-to pass either into trees or into the bodies of lions.1 Amongst the numerous illustrations of this mythological conception may be noticed the story told by Ovid, who relates how Baucis and Philemon were rewarded in this manner for their charity to Zeus, who came a poor wanderer to their home. It appears 2 Al that they not only lived to an extreme old age, but at the last were transformed into trees. Ovid, also, tells how the gods listened to the prayer of penitent Myrrha, and eventually turned her into a tree. though, as Mr. Keary remarks, "she has lost understanding with her former shape, she still weeps, and the drops which fall from her bark (i.e., the myrrh) preserve the story of their mistress, so that she will be forgotten in no age to come." The sisters of Phaëthon, bewailing his death on the shores of Eridanus, were changed into poplars. We may, too, compare the story of Daphne and Syrinx, who, when they could no longer elude the pursuit of Apollo and Pan, change themselves into a laurel and a reed. In modern times, Tasso and Spenser have given us graphic pictures based on this primitive phase of belief; and it may be remembered how Dante passed through that leafless wood, in the bark of every tree of which was 1 See Keary's "Outlines of Primitive Belief," 1882, pp. 66-7. 2 Metam., viii. 714 :— "Frondere Philemona Baucis, Baucida conspexit senior frondere Philemon. imprisoned a suicide. In German folk-lore1 the soul is supposed to take the form of a flower, as a lily or white rose; and according to a popular belief, one of these flowers appears on the chairs of those about to die. In the same way, from the grave of one unjustly executed white lilies are said to spring as a token of the person's innocence; and from that of a maiden, three lilies which no one save her lover must gather. The sex, moreover, it may be noted, is kept up even in this species of metempsychosis.2 Thus, in a Servian folk-song, there grows out of the youth's body a green fir, out of the maiden's a red rose, which entwine together. Amongst further instances quoted by Grimm, we are told how "a child carries home a bud which the angel had given him in the wood, when the rose blooms the child is dead. The Lay of Runzifal makes a blackthorn shoot out of the bodies of slain heathens, a white flower by the heads of fallen Christians." It is to this notion that Shakespeare alludes in "Hamlet," where Laertes wishes that violets may spring from the grave of Ophelia (v. 1):— "Lay her in the earth, And from her fair and unpolluted flesh May violets spring." A passage which is almost identical to one in the "Satires" of Persius '(i. 39):— "E tumulo fortunataque favilla, Nascentur violæ ;" 1 Thorpe's "Northern Mythology," i. 290, iii. 271. and an idea, too, which Tennyson seems to have borrowed : : "And from his ashes may be made, The violet of his native land.” Again, in the well-known story of "Tristram and Ysonde," a further reference occurs: "From his grave there grew an eglantine which twined about the statue, a marvel for all men to see; and though three times they cut it down, it grew again, and ever wound its arms about the image of the fair Ysonde."1 In the Scottish ballad of "Fair Margaret and Sweet William," it is related "Out of her breast there sprang a rose, And out of his a briar; They grew till they grew unto the church top, The same idea has prevailed to a large extent among savage races. Thus, some of the North-Western Indians believed that those who died a natural death would be compelled to dwell among the branches of tall trees. The Brazilians have a mythological character called Mani-a child who died and was buried in the house of her mother. Soon a plant sprang out of the grave, which grew, flourished, and bore fruit. This plant, says Mr. Dorman,2 was the Mandioca, named from Mani, and Oca, house. By the Mexicans marigolds are known as "death-flowers," from a legend 1 Cox and Jones' "Popular Romances of the Middle Ages," 1880, p. 139. 2 Smith's "Brazil," p. 586; "Primitive Superstitions," p. 293. that they sprang up on the ground stained by "the life-blood of those who fell victims to the love of gold and cruelty of the early Spanish settlers in America." Among the Virginian tribes, too, red clover was supposed to have sprung from and to be coloured by the blood of the red men slain in battle, with which may be compared the well-known legend connected. with the lily of the valley formerly current in St. Leonard's Forest, Sussex. It is reported to have sprung from the blood of St. Leonard, who once encountered a mighty worm, or "fire-drake," in the forest, engaging with it for three successive days. Eventually the saint came off victorious, but not without being seriously wounded; and wherever his blood was shed there sprang up lilies of the valley in profusion. After the battle of Towton a certain kind of wild rose is reported to have sprung up in the field where the Yorkists and Lancastrians fell, only there to be found: : In fact, there are numerous legends of this kind; and it may be remembered how Defoe, in his "Tour through Great Britain," speaks of a certain camp called Barrow Hill, adding, "They say this was a Danish camp, and everything hereabout is attributed to the Danes, because 1 See Folkard's "Plant-lore, Legends, and Lyrics," p. 524. TTY of the neighbouring Daventry, which they suppose to be The road hereabouts too, being over 2 built by them. In connection with the myths of plant life may be 1 See the Gardeners' Chronicle, 1875, p. 315. 2 According to another legend, forget-me-nots sprang up. |