Forlong - Rivers of Life

Tree Worship.
an oak or “turpentine tree,” possibly of “stupendous height and bulk.” The pine
usually denotes a great living male, as does the cyprus a dead male, and the rounded
elm and sycamore a matron or maid. German agriculturists usually signalize a marriage
by planting a walnut tree (all nut trees are holy in these matters), and give a name or
motto to every tree they plant. This nation solemnly planted a lime tree over the grave
of their poet Schiller, and revolutionary France commemorated that era, so far as revolutionary
people can, by planting “trees of liberty,” which remind us of a name sacred at
once to liberty, books, and Bacchus. Strange, but true, that the word “book” or bok is
derived from the name of this god, which I have seen spelt in Keltic Mythi, “Bakas.”
The Latin word liber, which signifies a book, whence our word library or coIlection of
books, was also one of the names of this god Bacchus. From liber is also derived our
word “liberty,” signifying in its higher sense, the freedom which knowledge confers,—the
freedom which was given to slaves and the general liberty or license, which was allowed
at the festival or orgies of Bacchus, and when the youth became a man. Taken in
connection with the other meaning that the name liber bears, we may see the origin of
the custom formerly observed in this country of conferring liberty, or securing freedom
or exemption from punishment to the learned, under the title “benefit of the clergy.”
But liber signifies also the bark or inner rind of a tree, on which books were originally
written. It is owing to this connection of a tree with a book, that we speak of the
leaves of a book, as we do of the leaves of a tree, and the similarity is preserved in the
Latin when we speak of the folios of a book and of the foliage of a tree. Again, the
word “edition,” used with reference to books, derived, says M. Littré in his great
French work, from the Sanskrit, to eat, 1 allies the idea of books with the fruit of trees;
thus the tree of knowledge becomes the “book of wisdom;” and we have a “tree of
life” so we have also the conception of a “book of life,” and the tree spoken of in the
Revelations, whose leaves were to he “the healing of the nations,” is simply a symbol
of the “Book of Life.”
All Deities had representative trees or plants, of which we may note the following:
Jupiter was the Oak, Pine, Palm, Ash, Diana
Poplar, and such like.
Venus
,, Rose, Myrtle, 2 was the Orange Flower
Poppy,
Anemone, &c.
3
(the
maid) and Agnus Castus,
which prevented “serpent
bits.”
Ceres ,, Poppy, Pomegranate, Vesta ,, White Violet.
Wheat, and all Corn. Alcestis ,, Daisy.
Minerva ,, Olive, Mulberry, &c. Crocus ,, Saffron Flower.
Proserpine ,, Pomegranate. All the Muses ,, Wild Thyme.
Cupid ,, Periwinkle, &c. Pomona by Fruit and Gardens.
Artemis ,, Souternwood or Arte- Sylnanus ,, Forests.
misia. Vertumnus ,, Hay.
Adonis ,, Adonium, Anomone, &c. Apollo ,, The Laurel.
Helen ,, Helenium, &c. Hercules ,, The Poplar.
Kybele or Cybele ,, PineApple—“Cybele Pomum.” Pan ,, The Alder.
1 2
In Latin ēdo is I give out, but ĕdo is I eat. Because its leaves resemble the Vesica Piscis.
3
This bridal flower is highly phallic in its details, having long white or Sivaik cones and open flowers.
57