Urea ^pi'^'^Z- 8r 



will I f^ive thee, also, some of mine when it grows in the forest." 

 This formula is repeated three times. 



Nearly allied to the tree-spirits were the Corn-spirits,"^' which 

 haunted and protected the green or yellow fields. Mr. Ralston 

 tells us that by the popular fancy they were often symbolised under 

 the form of wolves, or of "buckmen," goat-legged creatures, similar 

 to the classic Satyrs. " When the wind blows the long Grass or 

 waving Corn, German peasants still say, ' The Grass-wolf or 

 ♦ The Corn-wolf,' is abroad ! In some places the last sheaf of Rye 

 is left as a shelter to the Roggenwolf, or Rye-wolf, during the 

 winter's cold ; and in many a summer or autumn festive rite, that 

 being is represented by a rustic, who assumes a wolf-like appear- 

 ance. The Corn-spirit, however, was often symbolised under a 

 human form." 



The belief in the existence of a spirit whose life is bound up 

 in that of the tree it inhabits remains to the present day. There is 

 a wide-spread German belief that if a sick man is passed through 

 a cleft made in a tree, which is immediately afterwards bound up, 

 the man and the tree become mysteriously connected — if the tree 

 flourishes so will the man ; but if it withers he will die. Should, 

 however, the tree survive the man, the soul of the latter will inhabit 

 the tree ; and (according to Pagan tradition) if the tree be felled 

 and used for ship-building, the dead man's ghost becomes the 

 haunting genius of the ship. This strange notion may have had 

 its origin in the classic story of the Argonauts and their famous ship. 

 A beam on the prow of the Argo had been cut by Minerva out of 

 the forest of Dodona, where the trees were thought to be inhabited 

 by oracular spirits : hence the beam retained the power of giving 

 oracles to the voyagers, and warneid them that they would never 

 reach their country till Jason had been purified of the murder of 

 Absyrtus. There is a story that tells how, when a musician cut a 

 piece of wood from a tree into which a girl had been metamorphosed 

 by her angry mother, he was startled to see blood oozing from the 

 wound. And when he had shaped it into a bow, and played with 

 it upon his violin before her mother, such a heart-rending wail 

 made itself heard, that the mother was struck with remorse, and 

 bitterly repented of her hasty deed. Mr. Ralston quotes a Czekh 

 story of a Nymph who appeared day by day among men, but 

 always went back to her willow by night. She married a mortal, 

 bare him children, and lived happily with him, till at length he 

 cut down her Willow-tree : that moment his wife died. Out of 

 this Willow was made a cradle, which had the power of instantly 

 lulling to sleep the babe she had left behind her ; and when the 

 babe became a child, it was able to hold converse with its dead 

 mother by means of a pipe, cut from the twigs growing on the 

 stump, which once had been that mother's abiding-place. 



* Further details will be found in the succeeding chapter. 



