16 Eafael Karsten. [N:o 1 



were the temples of the gods and with ancient rites people 

 in remote rural places still dedicate remarkable trees to some 

 god '■). That the Romans ascribed a divine spirit, or nu- 

 men, to old trees and groves is a well-known fact ^). Among 

 the Greeks we recognise the same idea of a psyche inhabiting 

 the tree in the tree nymphs whose Ii fe is permanently asso- 

 ciated with the tree in which they Ii ve, who, as the Homeric 

 hymn to Aphrodite tells, „grow with the high-topped pines 

 and oaks on the mountains, but when the lot of death draws 

 nigh, and the lovely trees are sapless and the bark rots away 

 and the branches fall, depart from the light of sun" ^). 



Plants, however although vaguely endowed with a spirit or 

 psyche, were not all looked upon and worshipped as divine beings. 

 In the lower stages of culture ouly such natural objects be- 

 come actuai gods which through some stränge and uncommon 

 form or quality or through remarkable incidents with which. 

 they are connected arouse the attention of man in a particular 

 degree*). As to the sacred trees of the Hellenes, it is interest- 

 ing to note that the most famoiis of them were all disting- 

 uished by some peculiarities which seem to have struck the po- 



') Plin. Rist. nat. XII, 1, 2. 



^J Cf. O vid. Am. III, 1, 1: Stat vetus et multos incaedua sjlva per 

 annos: credibile est illi numen inesse loco. Ibid. III, 13, 7: Stat vetus et 

 densa praenubilus arbore lueus: aspice; conceda-i numen inesse loco. Ovid. 

 Fasti, III, 296: Lucus Aventino suberat niger ilicis urabra, quo posses viso 

 dicere, numen inest. Silius Ital: VI, 691: Arbor numen habet, coliturque ter- 

 pentibus aris. 



*J Hymn. Horn. Aphroä. 264: 



„T)7fft & äpC yj éXåxat i]e ÖQveg {)ipiycåQi]vot 

 ytLvoiiivrfGLV t(pv(rav éjTL x^^ri ^cozLaveiQrf, 

 xaXal Ti]Xa&dou(Jai, év ou()£atv vipi)kotaiv. 



åXX oTE xtv dl) (lOLQa naQ£aTi])(rj T^avåroio, 

 å^ävtTai ^ikv JtQiörov énl /x^ort bévb(>ea xaAä, 

 q)Xotui öWiKpl ne()tq}&Lvvd-EL nimovai b' an ö£oi 

 Twv be ff ufiov i/t'X'/ XtintL (påos ijeXtoio". 

 *) I cannot agree with Dr. Eouse when he suggests that the origin of 

 the cult of special faraons trees, as the oak of Dodona, the willow of Saraos» 

 the olive of Delos, and so forth, is to be found simply in the fact that they 

 happened to grow on a spöt where a zinevos had been made for a divinity, 

 and that for this reason they were — like the animals which were found on 

 the spöt — connected with that especial divinity (Greek Votive Offerings, p. 

 40). Eemarkable trees among the Greeks were, as I have tried to show first 

 of all worshipped for their own sake. 



