FUNERAL PLANTS. -- The Ancient Death-Gods -- The Elysian Fields
-- Death Trees -- Funereal Trees -- Aloe, Yew, Cypress, Bay,
Arbor-Vitæ, Walnut, Mountain Ash, Tamarisk -- The Decorations of
Tombs -- Flowers at Funerals -- Old English Burial Customs --
Funeral Pyres -- Embalming -- Mummies -- Plants as Death Portents 189
_PART THE SECOND._
AN ENCYCLOPÆDIA OF SIX HUNDRED PLANTS, ENGLISH AND FOREIGN,
giving their Myths, Legends, Traditions, Folk-Lore, Symbolism,
and History 205
List of Illustrations.
GATHERING THE SELAGO (_drawn by Louis Absolon_) Cover.
THE GARDEN OF EDEN (_Parkinson’s Paradisus_) Frontispiece.
YGGDRASILL, THE MUNDANE ASH (_Finn Magnusen_) 2
RELICS OF THE CRUCIFIXION (_Maundevile’s Travels_) 45
THE TREE OF JUDAS ISCARIOT (_Maundevile’s Travels_) 49
THE BARNACLE TREE (_Aldrovandi Ornithologia_) 118
THE GOOSE TREE (_Gerarde’s Herbal_) 119
THE BAROMETZ, OR VEGETABLE LAMB (_Zahn_) 121
THE LAMB TREE (_Maundevile’s Travels_) 122
DEAD SEA FRUIT (_Maundevile’s Travels_) 125
THE STONE TREE (_Gerarde’s Herbal_) 126
ARBOR SECCO, OR THE WITHERED TREE (_Maundevile’s Travels_) 131
THE MIRACULOUS TREE OF TIBERIAS (_Maundevile’s Travels_) 132
FATHER GARNET’S STRAW (_Apology of Eudæmon Joannes_) 135
PIOUS BIRDS AND OLIVES (_Maundevile’s Travels_) 143
THE PASSION FLOWER OF THE JESUITS (_Parkinson’s Paradisus_) 182
THE TREE OF DEATH (_Maundevile’s Travels_) 190
THE GRANADILLA, OR PASSION FLOWER (_Zahn_) 487
The head and tail pieces on pp. xiii., xxiv., 1, 8, 20, 21, 26, 40,
64, 74, 116, 136, 164, 175, 200, 592, and 610, are reproductions from
originals in old herbals, &c.
Part the First.
[Headpiece]
INTRODUCTION.
The analogy existing between the vegetable and animal worlds, and
the resemblances between human and tree life, have been observed
by man from the most remote periods of which we have any records.
Primitive man, watching the marvellous changes in trees and plants,
which accurately marked not only the seasons of the year, but even the
periods of time in a day, could not fail to be struck with a feeling
of awe at the mysterious invisible power which silently guided such
wondrous and incomprehensible operations. Hence it is not astonishing
that the early inhabitants of the earth should have invested with
supernatural attributes the tree, which in the gloom and chill of
Winter stood gaunt, bare, and sterile, but in the early Spring hastened
to greet the welcome warmth-giving Sun by investing itself with a
brilliant canopy of verdure, and in the scorching heat of Summer
afforded a refreshing shade beneath its leafy boughs. So we find these
men of old, who had learnt to reverence the mysteries of vegetation,
forming conceptions of vast cosmogonic world- or cloud-trees
overshadowing the universe; mystically typifying creation and
regeneration, and yielding the divine ambrosia or food of immortality,
the refreshing and life-inspiring rain, and the mystic fruit which
imparted knowledge and wisdom to those who partook of it. So, again,
we find these nebulous overspreading world-trees connected with the
mysteries of death, and giving shelter to the souls of the departed in
the solemn shade of their dense foliage.
Looking upon vegetation as symbolical of life and generation, man,
in course of time, connected the origin of his species with these
shadowy cloud-trees, and hence arose the belief that humankind first
sprang from Ash and Oak-trees, or derived their being from Holda, the
cloud-goddess who combined in her person the form of a lovely woman
and the trunk of a mighty tree. In after years trees were almost
universally regarded either as sentient beings or as constituting the
abiding places of spirits whose existence was bound up in the lives of
the trees they inhabited. Hence arose the conceptions of Hamadryads,
Dryads, Sylvans, Tree-nymphs, Elves, Fairies, and other beneficent
spirits who peopled forests and dwelt in individual trees--not only
in the Old World, but in the dense woods of North America, where the
Mik-amwes, like Puck, has from time immemorial frolicked by moonlight
in the forest openings. Hence, also, sprang up the morbid notion of
trees being haunted by demons, mischievous imps, ghosts, nats, and
evil spirits, whom it was deemed by the ignorant and superstitious
necessary to propitiate by sacrifices, offerings, and mysterious rites
and dances. Remnants of this superstitious tree-worship are still
extant in some European countries. The _Irminsul_ of the Germans and
the Central Oak of the Druids were of the same family as the _Asherah_
of the Semitic nations. In England, this primeval superstition has its
descendants in the village maypole bedizened with ribbons and flowers,
and the Jack-in-the-Green with its attendant devotees and whirling
dancers. The modern Christmas-tree, too, although but slightly known in
Germany at the beginning of the present century, is evidently a remnant
of the pagan tree-worship; and it is somewhat remarkable that a similar
tree is common among the Burmese, who call it the _Padaytha-bin_. This
Turanian Christmas-tree is made by the inhabitants of towns, who deck
its Bamboo twigs with all sorts of presents, and pile its roots with
blankets, cloth, earthenware, and other useful articles. The wealthier
classes contribute sometimes a _Ngway Padaytha_, or silver Padaytha,
the branches of which are hung with rupees and smaller silver coins
wrapped in tinsel or coloured paper. These trees are first carried in
procession, and afterwards given to monasteries on the occasion of
certain festivals or the funerals of Buddhist monks. They represent
the wishing-tree, which, according to Burmese mythology, grows in the
Northern Island and heaven of the nats or spirits, where it bears on
its fairy branches whatever may be wished for.
The ancient conception of human trees can be traced in the
superstitious endeavours of ignorant peasants to get rid of diseases
by transferring them to vicarious trees, or rather to the spirits who
are supposed to dwell in them; and it is the same idea that impels
simple rustics to bury Elder-sticks and Peach-leaves to which they have
imparted warts, &c. The recognised analogy between the life of plants
and that of man, and the cherished superstition that trees were the
homes of living and sentient spirits, undoubtedly influenced the poets
of the ancients in forming their conceptions of heroes and heroines
metamorphosed into trees and flowers; and traces of the old belief
are to be found in the custom of planting a tree on the birth of an
infant; the tree being thought to symbolise human life in its destiny
of growth, production of fruit, and multiplication of its species;
and, when fully grown, giving shade, shelter, and protection. This
pleasant rite is still extant in our country as well as in Germany,
France, Italy, and Russia; and from it has probably arisen a custom now
becoming very general of planting a tree to commemorate any special
occasion. Nor is the belief confined to the Old World, for Mr. Leland
has quite recently told us that he observed near the tent of a North
American Indian two small evergreens, which were most carefully tended.
On enquiry he found the reason to be that when a child is born, or
is yet young, its parent chooses a shrub, which growing as the child
grows, will, during the child’s absence, or even in after years,
indicate by its appearance whether the human counterpart be ill or
well, alive or dead. In one of the Quādi Indian stories it is by means
of the sympathetic tree that the hero learns his brother’s death.
In the middle ages, the old belief in trees possessing intelligence
was utilised by the monks, who have embodied the conception in many
mediæval legends, wherein trees are represented as bending their
boughs and offering their fruits to the Virgin and her Divine Infant.
So, again, during the flight of the Holy Family into Egypt, trees are
said to have opened and concealed the fugitives from Herod’s brutal
soldiery. Certain trees (notably the Aspen) are reputed to have been
accursed and to have shuddered and trembled ever after on account of
their connexion with the tragedy of Calvary; while others are said
to have undergone a similar doom because they were attainted by the
suicide of the traitor Judas Iscariot.
Seeing that the reverence and worship paid to trees by the ignorant
and superstitious people was an institution impossible to uproot, the
early Christian Church sought to turn it to account, and therefore
consecrated old and venerated trees, built shrines beneath their
shade, or placed on their trunks crucifixes and images of the Blessed
Virgin. Legends connecting trees with holy personages, miracles, and
sacred subjects were, in after years, freely disseminated; one of the
most remarkable being the marvellous history of the Tree of Adam,
in which it is sought to connect the Tree of Paradise with the Tree
of Calvary. Evelyn summarises this misty tradition in the following
sentence:--“Trees and woods have twice saved the whole world: first, by
the Ark, then by the Cross; making full amends for the evil fruit of
the tree in Paradise by that which was borne on the tree in Golgotha.”
In course of time the flowers and plants which the ancients had
dedicated to their pagan deities were transferred by the Christian
Church to the shrines of the Virgin and sainted personages; this is
especially noticeable in the plants formerly dedicated to Venus and
Freyja, which, as being the choicest as well as the most popular,
became, in honour of the Virgin Mary, Our Lady’s plants. Vast numbers
of flowers were in course of time appropriated by the Church, and
consecrated to her saints and martyrs--the selection being governed
generally by the fact that the flower bloomed on or about the day on
which the Church celebrated the saint’s feast. These appropriations
enabled the Roman Catholics to compile a complete calendar of flowers
for every day in the year, in which each flower is dedicated to a
particular saint.
But if the most beautiful flowers and plants were taken under the
protection of the Church, and dedicated to the memory of her holiest
and most venerated members, so, also, certain trees, plants, and
flowers--which, either on account of their noxious properties, or
because of some legendary associations, were under a ban--became
relegated to the service of the Devil and his minions. Hence we find a
large group of plants associated with enchanters, sorcerers, wizards
and witches, many of which betray in their nomenclature their Satanic
association, and are, even at the present day, regarded suspiciously as
ill-omened and unlucky. These are the plants which, in the dark days of
witchcraft and superstition, were invested with mysterious and magical
properties,--the herbs which were employed by hags and witches in their
heathenish incantations, and from which they brewed their potions and
hell-broths. Thus Ben Jonson, in his fragment, ‘The Sad Shepherd,’
makes one of his characters say, when speaking of a witch:--
“He knows her shifts and haunts,
And all her wiles and turns. The venom’d plants
Wherewith she kills! where the sad Mandrake grows,
Whose groans are dreadful! the dead-numming Nightshade!
The stupefying Hemlock! Adder’s-tongue!
And Martagan!”
The association of plants with magic, sorcery, and the black art dates
from remote times. The blind Norse god Hödr slew Baldr with a twig
of Mistletoe. In the battles recorded in the Vedas as being fought
by the gods and the demons, the latter employ poisonous and magical
herbs which the gods counteract with counter-poisons and health-giving
plants. Hermes presented to Ulysses the magical Moly wherewith to
nullify the effects of the potions and spells of the enchantress
Circe, who was well acquainted with all sorts of magical herbs. The
Druids professed to know the secrets of many magical plants which
they gathered with mysterious and occult rites. The Vervain, Selago,
Mistletoe, Oak, and Rowan were all said by these ancient priests and
lawgivers to be possessed of supernatural properties; and remnants of
the old belief in their magical powers are still extant.
In works on the subject of plant lore hitherto published in England,
scarcely any reference has been made to the labours in the field
of comparative mythology of Max Müller, Grimm, Kuhn, Mannhardt, De
Gubernatis, and other eminent scholars, whose erudite and patient
investigations have resulted in the accumulation of a vast amount
of valuable information respecting the traditions and superstitions
connected with the plant kingdom. Mr. Kelly’s interesting work on
Indo-European Tradition, published some years ago, dealt, among
other subjects, with that of plant lore, and drew attention to
the analogy existing between the myths and folk-lore of India and
Europe relating more especially to plants which were reputed to
possess magical properties. Among such plants, peculiar interest
attaches to a group which, according to Aryan tradition, sprang from
lightning--the embodiment of fire, the great quickening agent: this
group embraces the Hazel, the Thorn, the Hindu _Sami_, the Hindu
_Palasa_, with its European congener the Rowan, and the Mistletoe:
the two last-named plants were, as we have seen, employed in Druidic
rites. These trees are considered of good omen and as protectives
against sorcery and witchcraft: from all of them wishing-rods (called
in German _Wünschelruthen_) and divining-rods have been wont to be
fashioned--magical wands with which, in some countries, cattle are
still struck to render them prolific, hidden springs are indicated,
and mineral wealth is discovered. Such a rod was thought to be the
caduceus of the god Hermes, or Mercury, described by Homer as being
a rod of prosperity and wealth. All these rods are cut with a forked
end, a shape held to be symbolic of lightning and a rude effigy of the
human form. It is interesting to note that in the _Rigveda_ the human
form is expressly attributed to the pieces of Asvattha wood used for
kindling the sacred fire--a purpose fulfilled by the Thorn in the chark
or instrument employed for producing fire by the Greeks. Another group
of plants also connected with fire and lightning comprises the Mandrake
(the root of which is forked like the human form), the Fern _Polypodium
Filix mas_ (which has large pinnate leaves), the Sesame (called in
India Thunderbolt-flower), the Spring-wort, and the Luck-flower. The
Mandrake and Fern, like King Solomon’s _Baharas_, are said to shine at
night, and to leap about like a Will-o’the-wisp: indeed, in Thuringia,
the Fern is known as _Irrkraut_, or Misleading Herb, and in Franche
Comté this herb is spoken of as causing belated travellers to become
light-headed or thunder-struck. The Mandrake-root and the Fern-seed
have the magical property of granting the desires of their possessors,
and in this respect resemble the Sesame and Luck-flower, which at
their owners’ request will disclose treasure-caves, open the sides
of mountains, clefts of rocks, or strong doors, and in fact render
useless all locks, bolts, and bars, at will. The Spring-wort, through
the agency of a bird, removes obstacles by means of an explosion caused
by the electricity or lightning of which this plant is an embodiment.
Akin to these are plants known in our country as Lunary or Moonwort and
Unshoe-the-Horse, and called by the Italians _Sferracavallo_--plants
which possess the property of unshoeing horses and opening locks. A
Russian herb, the _Rasrivtrava_, belongs to the same group: this plant
fractures chains and breaks open locks--virtues also claimed for the
Vervain (_Eisenkraut_), the Primrose (_Schlüsselblume_), the Fern,
and the Hazel. It should be noted of the Mistletoe (which is endowed
by nature with branches regularly forked, and has been classified
with the lightning-plants), that the Swedes call it “Thunder-besom,”
and attribute to it the same powers as to the Spring-wort. Like the
Fly-Rowan (_Flög-rönn_) and the Asvattha, it is a parasite, and is
thought to spring from seeds dropped by birds upon trees. Just as the
Druids ascribed peculiar virtues to a Mistletoe produced by this means
on an Oak, so do the Hindus especially esteem an Asvattha which has
grown in like manner upon a Sami (_Acacia Suma_).
It is satisfactory to find that, although the Devil has had certain
plants allotted to him wherewith to work mischief and destruction
through the agency of demons, sorcerers, and witches, there are
yet a great number of plants whose special mission it is to thwart
Satanic machinations, to protect their owners from the dire effects
of witchcraft or the Evil Eye, and to guard them from the perils of
thunder and lightning. In our own country, Houseleek and Stonecrop
are thought to fulfil this latter function; in Westphalia, the
_Donnerkraut_ (Orpine) is a thunder protective; in the Tyrol,
the Alpine Rose guards the house-roof from lightning; and in the
Netherlands, the St. John’s Wort, gathered before sunrise, is deemed
a protection against thunderstorms. This last plant is especially
hateful to evil spirits, and in days gone by was called _Fuga dæmonum_,
dispeller of demons. In Russia, a plant, called the _Certagon_, or
Devil-chaser, is used to exorcise Satan or his fiends if they torment
an afflicted mourner; and in the same country the _Prikrit_ is a
herb whose peculiar province it is to destroy calumnies with which
mischief-makers may seek to interfere with the consummation of lovers’
bliss. Other plants induce concord, love, and sympathy, and others
again enable the owner to forget sorrow.
Plants connected with dreams and visions have not hitherto received
much notice; but, nevertheless, popular belief has attributed to some
few--and notably the Elm, the Four-leaved Clover, and the Russian
_Son-trava_--the subtle power of procuring dreams of a prophetic
nature. Numerous plants have been thought by the superstitious to
portend certain results to the sleeper when forming the subject of his
or her dreams. Many examples of this belief will be found scattered
through these pages.
The legends attached to flowers may be divided into four classes--the
mythological, the ecclesiastical, the historical, and the poetical. For
the first-named we are chiefly indebted to Ovid, and to the Jesuit René
Rapin, whose Latin poem _De Hortorum Cultura_ contains much curious
plant lore current in his time. His legends, like those of Ovid, nearly
all relate to the transformation by the gods of luckless nymphs and
youths into flowers and trees, which have since borne their names. Most
of them refer to the blossoms of bulbous plants, which appear in the
early Spring; and, as a rule, white flowers are represented as having
originated from tears, and pink or red flowers from blushes or blood.
The ecclesiastical legends are principally due to the old Catholic
monks, who, while tending their flowers in the quietude and seclusion
of monastery gardens, doubtless came to associate them with the memory
of some favourite saint or martyr, and so allowed their gentle fancy to
weave a pious fiction wherewith to perpetuate the memory of the saint
in the name of the flower. For many of the historical legends we are
also indebted to monastic writers, and they mostly pertain to favourite
sons and daughters of the Church. Amongst what we have designated
poetical legends must be included the numerous fairy tales in which
flowers and plants play a not unimportant part, as well as the stories
which connect plants with the doings of Trolls, Elves, Witches, and
Demons. Many such legends, both English and foreign, will be found
introduced in the following pages.
It has recently become the fashion to explain the origin of myths and
legends by a theory which makes of them mere symbols of the phenomena
appertaining to the solar system, or metaphors of the four seasons and
the different periods in a day’s span. Thus we are told that, in the
well-known story of the transformation of Daphne into a Laurel-bush,
to enable her to escape the importunities of Apollo (see p. 404), we
ought not to conceive the idea of the handsome passionate god pursuing
a coy nymph until in despair she calls on the water-gods to change her
form, but that, on the contrary, we should regard the whole story as
simply an allegory implying that “the dawn rushes and trembles through
the sky, and fades away at the sudden appearance of the bright sun.”
So, again, in the myth of Pan and Syrinx (p. 559), in which the Satyr
pursues the maiden who is transformed into the Reed from which Pan
fashioned his pipes, the meaning intended to be conveyed is, we are
told, that the blustering wind bends and breaks the swaying Rushes,
through which it rustles and whistles. Prof. De Gubernatis, in his
valuable work _La Mythologie des Plantes_, gives a number of clever
explanations of old legends and myths, in accordance with the “Solar”
theory, which are certainly ingenious, if somewhat monotonous. Let us
take, as an example, the German story of the Watcher of the Road, which
appears at page 326. In this tale a lovely princess, abandoned for a
rival by her attractive husband, pines away, and at last desiring to
die if only she can be sure of going somewhere where she may always
watch for him, is transformed into the wayside Endive or Succory. Here
is the Professor’s explanation:--“Does not the fatal rival of the
young princess, who cries herself to death on account of her dazzling
husband’s desertion, and who even in death desires still to gaze on
him, symbolise the humid night, which every evening allures the sun to
her arms, and thus keeps him from the love of his bride, who awakens
every day with the sun, just as does the flower of the Succory?” These
scientific elucidations of myths, however dexterous and poetical they
may be, do not appear to us applicable to plant legends, whose chief
charm lies in their simplicity and appositeness; nor can we imagine
why Aryan or other story-tellers should be deemed so destitute of
inventive powers as to be obliged to limit all their tales to the
description of celestial phenomena. In the Vedas, trees, flowers, and
herbs are invoked to cause love, avert evil and danger, and neutralise
spells and curses. The ancients must, therefore, have had an exalted
idea of their nature and properties, and hence it is not surprising
that they should have dedicated them to their deities, and that these
deities should have employed them for supernatural purposes. Thus Indra
conquered Vritra and slew demons by means of the Soma; Hermes presented
the all-potent Moly to Ulysses; and Medea taught Jason how to use
certain enchanted herbs; just as, later in the world’s history, Druids
exorcised evil spirits with Mistletoe and Vervain, and sorcerers and
wise women used St. John’s Wort and other plants to ward off demons and
thunderbolts. The ancients evidently regarded their gods and goddesses
as very human, and therefore it would seem unnecessary and unjust so to
alter their tales about them as to explain away their obvious meaning.
Flowers are the companions of man throughout his life--his attendants
to his last resting place. They are, as Mr. Ruskin says, precious
always “to the child and the girl, the peasant and the manufacturing
operative, to the grisette and the nun, the lover and the monk.”
Nature, in scattering them over the earth’s surface, would seem to
have designed to cheer and refresh its inhabitants by their varied
colouring and fragrance, and to elevate them by their wondrous beauty
and delicacy; from them, as old Parkinson truly wrote, “we may draw
matter at all times, not onely to magnifie the Creator that hath given
them such diversities of forms, sents, and colours, that the most
cunning workman cannot imitate, ... but many good instructions also to
our selves; that as many herbs and flowers, with their fragrant sweet
smels do comfort and as it were revive the spirits, and perfume a whole
house, even so such men as live vertuously, labouring to do good, and
profit the Church, God, and the common wealth by their pains or pen,
do as it were send forth a pleasing savour of sweet instructions.” The
poet Wordsworth reminds us that
“God made the flowers to beautify
The earth, and cheer man’s careful mood;
And he is happiest who hath power
To gather wisdom from a flower,
And wake his heart in every hour
To pleasant gratitude.”
In these pages will be found many details as to the use of these
beauteous gems of Nature, both by the ancient races of the world and
by the people of our own generation; their adaptation to the Church’s
ceremonial and to popular festivals; their use as portents, symbols,
and emblems; and their employment as an adornment of the graves of
loved ones. Much more could have been written, had space permitted,
regarding their value to the architect and the herald. The Acanthus,
Lotus, Trefoil, Lily, Vine, Ivy, Pomegranate, Oak, Palm, Acacia, and
many other plants have been reproduced as ornaments by the sculptor,
and it is a matter of tradition that to the majestic aspect of an
avenue of trees we owe the lengthy aisle and fretted vault of the
Gothic order of architecture. In the field of heraldry it is noticeable
that many nations, families, and individuals have, in addition to their
heraldic badges, adopted plants as special symbols, the circumstances
of their adoption forming the groundwork of a vast number of legends: a
glance at the index will show that some of these are to be discovered
in the present work. Many towns and villages owe their names to trees
or plants; and not a few English families have taken their surnames
from members of the vegetable kingdom. In Scotland, the name of Frazer
is derived from the Strawberry-leaves (_fraises_) borne on the family
shield of arms, and the Gowans and Primroses also owe their names to
plants. The Highland clans are all distinguished by the floral badge
or _Suieachantas_ which is worn in the bonnet. For the most part the
plants adopted for these badges are evergreens; and it is said that the
deciduous Oak which was selected by the Stuarts was looked upon as a
portent of evil to the royal house.
The love of human kind for flowers would seem to be shared by many
members of the feathered tribe. Poets have sung of the passion of the
Nightingale for the Rose and of the fondness of the Bird of Paradise
for the dazzling blooms of the Tropics: the especial liking, however,
of one of this race--the _Amblyornis inornata_--for flowers is worthy
of record, inasmuch as this bird-gardener not only erects for itself
a bower, but surrounds it with a mossy sward, on which it continually
deposits fresh flowers and fruit of brilliant hue, so arranged as to
form an elegant _parterre_.
We have reached our limit, and can only just notice the old traditions
relating to the sympathies and antipathies of plants. The Jesuit
Kircher describes the hatred existing between Hemlock and Rue, Reeds
and Fern, and Cyclamen and Cabbages as so intense, that one of them
cannot live on the same ground with the other. The Walnut, it is
believed, dislikes the Oak, the Rowan the Juniper, the White-thorn
the Black-thorn; and there is said to be a mutual aversion between
Rosemary, Lavender, the Bay-tree, Thyme, and Marjoram. On the other
hand, the Rose is reported to love the Onion and Garlic, and to put
forth its sweetest blooms when in propinquity to those plants; and a
bond of fellowship is fabled to exist between a Fig-tree and Rue. Lord
Bacon, noticing these traditionary sympathies and antipathies, explains
them as simply the outcome of the nature of the plants, and his
philosophy is not difficult to be understood by intelligent observers,
for, as St. Anthony truly said, the great book of Nature, which
contains but three leaves--the Heavens, the Earth, and the Sea--is open
for all men alike.
[Tailpiece]
[Headpiece]
PLANT LORE, LEGENDS, AND LYRICS.
CHAPTER I.
The World-Trees of the Ancients.
It is a proof of the solemnity with which, from the very earliest
times, man has invested trees, and of the reverence with which he
has ever regarded them, that they are found figuring prominently in
the mythology of almost every nation; and despite the fact that in
some instances these ancient myths reach us, after the lapse of ages,
in distorted and grotesque forms, they would seem to be worthy of
preservation, if only as curiosities in plant lore. In some cases
the myth relates to a mystic cloud-tree which supplies the gods with
immortal fruit; in others to a tree which imparts to mankind wisdom
and knowledge; in others to a tree which is the source and fountain
of all life; and in others, again, to the actual descent of mankind
from anthropological or parent trees. In one cosmogony--that of the
Iranians--the first human pair are represented as having grown up as
a single tree, the fingers or twigs of each one being folded over the
other’s ears, till the time came when, ripe for separation, they became
two sentient beings, and were infused by Ormuzd with distinct human
souls.
But besides these trees, which in some form or other benefit and
populate the earth, there are to be found in ancient myths records of
illimitable trees that existed in space whilst yet the elements of
creation were chaotic, and whose branches overshadowed the universe.
One of the mythical accounts of the creation of the world represents
a vast cosmogonic tree rearing its enormous bulk from the midst of
an ocean before the formation of the earth had taken place; and
this conception, it may be remarked, is in consonance with a Vedic
tradition that plants were created three ages before the gods. In India
the idea of a primordial cosmogonic tree, vast as the world itself,
and the generator thereof, is very prevalent; and in the Scandinavian
prose Edda we find the Skalds shadowing forth an all-pervading mundane
Ash, called Yggdrasill, beneath whose shade the gods assemble every day
in council, and whose branches spread over the whole world, and even
reach above heaven, whilst its roots penetrate to the infernal regions.
This cloud-tree of the Norsemen is thought to be a symbol of universal
nature.
The accompanying illustration is taken from Finn Magnusen’s pictorial
representation of the Yggdrasill myth, and depicts his conception of
The Norse World-Tree.
According to the Eddaic accounts, the Ash Yggdrasill is the greatest
and best of all trees. One of its stems springs from the central
primordial abyss--from the subterranean source of matter--runs up
through the earth, which it supports, and issuing out of the celestial
mountain in the world’s centre, called Asgard, spreads its branches
over the entire universe. These wide-spread branches are the æthereal
or celestial regions; their leaves, the clouds; their buds or fruits,
the stars. Four harts run across the branches of the tree, and bite the
buds: these are the four cardinal winds. Perched upon the top branches
is an eagle, and between his eyes sits a hawk: the eagle symbolises
the air, the hawk the wind-still æther. A squirrel runs up and down
the Ash, and seeks to cause strife between the eagle and Nidhögg, a
monster, which is constantly gnawing the roots: the squirrel signifies
hail and other atmospherical phenomena; Nidhögg and the serpents that
gnaw the roots of the mundane tree are the volcanic agencies which
are constantly seeking to destroy earth’s foundations. Another stem
springs in the warm south over the æthereal Urdar fountain, where the
gods sit in judgment. In this fountain swim two swans, the progenitors
of all that species: these swans are, by Finn Magnusen, supposed to
typify the sun and moon. Near this fountain dwell three maidens, who
fix the lifetime of all men, and are called Norns: every day they draw
water from the spring, and with it sprinkle the Ash in order that its
branches may not rot and wither away. This water is so holy, that
everything placed in the spring becomes as white as the film within
an egg-shell. The dew that falls from the tree on the earth men call
honey-dew, and it is the food of the bees. The third stem of Yggdrasill
takes its rise in the cold and cheerless regions of the north (the
land of the Frost Giants), over the source of the ocean, typified by a
spring called Mimir’s Well, in which wisdom and wit lie hidden. Mimir,
the owner of this spring, is full of wisdom because he drinks of its
waters. One day Odin came and begged a draught of water from the well,
which he obtained, but was obliged to leave one of his eyes as a pledge
for it. This myth Finn Magnusen thinks signifies the descent of the
sun every evening into the sea (to learn wisdom from Mimir during the
night); the mead quaffed by Mimir every morning being the ruddy dawn,
that, spreading over the sky, exhilarates all nature.
[Illustration: [TO FACE PAGE 2.
Yggdrasill, the Mundane Tree.
_From Finn Magnusen’s ‘Eddalæren.’_]
The Hindu World-Tree.
The Indian cosmogonic tree is the symbol of vegetation, of universal
life, and of immortality. In the sacred Vedic writings it receives
the special names of _Ilpa_, _Kalpadruma_, _Kalpaka-taru_, and
_Kalpavriksha_, on the fruits of which latter tree the first men
sustained and nourished life. In its quality of Tree of Paradise, it
is called _Pârijâta_; and as the ambrosial tree--the tree yielding
immortal food--it is known as _Amrita_ and _Soma_. This mystic
world-tree of the Hindus, according to the Rigveda, is supernaturally
the God Brahma himself; and all the gods are considered as branches
of the divine parent stem--the elementary or fragmentary form of
Brahma, the vast overspreading tree of the universe. In the Vedas
this celestial tree is described as the _Pippala_ (Peepul), and is
alluded to as being in turns visited by two beauteous birds--the one
feeding itself on the fruit (typifying probably the moon or twilight);
the other simply hovering, with scintillating plumage, and singing
melodiously (typifying perhaps the sun or daybreak).
Under the name of _Ilpa_ (the _Jamboa_, or Rose-apple) the cosmogonic
tree is described as growing in the midst of the lake Ara in Brahma’s
world, beyond the river that never grows old, from whence are procured
the waters of eternal youth. Brahma imparts to it his own perfume, and
from it obtains the sap of vitality. To its branches the dead cling and
climb, in order that they may enter into the regions of immortality.
As the _Kalpadruma_, _Kalpaka-taru_, and _Kalpavriksha_, the Indian
sacred writings describe a cloud-tree, which, by its shadows, produced
day and night before the creation of sun and moon. This cosmogonic
tree, which is of colossal proportions, grows in the midst of flowers
and streamlets on a steep mountain. It fulfils all desires, imparts
untold bliss, and, what in the eyes of Buddhists constitutes its chief
sublimity, it gives knowledge and wisdom to humanity; in a word it
combines within its mystic branches all riches and all knowledge.
As the _Soma_, the world-tree becomes in Indian mysticism a tree
of Paradise, at once the king of all trees and vegetation, and the
god Soma to be adored. It furnishes the divine ambrosia or essence
of immortality, concealed sometimes in the clouds, sometimes in
the billows of the soft and silvery light that proceeds from the
great-Soma, the great Indu, the moon. Hence this mystic tree, from the
foliage of which drops the life-giving Soma, is sometimes characterised
as the Hindu Moon-Tree. Out of this cosmogonic tree the immortals
shaped the heaven and the earth. It is the Tree of Intelligence, and
grows in the third heaven, over which it spreads its mighty branches;
beneath it Yama and the Pitris dwell, and quaff the immortalising
Soma with the gods. At its foot grow plants of all healing virtue,
incorporations of the Soma. Two birds sit on its top, one of which eats
Figs, whilst the other simply watches. Other birds press out the Soma
juice from its branches. This ambrosial tree, besides dropping the
precious Soma, bears fruit and seed of every kind known in the world.
The World-Tree of the Buddhists.
The Sacred Tree of Buddha is in the complex theology of his followers
represented under different guises: it is cosmogonic, it imparts
wisdom, it produces the divine ambrosia or food of immortality, it
yields the refreshing and life-inspiring rain, and it affords an
abiding-place for the souls of the blessed.
The supernatural and sacred Tree of Buddha, the cloud-tree, the Tree
of Knowledge, the Tree of Wisdom, the Ambrosia-tree, is covered with
divine flowers; it glows and sparkles with the brilliance of all
manner of precious stones; the root, the trunk, the branches, and the
leaves are formed of gems of the most glorious description. It grows
in soil pure and delightfully even, to which the rich verdure of grass
imparts the tints of a peacock’s neck. It receives the homage of the
gods; and the arm of Mâyâ (the mother of Buddha) when she stretches
it forth to grasp the bough which bends towards her, shines as the
lightning illumines the sky. Beneath this sacred tree, the Tree of
Knowledge, Buddha, at whose birth a flash of light pierced through
all the world, sat down with the firm resolve not to rise until he
had attained the knowledge which “maketh free.” Then the Tempter,
Mâra, advanced with his demoniacal forces: encircling the Sacred Tree,
hosts of demons assailed Buddha with fiery darts, amid the whirl of
hurricanes, darkness, and the downpour of floods of water, to drive
him from the Tree. Buddha, however, maintained his position unmoved;
and at length the demons were compelled to fly. Buddha had conquered,
and in defeating the Tempter Mâra, and obtaining possession of his
Tree of Knowledge, he had also obtained possession of deliverance.
Prof. De Gubernatis, in explaining this myth, characterises the tree
as the cloud-tree: in the clouds the heavenly flame is stored, and it
is guarded by the dark demons. In the Vedic hymns, the powers of light
and darkness fight their great battle for the clouds, and the ambrosia
which they contain; this is the identical battle of Buddha with the
hosts of Mâra. In the cloud-battle the ambrosia (_amrita_) which is in
the clouds is won; the enlightenment and deliverance which Buddha wins
are also called an ambrosia; and the kingdom of knowledge is the land
of immortality.
There is a tradition current in Thibet that the Tree of Buddha received
the name of _Târâyana_, that is to say, The Way of Safety, because it
grew by the side of the river that separates the world from heaven; and
that only by means of its overhanging branches could mankind pass from
the earthly to the immortal bank.
The material tree of Buddha is generally represented either under the
form of the _Asvattha_ (the _Ficus religiosa_), or of the _Udumbara_
(the _Ficus glomerata_), which appeared at the birth of Buddha; but in
addition to these guises, we find it also associated with the _Asoka_
(_Jonesia Asoka_), the _Palasa_ (_Butea frondosa_), the _Bhânuphalâ_
(_Musa sapientum_), and sometimes with the Palmyra Palm (_Borassus
flabelliformis_).
Under one of these trees the ascetic, Gautama Buddha, one momentous
night, went through successively purer and purer stages of abstraction
of consciousness, until the sense of omniscient illumination came
over him, and he attained to the knowledge of the sources of mortal
suffering. That night which Buddha passed under the Tree of Knowledge
on the banks of the river _Nairanjanâ_, is the sacred night of the
Buddhist world. There is a Peepul-tree (_Ficus religiosa_) at Buddha
Gayâ which is regarded as being this particular tree: it is very much
decayed, and must have been frequently renewed, as the present tree
is standing on a terrace at least thirty feet above the level of the
surrounding country.
The Iranian World-Tree.
The world-tree of the Iranians is the Haoma, which is thought to be
the same as the _Gaokerena_ of the Zendavesta. This Haoma, the sacred
Vine of the Zoroastrians, produces the primal drink of immortality
after which it is named. It is the first of all trees, planted in
heaven by Ormuzd, in the fountain of life, near another tree called
the “impassive” or “inviolable,” which bears the seeds of every kind
of vegetable life. Both these trees are situated in a lake called
Vouru Kasha, and are guarded by ten fish, who keep a ceaseless watch
upon a lizard sent by the evil power, Ahriman, to destroy the sacred
Haoma. The “inviolable” tree is also known both as the eagle’s and
the owl’s tree. Either one or the other of these birds (probably the
eagle) sits perched on its top. The moment he rises from the tree,
a thousand branches shoot forth; when he settles again he breaks a
thousand branches, and causes their seed to fall. Another bird, that
is his constant companion, picks up these seeds and carries them to
where Tistar draws water, which he then rains down upon the earth with
the seeds it contains. These two trees--the Haoma and the eagle’s or
“inviolable”--would seem originally to have been one. The lizard sent
by Ahriman to destroy the Haoma is known to the Indians as a dragon,
the spoiler of harvests, and the ravisher of the Apas, or brides of the
gods, Peris who navigate the celestial sea.
The Assyrian Sacred Tree.
In intimate connection with the worship of Assur, the supreme deity
of the Assyrians, “the God who created himself,” was the Sacred
Tree, regarded by the Assyrian race as the personification of life
and generation. This tree, which was considered coeval with Assur,
the great First Source, was adored in conjunction with the god; for
sculptures have been found representing figures kneeling in adoration
before it, and bearing mystic offerings to hang upon its boughs. In
these sculptured effigies of the Sacred Tree the simplest form consists
of a pair of ram’s horns, surmounted by a capital composed of two
pairs of rams’ horns, separated by horizontal bands, above which is a
scroll, and then a flower resembling the Honeysuckle ornament of the
Greeks. Sometimes this blossoms, and generally the stem also throws
out a number of smaller blossoms, which are occasionally replaced by
Fir-cones and Pomegranates. In the most elaborately-portrayed Sacred
Trees there is, besides the stem and the blossoms, a network of
branches, which forms a sort of arch, and surrounds the tree as it were
with a frame.
The Phœnicians, who were not idolaters, in the ordinary acceptation of
the word--inasmuch as they did not worship images of their deities,
and regarded the ever-burning fire on their altars as the sole emblem
of the Supreme Being,--paid adoration to this Sacred Tree, effigies of
which were set up in front of the temples, and had sacrifices offered
to them. This mystic tree was known to the Jews as _Asherah_. At
festive seasons the Phœnicians adorned it with boughs, flowers, and
ribands, and regarded it as the central object of their worship.
The Mother Tree of the Greeks, Romans, and Teutons.
The Greeks appear to have cherished a tradition that the first race of
men sprang from a cosmogonic Ash. This cloud Ash became personified
in their myth as a daughter of Oceanos, named Melia, who married
the river-god Inachos, and gave birth to Phoroneus, in whom the
Peloponnesian legend recognised the fire-bringer and the first man.
According to Hesychius, however, Phoroneus was not the only mortal to
whom the Mother Ash gave birth, for he tells us distinctly that the
race of men was “the fruit of the Ash.” Hesiod also repeats the same
fable in a somewhat different guise, when he relates how Jove created
the third or brazen race of men out of Ash trees. Homer appears to have
been acquainted with this tradition, for he makes Penelope say, when
addressing Ulysses: “Tell me thy family, from whence thou art; for thou
art not sprung from the olden tree, or from the rock.” The Ash was
generally deemed by the Greeks an image of the clouds and the mother of
men,--the prevalent idea being that the Meliai, or nymphs of the Ash,
were a race of cloud goddesses, daughters of sea gods, whose domain was
originally the cloud sea.
But besides the Ash, the Greeks would seem to have regarded the Oak as
a tree from which the human race had sprung, and to have called Oak
trees the first mothers. This belief was shared by the Romans. Thus
Virgil speaks
“Of nymphs and fauns, and savage men, who took
Their birth from trunks of trees and stubborn Oak.”
In another passage the great Latin poet, speaking of the _Æsculus_, a
species of Oak, sacred to Jupiter, gives to it attributes which remind
us in a very striking manner of Yggdrasill, the cloud-tree of the
Norsemen.
“_Æsculus in primis, quæ quantum vortice ad auras
Ætherias, tantum radice in Tartara tendit._”--_Georg._ ii.
“High as his topmost boughs to heaven ascend,
So low his roots to hell’s dominion tend.”--_Dryden._
In the Æneid, Book IV., speaking of the Oak as _Quercus_, Virgil uses
the same expression with regard to the roots of Jove’s tree descending
to the infernal regions. Juvenal, also, in his sixth satire, alluding
to the beginning of the world, speaks of the human race as formed
of clay or born of the opening Oak, which thus becomes the mystical
mother-tree of mankind, and, like a mother, sustained her offspring
with food she herself created. Thus Ovid tells us that the simple food
of the primal race consisted largely of “Acorns dropping from the tree
of Jove;” and we read in Homer and Hesiod that the Acorn was the common
food of the Arcadians.
The belief of the ancient Greeks and Romans that the progenitors of
mankind were born of trees was also common to the Teutons. At the
present day, in many parts of both North and South Germany, a hollow
tree overhanging a pool is designated as the first abode of unborn
infants, and little children are taught to believe that babies are
fetched by the doctor from cavernous trees or ancient stumps. “Frau
Holda’s tree” is a common name in Germany for old decayed boles; and
she herself, the cloud-goddess, is described in a Hessian legend as
having in front the form of a beautiful woman, and behind that of a
hollow tree with rugged bark.
But besides Frau Holda’s tree the ancient Germans knew a cosmogonic
tree, assimilating to the Scandinavian Yggdrasill. The trunk of this
Teutonic world-tree was called _Irminsul_, a name implying the column
of the universe, which supports everything.
A Byzantine legend, which is current in Russia, tells of a vast
world-tree of iron, which in the beginning of all things spread its
gigantic bulk throughout space. Its root is the power of God; its head
sustains the three worlds,--heaven, with the ocean of air; the earth,
with its seas of water; and hell, with its sulphurous fumes and glowing
flames.
Rabbinic traditions make the Mosaic Tree of Life, which stood in
the centre of the Garden of Eden, a vast world-tree, resembling in
many points the Scandinavian Ash Yggdrasill. A description of this
world-tree of the Rabbins, however, need not appear in the present
chapter, since it will be found on page 13.
[Tailpiece]
[Headpiece]
CHAPTER II.
The Trees of Paradise and the Tree of Adam.
Amongst all peoples, and in all ages, there has lingered a belief
possessing peculiar powers of fascination, that in some unknown region,
remote and unexplored, there existed a glorious and happy land; a
land of sunshine, luxuriance, and plenty, a land of stately trees and
beauteous flowers,--a terrestrial Paradise.
A tradition contained in the sacred books of the Parsis states that at
the beginning of the world Ormuzd, the giver of all good, created the
primal steer, which contained the germs of all the animals. Ahriman,
the evil spirit, then created venomous animals which destroyed the
steer: while dying, there sprang out of his right hip the first man,
and out of his left hip the first man’s soul. From him arose a tree
whence came the original human pair, namely _Mâshya_ and _Mashyôî_
who were placed in _Heden_, a delightful spot, where grew _Hom_
(or _Haoma_), the Tree of Life, the fruit of which gave vigour and
immortality. This Paradise was in Iran. The woman being persuaded by
Ahriman, in the guise of a serpent, gave her husband fruit to eat,
which was destructive.
The Persians also imagined a Paradise on Mount Caucasus. The Arabians
conceived an Elysium in the midst of the deserts of Aden. The pagan
Scandinavians sang of the Holy City of Asgard, situated in the centre
of the world. The Celts believed an earthly Paradise to exist in the
enchanted Isle of Avalon--the Island of the Blest--
“Where falls not hail or rain, or any snow,
Nor even wind blows loudly; but it lies
Deep-meadow’d, happy, fair, with orchard lawn
And bowery hollows.”
The Greeks and Romans pictured to themselves the delightful gardens
of the Hesperides, where grew the famous trees that produced Apples
of gold; and in the early days of Christendom the poets of the West
dreamt of a land in the East (the true Paradise of Adam and Eve, as
they believed) in which dwelt in a Palm-tree the golden-breasted
Phœnix,--the bird of the sun, which was thought to abide a hundred
years in this Elysium of the Arabian deserts, and then to appear in
the Temple of the Sun at Heliopolis, fall upon the blazing altar, and,
pouring forth a melodious song from or through the orifices of its
feathers (which thus formed a thousand organ-pipes), cremate itself,
only to rise again from its smoking ashes, and fly back to its home
in the Palm-tree of the earthly Paradise. The Russians tell of a
terrestrial Paradise to be sought for on the island of Bujan, where
grows the vast Oak tree, amidst whose majestic branches the sun nestles
to sleep every evening, and from whose summit he rises every morning.
The Hindu religion shadows forth an Elysium on Mount Meru, on the
confines of Cashmere and Thibet. The garden of the great Indian god
Indra is a spot of unparalleled beauty. Here are to be found an
umbrageous grove or wood, where the gods delight to take their ease;
cooling fountains and rivulets; an enchanting flower-garden, luminous
flowers, immortalising fruits, and brilliantly-plumed birds, whose
melody charms the gods themselves. In this Paradise are fine trees,
which were the first things that appeared above the surface of the
troubled waters at the beginning of the creation; from these trees drop
the immortalising ambrosia. The principal tree is the _Pârijâta_, the
flower of which preserves its perfume all the year round, combines in
its petals every odour and every flavour, presents to each his favorite
colour and most-esteemed perfume, and procures happiness for those who
ask it. But beyond this, it is a token of virtue, losing its freshness
in the hands of the wicked, but preserving it with the just and
honourable. This wondrous flower will also serve as a torch by night,
and will emit the most enchanting sounds, producing the sweetest and
most varied melody; it assuages hunger and thirst, cures diseases, and
remedies the ravages of old age.
The Paradise of Mahomet is situated in the seventh heaven. In the
centre of it stands the marvellous tree called _Tooba_,[1] which is so
large that a man mounted on the fleetest horse could not ride round
its branches in one hundred years. This tree not only affords the most
grateful shade over the whole extent of the Mussulman Paradise; but its
boughs are laden with delicious fruits of a size and taste unknown to
mortals, and moreover bend themselves at the wish of the inhabitants
of this abode of bliss, to enable them to partake of these delicacies
without any trouble. The Koran often speaks of the rivers of Paradise
as adding greatly to its delights. All these rivers take their rise
from the tree _Tooba_; some flow with water, some with milk, some with
honey, and others even with wine, the juice of the grape not being
forbidden to the blessed.
[1] The name of “_Tooba_” applied to this tree, originated in a
misunderstanding of the words _Tooba lahum_, “it is well with them,” or
“blessedness awaits them,” in Koran xiii., 28. Some commentators took
_Tooba_ for the name of a tree.
We have seen how the most ancient races conceived and cherished
the notion of a Paradise of surpassing beauty, situate in remote
and unknown regions, both celestial and terrestrial. It is not,
therefore, surprising that the Paradise of the Hebrew race--the Mosaic
Eden--should have been pictured as a luxuriant garden, stocked with
lovely flowers and odorous herbs, and shaded by majestic trees of every
description.
We are told, in the second chapter of Genesis, that at the beginning
of the world “the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden,” and
that out of this country of Eden a river went out “to water the
garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.”
These “heads” or rivers are further on, in the Biblical narrative,
named respectively Pison, Gihon, Hiddekel, and Euphrates. Many have
been the speculations as to the exact site, geographical features,
&c., of Eden, and the Divinely-planted Paradise in its midst, and
the subject has been one which has ever been fruitful of controversy
and conjecture. Sir John Maundevile has recorded that the Garden of
Eden, or Paradise, was enclosed by a wall. This old Eastern traveller
tells us that although, in the course of his wanderings, he had never
actually seen the land of Eden, yet wise men had discoursed to him
concerning it. He says: “Paradise Terrestre, as wise men say, is the
highest place of earth--that is, in all the world; and it is so high,
that it toucheth nigh to the circle of the moon. For it is so high that
the flood of Noah might never come to it, albeit it did cover all the
earth of the world, all about, and aboven and beneathen, save Paradise
alone. And this Paradise is enclosed all about with a wall, and men
wist not whereof it is; for the walls be covered all over with moss, as
it seemeth. And it seemeth not that the wall is stone of nature. And
that wall stretcheth from the South to the North, and it hath not but
one entry, that is closed with fire burning, so that no man that is
mortal he dare not enter. And in the highest place of Paradise, exactly
in the middle, is a well that casts out the four streams which run by
divers lands, of which the first is called Pison, or Ganges, that runs
throughout India. And the other is called Nile, or Gyson, which goes
through Ethiopia, and after through Egypt. And the other is called
Tigris, which runs by Assyria, and by Armenia the Great. And the other
is called Euphrates, which runs through Media, Armenia, and Persia. And
men there beyond say that all the sweet waters of the world, above and
beneath, take their beginning from the well of Paradise, and out of the
well all waters come and go.”
Eden (a Hebrew word, signifying “Pleasure”), it is generally conceded,
was the most beauteous and luxuriant portion of the world; and the
Garden of Eden, the Paradise of Adam and Eve, was the choicest and
most exquisite portion of Eden. As regards the situation of this
terrestrial Paradise, the Biblical narrative distinctly states that
it was in the East, but various have been the speculations as to the
precise locality. Moses, in writing of Eden, probably contemplated the
country watered by the Tigris and Euphrates--the land of the mighty
city of Babylon. Many traditions confirm this view: not only were
there a district called Eden, and a town called Paradisus, in Syria, a
neighbouring country to Mesopotamia, but in Mesopotamia itself there
is a certain region which, as late as the year 1552, was called Eden.
Some would localise the Eden of Scripture near Mount Lebanon, in Syria;
others between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, to the west of Babylon;
others, again, in the delightful plains of Armenia, or in the highlands
of Armenia, where the Tigris and Euphrates have their rise. An opinion
very generally held is, that Eden was placed at the junction of several
rivers, on a site which is now swallowed up by the Persian Gulf, and
that it never existed after the deluge, which effaced this Paradise
from the face of a polluted earth. Another theory places Eden in a
vast central portion of the globe, comprising a large piece of Asia
and a portion of Africa, the four rivers being the Ganges, the Tigris,
the Euphrates, and the Nile. Dr. Wild, of Toronto, is of opinion that
the Garden of Paradise embraced what we now call Syria. The land
that God gave to Abraham and his seed for ever--the Land of Promise,
the Holy Land--is the very territory that constituted the Garden of
Paradise. “Before the flood,” says the reverend gentleman, “there was
in connection with this garden, to the east of it, a gate and a flaming
sword, guarding this gate, and a way to the Tree of Life. On that very
spot I believe the Great Pyramid of Egypt to be built, to mark where
the face of God shone forth to man before the Flood; and the Flood,
by changing the land surface through the changing of the ocean bed,
changed the centre somewhat, and threw it further south. It is the very
centre of the earth now where the Pyramid stands, ... and marks the
place where the gate of Eden was before the Flood.”[2]
[2] Besides the localities already mentioned, Paradise has been
located on Mount Ararat; in Persia; in Ethiopia; in the land now
covered by the Caspian Sea; in a plain on the summit of Mount Taurus;
in Sumatra; in the Canaries; and in the Island of Ceylon, where there
is a mountain called the Peak of Adam, underneath which, according to
native tradition, lie buried the remains of the first man, and whereon
is shown the gigantic impress of his foot. Goropius Becanus places
Paradise near the river Acesines, on the confines of India. Tertullian,
Bonaventura, and Durandus affirm that it was under the Equinoctial,
while another authority contends that it was situated beneath the
North Pole. Virgil places the happy land of the Hyperboreans under the
North Pole, and the Arctic Regions were long associated with ideas of
enchantment and beauty, chiefly because of the mystery that has always
enveloped these remote and unexplored regions. Peter Comestor and Moses
Barcephas set Paradise in a region separated from our habitable zone by
a long tract of land and sea, and elevated so that it reaches to the
sphere of the moon.
The Tree of life.
Whatever may have been the site of the land of Eden or Pleasure, Moses,
in describing Paradise as its garden (much as we speak of Kent as the
Garden of England), doubtless wished to convey the idea of a sanctuary
of delight and primal loveliness; indeed, he tells us that “out of the
ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the
sight and good for food.” This Paradise was in the middle of Eden, and
in the middle of Paradise was planted the Tree of Life, and, close by,
the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Into this garden the Lord put
the man whom He had formed, “to dress and to keep it,” in other words
to till, plant, and sow.
In the very centre of Paradise, in the midst of the land of Eden,
grew the Tree of Life. Now, what was this tree? Various have been the
conjectures with regard to its nature. The traditions of the Rabbins
make the Tree of Life a supernatural tree, resembling the world- or
cloud-trees of the Scandinavians and Hindus, and bearing a striking
resemblance to the _Tooba_ of the Mahomedan Paradise. They describe the
Tree of Life as being of enormous bulk, towering far above all others,
and so vast in its girth, that no man, even if he lived so long, could
travel round it in less than five hundred years. From beneath the
colossal base of this stupendous tree gushed all the waters of the
earth, by whose instrumentality nature was everywhere refreshed and
invigorated. Regarding these Rabbinic traditions as purely mythical,
certain commentators have regarded the Tree of Life as typical only of
that life and the continuance of it which our first parents derived
from God. Others think that it was called the Tree of Life because it
was a memorial, pledge, and seal of the eternal life which, had man
continued in obedience, would have been his reward in the Paradise
above. Others, again, believe that the fruit of it had a certain vital
influence to cherish and maintain man in immortal health and vigour
till he should have been translated from the earthly to the heavenly
Paradise.
Dr. Wild considers that the Tree of Life stood on Mount Moriah, the
very spot selected, in after years, by Abraham, whereon to offer his
son Isaac, the type, and the mount to which Christ was led out to be
sacrificed. As Eden occupied the centre of the world, and the Tree
of Life was planted in the middle of Eden, that spot marked the very
centre of the world, and it was necessary that He who was the life of
mankind should die in the centre of the world, and act from the centre.
Hence, the Tree of Life, destroyed at the flood, on account of man’s
wickedness, was replaced on the same spot, centuries after, by the
Cross,--converted by the Redeemer into a second and everlasting Tree of
Life.
Adam was told he might eat freely of every tree in the garden,
excepting only the Tree of Knowledge; we may, therefore, suppose
that he would be sure to partake of the fruit of the Tree of Life,
which, from its prominent position “in the midst of the garden,”
would naturally attract his attention. Like the sacred Soma-tree of
the Hindus, the Tree of Life probably yielded heavenly ambrosia, and
supplied to Adam food that invigorated and refreshed him with its
immortal sustenance. So long as he remained in obedience, he was
privileged to partake of this glorious food; but when, yielding to
Eve’s solicitations, he disobeyed the Divine command, and partook of
the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, he found it had given to him the
knowledge of evil--something of which he had hitherto been in happy
ignorance. He had sinned; he was no longer fit to taste the immortal
ambrosia of the Tree of Life; he was, therefore, driven forth from
Eden, and lest he should be tempted once again to return and partake of
the glorious fruit of the immortalising tree, God “placed at the east
of the Garden of Eden cherubims and a flaming sword, which turned every
way, to keep the way of the Tree of Life.” Henceforth the immortal
food was lost to man: he could no longer partake of that mystic fruit
which bestowed life and health. Dr. Wild is of opinion that the Tree
of Knowledge stood on Mount Zion, the spot afterwards selected by
the Almighty for the erection of the Temple; because, through the
Shechinah, men could there obtain knowledge of good and evil.
Some have claimed that the Banana, the _Musa paradisiaca_, was the Tree
of Life, and that another species of the tree, the _Musa sapientum_,
was the Tree of Knowledge; others consider that the Indian sacred
Fig-tree, the _Ficus religiosa_, the Hindu world-tree, was the Tree of
Life which grew in the middle of Eden; and the Bible itself contains
internal evidence supporting this idea. In Gen. iii. 8, we read
that Adam and Eve, conscious of having sinned, “hid themselves from
the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden.” Dr.
Wright, however, in his Commentary, remarks that, in the original, the
word rendered “trees” is singular--“in the midst of the tree of the
garden”--consequently, we may infer that Adam and Eve, frightened by
the knowledge of their sin, sought the shelter of the Tree of Life--the
tree in the centre of the garden; the tree which, if it were the _Ficus
religiosa_, would, by its gigantic stature, and the grove-like nature
of its growth, afford them agreeable shelter, and prove a favourite
retreat. Beneath the shade of this stupendous Fig-tree, the erring pair
reflected upon their lost innocence; and in their conscious shame,
plucked the ample foliage of the tree, and made themselves girdles of
Fig-leaves. Here they remained hidden beneath the network of boughs
which drooped almost to the earth, and thus formed a natural thicket
within which they sought to hide themselves from an angry God.
“A pillared shade
High over-arched, with echoing walks between.”--_Milton._
The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.
The Tree of Knowledge, in the opinion of some commentators, was so
called, not because of any supernatural power it possessed of inspiring
those who might eat of it with universal knowledge, as the serpent
afterwards suggested, but because by Adam and Eve abstaining from or
eating of it after it was prohibited, God would see whether they would
prove good or evil in their state of probation.
The tradition generally accepted as to the fruit which the serpent
tempted Eve to eat, fixes it as the Apple, but there is no evidence
in the Bible that the Tree of Knowledge was an Apple-tree, unless
the remark, “I raised thee up under the Apple-tree,” to be found in
Canticles viii., 5, be held to apply to our first parents. Eve is
stated to have plucked the forbidden fruit because she saw that it was
good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and that the tree
which bore it was “to be desired to make one wise.”
According to an Indian legend, it was the fruit of the Banana tree
(_Musa paradisiaca_ or _M. sapientum_) that proved so fatal to Adam and
Eve. We read in Gerarde’s ‘Herbal,’ that “the Grecians and Christians
which inhabit Syria, and the Jewes also, suppose it to be that tree
of whose fruit Adam did taste.” Gerarde himself calls it “Adam’s
Apple-tree,” and remarks of the fruit, that “if it be cut according to
the length oblique, transverse, or any other way whatsoever, may be
seen the shape and forme of a crosse, with a man fastened thereto. My
selfe have seene the fruit, and cut it in pieces, which was brought me
from Aleppo, in pickle; the crosse, I might perceive, as the forme of
a spred-egle in the root of Ferne, but the man I leave to be sought
for by those which have better eies and judgement than my selfe.” Sir
John Mandeville gives a similar account of the cross in the Plantain
or “Apple of Paradise.” In a work by Léon, called ‘Africa,’ it is
stated that the Banana is in that country generally identified with
the Tree of Adam. “The Mahometan priests say that this fruit is that
which God forbade Adam and Eve to eat; for immediately they eat they
perceived their nakedness, and to cover themselves employed the leaves
of this tree, which are more suitable for the purpose than any other.”
To this day the Indian Djainas are by their laws forbidden to eat
either Bananas or Figs. Vincenzo, a Roman missionary of the seventeenth
century, after stating that the Banana fruit in Phœnicia bears the
effigy of the Crucifixion, tells us that the Christians of those
parts would not on any account cut it with a knife, but always broke
it with their hands. This Banana, he adds, grows near Damascus, and
they call it there “Adam’s Fig Tree.” In the Canaries, at the present
time, Banana fruit is never cut across with a knife, because it then
exhibits a representation of the Crucifixion. In the island of Ceylon
there is a legend that Adam once had a fruit garden in the vicinity
of the torrent of Seetagunga, on the way to the Peak. Pridham, in
his history of the island, tells us that from the circumstance that
various fruits have been occasionally carried down the stream, both the
Moormen and Singalese believe that this garden still exists, although
now inaccessible, and that its explorer would never return. Tradition,
however, affirms that in the centre of this Ceylon Paradise grows a
large Banana-tree, the fruit of which when cut transversely exhibits
the figure of a man crucified, and that from the huge leaves of this
tree Adam and Eve made themselves coverings.
Certain commentators are of opinion that the Tree of Knowledge was a
Fig-tree--the _Ficus Indica_, the Banyan, one of the sacred trees of
the Hindus, under the pillared shade of which the god Vishnu was fabled
to have been born. In this case the Fig-tree is a tree of ill-omen--a
tree watched originally by Satan in the form of a serpent, and whose
fruit gave the knowledge of evil. After having tempted and caused
Adam to fall by means of its fruit, its leaves were gathered to cover
nakedness and shame. Again, the Fig was the tree which the demons
selected as their refuge, if one may judge from the _fauni ficarii_,
whom St. Jerome recognised in certain monsters mentioned by the
prophets. The Fig was the only tree accursed by Christ whilst on earth;
and the wild Fig, according to tradition, was the tree upon which
the traitor Judas hanged himself, and from that time has always been
regarded as under a bane.
The Citron is held by many to have been the forbidden fruit. Gerarde
tells us that this tree was originally called _Pomum Assyrium_, but
that it was known among the Italian people as _Pomum Adami_; and,
writes the old herbalist, “that came by the opinion of the common rude
people, who thinke it to be the same Apple which Adam did eate of in
Paradise, when he transgressed God’s commandment; whereupon also the
prints of the biting appeare therein as they say; but others say that
this is not the Apple, but that which the Arabians do call _Musa_ or
_Mosa_, whereof Avicen maketh mention: for divers of the Jewes take
this for that through which by eating Adam offended.”
The Pomegranate, Orange, Corn, and Grapes have all been identified as
the “forbidden fruit;” but upon what grounds it is difficult to surmise.
After their disobedience, Adam and Eve were driven out of Paradise,
and, according to Arabian tradition, Adam took with him three
things--an ear of Wheat, which is the chief of all kinds of food;
Dates, which are the chief of fruits; and the Myrtle, which is
the chief of sweet-scented flowers. Maimonides mentions a legend,
cherished by the Nabatheans, that Adam, when he reached the district
about Babylon, had come from India, carrying with him a golden tree
in blossom, a leaf that no fire would burn, two leaves, each of which
would cover a man, and an enormous leaf plucked from a tree beneath
whose branches ten thousand men could find shelter.
The Tree of Adam.
There is a legend handed down both by Hebrews and Greeks, that when
Adam had attained the ripe age of 900 years, he overtaxed his strength
in uprooting an enormous bush, and that falling very sick, and feeling
the approach of death, he sent his son Seth to the angel who guarded
Paradise, and particularly the way to the Tree of Life, to ask of
him some of its ambrosia, or oil of mercy, that he might anoint his
limbs therewith, and so regain good health. Seth approached the Tree
of Knowledge, of the fruit of which Adam and Eve had once partaken. A
youth, radiant as the sun, was seated on its summit, and, addressing
Seth, told him that He was the Son of God, that He would one day come
down to earth, to deliver it from sin, and that He would then give the
oil of mercy to Adam.
The angel who was guarding the Tree of Life then handed to Seth three
small seeds, charging him to place them in his father’s mouth, when
he should bury him near Mount Tabor, in the valley of Hebron. Seth
obeyed the angel’s behests. The three seeds took root, and in a short
time appeared above the ground, in the form of three rods. One of
these saplings was a branch of Olive, the second a Cedar, the third
a Cypress. The three rods did not leave the mouth of Adam, nor was
their existence known until the time of Moses, who received from God
the order to cut them. Moses obeyed, and with these three rods, which
exhaled a perfume of the Promised Land, performed many miracles, cured
the sick, drew water from a rock, &c.
After the death of Moses, the three rods remained unheeded in the
Valley of Hebron until the time of King David, who, warned by the
Holy Ghost, sought and found them there. Hence they were taken by the
King to Jerusalem, where all the leprous, the dumb, the blind, the
paralysed, and other sick people presented themselves before the King,
beseeching him to give them the salvation of the Cross. King David
thereupon touched them with the three rods, and their infirmities
instantly vanished. After this the King placed the three rods in a
cistern, but to his astonishment upon going the next day for them, he
discovered they had all three firmly taken root, that the roots had
become inextricably interlaced, and that the three rods were in fact
reunited in one stem which had shot up therefrom, and had become a
Cedar sapling,--the tree that was eventually to furnish the wood of the
Cross. This reunion of the three rods was typical of the Trinity. The
young Cedar was subsequently placed in the Temple, but we hear nothing
more of it for thirty years, when Solomon, wishing to complete the
Temple, obtained large supplies of Cedars of Lebanon, and as being well
adapted for his purpose cut down the Cedar of the Temple. The trunk of
this tree, lying with the other timber, was seen by a woman, who sat
down on it, and inspired with the spirit of prophecy cried: “Behold!
the Lord predicts the virtues of the Sacred Cross.” The Jews thereupon
attacked the woman, and having stoned her, they plunged the sacred wood
of the Temple into the _piscina probatica_, of which the water acquired
from that moment healing qualities, and which was afterwards called
the Pool of Bethesda. In the hope of profaning it the Jews afterwards
employed the sacred wood in the construction of the bridge of Siloam,
over which everybody unheedingly passed, excepting only the Queen of
Sheba, who, prostrating herself, paid homage to it and prophetically
cried that of this wood would one day be made the Cross of the Redeemer.
Thus, although Adam by eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge,
came to know that which was evil, and could no longer be permitted to
partake of the fruit or essence of the Tree of Life, yet, from its
seeds, placed in his mouth after death, sprang the tree which produced
the Cross of Christ, by means of which he and his race could attain to
eternal life.
According to Prof. Mussafia,[3] an authority quoted by De Gubernatis,
the origin of this legend of Seth’s visit to Paradise is to be found in
the apocryphal gospel of Nicodemus, where it is stated that the Angel
Michael refused to give the oil of mercy to Seth, and told him that
Christ would one day visit the earth to anoint all believers, and to
conduct Adam to the Tree of Mercy. Some of the legends collected by the
Professor are very curious.
[3] Treatise on the Legend of the Sacred Wood. Vienna, 1870.
An Austrian legend records that the Angel Michael gave to Eve and her
son Seth a spray with three leaves, plucked from the Tree of Knowledge,
with directions to plant it on the grave of Adam. The spray took root
and became a tree, which Solomon placed as an ornament in the Temple of
Jerusalem, and which was cast into the _piscina probatica_, where it
lay until the day of Christ’s condemnation, when it was taken out and
fashioned into the Cross on which He suffered.
A German legend narrates that Eve went with Seth to Paradise, where
she encountered the serpent; but the Angel Michael gave her a branch
of Olive, which, planted over the grave of Adam, grew rapidly. After
the death of Eve, Seth returned to Paradise, and there met the Angel,
who had in his hands a branch to which was suspended the half of the
Apple which had been bitten by his mother Eve. The Angel gave this to
Seth, at the same time recommending him to take as great care of it as
of the Olive planted on Adam’s grave, because these two trees would one
day become the means of the redemption of mankind. Seth scrupulously
watched over the precious branch, and at the hour of his death
bequeathed it to the best of men. Thus it came into the hands of Noah,
who took it into the Ark with him. After the Deluge, Noah sent forth
the dove as a messenger, and it brought to him a branch of the Olive
planted on the tomb of Adam. Noah religiously guarded the two precious
branches which were destined to be instrumental in redeeming the human
race by furnishing the wood of the Cross.
A second German legend states that Adam, when at the point of death,
sent Seth to Paradise to gather there for him some of the forbidden
fruit (probably this is a mistake for “some of the fruit of the Tree
of Life”). Seth hesitated, saying as an excuse that he did not know
the way. Adam directed him to follow a tract of country entirely bare
of vegetation. Arrived safely at Paradise, Seth persuaded the angel to
give him, not the Apple, but simply the core of the Apple tasted by
Eve. On Seth returning home, he found his father dead; so extracting
from the Apple-core three pips, he placed them in Adam’s mouth. From
them sprang three plants that Solomon cut down in order to form a
cross--the selfsame cross afterwards borne by our Saviour, and on which
He was crucified--and a rod of justice, which, split in the middle,
eventually served to hold the superscription written by Pilate, and
placed at the head of the Cross.
A legend, current in the Greek Church, claims the Olive as the Tree of
Adam: this, perhaps, is not surprising considering in what high esteem
the Greeks have always held the Olive. The legend tells how Seth, going
to seek the oil of mercy in Paradise, in consequence of his father’s
illness, was told by the angel that the time had not arrived. The angel
then presented him with three branches--the Olive, Cedar, and Cypress:
these Seth was ordered to plant over Adam’s grave, and the promise was
given him that when they produced oil, Adam should rise restored to
health. Seth, following these instructions, plaited the three branches
together and planted them over the grave of his father, where they soon
became united as one tree. After a time this tree was transplanted,
in the first place to Mount Lebanon, and afterwards to the outskirts
of Jerusalem, and it is there to this day in the Greek Monastery,
having been cut down and the timber placed beneath the altar. From
this circumstance the Monastery was called, in Hebrew, the Mother of
the Cross. This same wood was revealed to Solomon by the Queen of
Sheba, and Solomon therefore ordered it to be used in the foundation
of a tower; but the tower having been rent in twain by an earthquake
which occurred at our Saviour’s birth, the wood was cast into a pool
called the _probatica piscina_, to which it imparted wonderful healing
qualities.[4]
[4] Sir John Maundevile, who visited Jerusalem about the middle of
the fourteenth century, states that to the north of the Temple stood
the Church of St. Anne, “oure Ladyes modre: and there was our Lady
conceyved. And before that chirche is a gret tree, that began to
growe the same nyght.... And in that chirche is a welle, in manere of
a cisterne, that is clept _Probatica Piscina_, that hath 5 entreez.
Into that welle aungeles were wont to come from Hevene, and bathen hem
with inne: and what man that first bathed him aftre the mevynge of the
watre, was made hool of what maner sykenes that he hadde.”
There is another somewhat similar Greek legend, in which Abraham
takes the place of Adam, and the Pine supersedes the Olive. According
to this version, a shepherd met Abraham on the banks of the Jordan,
and confessed to him a sin he had committed. Abraham listened, and
counselled the erring shepherd to plant three stakes, and to water them
carefully until they should bud. After forty days the three stakes had
taken the form of a Cypress, a Cedar, and a Pine, having different
roots and branches, but one indivisible trunk. This tree grew until the
time of Solomon, who wished to make use of it in the construction of
the Temple. After several abortive attempts, it was at length made into
a seat for visitors to the Temple. The Sibyl Erythræa (the Queen of
Sheba) refused to sit upon it, and exclaimed: “Thrice blessed is this
wood, on which shall perish Christ, the King and God.” Then Solomon had
the wood mounted on a pedestal and adorned with thirty rings or crowns
of silver. These thirty rings became the thirty pieces of silver, the
price of Judas, the betrayer, and the wood was eventually used for the
Saviour’s Cross.
[Tailpiece]
[Headpiece]
CHAPTER III.
Sacred Trees & Plants of the Ancients.
All the nations of antiquity entertained for certain trees and
plants a special reverence, which in many cases degenerated into a
superstitious worship. The myths of all countries contain allusions
to sacred or supernatural plants. The Veda mentions the heavenly tree
which the lightning strikes down; the mythology of the Finns speaks of
the celestial Oak which the sun-dwarf uproots; Yama, the Vedic god of
death, sits drinking with companies of the blessed, under a leafy tree,
just as in the northern Saga Hel’s place is at the foot of the Ash
Yggdrasill.
In the eyes of the ancient Persians the tree, by its changes in Spring,
Summer, Autumn, and Winter, appeared as the emblem of human existence,
whilst at the same time, by the continuity of its life, it was
reverently regarded as a symbol of immortality. Hence it came to pass
that in Persia trees of unusual qualities were in course of time looked
upon as being the abode of holy and even celestial spirits. Such trees
became sacred, and were addressed in prayer by the reverential Parsis,
though they eschewed the worship of idols, and honoured the sun and
moon simply as symbols. Ormuzd, the good spirit, is set forth as giving
this command:--“Go, O Zoroaster! to the living trees, and let thy mouth
speak before them these words: I pray to the pure trees, the creatures
of Ormuzd.” Of all trees, however, the Cypress, with its pyramidal
top pointing to the sky, was to the Parsis the most venerated: hence
they planted it before their temples and palaces as symbolic of the
celestial fire.
The Oak, the strongest of all trees, has been revered as the emblem
of the Supreme Being by almost all the nations of heathendom, by the
Jewish Patriarchs, and by the children of Israel, who eventually came
to esteem the tree sacred, and offered sacrifices beneath its boughs.
Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Teutons, and Celts, all considered the Oak
as sacred, and the Druids taught the people of Britain to regard this
tree with peculiar reverence and respect. It is frequently mentioned
by the Roman poets as the tree of Jove, to whom it was dedicated; and
near to Chaonia, a mountainous part of Epirus, was a forest of Oaks,
called the Chaonian or Dodonæan Forest, where oracles were given, as
some say, by the trees themselves. The world-tree of Romowe, the old
centre of the Prussians, was an Oak, and it was reverenced as a tree of
great sanctity.
The Indians adored the tree _Asoka_, consecrated to Vishnu; and the
Banyan, in the belief that Vishnu was born amongst its branches.[5]
[5] In the rites appertaining to the great sacrifice in honour of the
god Vishnu at the end of March, the following plants were employed,
and consequently acquired a sacred character in the eyes of the
Indians:--Sesamum seed, leaves of the Asvattha, Mango leaves, flowers
of the Sami, Kunda flowers, the Lotus flower, Oleander flowers,
Nagakesara flowers, powdered Tulasi leaves, powdered Bel leaves, leaves
of the Kunda, Barley meal, meal of the Nivara grain (a wild paddy),
powder of Sati leaves, Turmeric powder, meal of the Syamaka grain,
powdered Ginger, powdered Priyangu seeds, Rice meal, powder of Bel
leaves, powder of the leaves of the Amblic Myrobalan, and Kangni seed
meal.--_An Imperial Assemblage at Delhi Three Thousand Years Ago._
The _Soma-latâ_ (_Sarcostemma aphylla_), or sacred plant yielding the
immortal fluid offered to the gods on the altars of the Brahmans,
is regarded with extreme reverence. The name _Amrita_, or Immortal
Tree, is given to the _Euphorbia_, _Panicum Dactylon_, _Cocculus
cordifolius_, _Pinus Deodara_, _Emblica officinalis_, _Terminalia
citrina_, _Piper longum_, and many others. The Holy Basil (_Ocimum
sanctum_) is looked upon as a sacred plant. The Deodar is the
_Devadâru_ or tree-god of the Shastras, alluded to in Vedic hymns as
the symbol of majesty and power.
To Indra, the supreme god of the Vedic Olympus, are dedicated the
_Terminalia Arjuna_ (the Tree of Indra), the _Methonica superba_
(the Flower of Indra), a species of Pumpkin called _Indra-vârunikâ_
(appertaining to Indra and Varuna), the _Vitex Negundo_ (the drink of
Indra), the _Abrus precatorius_, and Hemp (the food of Indra).
To Brahma are sacred the _Butea frondosa_, the _Ficus glomerata_,
the Mulberry (the seed of Brahma), the _Clerodendron Siphonanthus_,
the _Hemionitis cordifolia_ (leaf of Brahma), the _Saccharum Munga_
(with which is formed the sacred girdle of the Brahmans), and the _Poa
cynosuroides_, or Kusa Grass, a species of Vervain, employed in Hindu
sacrificial rites, and held in such sanctity as to be acknowledged as a
god.
The Peepul or Bo-tree (_Ficus religiosa_) is held sacred by Buddhists
as the Holy Tree and the Tree of Knowledge.
The Burmese Buddhists surround their Pagodas and religious houses with
trees, for which they entertain a high regard. The first holy men dwelt
under the shade of forest trees, and from that circumstance, in the
Burmese cultus, every Budh is specially connected with some tree--as
Shin Gautama with the Banyan, under which he attained his full dignity,
and the _Shorea robusta_, under which he was born and died--and, as we
are told, the last Budh of this world cycle, Areemadehya, will receive
his Buddhaship under the _Mesua ferrea_.
The Burman also regards the Eugenia as a plant of peculiar sanctity--a
protective from all harm. The Jamboa, or Rose Apple, is held in much
reverence in Thibet, where it is looked upon as the representative of
the mystical _Amrita_, the tree which in Paradise produces the _amrita_
or ambrosia of the gods.
The Cedar has always been regarded by the Jews as a sacred tree; and
to this day the Maronites, Greeks, and Armenians go up to the Cedars
of Lebanon, at the Feast of the Transfiguration, and celebrate Mass at
their feet.
To the ancient inhabitants of Northern Europe the Elm and the Ash were
objects of especial veneration. Many sacred trees or pillars, formed
of the living trunks of trees, have been found in Germany, called
_Irminseule_, one of which was destroyed by Charlemagne in 772, in
Westphalia.
The Mountain Ash, or Rowan Tree, was, in olden times, an object of
great veneration in Britain; and in Evelyn’s day was reputed of such
sanctity in Wales, that there was not a churchyard that did not contain
one.
The colossal Baobab (_Adansonia_) is worshipped as a divinity by the
negroes of Senegambia. The Nipa or Susa Palm (_Nipa fruticans_) is
the sacred tree of Borneo. The gigantic Dragon Tree (_Dracæna Draco_)
of Orotava was for centuries the object of deep reverence to the
aborigines of the Canary Isles. The Zamang of Guayra, an enormous
Mimosa, has from time immemorial been held sacred in the province of
Caracas. The Moriche Palm (_Mauritia flexuosa_) is considered a deity
by the Tamancas, a tribe of Oronoco Indians, and is held sacred by the
aboriginal Mexicans.
The Nelumbo, or Sacred Bean (_Nelumbium speciosum_), was the Lotus
adored by the Ancient Egyptians, who also paid divine honours to the
Onion, Garlic, Acacia, Laurel, Peach-tree, Lentils of various sorts,
and the Heliotrope. Wormwood was dedicated to Isis, and _Antirrhinum_
(supposed to be the ancient _Cynocephalia_, or Dog’s Head) to Osiris.
The sacred Lotus of the East, the flower of the
“Old Hindu mythologies, wherein
The Lotus, attribute of Ganga--embleming
The world’s great reproductive power--was held
In veneration,”
was the _Nelumbium speciosum_. This mystic flower is a native of
Northern Africa, India, China, Japan, Persia, and Asiatic Russia,
and in all these countries has, for centuries, maintained its sacred
character. It is the _Lien-wha_ of the Chinese, and, according to their
theology, enters into the beverage of immortality.
Henna (_Lawsonia alba_), the flower of Paradise, is dedicated to
Mahomet, who characterised it as the “chief of the flowers of this
world and the next.”
The Pomegranate-tree was highly reverenced both by the Persians and the
Jews. The fruit was embroidered on the hem of Aaron’s sacred robe, and
adorned the robes of Persia’s ancient Priest-Kings.
Pine-cones were regarded by the Assyrians as sacred symbols, and as
such were used in the decoration of their temples.
In Teutonic and Scandinavian mythology the Rose is sacred to Hulda, the
Flax to Bertha, the Spignel to Baldr, and the Hair Moss (_Polytrichum
commune_) is dedicated to Thor’s wife, Sif. Of the divinities after
whom the days of the week were named, the Sun has his special flower,
the Moon her Daisy, Tyr (_Tuesday_) the Tys-fiola or March Violet
and the Mezereon; Woden (_Wednesday_) the _Geranium sylvaticum_
(Odin’s Favour) and the Monkshood (Odin’s Helm); Thor (_Thursday_)
the Monkshood (Thor’s Hat) and the Burdock (Thor’s Mantle); Frig
(_Friday_) and Freyja, who is often confounded with her, had many
plants dedicated to them, which have since been transferred to Venus
and the Virgin Mary, and are not now recognised by the name of either
of the Scandinavian goddesses. In the North of Europe, however, the
_Supercilium Veneris_ is still known as Freyja’s Hair, and the perfumed
Orchis _Gymnadenia conopsea_ as Frigg’s Grass. Sæterne or Sætere
(_Saturday_), the supposed name of an Anglo-Saxon god, is probably but
a mere adaptation of the Roman Saturnus. It may, perhaps, be apposite
to quote (for what it may be worth) Verstegan’s statement that the
Saxons represented “Seater” as carrying a pail of water in which were
flowers and fruits, whereby “was declared that with kindly raine he
would nourish the earth to bring foorth such fruites and flowers.”
In the Grecian and Roman mythology we find numerous trees and flowers
dedicated to the principal divinities. Thus, the
Alder was dedicated to Neptune.
Apple „ „ „ Venus.
Ash „ „ „ Mars.
Bay „ „ „ Apollo.
Beech „ „ „ Jupiter Ammon.
Cornel Cherry „ „ „ Apollo.
Cypress „ „ „ Pluto.
Dittany „ „ „ Juno, Diana, and Luna.
Dog-grass „ „ „ Mars.
Fir „ „ „ Cybele and Neptune.
Heliotrope „ „ „ Phœbus Apollo.
Horsetail „ „ „ Saturn.
Iris „ „ „ Juno.
Ivy „ „ „ Bacchus.
Laurel „ „ „ Apollo.
Lily „ „ „ Juno.
Maidenhair „ „ „ Pluto and Proserpine.
Myrtle „ „ „ Venus and Mars.
Narcissus „ „ „ Ceres, Pluto, and Proserpine.
Oak „ „ „ Jupiter.
Olive „ „ „ Minerva.
Palm „ „ „ Mercury.
Pine „ „ „ Neptune and Pan.
Pink „ „ „ Jupiter.
Pomegranate „ „ „ Juno.
Poplar „ „ „ Hercules.
Poppy „ „ „ Ceres, Diana, and Somnus.
Rhamnus „ „ „ Janus.
Rocket „ „ „ Priapus.
Rose „ „ „ Venus.
Vine „ „ „ Bacchus.
Willow „ „ „ Ceres.
To the Furies was consecrated the Juniper; the Fates wore wreaths of
the Narcissus, and the Muses Bay-leaves.
The Grecian Centaurs, half men, half horses, like their Indian brethren
the Gandharvas, understood the properties of herbs, and cultivated
them; but, as a rule, they never willingly divulged to mankind their
knowledge of the secrets of the vegetable world. Nevertheless, the
Centaur Chiron instructed Æsculapius, Achilles, Æneas, and other heroes
in the polite arts. Chiron had a panacea of his own, which is named
after him _Chironia Centaurium_, or _Gentiana Centaurium_; and, as a
vulnerary, the _Ampelos Chironia_ of Pliny, or _Tamus communis_. In
India, on account of the shape of its leaves, the _Ricinus communis_ is
called _Gandharvahasta_ (having the hands of a Gandharva).
[Tailpiece]
[Headpiece]
CHAPTER IV.
Floral Ceremonies, Wreaths, and Garlands.
The application of flowers and plants to ceremonial purposes is of
the highest antiquity. From the earliest periods, man, after he had
discovered
“What drops the Myrrh and what the balmy Reed,”
offered up on primitive altars, as incense to the Deity, the choicest
and most fragrant woods, the aromatic gums from trees, and the subtle
essences he obtained from flowers. In the odorous but intoxicating
fumes which slowly ascended, in wreaths heavy with fragrance, from the
altar, the pious ancients saw the mystic agency by which their prayers
would be wafted from earth to the abodes of the gods; and so, says
Mr. Rimmel, “the altars of Zoroaster and of Confucius, the temples of
Memphis, and those of Jerusalem, all smoked alike with incense and
sweet-scented woods.” Nor was the admiration and use of vegetable
productions confined to the inhabitants of the old world alone, for the
Mexicans, according to the Abbé Clavigero, have, from time immemorial,
studied the cultivation of flowers and odoriferous plants, which they
employed in the worship of their gods.
But the use of flowers and odorous shrubs was not long confined by
the ancients to their sacred rites; they soon began to consider them
as essential to their domestic life. Thus, the Egyptians, though
they offered the finest fruit and the finest flowers to the gods,
and employed perfumes at all their sacred festivals, as well as at
their daily oblations, were lavish in the use of flowers at their
private entertainments, and in all circumstances of their every-day
life. At a reception given by an Egyptian noble, it was customary,
after the ceremony of anointing, for each guest to be presented with
a Lotus-flower when entering the saloon, and this flower the guest
continued to hold in his hand. Servants brought necklaces of flowers
composed chiefly of the Lotus; a garland was put round the head,
and a single Lotus-bud, or a full-blown flower was so attached as
to hang over the forehead. Many of them, made up into wreaths and
devices, were suspended upon stands placed in the room, garlands of
Crocus and Saffron encircled the wine cups, and over and under the
tables were strewn various flowers. Diodorus informs us that when
the Egyptians approached the place of divine worship, they held the
flower of the Agrostis in their hand, intimating that man proceeded
from a well-watered land, and that he required a moist rather than a
dry aliment; and it is not improbable that the reason of the great
preference given to the Lotus on these occasions was derived from the
same notion.
This fondness of the ancients for flowers was carried to such an extent
as to become almost a vice. When Antony supped with Cleopatra, the
luxurious Queen of Egypt, the floors of the apartments were usually
covered with fragrant flowers. When Sardanapalus, the last of the
Assyrian monarchs, was driven to dire extremity by the rapid approach
of the conqueror, he chose the death of an Eastern voluptuary: causing
a pile of fragrant woods to be lighted, and placing himself on it with
his wives and treasures, he soon became insensible, and was suffocated
by the aromatic smoke. When Antiochus Epiphanes, the Syrian king,
held high festival at Daphne, in one of the processions which took
place, boys bore Frankincense, Myrrh, and Saffron on golden dishes,
two hundred women sprinkled everyone with perfumes out of golden
watering-pots, and all who entered the gymnasium to witness the games
were anointed with some perfume contained in fifteen gold dishes,
holding Saffron, Amaracus, Lilies, Cinnamon, Spikenard, Fenugreek, &c.
When the Roman Emperor Nero sat at banquet in his golden palace, a
shower of flowers and perfumes fell upon him; but Heliogabalus turned
these floral luxuries into veritable curses, for it was one of the
pleasures of this inhuman being to smother his courtiers with flowers.
Both Greeks and Romans caried the delicate refinements of the taste
for flowers and perfumes to the greatest excess in their costly
entertainments; and it is the opinion of Baccius that at their desserts
the number of their flowers far exceeded that of their fruits. The
odour of flowers was deemed potent to arouse the fainting appetite;
and their presence was rightly thought to enhance the enjoyment of the
guests at their banqueting boards:--
“The ground is swept, and the triclinium clear,
The hands are purified, the goblets, too,
Well rinsed; each guest upon his forehead bears
A wreath’d flow’ry crown; from slender vase
A willing youth presents to each in turn
A sweet and costly perfume; while the bowl,
Emblem of joy and social mirth, stands by,
Filled to the brim; and then pours out wine
Of most delicious flavour, breathing round
Fragrance of flowers, and honey newly made,
So grateful to the sense, that none refuse;
While odoriferous fumes fill all the room.”--_Xenophanes._
In all places where festivals, games, or solemn ceremonials were held,
and whenever public rejoicings and gaiety were deemed desirable,
flowers were utilised with unsparing hands.
“Set before your doors
The images of all your sleeping fathers,
With Laurels crowned; with Laurels wreath your posts,
And strew with flowers the pavement; let the priest
Do present sacrifice; pour out the wine,
And call the gods to join with you in gladness.”--_Dryden._
In the triumphal processions of Rome the streets were strewed with
flowers, and from the windows, roofs of houses, and scaffolds, the
people cast showers of garlands and flowers upon the crowds below and
upon the conquerors proudly marching in procession through the city.
Macaulay says--
“On ride they to the Forum,
While Laurel-boughs and flowers,
From house-tops and from windows,
Fell on their crests in showers.”
In the processions of the Corybantes, the goddess Cybele, the
protectress of cities, was pelted with white Roses. In the annual
festivals of the Terminalia, the peasants were all crowned with
garlands of flowers; and at the festival held by the gardeners in
honour of Vertumnus on August 23rd, wreaths of budding flowers and the
first-fruits of their gardens were offered by members of the craft.
In the sacrifices of both Greeks and Romans, it was customary to
place in the hands of victims some sort of floral decoration, and the
presiding priests also appeared crowned with flowers.
“Thus the gay victim with fresh garlands crowned,
Pleased with the sacred pipe’s enlivening sound.
Through gazing crowds in solemn state proceeds,
And dressed in fatal pomp, magnificently bleeds.”--_Phillips._
The place erected for offerings was called by the Romans _ara_, an
altar. It was decorated with leaves and grass, adorned with flowers,
and bound with woollen fillets: on the occasion of a “triumph” these
altars smoked with perfumed incense.
The Greeks had a Nymph of Flowers whom they called Chloris, and the
Romans the goddess Flora, who, among the Sabines and the Phoceans,
had been worshipped long before the foundation of the Eternal City.
As early as the time of Romulus the Latins instituted a festival in
honour of Flora, which was intended as a public expression of joy at
the appearance of the welcome blossoms which were everywhere regarded
as the harbingers of fruits. Five hundred and thirteen years after
the foundation of Rome the Floralia, or annual floral games, were
established; and after the sibyllic books had been consulted, it was
finally ordained that the festival should be kept every 20th day of
April, that is four days before the calends of May--the day on which,
in Asia Minor, the festival of the flowers commences. In Italy, France,
and Germany, the festival of the flowers, or the festival of spring,
begins about the same date--_i.e._, towards the end of April--and
terminates on the feast of St. John.
The festival of the Floralia was introduced into Britain by the Romans;
and for centuries all ranks of people went out a-Maying early on the
first of the month. The juvenile part of both sexes, in the north, were
wont to rise a little after midnight, and walk to some neighbouring
wood, accompanied with music and the blowing of horns,
“To get sweet Setywall [red Valerian],
The Honeysuckle, the Harlock,
The Lily and the Lady-smock,
To deck their summer hall.”
They also gathered branches from the trees, and adorned them with
nosegays and crowns of flowers, returning with their booty homewards,
about the rising of the sun, forthwith to decorate their doors and
windows with the flowery spoil. The after-part of the day, says an
ancient chronicler, was “chiefly spent in dancing round a tall pole,
which is called a May-pole; which, being placed in a convenient part of
the village, stands there, as it were, consecrated to the goddess of
flowers, without the least violation offered it in the whole circle of
the year.”
“Your May-pole deck with flowery coronal;
Sprinkle the flowery coronal with wine;
And in the nimble-footed galliard, all,
Shepherd and shepherdess, lively join,
Hither from village sweet and hamlet fair,
From bordering cot and distant glen repair:
Let youth indulge its sport, to old bequeath its care.”
Old John Stowe tells us that on May-day, in the morning, “every man,
except impediment, would walk into the sweet meadows and green woods,
there to rejoice their spirits with the beauty and savour of sweet
flowers, and with the harmony of birds praising God in their kind.” In
the days of Henry VIII. it was the custom for all classes to observe
the May-day festival, and we are told that the king himself rode
a-Maying from Greenwich to Shooter’s Hill, with his Queen Katherine,
accompanied by many lords and ladies. Chaucer relates how on May-day
“Went forth all the Court both most and least;
To fetch the floures fresh, and branch and blome,
And namely Hawthorn brought both page and grome;
And then rejoysen in their great delite,
Eke each at other threw the floures bright.
The Primrose, Violette, and the Golde,
With garlands partly blue and white.”
The young maidens repaired at daybreak to the meadows and hill-sides,
for the purpose of gathering the precious May-dew, wherewith to make
themselves fair for the remainder of the year. This old custom is still
extant in the north of England and in some districts of Scotland.
Robert Fergusson has told how the Scotch lassies swarmed at daybreak on
Arthur’s Seat:
“On May-day in a fairy ring,
We’ve seen them round St. Anthon’s spring
Frae grass the caller dew-draps wring,
To wet their ein,
And water clear as crystal spring.
To synd them clean.”
In Ross-shire the lassies pluck sprigs of Ivy, with the May-dew on
them, that have not been touched by steel.
It was deemed important that flowers for May garlands and posies should
be plucked before the sun rose on May-day morning; and if perchance,
Cuckoo-buds were included in the composition of a wreath, it was
destroyed directly the discovery was made, and removed immediately from
a posie.
In the May-day sports on the village green, it was customary to choose
as May Queen either the best dancer or the prettiest girl, who, at
sundown was crowned with a floral chaplet--
“See where she sits upon the grassie greene,
A seemly sight!
Yclad in scarlet, like a mayden queene,
And ermines white.
Upon her head a crimson coronet,
With Daffodils and Damask Roses set:
Bay-leaves betweene,
And Primroses greene
Embellished the sweete Violet.”--_Spenser._
The coronation of the rustic queen concluded the out-door festivities
of May-day, although her majesty’s duties would not appear to have been
fulfilled until she reached her home.
“Then all the rest in sorrow,
And she in sweet content,
Gave over till the morrow,
And homeward straight they went;
But she of all the rest
Was hindered by the way,
For every youth that met her
Must kiss the Queen of May!”
At Horncastle, in Lincolnshire, there existed, till the beginning of
the present century, a ceremony which evidently derived its origin
from the Roman Floralia. On the morning of May-day, a train of youths
collected themselves at a place still known as the May-bank. From
thence, with wands enwreathed with Cowslips they walked in procession
to the may-pole, situated at the west end of the town, and adorned
on that morning with every variety of wild flowers. Here, with loud
shouts, they struck together their wands, and, scattering around the
Cowslips, testified their thankfulness for the bounteous promise of
spring.
Aubrey (MS., 1686), tells us that in his day “at Woodstock in
Oxon they every May-eve goe into the parke, and fetch away a
number of Haw-thorne-trees, which they set before their dores.” In
Huntingdonshire, fifty years ago, the village swains were accustomed,
at sunrise, to place a branch of May in blossom before the door of
anyone they wished to honour. In Tuscany the expression, _Appiccare
il maio ad una porta_, has passed into a proverb, and means to lay
siege to a maiden’s heart and make love to her. In the vicinity of
Valenciennes, branches of Birch or Hornbeam are placed by rural swains
at the doors of their sweethearts; thorny branches at the portals of
prudes; and Elder boughs at the doors of flirts. In the villages of
Provence, on May-day, they select a May Queen. Crowned with a wreath,
and adorned with garlands of Roses, she is carried through the streets,
mounted on a platform, her companions soliciting and receiving the
offerings of the towns-people. In olden times it was customary even
among the French nobility to present May to friends and neighbours,
or as it was called, _esmayer_. Sometimes this presenting of May was
regarded as a challenge. The custom of planting a May-tree in French
towns subsisted until the 17th century: in 1610, one was planted in
the court of the Louvre. In some parts of Spain the name of _Maia_ is
given to the May Queen (selected generally as being the handsomest lass
of the village), who, decorated with garlands of flowers, leads the
dances in which the young people spend the day. The villagers in other
provinces declare their love by planting, during the preceding night,
a large bough or a sapling, decked with flowers, before the doors of
their sweethearts. In Greece, bunches of flowers are suspended over the
doors of most houses; and in the rural districts, the peasants bedeck
themselves with flowers, and carry garlands and posies of wild flowers.
In some parts of Italy, in the May-day rejoicings, a May-tree or
a branch in blossom and adorned with fruit and ribbands, plays a
conspicuous part: this is called the _Maggio_, and is probably a
reminiscence of the old Grecian _Eiresione_.
Of the flowers specially dedicated to May, first and foremost is the
Hawthorn blossom. In some parts of England the _Convallaria_ is known
as May Lily. The Germans call it _Mai blume_, a name they also apply to
the Hepatica and Kingcup. In Devon and Cornwall the Lilac is known as
May-flower, and much virtue is thought to be attached to a spray of the
narrow-leaf Elm gathered on May morning.
In Asia Minor the annual festival of flowers used to commence on the
28th of April, when the houses and tables were covered with flowers,
and every one going into the streets wore a floral crown. In Germany,
France, and Italy, the _fête_ of the flowers, or the _fête_ of
spring, commences also towards the end of April, and terminates at
Midsummer. Athenians, on an early day in spring, every year crowned
with flowers all children who had reached their third year, and in
this way the parents testified their joy that the little ones had
passed the age rendered critical by the maladies incident to infants.
The Roman Catholic priesthood, always alert at appropriating popular
pagan customs, and adapting them to the service of their church, have
perpetuated this old practice. The little children crowned with flowers
and habited as angels, who to this day accompany the procession of the
Corpus Domini at the beginning of June, are taught to scatter flowers
in the road, to symbolise their own spring-time and the spring-time of
nature. On this day, along the entire route of the procession at Rome,
the ground is thickly strewn with Bay and other fragrant leaves. In
the worship of the Madonna, flowers play an important rôle, and Roman
altars are still piled up with fragrant blossoms, and still smoke with
perfumed incense.
After the feast of Whitsuntide, the young Russian maidens repair to the
banks of the Neva, and fling in its waters wreaths of flowers, which
are tokens of affection to absent friends.
In the West of Germany and the greater part of France the ceremony is
observed of bringing home on the last harvest wain a tree or bough
decorated with flowers and gay ribbons, which is graciously received by
the master and planted on or near the house, to remain there till the
next harvest brings its successor. Some rite of this sort, Mr. Ralston
says, seems to have prevailed all over the North of Europe. “So, in
the autumnal harvest thanksgiving feast at Athens, it was customary
to carry in sacred procession an Olive-branch wrapped in wool, called
_Eiresione_, to the temple of Apollo, and there to leave it; and in
addition to this a similar bough was solemnly placed beside the house
door of every Athenian who was engaged in fruit culture or agriculture,
there to remain until replaced by a similar successor twelve months
later.”
Well-Flowering.
From the earliest days of the Christian era our Lord’s ascension
into heaven has been commemorated by various ceremonies, one of
which was the perambulation of parish boundaries. At Penkridge, in
Staffordshire, as well as at Wolverhampton, long after the Reformation,
the inhabitants, during the time of processioning, used to adorn
their wells with boughs and flowers; and this ancient custom is still
practised every year at Tissington, in Derbyshire, where it is known
as “well-flowering.” There are five wells so decorated, and the mode
of dressing or adorning them is this:--the flowers are inserted in
moist clay and put upon boards cut in various forms, surrounded with
boughs of Laurel and White Thorn, so as to give the appearance of
water issuing from small grottoes. The flowers are arranged in various
patterns, to give the effect of mosaic work, and are inscribed with
texts of Scripture and suitable mottoes. After church, the congregation
walk in procession to the wells and decorate them with these boards, as
well as with garlands of flowers, boughs, &c. Flowers were cast into
the wells, and from their manner of falling, lads and lasses divined as
to the progress of their love affairs.
“Bring flowers! bring flowers! to the crystal well,
That springs ’neath the Willows in yonder dell.
* * * * *
And we’ll scatter them over the charmed well,
And learn our fate from its mystic spell.”
“And she whose flower most tranquilly
Glides down the stream our Queen shall be.
In a crown we’ll wreath
Wild flowers that breathe;
And the maiden by whom this wreath shall be worn
Shall wear it again on her bridal morn.”--_Merritt._
Before the Reformation the Celtic population of Scotland, the Hebrides,
Ireland, Wales, and Cornwall were in the habit of naming wells and
springs after different saints and martyrs. Though forbidden by the
canons of St. Anselm, many pilgrimages continued to be made to them,
and the custom was long retained of throwing nosegays into springs and
fountains, and chaplets into wells. Sir Walter Scott tells us that “in
Perthshire there are several wells dedicated to St. Fillan, which are
still places of pilgrimage and offerings, even among Protestants.”
“Thence to St. Fillan’s blessed well
Whose spring can frenzied dreams dispel,
And the crazed brain restore.”
Into some of these Highland wells flowers are cast, and occasionally
pins, while the surrounding bushes are hung with rags and shreds, in
imitation of the old heathen practice. The ceremony of sprinkling
rivers with flowers was probably of similar origin. Milton and Dryden
both allude to this custom being in vogue as regards the Severn, and
this floral rite is described in ‘The Fleece’ as follows:--
“With light fantastic toe the nymphs
Thither assembled, thither every swain;
And o’er the dimpled stream a thousand flowers,
Pale Lilies, Roses, Violets, and Pinks,
Mix’d with the greens of Burnet, Mint, and Thyme,
And Trefoil, sprinkled with their sportive arms.
Such custom holds along th’ irriguous vales,
From Wreken’s brow to rocky Dolvoryn,
Sabrina’s early haunt.”
Bridal Floral Ceremonies.
In all countries flowers have from time immemorial been chosen as the
happy accompaniment of bridal ceremonies. Among the ancients it was
customary to crown newly-married persons with a chaplet of red and
white Roses. On arriving at the house of her husband, the Roman bride
found woollen fillets round the door-posts, which were adorned with
evergreens and blossoms, and anointed with the fat of wolves to avert
enchantment.
In M. Barthélemi’s ‘Travels of Young Anacharsis’ the author, describing
a marriage ceremony in the Island of Delos, says that the inhabitants
of the island assembled at daybreak, crowned with flowers; flowers
were strewn in the path of the bride and bridegroom; and the house
was garlanded with them. Singers and dancers appeared crowned with
Oak, Myrtles, and Hawthorn. The bride and bridegroom were crowned with
Poppies, and upon their approach to the temple, a priest received them
at the entrance, and presented to each a branch of Ivy--a symbol of the
tie which was to unite them for ever.[6]
[6] ‘_Voyage du Jeune Anacharsis en Grèce, vers le milieu du quatrième
siècle avant l’ere vulgaire._’
At Indian nuptials, the wedding wreath, the _varamâlâ_, united bride
and bridegroom. At the marriage feasts of the Persians, a little tree
is introduced, the branches of which are laden with fruit: the guests
endeavour to pluck these without the bridegroom perceiving them; if
successful, the latter has to make them a present; if, however, a guest
fails, he has to give the bridegroom a hundred times the value of the
object he sought to remove from the tree.
In Germany, among the inhabitants of Oldenburg, there exists a curious
wedding custom. When the bridegroom quits his father’s roof to settle
in some other town or village, he has his bed linen embroidered at
the corners with flowers surmounted by a tree, on whose branches are
perched cock birds: on each side of the tree are embroidered the
bridegroom’s initials. In many European countries it is customary to
plant before the house of a newly-married couple, one or two trees, as
a symbol of the good luck wished them by their friends.
Floral Games and Festivals.
Floral games have for many years been held at Toulouse, Barcelona,
Tortosi, and other places; but the former are the most famed, both on
account of their antiquity and the value of the prizes distributed
during the _fêtes_. The ancient city of Toulouse had formerly a great
reputation for literature, which had, however, been allowed to decline
until the visit of Charles IV. and his bride determined the capitouls
or chief magistrates to make an effort to restore its prestige as the
centre of Provençal song. Troubadours there were who, banded together
in a society, met in the garden of the Augustine monks to recite their
songs, _sirventes_, and ballads; and in order to foster the latent
taste for poetry, the capitouls invited the poets of the Langue d’oc,
to compete for a golden Violet to be awarded to the author of the best
poem produced on May 4th, 1324. The competition created the greatest
excitement, and great numbers of people met to hear the judges’
decision: they awarded the golden Violet to Arnaud Vidal for his poem
in honour of the Virgin. In 1355, three prizes were offered--a golden
Violet for the best song; an Eglantine (Spanish Jasmine), for the best
_sirvente_, or finest pastoral; and a _Flor-de-gang_ (yellow Acacia)
for the best ballad. In later years four prizes were competed for,
viz., an Amaranth, a Violet, a Pansy, and a Lily. In 1540, Clemence
Isaure, a poetess, bequeathed the bulk of her fortune to the civic
authorities to be expended in prizes for poetic merits, and in _fêtes_
to be held on the 1st and 3rd of May. She was interred in the church
of La Daurade, on the high altar of which are preserved the golden
flowers presented to the successful competitors at the Floral Games.
The ceremonies of the _fêtes_ thus revived by Clemence Isaure commenced
with the strewing of her tomb with Roses, followed by mass, a sermon,
and alms-giving. In 1694, the _Jeux Floraux_ were merged into the
Academy of Belles Lettres, which gives prizes, but almost exclusively
to French poets. The festival, interrupted by the Revolution, was once
more revived in 1806, and is still held annually in the Hotel-de-Ville,
Toulouse.
St. Medard, Bishop of Noyon, in France, instituted in the sixth
century a festival at Salency, his birth-place, for adjudging a most
interesting prize offered by piety to virtue. This prize consists of
a simple crown of Roses bestowed on the girl who is acknowledged by
all her competitors to be the most amiable, modest, and dutiful. The
founder of this festival had the pleasure of crowning his own sister as
the first _Rosiere_ of Salency. This simple institution still survives,
and the crown of Roses continues to be awarded to the most virtuous
of the maidens of the obscure French village. A similar prize is
awarded in the East of London by an active member of the Roman Catholic
Church--the ceremony of crowning the Rose Queen being performed
annually in the Crystal Palace at Sydenham.
In the middle ages the Queen of Flowers contributed to a singular
popular festival at Treviso, in Italy. In the middle of the city the
inhabitants erected a mock castle of upholstery. The most distinguished
unmarried females of the place defended the fortress, which was
attacked by the youth of the other sex. The missiles with which both
parties fought consisted of Roses, Lilies, Narcissi, Violets, Apples,
and Nuts, which were hurled at each other by the combatants. Volleys
of Rose-water and other perfumes were also discharged by means of
syringes. This entertainment attracted thousands of spectators from far
and near, and the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa himself accounted it a
most pleasing diversion.
The custom of pelting with Roses is still common in Persia, where it
is practised during the whole season that these flowers are blooming.
A company of young men repair to the places of public entertainment to
amuse the guests with music, singing, and dancing, and in their way
through the streets they pelt the passengers whom they meet with Roses,
and generally receive a small gratuity in return.
Striking features of the Japanese festival on New Year’s Day are the
decorations erected in front of nearly every door, of which Mr. Dixon
tells us the principal objects are, on the right a _Pinus densiflora_,
on the left a _P. Thunbergius_, both standing upright: the former is
supposed to be of the female and the latter of the male sex, and both
symbolise a robust age that has withstood the storms and trials of
life. Immediately behind each of the Pines is a Bamboo, the straight
stem of which, with the knots marking its growth, indicates hale life
and fulness of years. A straw rope of about six feet in length connects
the Bamboos seven or more feet from the ground, thus completing the
triumphal arch. In the centre of the rope (which is there to ward off
evil spirits) is a group in which figures a scarlet lobster, the bent
back of which symbolises old age: this is embedded in branches of the
_Melia Japonica_, the older leaves of which still remain after the
young ones have burst forth. So may the parents continue to flourish
while children and grandchildren spring forth! Another plant in the
central group is the _Polypodium dicotomon_, a Fern which is regarded
as a symbol of conjugal life, because the fronds spring in pairs
from the stem. There are also bunches of seaweed, which have local
significance, and a lucky bag, filled with roasted Chesnuts, the seeds
of the _Torreya nucifera_, and the dried fruit of the _Kaki_.
Garlands, Chaplets, and Wreaths.
All the nations of antiquity--Indians, Chinese, Medes, Persians,
Assyrians, Chaldeans, Egyptians, Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans--were
accustomed to deck themselves, their altars, and their dwellings with
flowers, and to weave chaplets and garlands of leaves and blossoms.
In the Vedic _Vishnupurâna_, the sage Durvâsas (one of the names of
Siva, the destroyer), receives of the goddess Srî (the Indian Venus)
a garland of flowers gathered from the trees of heaven. Proceeding on
his way, he meets the god Indra, seated on an elephant, and to pay
him homage he places on his brow the garland, to which the bees fly
in order to suck the ambrosia. The Persians were fond of wearing on
their heads crowns made of Myrrh and a sweet-smelling plant called
Labyzus. Antiochus Epiphanes, the Syrian king, once held some games at
Daphne, to which thousands of guests were invited, who, after being
richly feasted, were sent away with crowns of Myrrh and Frankincense.
Josephus, in his history of the Jews, has recorded the use of crowns
in the time of Moses, and on certain occasions the mitre of the High
Priest was adorned with a chaplet of Henbane (_Hyoscyamus niger_).
Wreaths and chaplets were in common use among the Egyptians at a
very early period; and although the Lotus was principally preferred
in their formation, many other flowers and leaves were employed--as
of the Chrysanthemum, Acinos, Acacia, Strychnos, Persoluta, Anemone,
Convolvulus, Olive, Myrtle, Amaracus, Xeranthemum, Bay-tree, and
others. Plutarch says that when Agesilaus visited Egypt, he was so
delighted with the chaplets of Papyrus sent him by the King, that he
took some home when he returned to Sparta. In India, Greece, and Rome,
the sacrificial priests were crowned, and their victims were decorated
with garlands of flowers.
In ancient Greece and Rome the manufacture of garlands and chaplets
became quite an art, so great was the estimation in which these
adornments were held by these highly-civilised nations. With them the
composition of a garland possessed a deep significance, and warriors,
statesmen, and poets alike coveted these simple insignia at the hands
of their countrymen. Pliny tells us that the Sicyonians were considered
to surpass all other people in the art of arranging the colours of
garlands and imparting to them the most agreeable mixture of perfumes.
They derived this taste from Glycera, a woman so skilled in the art of
arranging chaplets and garlands that she won the affection of Pausias,
a celebrated painter, who delighted in copying the wreaths of flowers
so deftly arranged by his mistress. Some of these pictures were still
in existence when Pliny wrote, four hundred and fifty years after they
were painted. Cato, in his treatise on gardens, directs specially that
they should be planted with such flowers as are adapted for chaplets
and wreaths. Pliny states that Mnestheus and Callimachus, two renowned
Greek physicians, compiled several books on the virtues of chaplets,
pointing out those hurtful to the brain, as well as those which had
a beneficial influence on the wearer; for both Greeks and Romans had
found, by experience, that certain plants and flowers facilitated the
functions of the brain, and assisted materially to neutralise the
inebriating qualities of wine. Thus, as Horace tells us, the floral
chaplets worn by guests at feasts were tied with the bark of the Linden
to prevent intoxication.
“I tell thee, boy, that I detest
The grandeur of a Persian feast;
Nor for me the binder’s rind
Shall no flow’ry chaplet bind.
Then search not where the curious Rose,
Beyond his season loitering grows;
But beneath the mantling Vine,
While I quaff the flowing wine,
The Myrtle’s wreath shall crown our brows,
While you shall wait and I carouse.”
Besides the guests at feasts, the attendants were decorated with
wreaths, and the wine-cups and apartments adorned with flowers.
From an anecdote related by Pliny we learn that it was a frequent
custom, common to both Greeks and Romans, to mix the flowers of their
chaplets in their wine, when they pledged the healths of their friends.
Cleopatra, to ridicule the mistrust of Antony, who would never eat or
drink at her table without causing his taster to test every viand, lest
any should be poisoned, commanded a chaplet of flowers to be prepared
for the Roman General, the edges of which were dipped in the most
deadly poison, whilst that which was woven for her own brow was, as
usual, mixed with aromatic spices. At the banquet Antony received his
coronet of flowers, and when they had become cheerful through the aid
of Bacchus, Cleopatra pledged him in wine, and taking off the wreath
from her head, and rubbing the blossoms into her goblet, drank off the
contents. Antony was following her example, but just as he had raised
the fatal cup to his lips, the Queen seized his arm, exclaiming, “Cure
your jealous fears, and learn that I should not have to seek the means
of your destruction, could I live without you.” She then ordered a
prisoner to be brought before them, who, on drinking the wine from
Antony’s goblet, instantly expired in their presence.
The Romans wore garlands at sacred rites, games and festivals, on
journeys and in war. When an army was freed from a blockade its
deliverer was presented with a crown composed of the Grass growing
on the spot. In modern heraldry, this crown of Grass is called the
Crown Obsidional, and appertains to the general who has held a
fortress against a besieging army and ultimately relieved it from
the assailants. To him who had saved the life of a Roman soldier was
given a chaplet of Oak-leaves: this is the modern heraldic civic crown
bestowed on a brave soldier who has saved the life of a comrade or has
rescued him after having been taken prisoner by the enemy. The glories
of all grand deeds were signalized by the crown of Laurel among both
Greeks and Romans. This is the heraldic Crown Triumphant, adjudged
in our own times to a general who has achieved a signal victory. The
Romans were not allowed by law to appear in festal garlands on ordinary
occasions. Hence Cæsar valued most highly the privilege accorded him by
the Senate of wearing a Laurel crown, because it screened his baldness,
which, both by the Romans and Jews, was considered a deformity. This
crown was generally composed of the Alexandrian Laurel (_Ruscus
Hypoglossum_)--the Laurel usually depicted on busts and coins. The
victors at the athletic games were adjudged crowns differing in their
composition according to the place in which they had won their honours.
Thus, crowns of
Olive were given at the Olympic games.
Beech, Laurel, or Palm „ „ „ „ Pythian „
Parsley „ „ „ „ Nemean „
Pine „ „ „ „ Isthmian „