WOOD-DEMONS AND TREE-SPIRITS
In nearly all parts of the world, as at nearly all periods of history,
we find evidences of a belief in the existence of wood-spirits and
tree-spirits, which, however they may differ in outward form, are
strangely similar in their general characteristics. It cannot be
asserted of _all_ these beings that they were regarded as the actual
spirits of individual trees, connected with them as closely as a man’s
soul is with his body, but it is emphatically true of some of them. To
the class of wood-spirits as a whole belong certain at least of the
_jinni_ of Arabia, the woodland spirits of Greek and Roman mythology,
and the wild men and elves of European folk-lore, besides the
tree-inhabiting spirits of various uncivilised races. Though not always
sharply demarcated from the gods, they differ from them, as a rule, in
being regarded and spoken of generically, and in not having stated
relations with man. Their alliances are rather with trees, plants, and
animals, whose growth and prosperity are often believed to be under
their protection, and their presence is often assumed to be expressed in
natural phenomena, in the mysterious sounds of the woods, and in the
fury of the storm. To man they are frequently unfriendly, and numerous
observances, still practised in uncivilised parts, have arisen from the
belief that it was necessary to propitiate their favour.
Broadly speaking, their friendliness to man is directly proportionate to
their human semblance, and this in its turn would seem to depend on the
extent to which man has been able to conquer the dangers of the regions
where they dwell. The farther back they are traced the more animal-like
and inhuman their appearance. They preceded the gods and outlasted them,
flourishing in times when these were still animal and totemistic, and
retaining their animal characteristics long after the gods had become
anthropomorphic. To the peasant mind there was, perhaps, no very clear
distinction between the two classes, and the line between them has never
been an unpassable one, for demons may develop into gods, just as gods
may degenerate into demons. It is not claimed that all, or indeed most
demons were tree-spirits in their origin, but a large class of them at
any rate were closely associated with vegetable life and the phenomena
that foster or threaten it.
Chaldaean mythology recognised, side by side with gods emphatically
human, a class of fabulous monsters who were essentially demons and
inferior spirits. There is not much evidence to couple these monsters
with trees, but in one of the Babylonian hymns the aid of the gods is
invoked against a terrible demon who “makes all creatures hurry in
fear,” and of whom it is stated that “his hand is the storm-demon, his
eye is filled with the shadow of the forest, the sole of his foot is the
lullub-tree.”[115]
In the case of the _jinni_ of Arabia the connection with trees is more
clearly demonstrable. They were regarded as hairy monsters, more like
beasts than men, haunting dense, untrodden thickets and endowed with the
power of assuming various shapes. Such an uncouth and alarming
presentment may well have arisen from their presumed association with
places, which, as the natural lairs of dangerous animals, were perilous
to man, but “the association of certain kinds of _jinni_ with trees must
in many cases be regarded as primary, the trees themselves being
conceived as animated demoniac beings.”[116] They have apparently had a
longer career than most demons of the class, for their existence is
still firmly believed in by certain Bedouins, who asseverate that they
have actually seen them. Mr. Theodore Bent found the same superstitious
dread of the _jinni_ both in the Hadramaut and in Dhofar. They are
described as semi-divine spirits, who live by rocks near the streams,
under trees, or in the lakes. Mr. Bent could not induce the Bedouins of
his escort to gather a certain water-plant for fear of offending the
_jinn_ of the lake. In fact in the Gara Mountains the fear of the
_jinni_, and the skill of certain magicians in keeping them friendly,
appear to constitute the only tangible forms of religion.[117]
Under the word sĕīrīm, hairy monsters, E.V. “satyrs” and “devils,” the
Bible makes occasional mention of mythical creatures who were presumably
related to the Arabian _jinni_.[118] They are represented as frequenting
waste-places, forsaken by man and given over to nettles and brambles. In
one passage the word is used of the heathen gods of Canaan,[119] whose
close association with trees has already been noticed.
The fantastic monsters of the Egyptian desert, thought to appear only at
the moment when the minor functions assigned to them had to be
performed, and at other times to conceal themselves in inanimate
objects, are represented as sometimes dwelling in trees or in stakes
planted in the ground.[120] Their assumed complete incorporation in such
objects is proved by the expressive term used by the Egyptians—the
objects “ate them up.” Their existence and their unfriendliness to man
were firmly believed in. The shepherd feared them for his flock, the
hunter for himself. Similar beasts roamed through the Egyptian Hades and
threatened the wayfaring spirits of the dead.
These fragmentary evidences are important as casting a side-light on the
parallel superstitions of the Aryan races, amongst which, as we shall
see, the belief in wood-demons and tree-spirits was almost universal.
In Greek and Roman mythology there is a whole gallery of wild creatures
inhabiting the mountains and woods, and more or less closely associated
with vegetable life—centaurs and cyclops, Pans and satyrs, fauns and
silvani, nymphs and dryads. Mannhardt has diligently compared these
mythical beings with the wild people and wood-spirits of European
folk-lore, and has clearly demonstrated a remarkable relationship.[121]
In their evolution they present a distinctly progressive humanisation.
The earliest of them, the centaurs and cyclops, remind us of the
fabulous monsters of Semitic legend, and their contests with, and
eventual disappearance before the higher powers seem paralleled in the
similar conflict between the gods and demons of Chaldaea. Mannhardt
adduces many arguments to prove that the centaurs first originated as
local wood and mountain spirits. Their earliest haunt was the thickly
wooded Pelion; one of them is represented as the son of the dryad
Philyra or the linden; another as the son of Melia or the ash. Their
weapons were uprooted trees. Like the European wild men of the woods
they were covered with long shaggy hair. Chiron, the most friendly of
them, was skilled in the use of simples and in the hidden powers of
nature. Lastly, their presence was assumed in the whirlwind and other
violent atmospheric phenomena. All these features class the archaic
centaurs with the undoubted wood-spirits of a later mythology. The same
is probably true of the cyclops, whose characteristics—their single eye,
their use of uprooted trees for weapons, and their connection with sheep
and goats—may be paralleled amongst the legendary wood-spirits of modern
Europe.
In later times the place of the extinct centaurs and cyclops was taken
by a tribe, half men half goats, known as Pan, satyrs, and sileni, who
originally were in all probability local wood-spirits, Pan proceeding
from Arcadia, the satyrs from Argos, the sileni from Phrygia. In the
case of Pan we seem to see a class of doubtfully amicable wood-spirits
developing into a more or less benevolent god. The Greek poets of the
Periclean age speak of a whole tribe of wood-demons known as Panes or
Panisci, from which eventually an individual, “the Great Pan,” seems to
have emerged. The son of a nymph, Pan is called in the Classics “god of
the wood,” “companion of kids,” “goatherd.” He is represented with horns
and goat’s legs, standing beside a sacred oak or pine, a fir-wreath on
his head, and a branch in his hand. He leads the revels of the satyrs,
pipes and dances amongst the wood-nymphs under the trees, and woos a
pine-tree personified as Pithys. Like other wood-spirits he protects the
herds, and, as befits a demon on the way to apotheosis, is for the most
part friendly to man. But he never, apparently, quite lost his original
character, for he is sometimes classed with incubi and spirits who cause
evil dreams.
The satyr was a degraded, or rather unhumanised Pan, more sensual and
malicious in character, coarser in feature, and more bestial in form.
Hesiod calls the satyrs “a useless and crafty tribe.” They were
originally wood-demons, and men represented as satyrs took part in the
festivals of Dionysus, the chief of vegetation spirits. Silenus, like
Pan, the individualised head of a class, was also closely associated
with Dionysus. The sileni, in fact, were but Phrygian variants of the
satyrs, and are represented in the Homeric hymn to Aphrodite as
consorting with the hamadryads. In Art they appear clothed in goatskins.
It may be added that the modern Greek peasant still believes in
malicious goat-footed demons who inhabit the mountains.[122]
In Roman mythology the fauns and silvani played the same part as Pan and
the satyrs in Greece, and the same confusion existed as to whether they
were individual or generic. The fauns seldom appeared to mortal sight,
but their presence was made known in the weird noises and the ghostly
appearances of the dark forest. When seen they had horns and goat’s
feet, though in a later rendering they are more human in appearance.
They guarded the flocks pasturing in the woods and, like other
wood-spirits, also protected the cornfield. Silvanus and the silvani, as
their name denotes, were tree-spirits even more emphatically than the
fauns. According to Virgil the oldest inhabitants of Latium allotted to
Silvanus a sacred grove and a special festival;[123] in later times he
was universally regarded as the patron of the garden and field. At
harvest time an offering of milk was poured over the roots of his sacred
tree. In Art, Silvanus is represented as covered with hair (_horridus_)
and standing under, or growing out of a garlanded tree, a crown of pine
sprays on his head, a large pine bough in one hand and a sickle in the
other. An inscription speaks of him as half enclosed in a sacred ash
(_sacrâ semiclusus fraxino_). Another account associates the silvani
with the fig-tree, and states that they were called by some _fauni
ficarii_. Both fauns and silvani had an evil reputation for their
supposed propensity to assault women, to carry off children, and to
disturb the dreams of sleepers. The peasants of North Italy and Sicily
still believe in wood-spirits, _gente selvatica_, closely resembling the
old silvani. A Sicilian incantation is addressed to the spirit of the
fig-tree and the devils of the nut-trees.[124]
Taking the sum of their characteristics, Mannhardt is doubtless right in
classing these legendary beings with the wood-spirits met with in the
folk-lore of Northern Europe.
It is, however, in the female counterparts of these woodland creatures
that the idea of an actual tree-soul is most clearly exemplified. The
most striking instance is the familiar one of the hamadryads, the
deep-bosomed nymphs of wooded Ida, to whose care Aphrodite entrusted the
infant Aeneas, and whose very name expresses their intimate connection
with their trees. To quote the Homeric hymn to Aphrodite, which was
probably written under Phrygian influence, “They belong neither to the
mortals nor to the immortals: they live long, indeed, enjoying immortal
food, and with the immortals they join in the lordly dance. The sileni
mate with them, and Hermes, too, in the privy recesses of delightful
grottoes. With them, when they were born, upon the mountains lofty pines
and oaks sprang forth from the earth that gives food to man. Yet when at
last the fate of death overtakes them, first the beautiful trees wither
upon the earth, the bark dies around them, their branches fall away, and
therewith the souls of the nymphs leave the light of the sun.”[125]
Pindar, who would appear to have first given them the name of
hamadryads, speaks of them as having the same length of life as a
tree.[126]
But the case of the hamadryads is by no means an isolated example of the
Greek belief in spirits whose life was bound up with the life of the
tree. In the Homeric hymn to Ceres the nymphs rejoice when the oaks are
in leaf, and weep when their branches become bare.[127] Elsewhere a
nymph is depicted imploring that the oak wherein she dwelt should not be
hewn down, and as bringing vengeance on him who ignored her
entreaty.[128] It was not only the oak and the pine that might be
inhabited by a spirit. Amongst the names of nymphs that have come down
to us is Philyra (the linden), Daphne (the laurel), Rhoea (the
pomegranate), and Helike (the willow). In later times an attempt was
made in some cases to explain the connection by metamorphosis, a living
nymph being supposed to have been converted into a tree, but it is
extremely probable that this was an inversion of the primitive nexus.
There are many instances closely parallel to these classical myths in
mediaeval and modern legend. The story of Alexander and the
flower-maidens, for instance, which was a favourite with the
troubadours, and was subsequently popularised by Lamprecht, and later by
Uhland, was presumably founded on a legend current in ancient Greece.
The story goes that in a certain wood, when spring came, numbers of
enormous flower buds appeared out of the ground, from each of which, as
it opened, there leapt forth a beautiful maiden. Their robes were a part
of their growth, and in colour they were just like their flowers, red
and white. They played and danced in the shade, and their singing
rivalled the birds’. All past heartaches were wiped away, and a life of
joy and abundance seemed to open to him who saw them. But it was death
for a maiden to leave her shady retreat and encounter the scorching sun.
When summer was past, and the flowers withered and the birds were
silent, the beautiful creatures died. Alexander and his knights, coming
upon this magical wood, mated with the flower-maidens, and for more than
three months lived in perfect happiness, till one by one the flowers
faded, one by one the nymphs died, and the king and his companions had
sorrowfully to resume their travels.[129]
Legends of this sort no doubt provided Lucian with the motive for that
“true history” of his, wherein he tells of the wonderful vines growing
on the far side of a certain river that ran wine instead of water. These
vines below had a very thick stem, but above bore maidens’ bodies of
perfect form. Bunches of grapes grew from their finger-tips, and vine
leaves and grapes formed their hair. They gave the travellers a friendly
greeting, and bade them welcome, most speaking Greek, others Lydian or
Indian. Whoever accepted their kisses felt a sudden drunken
bewilderment. They shrieked aloud with pain when one attempted to pluck
their grapes. Two of the travellers who surrendered themselves to their
embraces could not get free again, but took root and budded forth vine
leaves.[130]
The above, of course, was intended as a literary parody, but stories,
not a whit less wonderful, are found in the folk-lore of many modern
countries, and are no doubt recited and received in good faith. There is
a modern Greek legend, for instance, of a childless wife, to whom
Heaven, in answer to her prayer for children, sent a golden laurel
berry. Despising the gift she threw it away. From it there grew a
laurel-tree with golden sprays. A prince, following the chase, was so
struck by its beauty that he ordered his dinner to be prepared beneath
it. In the absence of the cook the tree opened and a fair maiden stepped
forth, and after strewing a handful of salt over his food, withdrew to
the tree, which immediately reinclosed her. The following day the prince
again found his dinner spoilt, and on the third day he determined to
keep watch. The maid came forth and was captured by the prince before
she could regain her tree. After a time she escaped, and coming back to
the tree called upon it to open and receive her. But it remained closed,
and she was obliged to return to her prince, with whom, after various
mischances, she lived happily for ever after.[131]
The Czekhs have a similar story of a nymph who roamed the forest by day,
but at night invariably returned to her willow. She married a mortal and
bore him a child. One day the willow was cut down and the nymph died. A
cradle fashioned out of its wood had the power of lulling her child to
sleep, and when he grew up he was able to hold converse with his mother
by means of a pipe formed from the twigs which grew about the
stump.[132]
That the soul of the nymph was thought actually to inhabit the tree is
further proved by the belief current both in ancient and modern myth,
that blood would flow when the tree was injured. It was firmly held in
primitive times that the blood was the very life, the soul of an animal,
and hence in primitive ritual it was the blood of the sacrifice that was
offered to the god. It is interesting to note that in some cases
wine—“the blood of the grape”—and the juices of fruits and vegetables,
_i.e._ the vehicle of the plant-soul, were used as substitutes for
blood.[133] In a later chapter we shall see that herbs and flowers were
fabled to grow from the blood of the dead and so to re-embody his
spirit, and it will be remembered how Virgil makes the cornel and myrtle
which grew upon the grave of Polydorus at once bleed and speak when torn
up by the hand of Aeneas.[134] So Ovid, recounting a similar occurrence
in the case of the dryads’ oak, sacrilegiously felled by Eresicthon, was
probably only giving a poetic version of a familiar belief:—
He it was
Whose impious axe mid Ceres’ sacred grove
Dared violate her immemorial shades.
Huge with the growth of ages in its midst
An ancient oak there stood, itself a grove,
With votive tablets hung and grateful gifts
For vows accomplished. Underneath its shade
The dryads wove their festal dance.
Eresicthon, in spite of warnings, refused to stay his hand.
The trembling tree sent forth an audible groan!
From its pale leaves and acorns died the green,
Dark oozing sweat from every branch distilled,
And as the scoffer smote it, crimson-red
Gushed from the wounded bark the sap, as streams
When at the altar falls some mighty bull
The life-blood from his neck.
Then from its heart
Issued a voice, “Thou strikest in this trunk
A nymph whom Ceres loves, and for the deed
Dearly shalt pay. With my last voice thy doom
I prophesy, and in thy imminent fate
Find solace for my own.”[135]
Mannhardt quotes several mediaeval and modern instances of the belief in
bleeding trees.[136] And stories of punishment incurred for destroying a
spirit-inhabited tree are not uncommon in folk-lore. There is a German
legend of an old crone who attempted to uproot the trunk of an ancient
fir-tree. In the midst of her labours a sudden weakness fell upon her,
insomuch that she was scarcely able to walk. While endeavouring to crawl
home she met a mysterious stranger, who, hearing her story, at once
pronounced that in her attempts to uproot the tree she had wounded an
elf inhabiting it. If the elf recovered, he said, so would she; if not,
she would die. As the old woman perished that self-same night we are
left to infer that the elf died also. From India comes a similar
recital. While felling a tree the youthful Satyavant broke out into a
profuse sweat, and overcome with sudden weakness, fainted and died upon
the spot: he had mortally wounded the indwelling spirit.
Such stories have no doubt arisen from the dread inspired by
wood-spirits amongst all people who believe in them. In short, the wild
inhabitants of the woods have always retained some of the awe with which
their forerunners, the demons, were regarded. Often they are credited
with quite a wanton vindictiveness. A Bengal folk-tale tells of a
certain banian-tree haunted by spirits who had a habit of wringing the
necks of all who ventured to approach the tree by night.[137] In another
Indian story a tree that grew beside a Brahman’s house was inhabited by
a _sankchinni_, a female spirit of white complexion, who one day seized
the Brahman’s wife and thrust her into a hole in the tree.[138]
Sometimes the tree-spirit will be wicked and foolish enough to enter
into a human being, and then the exorcist’s services are called in. The
presence of the spirit is easily discovered. The exorcist has only to
set fire to a piece of turmeric root, it being of common knowledge that
no spirit can endure the smell of burning turmeric.
The Shánárs of India believe that disembodied spirits haunt the earth,
dwelling in trees and taking especial delight in dark forests and
solitary places.[139] When a Burman starts upon a journey he hangs a
branch of plantains or a spray of the sacred _Eugenia_ on the pole of
his buffalo cart, to conciliate any spirit upon whom he may be
unfortunate enough to intrude. The hunter following his lonely quest in
the forest will deposit some rice and a little bundle of leaves at the
foot of any more than usually majestic tree, hoping thereby to
propitiate the _nat_ or spirit dwelling therein.[140]
Something of the same fear is felt by the peasants for the fairies,
elves, pixies, and all the tribe of little people familiar to European
folk-lore. These, too, are all more or less associated with trees, being
supposed to dwell either amongst the branches or in the hollow trunks.
German elves have a partiality for the oak and elder, and the holes in
the trunks are the doorways by which they pass in and out. A similar
idea exists amongst the Hindus. Though, as a rule, these forest-elves
bear a good character, they are not to be lightly offended, or more will
be heard of it. Hence prudent country-folk will never injure trees
inhabited by fairies, for when aggrieved they have ample means of
avenging themselves by inflicting some malady or causing some ill-luck.
Even in England, especially in Devon and Cornwall, there still exist
people who believe that oaks are inhabited by elves—
Fairy elves, whose midnight revels
By a forest side or fountain
Some belated peasant sees.
And it is not yet quite an obsolete custom to turn the coat for luck
when passing through elf-haunted groves. It was on St. John’s eve that
the fairies held their special revels, and in old days many a timorous
hand might be found attaching to his doorway branches of St. John’s
wort, gathered at midnight on St. John’s eve, to protect his dwelling
from an invasion of elves. Similarly the peasants living near Mount Etna
never sleep beneath trees on St. John’s eve, lest the spirits who then
issue freely from their leafy dwelling-places should enter into the
sleeper.[141]
But it is in Central and North Europe, in the Tyrol and the Vosges, in
the German forests, in Russia, Scandinavia, and Finland, that the belief
in wood-spirits is most deeply rooted and persistent. Mannhardt, who has
diligently collected an enormous mass of evidence on the subject, states
that traditions concerning the wild people of the woods are current in
all the more wooded countries of Europe. He sees in these traditions an
amalgamation of the idea of tree-spirits with that of wind-spirits, and
rejects the hypothesis that they arose out of remembrances of savage
half-bestial aborigines who took to the woods on the advance of more
civilised races.[142] He thus summarises the character of the wild
people of Germany, Russia, and Scandinavia. They are often of gigantic
proportions, dwell in woods or mountains, and originally were no doubt
closely connected with the spirits of trees, their knowledge of
“simples” and remedies for sick cattle connecting them with the spirits
of vegetation. From head to foot they are clothed in moss, or covered
with rough shaggy hair, their long locks floating behind them in the
wind. Occasionally they assume an animal form. They announce their
presence in the wind and tempest. The male spirits carry as weapons
uprooted pines or other trees, and in their fights with each other use
tree trunks and pieces of rock. They are almost invariably of a wanton
disposition.[143]
Of all the various spirits of the woods, the moss-woman of Central
Germany appears to be the most definite example of a tree-spirit. As
with the Greek dryad, her life is bound up with that of a tree.[144] The
moss-women bear different names and somewhat different characters in
different localities, but the following description by the author of
_The Fairy Family_ represents the common tradition:—
“A moss-woman,” the haymakers cry
And over the fields in terror they fly,
She is loosely clad from neck to foot
In a mantle of moss from the maple’s root,
And like lichen gray on its stem that grows
Is the hair that over her mantle flows.
Her skin like the maple-rind is hard,
Brown and ridgy and furrowed and scarred;
And each feature flat like the bark we see,
When a bough has been lopped from the bole of a tree,
When the newer bark has crept healingly round
And laps o’er the edge of the open wound;
Her knotty, root-like feet are bare,
And her height is an ell from heel to hair.
Sometimes, however, the moss-women and their relatives the wood-maidens
are more friendly to man, and will help him industriously in the
harvest-field; they have even been known to enter his service and bring
prosperity to all his undertakings.
The wild women of Tyrol, known locally as Wild-fanggen, are much more
terrifying individuals. Gigantic in stature, their whole body is covered
with hair and bristles, and their face distorted with a mouth that
stretches from ear to ear. They live together in the woods, with which
their lives are bound up. If their special wood is destroyed they
disappear; if the tree from which a fangga takes her name dies or is
felled, she passes out of existence.[145]
The peasants in the Swiss Canton of the Grisons, which by the way has a
“wild-man” for its heraldic device, believe in wood-spirits of great
strength and agility, who are skilled in weather-lore and the recovery
of strayed cattle.[146] The female spirits, some of whom have been known
to marry mortals, are clothed in skins; but the males, who are hairy,
content themselves with a crown of oak leaves. They are sometimes
helpful to men, but more often mischievous, having a propensity for
stealing the milk and carrying off the children of the peasants.
The white and green ladies of Franche Comté and Neufchatel belong to the
same family, their special proclivity being to entice men away, to drag
them through brake and brier, and leave them stripped of their
possessions.[147] In Neufchatel there is a rock, “La roche de la Dame
Verte,” which young men are especially warned to avoid; and in the Jura,
a wood where beneath an oak the green ladies are wont to light a fire,
and may be heard singing and dancing around it. The peasants when they
see the wild flowers and the young corn waving in the wind, whisper to
each other that the green lady is passing over them with her companions.
The Swedish conception of the tree-spirit is very similar. He also
delights to lead astray those who intrude upon his forest domain. The
well-known tendency of man, after losing himself, to wander round and
round until he regains his starting-place, is attributed to the
wood-spirit. He looks like a man when you meet him, but touch him and he
shoots to the height of the loftiest tree. You cry out in terror, and he
laughs “Ha, ha!” Hunters seek the friendship of these lords of the
forest, for he who stands well with them never misses his aim.[148]
The wood-demon of the Russians, Ljeschi, calls to mind both classical
and modern traditions. He is of human form, with the horns, ears, and
feet of a goat, his fingers are long claws, and he is covered with rough
hair, often of a green colour. He can assume many forms, and vary his
stature at will; in the fields he is no higher than the grass, in the
woods as tall as the trees. Sometimes he is like a man, clothed in
sheepskins, and often, like the cyclops, with only one eye. Like other
wood-demons, he announces his presence in the storm and the wind. He
springs from tree to tree, and rocks himself in the branches, screeching
and laughing, neighing, lowing, and barking. He delights to mislead the
traveller and plunge him in difficulties. However unfriendly to man,
Ljeschi is on good terms with animals; all the birds and beasts of the
wood are under his protection, and the migrations of squirrels,
field-mice, and such small deer are carried out under his guidance. The
peasants are at pains to propitiate him. In the province of Olonitz the
shepherds offer him a cow every summer, to secure his favour for the
herd; elsewhere the hunter gives him the first thing he shoots, leaving
it for him in an oak-wood, or places a piece of bread or pancake strewed
with salt upon a tree stump. There are certain ways of conjuring his
presence and his aid by means of birch-twigs, or by uttering a given
formula while standing on a tree-stump, from which it would appear that
he is thought of as dwelling in these vegetable fragments.[149] The
Russians also believe in female wood-spirits of terrifying appearance,
but they are of less importance than the male.
In the folk-lore of the Finns the spirits of the woods bear a more
benign character. The chief of them, “Tapio,” is termed “the gracious
god of the woodlands,” and is represented as very tall and slender, with
a long brown beard, a coat of tree moss, and a high-crowned hat of fir
leaves. His consort is Mielikki, “the honey rich mother of the
woodland,” “the hostess of glen and forest.” The neighbouring Esthonians
have their “grass-mother” who, besides presiding over the home-field, is
also queen of the woods.
It is not perhaps singular to find that the traditions with regard to
wood-spirits current amongst contiguous peoples should exhibit such a
strong resemblance to each other, but when almost exactly the same
conceptions are met with in such distant parts as Japan and South
America, we can only conclude that the human mind, wherever it exists,
is similarly constituted, and, granted the same phenomena, falls back
upon the same ideas to explain them.
The Tengus of Japanese legend have many of the characteristic marks of
the wood-spirit. They dwell in the topmost branches of lofty trees, are
skilled in the language and lore of animals and plants, and are a terror
to untruthful children. They have the body of a man, the head of a hawk,
with a long proboscis, and powerful claws on their hands; on their feet,
also provided with claws, are stilt-like clogs a foot high. They are
hatched from eggs, and in their youth have feathers and wings.[150]
A traveller in Peru only sixty years ago found the tradition of a living
wood-ghost, who dwelt in the darkest part of the forest, the haunt of
night-birds, and issued forth to decoy the Indians to their
destruction.[151] The idea of a wild man of the woods also exists in
Brazil. The Indians call him Curupira, and attribute to his agency all
such forest sounds as they cannot understand.[152]
Some of the foregoing traditions present a glimpse of the transition
towards a later and more highly developed conception, in which the many
spirits once believed in become generalised into a single “spirit of
vegetation.” It is not indeed contended that this belief is necessarily
destructive of the earlier. Indeed it is possible that in the loosely
working mind of the peasant the two conceptions may exist side by side.
The many interesting ceremonies and observances which arose out of this
generalised conception will be dealt with in a later chapter.