30 TREES IN NATURE, MYTH & ART 



their names. Ask was the man's name and 

 Embla the woman's. Thus were our first 

 parents brought to life, and given a start 

 in the world ! From the ash (Ask) was made 

 the first man ; from the elm (Embla) the first 

 woman. 



In all the continents the same belief was 

 held ; and from all of them similar stories have 

 been gathered. It is almost needless to say 

 that the belief is even now far from being 

 extinct. 



So we have the trees both worshipped and 

 regarded as the progenitors of the human race. 

 Here is a point of contact between tree- worship 

 and ancestor- worship ; and, knowing how large 

 a part ancestor-worship has played, and still 

 plays, in religion, we shall not be surprised to 

 find that much of the religion of Egypt, Greece, 

 Rome and other countries, can be traced to 

 earlier tree- worship ; and that the statues of 

 the gods, wrought by the great sculptors of 

 classical Greece, were but developments from 

 the tree-trunks and upright stones that material- 

 ised the earlier faiths. In Mycen^an Tree and 

 Pillar Cult, Mr. Arthur J. Evans points out 

 that even when, after a long evolution, the 



