their meaning their loveliness. Still, if we look for living men to whom trees are, as they were to our distant forefathers, the habitations and embodiments of spirits, we shall not look in vain. The peasant folklore of Europe still knows of willows that bleed and weep and speak when hewn, of the fairy maiden that sits within the fir-tree, of that old tree in Rugaard forest that must not be felled, for an elf dwells within, of that old tree on the Heinzenberg near Zell, which uttered its complaint when the woodman cut it down, for in it was Our Lady, whose chapel now stands upon the spot. One may still look on where Franconian damsels go to a tree on St. Thomas's day, knock thrice solemnly, and listen for the indwelling spirit to give answer by raps from within, what manner of husbands they are to have.2

In the remarkable document of mythic cosmogony, preserved by Eusebius under the alleged authorship of the Phoenician Sanchoniathon, is the following passage: "But these first men consecrated the plants of the earth, and judged them gods, and worshipped the things upon which they themselves lived and their posterity, and all before them, and (to these) they made libations and sacrifices." 3 From examples such as have been here reviewed, it seems that direct and absolute tree-worship of this kind may indeed lie very wide and deep in the early history of religion. But the whole tree-cultus of the world must by no means be thrown indiscriminately into this one category. It is only on such distinct evidence as has been here put forward, that a sacred tree may be taken as having a spirit embodied in or attached to it. Beyond this limit, there is a wider range of animistic conceptions connected with tree and forest worship. The tree may be the spirit's perch or shelter or favourite haunt. Under this definition come the

1 Grimm, 'D. M.' p. 615, etc. Bastian, 'Der Baum,' l. c. p. 297; Hanusch, 'Slaw. Myth.' p. 313.

trees hung with objects which are the receptacles of diseasespirits. As places of spiritual resort, there is no real distinction between the sacred tree and the sacred grove. The tree may serve as a scaffold or altar, at once convenient and conspicuous, where offerings can be set out for some spiritual being, who may be a tree-spirit, or perhaps the local deity, living there just as a man might do who had his hut and owned his plot of land around. The shelter of some single tree, or the solemn seclusion of a forest grove, is a place of worship set apart by nature, of some tribes the only temple, of many tribes perhaps the earliest. Lastly, the tree may be merely a sacred object patronized by or associated with or symbolizing some divinity, often one of those which we shall presently notice as presiding over a whole species of trees or other things. How all these conceptions, from actual embodiment or local residence or visit of a demon or deity, down to mere ideal association, can blend together, how hard it often is to distinguish them, and yet how in spite of this confusion they conform to the animistic theology in which all have their essential principles, a few examples will show better than any theoretical comment.1 Take the groups

of malicious wood-fiends so obviously devised to account for the mysterious influences that beset the forest wanderer. In the Australian bush, demons whistle in the branches, and stooping with outstretched arms sneak among the trunks to seize the wayfarer; the lame demon leads astray the hunter in the Brazilian forest; the Karen crossing a fever-haunted jungle shudders in the grip of the spiteful "phi," and runs to lay an offering by the tree he rested under last, from whose boughs the malaria-fiend came down upon him; the negro of Senegambia seeks to pacify the long-haired tree-demons that send diseases; the terrific cry of the wood-demon is heard in the Finland

1 Further details as to tree-worship in Bastian, 'Der Baum,' etc. here cited; Lubbock, ‘Origin of Civilization,' p. 206, etc.; Fergusson, 'Tree and Serpent Worship,' etc.

forest; the baleful shapes of terror that glide at night through our own woodland are familiar still to peasant and poet.1 The North American Indians of the Far West, entering the defiles of the Black Mountains of Nebraska, will often hang offerings on the trees or place them on the rocks, to propitiate the spirits and procure good weather and hunting. In South America, Mr. Darwin describes the Indians offering their adorations by loud shouts when they came in sight of the sacred tree standing solitary on a high part of the Pampas, a landmark visible from afar. To this tree were hanging by threads numberless offerings such as cigars, bread, meat, pieces of cloth, &c., down to the mere thread pulled from his poncho by the poor wayfarer who had nothing better to give. Men would pour libations of spirits and maté into a certain hole, and smoke upwards to gratify Walleechu, and all around lay the bleached bones of the horses slaughtered as sacrifices. All Indians made their offerings here, that their horses might not tire, and that they themselves might prosper. Mr. Darwin reasonably judges on this evidence that it was to the deity Walleechu that the worship was paid, the sacred tree being only his altar; but he mentions that the Gauchos think the Indians consider the tree as the god itself, a good example of the misunderstanding possible in such cases. The New Zealanders would hang an offering of food or a lock of hair ọn a branch at a landing place, or near remarkable rocks or trees would throw a bunch of rushes as an offering to the spirit dwelling there. The Dayaks fasten rags of their clothes on trees at cross roads, fearing for their health if they neglect the custom; 5 the Macassar man halting to eat in the forest will put a morsel of rice or fish on a leaf, and lay it on a stone or stump. The divinities of African tribes

1 Bastian, 'Der Baum,' 1. c. etc.

2 Irving, Astoria,' vol. ii. ch. viii.

3 Darwin, Journal,' p. 68.

Polack, 'New Z.' vol. ii. p. 6; Taylor, p. 171, see 99.

5 St. John, 'Far East,' vol. i. p. 89.

• Wallace, 'Eastern Archipelago,' vol. i. p. 338.

may dwell in trees remarkable for size and age, or inhabit sacred groves where the priest alone may enter.1 Trees treated as idols by the Congo people, who put calabashes of palm wine at their feet in case they should be thirsty; 2 and among West African negro tribes father north, trees hung with rags by the passers-by, and the great baobabs pegged to hang offerings to, and serving as shrines before which sheep are sacrificed,3 display well the rites of tree sacrifice, though leaving undefined the precise relation conceived between deity and tree.

The forest theology that befits a race of hunters is dominant still among Turanian tribes of Siberia, as of old it was across to Lapland. Full well these tribes know the gods of the forest. The Yakuts hang on any remarkably fine tree iron, brass, and other trinkets; they choose a green spot shaded by a tree for their spring sacrifice of horses and oxen, whose heads are set up in the boughs; they chant their extemporised songs to the Spirit of the Forest, and hang for him on the branches of the trees along the roadside offerings of horsehair, emblems of their most valued possession. A clump of larches on a Siberian steppe, a grove in the recesses of a forest, is the sanctuary of a Turanian tribe. Gaily-decked idols in their warm fur-coats, each set up beneath its great tree swathed with cloth or tinplate, endless reindeer-hides and peltry hanging to the trees around, kettles and spoons and snuff-horns and household valuables strewn as offerings before the gods-such is the description of a Siberian holy grove, at the stage when the contact of foreign civilization has begun by ornamenting the rude old ceremonial it must end by abolishing. race ethnologically allied to these tribes, though risen to higher culture, kept up remarkable relics of tree-worship in Northern Europe. In Esthonian districts, within the pre

1 Prichard, 'Nat. Hist. of Man,' p. 531.

Merolla in Pinkerton, vol. xvi. p. 236.

A

3 Lubbock, p. 193; Bastian, 1. c.; Park, 'Travels,' vol. i. pp. 64, 106. 4 Castrén, Finn. Myth.' p. 86, etc. 191, etc.; Latham, 'Descr. Eth.' vol. i. p. 363; Simpson, Journey,' vol. ii. p. 261.

sent century, the traveller might often see the sacred tree, generally an ancient lime, oak, or ash, standing inviolate in a sheltered spot near the dwelling-house, and old memories are handed down of the time when the first blood of a slaughtered beast was sprinkled on its roots, that the cattle might prosper, or when an offering was laid beneath the holy linden, on the stone where the worshipper knelt on his bare knees moving from east to west and back, which stone he kissed thrice when he had said, "Receive the food as an offering!" It may well have been an indwelling tree-deity for whom this worship was intended, for folklore shows that the Esths recognized such a conception with the utmost distinctness; they have a tale of the tree-elf who appeared in personal shape outside his crooked birch-tree, whence he could be summoned by three knocks on the trunk and the inquiry, "Is the crooked one at home?" But also it may have been the Wood-Father or Tree-King, or some other deity, who received sacrifice and answered prayer beneath his sacred tree, as in a temple. If, again, we glance at the tree-and-grove worship of the non-Aryan indigenous tribes of British India, we shall gather clear and instructive hints of its inner significance. In the courtyard of a Bodo house is planted the sacred "sij" or euphorbia of Batho, the national god, to whom under this representation the "deoshi" or priest offers prayer and kills a pig. When the Khonds settle a new village, the sacred cotton-tree must be planted with solemn rites, and beneath it is placed the stone which enshrines the village deity.3 Nowhere, perhaps, in the world in these modern days is the original meaning of the sacred grove more picturesquely shown than among the Mundas of Chota-Nagpur, in whose settlements a sacred grove of sal-trees, a remnant of the primæval forest spared by the woodman's axe, is left as a home for the

1 Boecler, Ehsten Abergläubische Gebräuche,' etc. ed. Kreutzwald, pp. 2, 112, 146.

2 Hodgson, Abor. of India,' pp. 165, 173.

* Macpherson, p. 61.

VOI. II.