these tree spirits lie thickly scattered throughout the folk-lore of most countries, survivals of which remain. even amongst cultured races. It is interesting, moreover, to trace the same idea in Greek and Roman mythology. Thus Ovid1 tells a beautiful story of Erisicthon's impious attack on the grove of Ceres, and it may be remembered how the Greek dryads and hamadryads had their life linked to a tree, and "as this withers and dies, they themselves fall away and cease to be; any injury to bough or twig is felt as a wound, and a wholesale hewing down puts an end to them at once-a cry of anguish escapes them when the cruel axe comes near." In "Apollonius Rhodius" we find one of these hamadryads imploring a woodman to spare a tree to which her existence is attached : "Loud through the air resounds the woodman's stroke, No longer let that fearful axe resound; Aubrey, referring to this old superstition, says: "I cannot omit taking notice of the great misfortune in the family of the Earl of Winchelsea, who at Eastwell, in Kent, felled down a most curious grove of oaks, near his own noble seat, and gave the first blow with his own hands. Shortly after his countess died 1 Metam., viii. 742-839; also Grimm's Teut. Myth., 1883, ii. 953-4. in her bed suddenly, and his eldest son, the Lord Maidstone, was killed at sea by a cannon bullet." Modern European folk-lore still provides us with a curious variety of these spirit-haunted trees, and hence when the alder is hewn, "it bleeds, weeps, and 1 begins to speak." An old tree in the Rugaard forest must not be felled for an elf dwells within, and another, on the Heinzenberg, near Zell, "uttered a complaint when the woodman cut it down, for in it was our Lady, whose chapel now stands upon the spot." 2 An Austrian Märchen tells of a stately fir, in which there sits a fairy maiden waited on by dwarfs, rewarding the innocent and plaguing the guilty; and there is the German song of the maiden in the pine, whose bark the boy splits with a gold and silver horn. Stories again are circulated in Sweden, among the peasantry, of persons who by cutting a branch from a habitation tree have been struck with death. Such a tree was the "klinta tall" in Westmanland, under which a mermaid was said to dwell. To this tree might occasionally be seen snow-white cattle driven up from the neighbouring lake across the meadows. Another Swedish legend tells us how, when a man was on the point of cutting down a juniper tree in a wood, a voice was heard from the ground, saying, "Friend, hew me not." But he gave another stroke, when to his horror blood gushed from the root.3 Then there is the Danish tradition relating to the lonely thorn, occasionally seen. 1 Grimm's Teut. Myth., ii. 653. 2 Quoted in Tylor's "Primitive Culture," ii. 221. Thorpe's "Northern Mythology,” ii. 72, 73. 4 Ibid., p. 219. in a field, but which never grows larger. Trees of this kind are always bewitched, and care should be taken. not to approach them in the night time, "as there comes a fiery wheel forth from the bush, which, if a person cannot escape from, will destroy him." In modern Greece certain trees have their "stichios," a being which has been described as a spectre, a wandering soul, a vague phantom, sometimes invisible, at others assuming the most widely varied forms. It is further added that when a tree is "stichimonious" it is dangerous for a man "to sleep beneath its shade, and the woodcutters employed to cut it down will lie upon the ground and hide themselves, motionless, and holding their breath, at the moment when it is about to fall, dreading lest the stichio at whose life the blow is aimed with each stroke of the axe, should avenge itself at the precise moment when it is dislodged." Turning to primitive ideas on this subject, Mr. Schoolcraft mentions an Indian tradition of a hollow tree, from the recesses of which there issued on a calm day a sound like the voice of a spirit. Hence it was considered to be the residence of some powerful spirit, and was accordingly deemed sacred. Among rude tribes trees of this kind are held sacred, it being forbidden to cut them. Some of the Siamese in the same way offer cakes and rice to the trees before felling them, and the Talein of Burmah will pray to the spirit of the tree before they begin to cut the tree " 1 1 "Superstitions of Modern Greece," by M. Le Baron d'Estournelles, in Nineteenth Century, April 1882, pp. 394, 395. 1 down,1 Likewise in the Australian bush demons whistle in the branches, and in a variety of other eccentric ways make their presence manifest-reminding us of Ariel's imprisonment : 2 "Into a cloven pine; within which rift ... Where thou didst vent thy groans, As fast as mill-wheels strike." Similarly Miss Emerson, in her "Indian Myths " (1884, p. 134), quotes the story of "The Two Branches":"One day there was a great noise in a tree under which Manabozho was taking a nap. It grew louder, and, at length exasperated, he leaped into the tree, caught the two branches whose war was the occasion of the din, and pulled them asunder. But with a spring on either hand, the two branches caught and pinioned Manabozho between them. Three days the god remained imprisoned, during which his outcries and lamentations were the subject of derision from every quarter-from the birds of the air, and from the animals of the woods and plains. To complete his sad case, the wolves ate the breakfast he had left beneath the tree. At length a good bear came to his rescue and released him, when the god disclosed his divine intuitions, for he returned home, and without delay beat his two wives." Furthermore, we are told of the West Indian tribes, how, if any person going through a wood 1 See Dorman's "Primitive Superstitions," p. 288. 1 perceived a motion in the trees which he regarded as supernatural, frightened at the prodigy, he would address himself to that tree which shook the most. But such trees, however, did not condescend to converse, but ordered him to go to a boie, or priest, who would order him to sacrifice to their new deity.1 From the same source we also learn how among savage tribes those plants that produce great terrors, excitement, or a lethargic state, are supposed to contain a supernatural being. Hence in Peru, tobacco is known as the sacred herb, and from its invigorating effect superstitious veneration is paid to the weed. Many other plants have similar respect shown to them, and are used as talismans. Poisonous plants, again, from their deadly properties, have been held in the same repute; and it is a very common practice among American Indians to hang a small bag containing poisonous herbs around the neck of a child, "as a talisman against diseases or attacks from wild beasts." It is commonly supposed that a child so protected is proof against every hurtful influence, from the fact of its being under the protection of the special spirits associated with the plant it wears. Again, closely allied to beliefs of this kind is the notion of plants as the habitation of the departing soul, founded on the old doctrine of transmigration. Hence, referring to bygone times, we are told by Empedocles that "there are two destinies for the souls of highest virtue 2 Ibid., p. 295. 1 Dorman's "Primitive Superstitions," p. 288. |