MEN OF THE TREES 



^'Branches rich with fruit and blooin 

 Breathing forth the vine's perfume; 

 Woods moulder not, tho* olden, 

 Faultless, with foliage golden.'* 



In Genesis we read "Out of the ground made the 

 Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the 

 sight and good for food ; the tree of Hf e also in the midst 

 of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and 

 evil." The Chaldeans recognized a sacred Cedar which 

 was both tree of life and a tree of knowledge that knew 

 "The secrets of Heaven and the magical arts that benefit 

 or injure." Sir James Frazer has pointed out that whilst 

 the initiated were allowed to partake of the wisdom of 

 the Cedar, to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Eden was 

 a sin punishable by death. 



Georgina Mase, who is a Man of the Trees, in her de- 

 lightful tree anthology, has shown that as regards the 

 nature of the two trees in the Garden of Eden, Rabbinic 

 tradition holds that the Tree of Life was supernatural 

 and not unlike the World Tree of the Scandinavians. 

 The same idea is found in early English literature, when 

 Seth, describing what he saw within the gate of Paradise, 

 says: 



"It is a tree, 

 High with inany boughs; 



But they are all bare, without leaves. 

 And around it, bark 



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