Ovid mentions (Metam. lib. viii. 689) the wreaths hanging from a sacred tree, and the addition of recent offerings : - equidem pendentia vidi Serta super ramos ; ponensque recentia dixi,' etc.
And his story of Eresicthon (Metam. lib. viii.), -who impiously violated the ancient woods of Ceres, cutting down her sacred oak, which was in itself equal to a grove, and bung round with garlands, fillets, and other votive offerings : Ille etiam Cereale nemus violasse securi Dicitur, et lucos ferro temerasse vctustos.
Stabat in his ingens annoso robore quercus Una, nemus ; vittve mediam, memoresque t'abellx !' Sertaque cingebent ; voti argumenta potentis.' Statius (Theb. lib. ii. 736, etc.) records a vow, promising that an hundred virgins of Calydon, who ministered at the altars, should fasten to the consecrated tree chaplets or fillets, white and purple interwoven : Centum ibi virgineis vot Calydonides aria Actxas tibi rite faces, et ab arbore casts.
Nectant purpureas niveo discrimine vittas.' And the same poet gives an account (Theb. lib. ix. 585) d the celebrated Arcadian oak, sacred to Diana, but itself adored as a divinity, and so loaded with rustic offerings that there was scarcely room for the branches : ' Nota per Arcadias felici robore sylvas Quercus erat, Trivia quam desecraverat ipsa Ejectam turba nemorum, numenque colendum Fecerat Vix ramis locus,' etc.
Here may also be noticed the veternosis in arboribus t2nias of Arnobius (Contr. Gent. lib. i.), and the arbor vittata of Prudentius (Contra Symmachum, lib. ii.) ; the sacred tree bedecked with fillets or garlands.
The earliest representations of the tree of life are the date palm, the fig, and the pine or cedar. The date palm is figured as a tree of life on an ancient Egyptian sepulchral tablet, now in the Berlin Museum, certainly older than the 15th century B.C. It is described in the Hebrew Scrip tures as growing in a garden planted by the hand of God, and it was connected with Adam's abode in innocence and immortality ; but of another tree of good and evil also growing there, he was forbidden to eat. The gardens of Alcinous and Laertes, of which we read in Homeric song, were supposed transcripts of that blissful region. It
was the Mesamphalos of the earlier Greeks, and the Omphalium of the Cretans, dominating the Elysian fields, upon whose tops, bathed in pure, brilliant, incomparable light, the gods passed their days in ceaseless joys, and whither the disembodied spirits of the brave and good winged their way. It was the sacred Asgard of the Scandinavians, springing from the centre of a fruitful land, which, watered by the four primeval rivers of milk, sever ally flowing in the direction of the cardinal points, the abode of happiness and the height of bliss.' It is the Haramberezaitim of the Zoroastrian Parsee, upon which the golden throne of Ahriman° is set, and at the base of which, are ranged the glorious mansions of his Azad or ministering spirits, and of the blessed whom they serve.
Tr.e.e and Serpent.—In the earliest record of Semitic thought, we find the tree and the serpent inseparable,—a tree of knowledge, and a serpent more subtle than any beast of the field.
In ancient Sarmatia and modem Poland, trees and serpents were worshipped by the peasantry up to the.limits of the nineteenth century. A relic of the tree-worship, the Stock-am-Eisen, the apprentice tree, is still or was recently standing in the heart of Kenna. In Norse mythology, the Yggdrasil ash tree was represented with one of its roots over the well of knowledge, and with a ser pent, Nidhog, gnawing its stem. The figure of the serpent on the pole in Numbers 8, 9, was the Caduceus of Esculapius.
Groves of trees were planted by the ancient Egyptians within the courtyards of their temples. The law of Moses (Deuteronomy xvi. 21) forbade the Hebrews to plant any tree near the altar of the Lord ; but the Alexandrian Jews, in later times, planted groves near their synagogues. Tacitus mentions the sacred groves of Germany ; those of the British Druids are known to all readers. De Brosses derives the word Kirk from Quercus, oak. In the eighth century, St. Boniface found it necessary to cut down a sacred oak ; and even recently an oak copse at Loch Siant, in the Isle of Skye, was held so sacred that no person would venture to cut the smallest branch from it.