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 ".Tiieid," Book VIII., says : 



These woods were first llie seat of sylvan powers, 

 Of nymplis and fauns and savage men wlio took 

 Their birth from trunks of trees and stubborn oaks. 



Juvenal in the Sixth Satire tells us : 



For «'lien the worlil was new tlie race tliat broke 



Unfathered, from tlie 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, "belike you are not come of the oak, tt)ld 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 Yniir the earth, its trunk rises to the sky, its 

 branches overshadow the earth and support the heavens. 

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

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

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



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