BLACK ASH 



fibre. The Black Ash does not transplant well and will 

 flourish only in swampy places. It is considered a tree of 

 slow growth and is short-lived. 



YGGDRASIL, THE TREE OF THE UNIVERSE 



It is not within the scope of this volume to enter into any 

 extended discussion of the curious myths and traditions that 

 among many nations gravely ascribe the descent of the hu- 

 man race from trees. The mystical " tree of life " was the 

 date palm, the fig, the pine, the cedar, the oak, the elm, the 

 ash varying with the country and the vegetation. 



Virgil in the "^Eneid," Book VIII., says : 



These woods were first the seat of sylvan powers, 

 Of nymphs and fauns and savage men who took 

 Their birth from trunks of trees and stubborn oaks. 



Juvenal in the Sixth Satire tells us : 



For when the world was new the race that broke 



Unfathered, from the soil or opening oak, 

 Lived most unlike the men of later times. 



In the " Odyssey," the disguised hero is asked to state his 

 pedigree, since he must necessarily have had one. " For," says 

 his questioner, "toelike you are not come of the oak, told of 

 in old times, nor of the rock." 



The most remarkable of all these fables and the best 

 known is that of the Tree of the Universe, in the Norse 

 mythology, around which have clustered as many theories as 

 legends without any definite solution of the subject. 



Yggdrasil, the Tree of the Universe, is generally conceded 

 to have been an ash tree. In the old legend it springs from 

 the body of Ymir the earth, its trunk rises to the sky, its 

 branches overshadow the earth and support the heavens. 

 Three roots sustain and nourish this mighty tree. One ex- 

 tends into Asgard the jjome of the Gods ; beneath it bubbles 

 a fountain with whose waters the tree is sprinkled. By its 



221 



