66 FAMILIAR TREES 



Cymbeline, Shakespeare, using it as symbolical of 

 woe, speaks of " the stinking Elder, grief." So, too, 

 Spenser, in the " Shepheard's Calender," speaking 

 " of the death of some mayden of greate bloud " : 



" The water nymphe, that wont with her to sing and daunce, 

 And for her girlond Olive braunches heare, 

 Nowe balef nil boughes of Cypres doen advaunce ! 

 The Muses, that wero wont greene Bayes to weare, 

 Now bringen bitter Eldre braunches seare." 



On the other hand, the ancients as well as the 

 moderns were alive to many of the merits of the 

 Elder. Its hard wood, so very easily hollowed, 

 adapted it for a variety of musical instruments, one 

 of which, named from it the " sambuca," is supposed 

 to have been the sackbut of the Bible, the ancestral 

 type of the modern trombone ; and Professor Henslow 

 used, with characteristic practicality, to illustrate his 

 lectures, when dealing with this tree, by a dissertation 

 on the aerostatic principles of an Elder pop-gun. 

 From this character the tree still bears the names of 

 Bore-tree or Bottery in the North and in Ireland. 



Though the German name of the tree, Holdre, is 

 said to signify hollow, it is also said to be mythol- 

 ogically connected with Hulda, the goddess of love ; 

 and, like love, the Elder drives away evil spirits and 

 defeats the arts of the sorcerer, beino- an antidote to 

 all his machinations. Good housewives, too, have 

 long prided themselves on their Elderfiower water 

 and Elderberry wine ; and its wood is useful for 

 skewers and shoe-pegs. From the berries a purgative 

 extract is prepared ; and the flowers, besides being 

 used to give a muscat flavour to some wines, are said 



