portion of which, in the days of Celtic heathenism, was almost as sacred as the mistletoe which grew on it was one of the principal trees 'studied' by mediaval sculptors, when, during the so-called 'Decorated' period, they reproduced leaf and flower with such exquisite beauty and fidelity-witness the oakleaves laid into the panels of the Cantelupe shrine at Hereford, or the twisted sprays of oak, clustered with acorns, which form one of the most graceful corbels in the choir of Exeter Cathedral. Nor was the reverence with which the oak was regarded by any means confined to the Celts. The tree, as we have seen, was dedicated in an especial manner to Thor. St. Boniface, who, in his native Devonshire, must have been well acquainted with the heathen superstitions that were still in full force about the sacred trees and well-springs, waged a sharp war against them during his wanderings in Central Germany. There was a 'Thor's oak' of enormous size in the country of the Hessians, greatly reverenced by the people, which, following the advice of some of the Christian converts, St. Boniface determined to cut down. Accordingly, 'mentis constantia confortatus,' he began to hew at the gigantic trunk, whilst the heathen folk' stood round about, prodigal of their curses, but not daring to interfere. The tree had not been half cut through, when, says Willibrord, the biographer of Boniface, who was himself present, a supernatural wind shook the great crown of its branches, and it fell with a mighty crash, divided 'quasi superni nutus solatio' into four equal parts. The heathens, he continues, recognised the miracle, and most of them were converted on the spot. With the wood of the fallen tree, St. Boniface built an oratory, which he dedicated in honour of St. Peter.* 6 The destruction of the great Thor's oak was by no means an unwise step. The numerous decrees and canons set forth in various councils, and mentioned in different penitentials, as late as the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, against such as practised witchcraft and did heathen ceremonies under great trees and in forests, prove how difficult it was to separate the ancient creed from such living memorials of it. Nor does the case seem to have been greatly improved when, as frequently occurred among the Celts, especially in Ireland and Armorica, the tree was reappropriated by the great saint of the district. The Irish St. Colman presided over a famous oak-tree, any fragment of which, kept in the mouth, effectually warded off death by hanging-an immunity not to be despised in the land of shillelaghs. When St. Columba's oak at Kenmare was blown down in a * Life by Willibrord, ch. 8. storm, storm, no one dared to touch it, or to apply its wood to ordinary purposes, except a certain tanner, who cured his leather with the bark. With the leather he made himself a pair of shoes; but the first time he put them on he was struck with leprosy, and remained a leper all his life.* The trees of saints might nowhere be profaned with impunity. In the cloister at Vretou, in Britanny, was a yew-tree which had sprung from the staff of St. Martin-not the great saint of Tours, but the first abbot of the Armorican monastery. Under its shadow the Breton princes always prayed before entering the church. No one dared to touch a leaf, and even the birds treated the sweet, scarlet berries with respect. Not so a band of Norman pirates, two of whom climbed St. Martin's tree to cut bow-staves from it. Both, of course, fell, and were killed on the spot.† It is possible that many of the more famous oak-trees yet standing in England may date from the days of, at least, Saxon heathendom, and, like the trees of the Irish saints, may have been reappropriated after the conversion of our ancestors. About some of them ancient superstitions yet linger; and nearly all are boundary-trees, marking the original limit of shire or of manor. Such was the great 'Shire-oak' which stood at the meeting-place of York, Nottingham, and Derby, into which three counties it extended its vast shadow. Wider spreading than the chestnut of the Centi Cavalli' on Mount Etna, the branches of the Shireoak could afford shelter to 230 horsemen. Such, too, is the 'Crouch' oak at Addlestone, in Surrey, under which Wickliffe preached and Queen Elizabeth dined-one of the ancient bordermarks of Windsor Forest, whose name, according to Mr. Kemble, refers to the figure of the cross anciently cut upon it. Trees thus marked are constantly referred to as boundaries in AngloSaxon charters. The cross withdrew the oak from the dominion of Thor or Odin, and not only afforded help and protection to human beings, but even to some tribes of the elfin world. Such, at least, was the belief in the old land of the Teutons. As a peasant named Hans Krepel was one day at work on a heath near Salzburg, a little wild or moss-wifekin' appeared to him at noontide, and begged that when he left his labour he would cut three crosses on the last tree he felled. He forgot to do so. The next day she appeared again, saying, Ah, my man, why did you not cut the three crosses yesterday? it would have been of use to me and to you. In the evening, and at night, we are often hunted by the wild huntsmen, and are obliged to allow *Magnus O'Donnell, Life of St. Columba, ap. Colgan, A. S. Hibern. ii. Vita S. Martini, ap. Mabillon, Acta S.S. Ord. Bened. i. p. 371. them them to worry us, unless we can reach a tree with a cross on it. From thence they have no power to move us.' The man answered churlishly, 'Of what use can that be? how can the crosses help you? I shall do no such thing to please you, indeed.' Upon this, the wifekin' flew upon him, and squeezed him so hard that he became ill after it; though,' says Prætorius, who tells the story, he was a stout fellow.'* In England it was thought that the oaks themselves were mysteriously protected. According to a belief fully maintained by the gossiping Aubrey, and half-endorsed by Evelyn in his 'Sylva'— ‘A strange noise proceeds from a falling oak, so loud as to be heard at half a mile distant, as if it were the genius of the oak lamenting.' 'It has not been unusually observed,' continues Aubrey, 'that to cut oakwood is unfortunate. There was at Norwood one oak that had misseltoe, a timber tree, which was felled about 1657. Some persons cut this misseltoe for some apothecaries in London, and sold them a quantity for ten shillings each time, and left only one branch remaining for more to sprout out. One fell lame shortly after; soon after, each of the others lost an eye; and he that felled the tree, though warned of these misfortunes of the other men, would, notwithstanding, adventure to do it, and shortly after broke his leg; as if the Hamadryades had resolved to take an ample revenge for the injury done to their sacred and venerable oak. I cannot omit here taking notice of the great misfortunes in the family of the Earl of Winchelsea, who, at Eastwell, in Kent, felled down a most curious grove of oaks, near his own noble seat, and gave the first blow with his own hands. Shortly after, his Countess died in her bed suddenly; and his eldest son, the Lord Maidstone, was killed at sea by a cannon-bullet.' ↑ Various omens were afforded by the oak; the change of its leaves from their usual colour gave more than once, says Evelyn, 'fatal premonition' of coming misfortunes during the great civil It was the 'suiacheantas' or 'badge' of the Stuarts, and the Highlanders looked upon its not being an evergreen as an omen of the fate of the Royal house. Yet the oak was a thoroughbred Cavalier, as befitted the king of the forest war. 'Wherein the younger Charles abode And far below the Roundhead rode, No oak-cutter's misfortunes will, it is to be hoped, fall upon us, because the 29th of May now celebrates with such curtailed ceremony that sacred oak,' which, says Evelyn, in the dedication 6 Prætorius, Anthropodemus Plutonicus; Magdeburg, 1666: quoted in Price's Preface to Warton, p. 38. See also Grimm, D. Mythol., p. 881. † Aubrey's History of Surrey. of of his 'Sylva' to King Charles, you, our Oeós iλiaròs-Nemorensis Rex-once consecrated with your presence, making it your temple and court too.' Thus the stroke of St. Boniface's axe, although it overthrew Thor and sent the parting genius with sighing from his tree, could not altogether destroy the recollections and superstitions of the ancient creed. Still less have they faded from the other great sacred tree of Northern Europe, the ash. As with the oak, there are traces of an ancient reverence for the ash among Celts as well as Teutons. But the tree is more especially the property of the Scandinavian races. With them the great ash tree, Yggdrasil, represented the universe. It was the tree of the world, which rose, evergreen, and all glittering with dew above the hall of the triple Norns-Urdr, Verdandr, and Skuldr-the past, present, and future. Under its three roots were the cold land of Hela, the place of torture; the land of the Hrim-thyrs, or frost giants; and middle earth, the land of mortal men. An eagle, 'far-seeing and much kenning,' with a hawk perched between his eyes, sits on the top of the tree; and Ratatosk, the squirrel, runs up and down the branches, carrying the words of the eagle to Nidhoegg, the worm of the abyss, who lies coiled at the foot. The Norns daily pour water over the tree from their mysterious well, and under its shadow the gods sit 'to give dooms.' It is the 'noble' treethe central,' the 'ancient' tree-highest and best of all trees ; yet in spite of all its honours the ash drees a heavier wierd ' than men weet of. Four stags are for ever biting at its highest shoots. In its side it is decaying; and more serpents than it is possible to number spread venom through the fibres of its roots. Under it is hidden the horn Giallr, with which Heimdallr, the warder of the gods, shall rouse the world at the last great conflict. At its sound 'Groans the old tree, And Loke is loosed; The great standing ash.'* The fire of Surtr will burn the tree at the end; but it will be renewed again, fair and green, and the gods will once more congregate under its branches. Explanations of this piece of Northern mythology have been attempted at great length, and a wonderful amount of learning has been poured out on the subject. The eagle has been thought to represent heaven, or the air, and Ratatosk, the squirrel, the vapours that float perpetually over the surface of the earth. But * Volo-Spa, str. xliii. † Finn Magnussen, Lexicon Mythol., s. v. Yggdrasil. See also his ' Eddalæren.' whilst it is sufficiently clear that the tree is a symbol of the universe, its various accompaniments are by no means easy of interpretation. In the whole, the doomed character of the Northern religion-reflecting the sombre skies and the deep gloomy forests under which it was born and nurtured-is strongly apparent. The tree suffers innumerable evils: the whole creation 'groans together' until its final renovation, after the 'twilight of the gods' and the great fire of Surtr. Yggdrasil (the etymology is so obscure that we will not attempt to explain it) suggests in effect far higher realities than it was meant to symbolise; and we can with difficulty escape the conviction that some of its imagery may have been borrowed from the stores of the remoter East. It can hardly have been the mere beauty of the ash which induced our Scandinavian forefathers to adopt it as their mysterious world-tree, graceful and striking as it is, standing sentinel on the outskirts of the wood, or overhanging some broken riverbank, the dark lines of its curved branches traced here and there between its masses of floating leafage. But the range of the ash extends farther north than that of the oak. It is the chief timbertree of the forests beyond the Baltic, and its wood was used for many purposes for which the pines and firs of the North were not available. The long spear shafts and axe-handles of the heroes of the Sagas were made of ash-wood. Their ships also were not unfrequently built of ash; and it may be either for this reason that Adam of Bremen gives the name of 'ashmen' to the Vikings of Norway and Denmark, or because, as the prose Edda asserts, the three sons of the giant, of whom Odin was the eldest, made the first man from a block of ash timber which they found on the sea-shore. The ash, too, like the sycamore, to which Sir Walter has somewhere compared the sturdy endurance of the Scottish character, will grow on higher ground than most other trees, and in such situations affords in itself no bad image of a hardy Northernashman.' Its sprays of foliage are there thinner and more curved, and its moss-covered trunk is knotted and twisted, as though it had encountered fierce obstacles in its rising, and had put forth all its strength in the struggle. It was partly from this power of battling with winter and rough weather,' and partly perhaps from the mysterious feeling with which the old Saxon regarded it, that the ash so often appears as the 'household tree' of outlying thorpes and granges. Many an ancient steading on the borders of the Devonshire moors, or on the high grounds of Hampshire-the strongholds of Saxon tradition-is thus marked by a group of knotted ash-trees. 6 Some such reasons as these may have led to the adoption of the ash as the great sacred tree of the North. Yet it is not easy Vol. 114.-No. 227. Q to |