pfant Tsore, l2)ege"r^/, and. '\9^r^cf, 



Indians as a dragon, the spoiler of harvests, and the ravisher 

 of the Apas, or brides of the gods, Peris who navigate the 

 celestial sea. 



©Ifie eKj(t)jl>Lji*iar2 ^acfesL ©Iree. 



In intimate connection with the worship of Assur, the supreme 

 deity of the Assyrians, " the God who created himself," was the 

 Sacred Tree, regarded by the Assyrian race as the personification 

 of life and generation. This tree, which was considered coeval 

 with Assur, the great First Source, was adored in conjunction with 

 the god ; for sculptures have been found representing figures 

 kneeling in adoration before it, and bearing mystic offerings to hang 

 upon its boughs. In these sculptured effigies of the Sacred Tree 

 the simplest form consists of a pair of ram's horns, surmounted by 

 a capital composed of two pairs of rams' horns, separated by 

 horizontal bands, above which is a scroll, and then a flower 

 resembling the Honeysuckle ornament of the Greeks. Sometimes 

 this blossoms, and generally the stem also throws out a number of 

 smaller blossoms, which are occasionally replaced by Fir-cones 

 and Pomegranates. In the most elaborately-portrayed Sacred 

 Trees there is, besides the stem and the blossoms, a network of 

 branches, which forms a sort of arch, and surrounds the tree as it 

 were with a frame. 



The Phoenicians, who were not idolaters, in the ordinary 

 acceptation of the word — inasmuch as they did not worship images 

 of their deities, and regarded the ever-burning fire on their altars 

 as the sole emblem of the Supreme Being, — paid adoration to this 

 Sacred Tree, effigies of which were set up in front of the temples, 

 and had sacrifices offered to them. This mystic tree was known 

 to the Jews as Asherah. At festive seasons the Phoenicians adorned 

 it with boughs, flowers, and ribands, and regarded it as the central 

 object of their worship. 



©Ifie Motfier ©ITee of tRe Sifceft/I), S^oman/^, a^ Heuforui). 



The Greeks appear to have cherished a tradition that the first 

 race of men sprang from a cosmogonic Ash. This cloud Ash 

 became personified in their myth as a daughter of Oceanos, named 

 Melia, who married the river-god Inachos, and gave birth to 

 Phoroneus, in whom the Peloponnesian legend recognised the fire- 

 bringer and the first man. According to Hesychius, however, 

 Phoroneus was not the only mortal to whom the Mother Ash gave 

 birth, for he tells us distinctly that the race of men was " the fruit 

 of the Ash." Hesiod also repeats the same fable in a somewhat 

 different guise, when he relates how Jove created the third or 

 brazen race of men out of Ash trees. Homer appears to have been 

 acquainted with this tradition, for he makes Penelope say, when 



