MYSTIC PLANTS. 421 



■" moral " at the end of it. Undoubtedly both Jews 

 •and Christians look upon the cedar of Lebanon with 

 feelings very much akin to veneration, as the Hindoos 

 look upon their own cedar, the deodar (Cedrus 

 deodard), but veneration is one thing, and adoration 

 is another, neither being improved by an admixture 

 of superstition. 



The apple has a widely extended mystical history. 

 " The myths concerning it," as Mr. Conway has indi- 

 cated, " meet us in every age and country. Aphrodite 

 bears it in her hand as well as Eve. The serpent 

 guards it, the dragon watches it. It is celebrated by 

 Solomon ; it is the healing fruit of Arabian tales, 

 Ulysses longs for it in the gardens of Alcinous ; 

 Tantalus grasps vainly for it in Hades. In the prose 

 Edda'it is written that Iduna keeps in a box apples 

 which the gods, when they feel old age approaching, 

 have only to taste to become young again. It is in 

 this manner that they will be kept in renovated youth 

 until the general destruction. Azrael, the Angel of 

 Death, accomplished his mission by holding it to his 

 nostril ; and, in the folklore, Snowdrop is tempted to 

 her death by an apple, half of which a crone has 

 poisoned, but recovers life when the apple falls from 

 her lips. The golden bird seeks the golden apples 

 in many a Norse story, and when the tree bears no 

 more, ' Frau Bertha ' reveals to her favourite that it is 

 because a mouse gnaws at the tree's root. Indeed, 



