From the earliest period of history, mankind have looked upon trees and
woods with veneration, regarding them as special gifts of the gods to
the human race. The ancient priests and philosophers used them as their
places of retirement, both for the study of wisdom and the services of
religion. Hence arose that early custom of planting trees in circles,
forming a kind of amphitheatre, for religious assemblies. The teachers
of philosophy used the same circular groves. These were held in the
greatest reverence; and no man dared to commit the sacrilegious act of
cutting down any part of them or defacing any of the trees. By means of
these circular groves, wise and holy men obtained that seclusion and
quiet which it was not easy to find in towns and cities. They were both
schools and chapels, devoted to religion and philosophy. Hence the
often-quoted remark of Pliny that “the groves were the first temples of
the gods.”
It is not improbable that many of the ancient superstitions relating to
trees and groves originated with wise men, who believed that such holy
fears alone would restrain the people from devastating the whole earth
by the destruction of trees. Science now supplies mankind with rational
motives for their preservation, in place of the religious scruples of
ancient communities. I am inclined to believe that many a rational
principle has been advocated by wise men under the guise of theology.
The druidical priesthood foresaw that the oak, from the superior value
of its timber, could not be saved from the woodman’s axe except by
certain ceremonies on their part that should render it sacred in the
eyes of the people. To impress this idea of its sanctity upon their
minds, they made use of its leaves and branches to consecrate all
important private or public transactions.
In still more ancient times, the priests adopted the expedient of
dedicating to some one of the gods, particularly to Jupiter, certain
woods and groves, which were thenceforth held in veneration by all men,
including even invading armies, whose chiefs, while respecting neither
the lives nor the property of the enemy, held these consecrated groves
sacred and inviolable. Hunting was forbidden within them by this
superstition, and its injunctions were in all cases religiously
observed. It is even asserted that the wild animals in these sacred
groves had become so tame, from the permanent security they enjoyed,
that they did not flee from the presence of man.
Many persons formerly believed that trees felt the stroke of the
woodman’s axe, which disturbed the repose of some resident spirit. The
ancient Greeks supposed certain trees to be inhabited by wood-nymphs,
and that these deities uttered groans when the axe was laid upon the
tree. These sounds gave origin to the sacred oracle of Dodona. There
were two kinds of nymphs supposed to inhabit trees,—an inferior class
that lived during the life of the tree, and died when it perished; and a
superior class, like the dryads, who could pass at will from one tree to
another. “One might fill a volume,” says Evelyn, “with the history of
groves that were violated by wicked men who came to untimely ends;
especially those upon which the mistletoe grew, than which nothing was
reputed more sacred.”
The custom of planting a tree at the birth of a child has prevailed
among certain nations from the earliest times, and is still observed in
some parts of Europe. Connected with this custom was the idea that the
fate of the child was mysteriously associated with that of the natal
tree, which created the strongest motives, arising from parental
affection, to preserve the tree, and on the part of the child to protect
it when he attained his manhood. Nothing is more evident than the
beneficial tendency of all these superstitions, at an early age of the
world, when men were not wise enough to be governed by the principles of
reason and science.
The ancients placed the Naiad and her fountain in the shady arbor of
trees, whose foliage gathers the waters of heaven into her fount and
preserves them from dissipation. From their dripping shades she
distributed the waters which she garnered from the skies over the plain
and the valley; and the husbandman, before he learned the marvels of
science, worshipped the beneficent Naiad, who drew the waters of her
fountain from heaven, and from her sanctuary in the forest showered them
upon the arid glebe, and gave new verdure to the plain. After science
had explained to us the law by which these supplies of moisture are
preserved by the trees, the Naiad still remained a sacred theme of
poetry. We would not remove the drapery of foliage that protects her
fountain, nor drive her into exile by the destruction of the trees,
through which she holds mysterious commerce with the skies, and
preserves our fields from drought.
Evelyn says: “Innumerable are the testimonies I might produce concerning
the inspiring and sacred influence of groves from the ancient poets and
historians. Here the noblest raptures have been conceived; and in the
walks and shades of trees poets have composed verses which have animated
men to glorious and heroic actions. Here orators have made their
panegyrics, historians their grave relations; and here profound
philosophers have loved to pass their lives in repose and
contemplation.”
As man is nomadic before he is agricultural, and a maker of tents and
wigwams before he is a builder of houses and temples, in like manner he
is an architect and an idolater before he becomes a student of wisdom.
He is a sacrificer in temples and a priest at their altars before he is
a teacher of philosophy and an interpreter of nature. After the
perfection of mechanical science, a higher state of mental culture
succeeds, causing us to see all nature invested with beauty, and fraught
with imaginative charms, adding new wonders to our views of creation and
new dignity to life. Man learns now to regard trees in other relations
beside their capacity to supply his physical and mechanical wants. He
looks upon them as the principal ornaments of the landscape, and as the
conservatories in which nature preserves certain plants and small
animals and birds that will thrive only under their protection, and
those insect hosts that charm the student with their beauty and excite
his wonder by their mysterious instincts. Science has built an altar
under the trees, and delivers thence new oracles of wisdom, teaching men
how they are mysteriously wedded to the clouds, and are the instruments
of their beneficence to the earth.
It is difficult to estimate how great a part of all that is cheerful and
delightful in the recollections of our life is associated with trees.
They are allied with the songs of morn, with the quiet of noonday, with
social gatherings under the evening sky, and with the beauty and
attractiveness of every season. Nowhere does nature look more lovely, or
the sounds from birds and insects affect us more deeply, than under
their benevolent shade. Never does the blue sky look more serene than
when its dappled azure glimmers through their green trembling leaves.
Their recesses, which in the early ages were the temples of religion and
science, are still the favorite resorts of the studious, the scenes of
sport for the active and adventurous, and the very sanctuary of peaceful
seclusion for the contemplative and sorrowful.
In our early years we are charmed with the solitude of groves, with the
flowers that dwell in their nooks, with the living creatures that sport
among their branches, and with the birds that convey to us by their
notes a share of their own indefinable happiness. Nature has made use of
trees to wed our minds to the love of homely scenes, and to make us
satisfied with life. How many recollections of village merry-makings, of
rural sports and pastimes, of the frolics of children and of studious
recreation, come to us when we sit down under some old familiar tree
that stands in the open field or by the wayside! Trees are among the
most poetic objects of creation. Every wood teems with legends of
mythology and romance; every tree is vocal with music; and their flowers
and fruits do not afford more luxury to the sense than delight to the
mind. Trees have their roots in the ground; but they send up their
branches toward the skies, and are so many supplicants to Heaven for
blessings on the earth.
In whatever light we regard trees, they deserve attention as the fairest
ornaments of nature; and the more we study them, the more do we think
upon the dangers that await them from the improvidence of man. He takes
but a narrow view of their importance who considers only their
economical value. The painter has always made them a particular branch
of his study; and the poet understands their advantages in increasing
the effect of his descriptions, and considers them the blessed gifts of
nature to render the earth a beautiful abode and sanctify it to our
affections.