198 TRANSACTIONS OF ROYAL SCOTTISH ARBORICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



surface 1335 rings of growth, which, if we are to assume that 

 each year the tree produced a single ring, would make the tree 

 1335 years of age when it was felled. Many oaks are known 

 to have attained an age of well over 1000 years. We can 

 understand how primitive minds would regard a tree under 

 which their ancestors had lived for hundreds of years as 

 immortal, and how readily they would look on that which to 

 them is with them always as a sort of guide and as having some 

 influence on their own lives and all that belonged to them. 



The fourth element which may serve to explain tree-worship 

 was the healing or harmful properties of trees. The twigs and 

 leaves and bark, for example, were supposed to be the gift of 

 the indwelling spirit or demon, according as they were beneficial 

 or malignant to the receiver. The tree providing harmful sub- 

 stances was to be avoided ; the one providing healing substances 

 was to be revered, and sacrifices offered in thanksgiving to the 

 inhabiting god for his goodness. This is particularly seen in 

 the case of the so-called " Tree of Life," or arbor vitae, of many 

 different countries. The tree of life or immortality occurs in 

 many mythologies — Norse, Malayan, Chinese and Polynesian. 

 The fruit of the Chinese " tree of life " is given by fairies to their 

 favourites, and they then become immortal ; in Polynesia the 

 dead assemble on a huge tree with dead and living branches. 

 Only those who tread on the living branches come back to life. 

 The Malayans think that the mystic tree of life grows on the 

 summit of one of their mountains (Mt. Kina Balu), and that its 

 fruit bestows immortal youth. All such wonderful trees may be 

 conceived of as nothing more than imaginative extensions of 

 the use of plants and herbs and leaves of trees in the medicinal 

 lore of all races, aided, too, by the universal custom of tree- 

 worship. 



5. Tree-worship may take two forms. Either the tree may 

 be worshipped as the god itself, or, as is more common in 

 mythology, the tree may be regarded not as being inhabited 

 like man by its own proper life and soul, but as possessed like a 

 fetish by some other spirit which has entered it and used it as a 

 body. The subject is an obscure one, whether from the lower 

 races not having definite opinions about it, or from our not 

 finding it easy to trace them, but the fact remains that tree- 

 worship in one form or another was prevalent among the 

 Ancients, and is still prevalent among primitive peoples. 



