CanÌƒon City record. [volume] (CanÌƒon City, Colo.) 1883-192?, 1907-10-10
Legends Of the Apple Tree.

by detected horse. followed by a
slouching Italian.
A long call, half raucous, half musi-
cal, rings out:
"A-a-pu-ulls! a-a-pu-ulls; fine, nice
cooking and eating a-appu-ulls!"
There goes a cart load of miracles,
legends, fairy tails, history. super
stitions, wonders OF all sorts-an un-
known line of stories stretching from
the fall of our first mother to the sin
of the little street urchin WHO was
yesterday brought before the juvenile
judge for raid on a market stall.
Why has the popular vote fallen
upon the apple as the forbidden fruit
of Bible story? Is 1t that men think
no other fruit so succulent, so appetite
ing, that Eve could not have resisted
tasting? There is nowhere authority
given for putting the apple rather than
| the peach or a pear In Ewes hand,
and the apple core in Adams throat.
On the contrary, grave commentators
argue that the fig probably was the
actual fruit of the temptation. But who
ever saw Eve pictured with a fig?
In Venus hand, also, there are ap-
pies, for she was goddess OF gardens
and spring growth, as well as of love.
And it was with the golden apples
given by Venus that Hippomene won
his bride, Atalanta. She had sworn
to marry no youth who could not beat
her in race. Each time the swift
footed maiden was about to pass him.
Hippomene flung in her way an ap-
pie; and, STOPPING to gather them, she
was delayed. So he won her by means
of the old temptation that we say
caused Ewes fall.
There is no doubt the Greeks were
apple lovers. Ulysses longs for the
apple in the gardens Of Alcinous. Tan
talus vainly reaches for 1t in Hades.
One of the tasks of Hercules was to
obtain three golden apples from the
tree in the island OF Hesperides.
This island was a sort of Greek
Eden, a garden bathed in perpetual
golden sunshine and abounding in de-
licious fruits. 1t was tended by the
three Hesperldes, daughters of Atlas
and of Hesperis. or Vesper, the god
dess of those Western regions beyond
the setting sun. Here, again, the apple
was the forbidden fruit, guarded by
the serpant Ladon. Perhaps 1t is no
wild guess that 1t was the barking
back Of scholars to this Greek fable.
or to a symbolism older still, that
made the forbidden fruit OF the He
brews an apple in popular fancy.
Avalon, too, the blessed isle of Gel
tic tradition. Is the Isle Of Apples.
Where falls not hail or rain or any
snow,
Nor ever wind blows loudly; but-lies
Deep meadow'd. happy, fair with Or
chard lawns,
And bowerly hollows crowned with
| summer sea.
Indeed, to use the book agen's Ian
guage. mo paradise is complete with
out the apple. Even on the Polynesian
is closely connected with the death
of the first man and woman, as in
the Hebrew story.
In Arabian tales, the apple Is the
fruit Of healing. Azrael, the Angel OF
Death, heals the long i'll Of life by hold
ing to the nostril an apple-surely a
| pleasant way. One might consider II
dying In the odor of sanctity, since
this fruit is 30 universally sacred.
In Morse legend, the apple is the
special care of the goddess Iduna.
who Is, like Venus in one OF her as
poets, the rejuvenating goddess Of
Spring and of Gardens. She is very
appropriately married to Bragg, god
OF poetry. So early were spring and
poems mated.
She has the care of a garden OF
fruit trees somewhat like the Hesper-
ides wherein grows a tree of golden
apples; fruit for once not forbidden
1duna keeps box of these apples
at hand. and when the gods see
gray hair or q crows foot appearing
they have only to taste her fruit to
become young again, until Ragnarok
ends gods, apples and all.
In Morse story, TOO, the golden bird
seeks the golden apples Of the kings
garden. and when the tree bears no
more Frau Bertha reveals to her fav-
orite that 1t is because mouse gnaws
at the root OF the tree.
Coming to comparatively modern
times, we find the legend Of William
Tell piercing with his arrow the ap-
pie on the head of his son.
Later still the fruit connects itself
with authentic history, for the battle
of Hastings was fought at the "HoAr
Apple Tree" and the men OF one Of
the Derbyshire Hundreds had their
rendezvous at we'll known apple
tree.
Even America boasts an apple story
that has all the quaintness of legend,
with thetruth OF history. 1t ID the story
Of Johnny Appleseed, who in the pio-
neer days of Ohio tramped from cabin
to cabin, clothed only In a coffee sack.