Forlong - Rivers of Life

Tree Worship.
which enters the cloudy nifl-heim; the 2d, Esir; and the 3d, the “abode of the
giants.” The Fates, or Norns, sit at its base near the “fount of Undar;”. and there
relate the awful things, past, present, and to come, and enact the laws, and establish
the religions of mankind. The mighty tree dwells not on the highest summits of
earth, but its going forth is over all the heavens, and its branches un to the ends of the
world, and its sweet moisture gladdens and revivifies all living things. It is “an
inscrutable power,”—male and female,—a sort of Logos or Wisdom, and therefore a
Parvati, Isis and Diana, and yet a “trinity in unity.” Its fall was looked upon as
something very serious, and to cut it down was death. When such language is
used, we require to be reminded that the most sober philosophers acquiesced generally
in all this. Even Pliny wrote, about the time of Christ, that “trees are the
temples of the gods; we delight to worship the same god in the silent groves as we do
in our stately temples. The fairest trees are consecrated to certain gods;”—and not
the trees only, but any parts of them which seemed to amplify or symholise certain
natural features of our frame.
If the Kelt or Skand attached peculiar powers to, and saw certain occult
matters in, many of his trees and shrubs, the South did the same. Many fruits,
such as the apricot, quince, almond, pomegrnate, &c., &c., represented great
females or great female attributes, as I have pointed out in the case of this
last fruit, the fig, and the lotus. The Pomegranate has long been reverenced
alike by Pagans, Jews, and Christians; its fruit was embroidered on the Ephod,
and carved all over Solomon’s Temple; Bacchus metamorphosed the girI who died
from love of him into a pomegranate tree. It is everywhere a prominent Church
ornament; and Empress Ann of Austria used the fruit, doubtless very ignorant of its
Phallic meaning, her device, writing underneatb, “My worth is not in my crown.”
Dr. Inman gives me this illustration (fig 16), of the fruit as it appears with bells, on
eeclesiastical omaments; taking it from “Pugin’s Glossary” (Lond. 1868), and sees in
it the shield of David, double triangle, and Vesica piscis (Yoni), a favourite form for
church windows, Pagan and Christian. The name would doubtless repay careful
investigation, for the Rimmon (}wmr) was the great goddess of the most sacred
temple in Damascus, and all roots like Ri, Re, Ra, &c., are connected with the Sun,
Heat, Fertility, and such like; Ra is the San, and Ri “she who sees,” and therefore,
“the eye,” as at page 72, in my figure for Ishtār. Ram in Sanskrit is “coition,” and
“delight” in respect to the act, and Ra is the root of all words like Rameses, Rama,
&c.— (See Benfey’s Sanskrit Dict.) Rama is “beautiful,” “delightful,” and I am told
“the diligent one,” a name very often applied to the Fertilizer and Sol. In old Pali
the symbol for R was a. simple stroke or pillar |,—the Egyptian Toth. In
Phenician and Old Hebrew, R is a circle or oval with a pillar, and almost
the same in Greek, Etruscan, and Umbrian; in Oskan and Samnite, the triangle
of similar signification seems the favourite form.—(Ancient Faiths, ii. 546).
In Asyrian Ra is any god, such as Il, Ilu, El, or Al, Alla, &c., the root
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