The Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Or.) 1862-1899, 1898-05-06
FAMOUS TREES OF HISTORY.
The Palm, the Oak and the Ash Have
Long Been Held Sacred.

The Palm, the Oak and the Ash Have
Long Been Held Sacred.
The palm, the oak, and the ash are
the three trees which, since times i'm
memorial, says the Deutscne Rund-
schau, were held to be sacred trees.
The first among them, which figures on
the oldest monuments and pictures of
the Egyptians and Assyrians, is the
date-palm phoenix dactylifera), which
was the symbol of the world and Of
creation, and the fruit Of which filled
the faithful with divine strength and
prepared them for the pleasures of i'm
mortality. Honor" said Mohammed,
'sthy paternal aunt, the date-palm, for
in Paradise it was created out of the
same dust of the ground"
Another Mohammedan tradition of a
later period says that when Adam left
Paradise he was allowed to take with
him three things-a myrtle, because it
was the most lovely and the most
scented flower of the earth; wheat
ear, because it had most nourishment;
and date, because it is the most glo-
rious fruit of the earth. This date
from Paradise was, in some marvellous
way, brought to the Hejaz; from 1t
have come all the date-palms in the
world, and Allah destined 1t to be the
food to all the true believers, who
shall conquer every country where the
date-palm grows.
The Jews and the Arabs, again, look
ed upon the same tree as mystical al
legory of human beings, for, like them,
it dies when it's head (the summiD Is
cut off, and when a limb (branch) is
once cut off it does not grow again.
Those who know can understand the
mysterious language Of the branches
on days when there is no wind, when
whispers of present and future events
are communicated blythe tree. Abra-
ham of old, so the Rabbis say, under
stood the language of the palm.
The oak was always considered a
"holy" tree by our own ancestors, and,
above all, by the nations of the north
of Europe. When Winifred of Devon
shire (6SO-754 A. d. went forth on his
wanderings through Germany to
preach the gospel, one of his first ac-
tons was to cut down the giant oak In
Saxony, which was dedicated to Thor
and worshiped by the people from far
and near. But when he had nearly
felled the oak, and while the people
We're cursing and threatening, the
saint, a supernatural storm swept over
it, seized the summit, broke every
branch, and dashed 1t, with a tremen-
- 10 h
ems acknowledged the marvel, and
many We're converted there and then.
In the abbey of Vetrou, in Brittany,
stood an old oak tree which had grown
out of the staff Of Saint Martin, the
first Abbot of the monastery, and in
the shade Of which the Princes of Brit
tany prayed whenever they went into
the Abbey. Nobody dared to pick even
leaf from this tree, and not even the
birds dared to peck at 1T. Not so the
! Norman pirates, two of whom climbed
the tree of Saint Martin to cut wood
for their bows. Both Of them fell
down and broke their necks.
The Celts and Germans and Scandi-
navians, again, worshiped the noble
mountain ash (FraXinus), and it Is es-
pecially in the religious myths of the
latter that the "Askr YggdrasiP' plays
q prominent part. To them it was the
holiest among trees, the world tree, y
which, eternally young and dewy, rep,
resented heaven, earth and hell. Ac,
cording to the Edda, the ash yggdrasil
was an evergreen tree. A specimen of
1t (says Adam of Gremen grew at Up
sala, in front of the great temple, and
another in Dithmarschen, carefully
guarded, for 1t was connected with the
| fate of the country.