250 pfant Isoce, "bege't^ti/} ctail Isijnc/'. 



that the name of the fair one would grow and spread with the 

 growth of the tree : — 



" The Beeches, faithful guardians of your flame, 

 Bear on their wounded trunks Qinone's name, 

 And as their trunks, so still the letters grow ; 

 Spread on, and fair aloft my titles show." 



According to a French tradition, a blacksmith, who was one day- 

 beating a bar of red-hot iron on his anvil, raised such a shower of 

 sparks, that some of them reached the eyes of God himself, who 

 forthwith, in His wrath, condemned the man to become a bear, 

 with the condition that he might climb at his pleasure all the trees 

 excepting the Beech. Changed into a bear, the man was for ever 

 afterwards cogitating how to uproot the tree. In this legend, the 

 Beech, which is generally considered a tree of good augury, be- 

 comes a specially favoured or privileged tree. Pliny wrote that it 

 should not be cut for fuel. Gerarde says of it : " The wood is hard 

 and firme, which being brought into the house there follows hard 

 travail of child and miserable deaths, as it is reported ; and there- 

 fore it is to be forborne, and not used as fire wood." The Beech- 

 tree is believed to be exempt from the action of lightning, and it 

 is well known that Indians will seek its shelter during a thunder- 

 storm. It is the Danish symbol. Astrologers rule the Beech to 



be under the dominion of Saturn. 



BELINUNCIA. — Under the appellation of Ked, or Ceridwen, 

 the Druids worshipped the Moon, who was believed to exercise a 

 peculiar influence on storms, diseases, and certain plants. They 

 consecrated a herb to her, called Belinuncia, in the poisonous sap of 

 which they dipped their arrows, to render them as deadly as those 

 malignant rays of the Moon which were deemed to shed both 

 death and madness upon men. 



BEL-TREE.— The ^gle Marmelos, Bilva (Sanscrit), or Bel- 

 tree, is held sacred in India. Belonging to the same natural order 

 as the Orange, its leaves, which are divided into three separate 

 leaflets, are dedicated to the Hindu Trinity, and Indians are accus- 

 tomed to carry one of them folded in the turban or sash, in order 

 to propitiate Siva, and ensure safety from accidents. The wood 



is used to form the sacrificial pillars. The Hindu women of the 



Punjab throw flowers into a sacred river, by means of which they 

 can foretell whether or not they are to survive their husbands: but 

 a much more ingenious rite is pracftised by the Newars of Nepaul. 

 To obviate the terrible hardships to a young Hindu girl of 

 becoming a widow, she is, in the first instance, married to a Bel- 

 fruit, which is then cast into a sacred river. Should her future 

 husband prove distasteful to her, this rite enables her to obtain a 

 divorce; and should the husband die, she can still claim the title of 

 wife to the sacred Bel-fruit, which is immortal; so that she is 

 always a wife and never a widow. 



