SOME OLD SUPERSTITIONS ABOUT TREES AND HERBS. 183 



SOME OLD SUPERSTITIONS ABOUT TREES AND HERBS. 

 By Rev. Professor G. Henslow, M.A., V.M.H. 



[Read June 8, 1909.] 



The Trees of Knowledge and Life. — Perhaps the oldest of all super- 

 stitions about plants is seen in Tree Worship, which has been almost 

 universal. It mcst probably arose from veneration for certain trees in 

 each country which supplied the inhabitants with useful products. The 

 tree then came to be the dwelling place of the deity, so that in pictures on 

 the tombs in Egypt, &c, a human being representing the god or goddess 

 is seen amidst the foliage of the tree.* 



The sacred trees were called in Babylonia "The Tree of Life" and 

 the " Tree of Knowledge." A Persian " paradise " was an enclosed garden 

 of trees and walks for the delectation of the king. Mrs. J. H. Philpot, in 

 her work The Sacred Tree, says : " The sacred books of the Parsis contain 

 a very similar version [to that of Genesis.] The original human pair, 

 Maschia and Maschiana, sprang from a tree in Heden, a delightful spot 

 where grew horn or haoma, the marvellous tree of life, whose fruit 

 imparted vigour and immortality. The woman, at the instance of 

 Ahriman — the spirit of evil in the guise of a serpent — gave her husband 

 fruit to eat and so led to their ruin." 



On a Babylonian cylinder a palm tree stands between two figures 

 preparing to pluck the fruit, while a serpent stands erect behind one of 

 them. If the date-palm was the " Tree of Knowledge " in Babylonia, it 

 would seem that the vine was most probably the " Tree of Life," though 

 the date was latterly apparently also considered as a tree of life. "It 

 was characteristic of the earliest period of Babylonia, and while its fruit 

 seemed to be the stay and support of life, the wine made from dates 

 made 1 glad the heart of man.' Date-wine was largely used, not only in 

 Babylonian medicine, but in the religious and magical ceremonies." f 

 Professor Sayce, alluding to the Cedar + as a supposed tree of life, which he 

 now thinks was an error, says : — " It was upon the heart or core of the 

 cedar that the name of Ea, the god of wisdom, was inscribed. It was 

 wisdom rather than life, the knowledge of the secrets of Heaven and the 

 magical arts that benefit or injure, which the priesthood of Babylonia and 

 the gods they worshipped kept jealously guarded. Only the initiated were 

 allowed to taste of its fruit." He here means the soma or wine, the giver 

 of eternal youth and immortality. 



The date would thus seem to include characteristics of both the trees 

 mentioned. But as the vine is equally abundant in Babylonia, there is 

 reason to think that this may have stood for the Tree of Life in that 

 country. 



* See the goddess Nutt in a Sycomore Fig Tree in " The Sycomore Fig," Jour. Royal 

 Hort. Soc, vol. xxvii, p. 130. 



f Sayce's Hibbert Lectures, 1887, p. 241, ff. 

 X The Cedar is not a native of Babylonia. 



