The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-12-27
SOME MYTHSOF THE
 CHRISTMAS TREE
Trees Have Always Been Closely Associated With
 Forms of Worship
From the New York World

From the New York World.
 When 1t Is said that the Christmas tree comes from Egypt one has gone back to the beginnings of recorded his- tory. The Egyptians celebrated the winter solstice around the palm which puts forth shoot every month. A spray with 12 shoots was a symbol that the year was completed. The Romans illuminated the fir with 12 lights to represent the months. and placed sun at the top of the tree. Around this they worshiped Apollo, the god of the sun.
 In ancient mythology the tree was all ways associated with worship, CT is might be more correct to state it the other way, that the great mystery of life and its worship was symboiized in a tree.
 The ancient Hebrews consecrated . tree of life and decorated it with lights to symbolize it's holiness. St. John saw in his vision the tree of life, which bore 12 kinds of fruits and yielded fruit every month and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations The same mystical idea was reverently expressed by the great tree Ygdrasil in Morse mythoiogy-the tree which encompassed the universe. Every nation has it's legend to account for the use of the Christmas tree, but underlying all is this nature worship.
 
 The forest oaks were the gods of the Druids, or rather the messengers by which they sent the merit of their sac- rifices to the power unseen.
 One of the prettiest of Christmas tra- ditions comes from the north. St. Win fred, to show the Druids that their gods were powerless, undertook to fell a giant oak. Before he could do it a fierce hurricane swept through the for est and seized the oak and rived it into pieces. As it fell, like a great tower, it cut down everything in the path of each of its fragments. But near where it had stood was tiny fir unharmed. St. Winfred turned the Druid reverence for trees into peaceful domestic, Chris tian ways, when he said: Here is your holy tree, this young child of the for est Gather about it in your homes; 1t is the tree of the Christ child.'' The use of holly and mistletoe is also a survival of Druid worship, the latter being their sacred plant Tn the Scandinavian mythology 1t was dedi- cated to love in this way: The goddess Friga, to protect her beautiful son, Balder, imposed an oath on all things of earth, air fire and water not to in. jure him. The mistletoe alone was un- needed, perhaps because of it's para sitic character, or because of it's ap- parent harmlessness; but 1t was from an arrow formed of the mistletoe that Loki slew Balder All nature so bitterly mourned his death that Hela restored him to life (the Morse Easter,, and from that time the mistletoe was con secrated to Friga, the Roman Venus, that it might henceforth become an in- strument of love and not of death. It is in England, the land of Boadi- cea, that the Christmas festivities pre- serve most of the Druidic charactcris- tics. So 1t Is here that the holly, tho mistletoe and the Yule log have been worked most fully into the celebration. Here Is an old holly song:
 Here comes holly that is so gent, To please all men is his intent. A1lelujah!
 Whosoever against holly do cry, In a rope shall be hung full high. Alielujah!
 Whosoever against holly do sing He may weep and his hands wiring. Allelujah!
 But decorations of all sorts must be cleared out of all churches and prt-