prevalence of tree-worship—Its origin; views of Robertson Smith, Herbert Spencer, and Grant Allen Page 1

CHAPTER II THE GOD AND THE TREE
Tree-spirits divisible into tree-gods and tree-demons—The gods of antiquity subject to physical limitations, and approachable only through their material embodiment or symbol—This embodiment frequently a tree—The sycamores of Egypt believed to be inhabited by deities—Developments of this conception—In Greece the tree one of the earliest symbols of the god—The chief Greek gods in their origin deities of vegetation—The ritual of the tree—The tree dressed or carved to represent an anthropomorphic god—Late survival of this custom amongst the classical nations—Its prevalence in other countries.
The god’s own tree—Zeus and the oak—Apollo and the laurel—Aphrodite and the myrtle—Athena and the olive—The association of a particular god with a particular tree not known amongst the Semites—The bodhi-trees or trees of wisdom of the Buddhas—The sculptures of Bharhut—Brahma and the golden lotus—The holy basil of India—The grove of Upsala, the home of Woden—Taara and the oak—The great oak at Romove.
Gifts to the tree: in Arabia, in Egypt, in Greece—Dedication of arms, trophies, etc.
The use of branches and wreaths in religious ceremonies—The procession of the sacred bough in Greek festivals—The ceremonial use of branches common throughout the East.
The tree as sanctuary and asylum 24

CHAPTER III WOOD-DEMONS AND TREE-SPIRITS
General characteristics of the tree-demon—The fabulous monsters of Chaldaea—The jinni of Arabia—The hairy monsters of the Bible—The tree-demons of Egypt—The woodland creatures of Greece—Centaurs and Cyclops—Pan, satyrs, and sileni—The fauns and silvani of Italy—Female woodland spirits—The hamadryads—Alexander and the flower-maidens—The vine-women of Lucian—Corresponding instances in modern folk-lore—The soul of the nymph actually held to inhabit the tree—The belief that blood would flow when the tree was injured—Examples from Virgil, Ovid, and from modern folk-lore—Indian belief in wood-spirits.
The wood-spirits of Central and North Europe—Their general characteristics—The moss-women—The wild women of Tyrol—The wood-spirits of the Grisons—The white and green ladies—The Swedish tree-spirit—The Russian Ljeschi—The Finnish Tapio—The Tengus of Japan—Wood-demons of Peru and Brazil 52

CHAPTER IV THE TREE IN ITS RELATION TO HUMAN LIFE
The tree represented as the progenitor of the human race; as related in the Eddas; in Iranian mythology; amongst the Sioux Indians—The classical view—Human beings represented as the fruit of a tree—Individual births from a tree—Mythical births beneath a tree; Zeus; Hermes; Hera; Apollo and Artemis; Romulus and Remus.
Metamorphoses—Apollo and Daphne—Meaning of the legend—The daughters of Clymene—Baucis and Philemon—Other instances of metamorphosis—The growth of flowers from the blood of the dead, or from the tears shed over them—Transmigration of souls into trees—Tristram and Iseult—Sweet William and Fair Margaret—Other instances.
The conception of the tree as sympathetically interwoven with human life—The family tree—The community tree—The fig-tree in the Roman Comitium—The patrician and plebeian myrtle-trees.
The tree as the symbol of reproductive energy—The Semitic mother-goddess—Interpretation of the Chaldaean sacred tree as the symbol of fertility—The tree-inhabiting spirit of vegetation as the patron of fertility—Observances connected therewith 72

CHAPTER V THE TREE AS ORACLE
The oracular power a corollary to the belief in the tree-inhabiting god—Connection of the tree-oracle with the earth-oracle—The oracles of the Chaldaeans—Canaanite tree-oracles—“The tree of the soothsayers”—The oracular oak of Zeus at Dodona—The oracle of Zeus Ammon—The prophetic laurel of Delphi—Oracular trees in Armenia, in Arabia—Alexander the Great and the Persian tree-oracles—The prophetic ilex grove at Rome—Other Italian tree-oracles: at Tibur; at Preneste—Tree-omens—Legends of speaking trees—Oracle-lots—The origin of the divining-rod—Cut rods believed to retain some of the divine power resident in the tree—The life-rood—The divining-rod a survival of the tree-oracle—Its modern use—Divination by roots and leaves 93

CHAPTER VI THE UNIVERSE-TREE
Wide distribution of the conception—Its plausibility to the primitive mind; especially to the inhabitants of level countries—Earliest version of the world-tree found in an Accadian hymn of great antiquity—Probably a poetical amplification of the sacred spirit-inhabited tree—The world-tree and the world-mountain—The two conceptions combined in the Norse Yggdrasil, as described in the Eddas—Indian and Persian versions of the world-tree—Buddhist development of the idea—The cosmogony of the Phoenicians—Egyptian variants; the TÂt-pillar; the golden gem-bearing tree of the sky—Traces of the world-tree in Chinese and Japanese mythology—A similar tradition amongst North American Indians.
The Eastern conception of the stars as fruits of the world-tree, and as jewels hung thereon—A motive common in Oriental art—The golden apples of the Hesperides—Other instances of the world-tree in European legend—The monster oak of the Kalevala—Corresponding tradition amongst the Esthonians.