66 FAMILIAR TREES 



their spears, whilst the agricultural writers of the 

 latter nation recommend its wood for agricultural 

 implements, a use to which it. is still largely apphed. 

 In Scandinavian mythology the Ash plays a promi- 

 nent part. "The primary characteristic of this old 

 Northland mythology," says Carlyle, "I find to be 

 impersonation of the visible workings of Nature. 

 Earnest, simple recognition of the workings of Phy- 

 sical Nature, as a thing wholly miraculous, stupendous^ 

 and divine. What we now lecture of as Science, they 

 wondered at, and fell down in awe before, as Religion. 

 . . . AH life is figured by them as a tree. Igdrasil, 

 the Ash-tree of existence, has its roots deep down in 

 the kingdoms of Hela, or Death; its trunk reaches 

 up heaven high, spreads its boughs over the whole 

 universe : it is the Tree of Existence. At the foot of 

 it, in the Death kingdom, sit three Nomas (Fates) — 

 the Past, Present, Future — watering its roots from the 

 Sacred Well. Its boughs, with their buddings and dis- 

 leafings — events, things suffered, things done, catas- 

 trophes — stretch through all lands and times. Is 

 not every leaf of it a biography — every fibre there 

 an act or word ? " 



According to the Edda, an eagle rests on the 

 summit of this mystic tree to observe all that passes 

 in the world, whilst a squirrel constantly ascends and 

 descends to report those things that the eagle may 

 not have seen. Serpents twine round its trunk, and 

 from its roots flow two Hmpid streams— that of the 

 knowledge of things past and that of the knowledge 

 of things to come. Man himself ivas formed from 

 the wood of this sacred tree. 



