'Twenty years!'
'Then I have loved you twenty years, and tried not to let you know it. I was very proud, very wicked, very mean, but I am sorry now. I was ashamed to have you or anybody see how much I liked you; but now I don't care, I'll tell the truth before I die. I am glad I am sick, George; for if I don't get well, you will remember what I said, and will have thought better of me; and if I live—'
'My dear Dora, you are to marry me in three weeks, so don't let us talk about dying; you have a little cold, that is all, and I'll give you time to get over it, and recover your voice, and get those ugly blisters off your face.'
'Is itveryugly?' she whispered, hiding it against my shoulder.
'Very ugly, indeed, and I hope it will stay so, till we are married; then we shall have no more flirting with Tom Hayes; I would like to havemurdered him yesterday, when—when you wanted me to drown, and not him, Dora.'
'Oh, George! I didn't know the dreadful danger till it was too late, and you were gone. I knew you were brave, and could swim, and he wasn't or couldn't; I thought you would do it easily, and never dreamed you could be drowned, till you were in the water, and he told me, and then—'
'And then my little heroine risked her life to save me.'
'I wouldn't have cared to live without!'
'And cried over me when I was landed?'
'I was so glad and thankful, dear George.'
'But was ashamed to let Tom Hayes see it afterward.'
'No, only ashamed to speak to you, because I had behaved so badly; afraid you would order me away from your sight forever, as soon as you were able. I am bad, I know; but indeed, indeed I am not so bad as you think me!'
Ah! how easy it was to believe it, with that sweetly humble voice whispering in my ear; those pleading eyes truthfully looking into mine; the new charm of her timid, deprecating manner, going straight to my unfortunate, yielding heart, and conquering at once all the territory that had not succumbed to her earlier graces, when in health and spirits. Yet I had seen something of this 'death-bed repentance' before, and I should have preferred to marry her at once, while the swelled nose and the weakened eyes disabled her from coquetry, rather than to use my humble skill to restore her to health and beauty, and the society of Mr. Hayes—rewarded by having my marriage indefinitely postponed, and my promised bride infinitely tormenting me. A physician is accustomed to see promises, made in sickness, unperformed in health, and the debt of gratitude, or otherwise, to the medical attendant left unacknowledged and unpaid: he is obliged to calculate the chances of his fees pretty closely, you see. These thoughts I was weakly about to reveal to Dora, when a tumbling and snorting at the door announced Rover, and happily prevented me.
'Shall I let him in?' I politely inquired of the invalid.
'Just as you please, dear,' she gently answered; 'if he is so disagreeable to you, perhaps I had better give him away,' she added timidly.
Heavens! what a change! I was completely subdued by that last convincing proof of affection; though as to giving him away, what mortal in his senses would take him? Of course he remained, to become a member of my family, growingdearerto us both as he broke uncounted crockery, involved us in innumerable quarrels with our neighbors, and fattened upon meat at ten cents a pound, like the favorite of a Chinese epicure. At the very altar, or rather, I should say, the piano, before which we stood to be married, he interfered with the happy arrangement of the bridal party, with his ill-timed blandishments; but afterward did rue good service by getting under the feet of my groomsman, Mr. Hayes, and endangering his equilibrium as he was about to salute the bride.
'Poor Hayes!' I said, pityingly alluding to this failure afterward with her.
'Oh you needn't pity him,' she answered spitefully, but fortunately proving that the offence which produced the spite was not mine, by standing on tiptoe to kiss me; 'he'll be married to Julia Stevens before the month is out.' And so he was.
Some time has elapsed since the occurrence I have here narrated, gave me my first patient, and decided me to remain in this neighborhood, with or without others; it is fortunate I did so, for the spell is broken that held us in supernatural health, and no invalid readerof theContinentalneed address me for the proper name of the locality, with a view of removing to its salubrious air. My practice is increasing rapidly, in spite of Mrs. Thompson's baby, which has hitherto disappointed my expectations of croup, but promises in time a beautiful case of hereditary asthma. Captain Hopkins is on his last legs with the gout, unless he soon resolves to spend part of his income in improving mine; and nine of the Sessions girls have had the scarlet fever. Rheumatism begins to rage among the old ladies, and 'neurology' is greatly in vogue among the young ones; the late fine fruit season has produced much cholera infantum among the juvenile population, with a special tendency to cramps in the cases of the little boys; and the recent fall in the prices of provisions has induced a similar decline in health with certain of the rural economists. A railroad is projected through our midst, which will bring foreign diseases and habits among us, and turn our peaceful Arcadia into a miniature New York. I see, in imagination, a busy and prosperous future in store for me; I see my handsome and hitherto unused sets of surgical instruments often taken from their case, for 'disasters,' 'collisions,' 'smashes,' and 'shocking accidents.' I see fashion reigning in our humble streets, with her neuralgic little bonnets, her consumptive thin shoes, her lung-compressing corsets, and fever-tempting bodices, her unseasonable hours, and unreasonable excitements and unnatural quantities and qualities of food and drink; I see my little stock of drugs increased to a mighty establishment; my Phil, of some use at last, dispensing them rapidly, and Rover, hoarse with barking at the ringing of the night bell. I see Dr. Coachey retiring in despair to his whist and his sangaree, and myself sole autocrat of the village health; and brightest of all these bright visions, I see my pretty Dora, the beautiful spirit of all light and love in my household, infinitely lovelier and more charming than even in her girlish days, but without the faintest symptom of the coquetry that marked her then—blind to all fascinations but mine, and such a tender wife, that she upholds my whiskers (which are inclined to be reddish) to be of the finest auburn, and does not envy Mrs. Tom Hayes the sable splendors which adorn her husband's face; in short, I see daily more occasion to thank heaven for all the happy consequences of Dora's cold.
The rising tide sighs mournfullyUnder the midnight moon;The restless ocean scornfullyDashes its surging billows downOn a jewelled beach, at the dead of night,That in the soft and silvery lightThat flits and fades, is sparkling bright,Laved by the changing sea!
He is not blind who seeth nought;Or dumb, who nothing can express;And sight and sound are something lessThan what is inwardly inwrought.So seems it foremost of my joys,—Not ranking those that from aboveAssume on earth the name of Love,The feast which never ends or cloys.Nor is it less a feast to meIf he, my neighbor, cannot breakThe bread with me, or with me takeThe wine of all my mystery.Not less a feast, if so well offHe deems himself in worldly goods,That at unseen beatitudesHe blindly flings an aimless scoff.Not theirs the blame who thus disownThe wealth they see not as they walk,Nor mingle in their household talkWhat all to them is all unknown.Mine be the greater joys that tendTo give me what I cannot give,And what in living makes me live,And whatIbest can comprehend.And though, amid the daily dustOf moving men, I move a moatWithin the sunbeam where we float,With mutual needs and mutual trust,—Though outward unto outward showsThe kindred claims of sympathy,And hand to hand and eye to eyeThe generous meed of Faith bestows,—Yet am I conscious that I bearA something in me dumb and blindTo all the rest of human kind,And which but one can partly share.Though in the turbulent stream of change,The pressing wants of flesh and senseConceal my inward opulence,And clog the life that else would range;Yet am I conscious that belowThe turbid tide, as through the straitsOf Bab-el-Mandeb's tearful gates,Strong counter currents constant flow.Nor do I love that man the less,Because, in our companionshipThere lieth behind the eye and lip,That something, neither can express.For inasmuch as mortal love,Being mortal, cannot fill our need,I feel the Goodness that can feedWith droppings from the feast above.Whereby, in Heaven's perfected plan,Which saves from spoil of worldly flaw,I read the inevitable lawOf compensation unto man.Thus, though I grope in darkest night,Of what men call a world of ills,The closer concentration fillsMy inmost with benignant light.And though I sit in dull routineSchooled to the scholarship of books,My truant spirit outward looksAnd Fancy fills the village green!Yet not in pride, oh, understand,Not pride of merit do I boast,Of that, which at its uttermost,Is of me part, like eye or hand.In awe, not pride, doth Fancy wieldThe sceptre of her gorgeous realm,Whose revelations overwhelmWith sense of greatness unrevealed.Thus, whatsoever good is gainedIn fantasies of fresh delights,But wings us to diviner flightsUnto the ever unattained.Nor need I more than this to showAll proof of that astounding bliss,Which from the world of worlds to this,Through lowliest mind, sends conscious glow.Not clearer through the densityOf darkling woods, do I beholdThe intervening flecks of goldReveal unseen intensity.In this deep truth I hold the keyThat locks me from a world of pain,And opens unto boundless gainOf sweet ideal mystery.And though I may not hope to climbAbove the level commonplace,Or touch that vital growth of graceWhich shapes the fruit of deathless rhyme,Yet, will I bless the Gracious PowerWhich giveth strength to walk the mead,And catch the sometime wafted seedThat ripens to the quiet flower.Or, when, foot-weary with the day,My longing spirit only feelsThe tremor of the distant wheelsThat bear some poet on his way;I'll deem it very kindly chanceThat gives the apprehension clearTo feel the pageant, far or near,That moves to other's utterance.And if I can but feebly keepWith reverent grace my share of good,And kneeling, gather daily foodBy gleaning, where my betters reap,Yet will I bless the Hand DivineThat with the appetite for least,Transforms into perpetual feastThe homely bread, the household wine;And place it foremost of my joys,—Not ranking those that from aboveAssume on earth the name of Love,—That feast, which never ends or cloys.
'The Ash for nothing ill.'—Spenser.'The Ash asks not a depth of fruitful mouldBut, like frugality, on little meansIt thrives; and high o'er creviced ruins spreadsIts ample shade, or on the naked rock,That nods in air, with graceful limbs depends.'—Bidlake'sYear.'Nature seems t' ordainThe rocky cliff for the wild Ash's reign.'—Dryden's Virgil.
'The Ash for nothing ill.'—Spenser.
'The Ash asks not a depth of fruitful mouldBut, like frugality, on little meansIt thrives; and high o'er creviced ruins spreadsIts ample shade, or on the naked rock,That nods in air, with graceful limbs depends.'—Bidlake'sYear.
'Nature seems t' ordainThe rocky cliff for the wild Ash's reign.'—Dryden's Virgil.
Those who would seek the primitive signification of all objects in Nature, unroll their symbolism, and thereby attain the first historical groundwork of poetry, must bear in mind that this system was formed, and, indeed, ripely developed, in an age anterior to all written records of humanity. By ascertaining what words are common to the Indo-Germanic languages, we may easily find how far in civilization those had progressed who spoke the old Aryan, the common mother of the languages of Europe, India, and Persia, ere they parted to form new tribes, with new tongues. So, by comparing the mythologic legends of these later races, we may, with strictest accuracy, determine what was the parent stem. That the religion of the British Celts had striking points of resemblance with that of the Ph[oe]nicians and the Baal-worshipping Shemitic races, with India and Scandinavia and the Greek and Roman systems, is apparent enough to any one who will compare the names, customs, and legends common to all. It was something more than a mere coincidence which gave to Bal of the East and Bal-der of the West the same significant syllable.
Yet it must be remembered that the further back we go to the primæval age of one language and one religion, the more obscure becomes our medium of vision. We see that tribes intermingled, exchanging and distorting traditions of their gods; that migrations disturbed the local force of legends; that the time for celebrating the birth of Spring in the far South or East became sadly misplaced when transplanted to the North; and that, finally, the deep reverence and strange tales attached to trees, flowers, and minerals, being too deeply seated to perish, were fed by being transferred to other objects more or less similar. Thus Christmas, derived from the old heathen Yule or Wheel feast of the Seasons and of Time, and which, like all feasts, was founded in the celebration of the revival of Spring, was actually held at last in mid-winter. So the holly and ivy, expressive of the male and female principles of generation, and of the great mystery of reproduction and revival most in force during the Spring, were substitutes for other symbols—possibly the fig leaves, lettuce, and roses which in milder climes had at that season been employed to set forth the loves of Venus and Adonis—of reviving and of receptive nature.
The most striking illustration of this transfer of earnest religious devotion to such objects is furnished by theAsh Tree. In the far East, men had, during the course of ages, learned to attach extraordinary significance to trees, which, growing, decaying, and dying like man, yet outliving him by centuries, seemed, like animals, to be both far below and yet far above him in many of the conditions of life. In those glowing climes the Banyan was regarded as the tree of trees, and the mighty centre of vegetating life. Hence it was worshipped with such deep reverence that even in modern botany we find it named theficus religiosa; and it was called bythe earlier Christians the Devil's Tree, in accordance with their belief that all heathen rites were offered to Satan. For it was beneath the Banyan that Vishnu was born, and under it that Buddha taught his sacred lore; it is in it that Brahmins love to dwell; it is the living, green cathedral ofGod—the leafy cloister of sacred learning, ever holy, ever beautiful, never dying. LikeGodandNature, it is ever re-born; it falls drooping to earth to take fresh root, and is, on that account, as well as from its immense size, a wonderfully apt symbol of God renewing himself—of revival and of eternity. It is named from some saint, whose soul is believed to flit through its solemn shades, nay, to animate the tree itself: no wonder that in the laws ofMenuit was made the sacred, never-to-be-injured monument of a boundary.[1]
Time rolled on—for the world was old then, though thousands of years have since faded—and from the East there was a mighty emigration to lands far away. What were the causes of this mighty movement—what was it which transplanted the seeds of new nations and new races into the distant Norway and Sweden? As yet, only dim, very dim conjecture can be made. The Mahabharata tells us of a mighty battle which sent forth hero-sages with their armies into the wide world; others have traditions of divisions between the worshippers of the Lingam and Yoni, who alternately contended for the supremacy of the male or female principle in creation. Whatever the causes may have been—priest warring with soldier for power, or a newer and a milder code casting off the older and more aristocratic rulers into outer darkness—one thing is certain, that they went forth strong in faith, fearless of destiny; for the religion of primeval times was terrible and tremendous. It was such religion, such absolute, undoubting slavery to faith, which wore away millions on millions of lives in carrying out in dim, old, barbarous days the rock sculptures of the temples of Ellora—which dug Sibyls' grots, and piled together Cyclopean walls, and pierced Cimmerian caves of awful depth and solid gloom, in the fair isles of the Mediterranean; and which, it may have been at the same time, it may have been at a later day, massed together the miracles of Stonehenge, the enormous dragon rows of Brittany, and the almost indentically similar serpent mounds of our own West. They are all of one faith.
Westward went the Æsir—the children of Light—from the land of the Banyan—In die weite weite Welt hinaus—out into the wild, brave world! Some went Greekward. There is a curious book, by an English scholar, attempting to prove that the names of hill and valley, mountain and seas, in Greece, and of the countries which lead eastward to it, are all those of India but little changed. A problem awaiting the scientific accuracy of a Max Muller or a Grimm, and not to be handily tossed into shape by a poeticFaber, or guessed at by a wild-Irish O'Brien or Vallancey, or a lunatic Betham. It is, however, worth noting that over those South Slavonian provinces,viaGreece, flowed for many centuries northward a strangely silent stream of Orientalism, but little disturbed by the outer or upper currents of history. He who has dabbled in Servian-Croat-Illyrian—twin sister to Bohemian—has doubtless been amazed at the wealth of Sanscrit words it contains, albeit he may not go so far as Pococke, who asserts that with Sanscrit alone one may travel in those countries and be understood. Over this path it was, however, even down to the middle ages, that a rich store of Oriental heresies and forbidden lore flowed into freemasonry, into Waldense and Albigense sects, into many a hidden doctrine and strange brotherhood now forgotten or veiled under some horrible outbreaking of stifling passion and terrible ante-Protestantism. Over this path, on which, in earlier ages, the mitre and rosary and violet robe and confessional, and doctrines of celibacy and monkery and nun-nism, and bell and consecrated taper, and still deeper dogmas or doctrines, wandered from the East into the Church, came also heresies, terrible as Knights Templars', which in due time warred against the Church, and cleft it in twain. The doctrines of wild sects, more or less Manichæan, which came forth strangely to upper life during the fever of the Crusades, all seem to tend obscurely from a Slavonic source. The vices with their adepti were reproached by the Church, gave to most of the languages of Europe a revolting word, modified from the name 'Bulgarian.' The origin of the earlier Bohemian Hussite sects, with their strange devil-worship and doctrine of transmigration, was manifestly Oriental. At a later date the very name of the mystic Jacob Böhme—Jacob the Bohemian—indicates some secret alliance with Slavonian associations; and if the connection of the name with strange Oriental speculations be obscure, that of the teachings of 'the inspired shoemaker' with those of the East is not—witness the often marvellous identity of tone of The Aurora with that of Hermes Trismegistus. It is worth while in this connection to trace the influence of Böhme-ism on 'the fierce sectaries of Lower Germany,' on Anabaptism, and on theilluminatiof the ultra Puritans in England, bringing forth Independent Fifth Monarchy men, George Fox, Flood, Law, and Pordage. The seeds of this mystical heresy were obscurely transmitted to New England, which has always had some 'God-Smith,' or Mathias with his 'Impostures,' lurking among the vulgar. I have no doubt that, through traditional influence at least, a Joe Smith and the beginning of Mormonism might be found to have a direct descent from the doctrines of early times.
Let the reader pardon the digression. I am about to speak of the Ash tree—the successor of the Banyan—which has also its connection with English popular superstition. However it was, when the wave of Oriental emigration reached the utmost limits of Northern Europe, it changed its character with the climate. From a vast pantheism of fire, it became one of ice and of snow. In the grammar of its mythology, only a little of the vocabulary was retained, but the grand system of construction remained on the whole unchanged. There is the same stupendous ground-plan of a cosmogony founded on a sublime view of the powers of Nature, and the same exquisitely poetic elaboration of details in the Edda as in the Sacred Books of India, though the one is illumined by the burning sun of the tropics, and the other by the Northern Lights of a winter midnight.
So the children of Odin needed a tree signifying All Creation, All Time, All Nature, and they chose the Ash. Its picturesque beauty, its lightness and easy flowing lines, combined with great strength, and at times with enormous size; its elegant depending foliage and lithe vigor in its prime, and its gnarled, ancient expression when old, well fitted it to set forth the extremes of existence. The firm hold of these trees in the earth, 'their obstinate and deep rooting—tantus amor terræ,' as Evelyn expresses it, gives us a reason why the Ash of their mythology was fabled to reach down to hell; while its stern vitality, expressed by Horace, fitted it to be called the tree of life:
'Per damna, per cædes, ab ipsoDucit opes animumque ferro.''By havoc, wounds, and blowsMore lively and luxuriant grows.'
So the Ash became the Banyan of Northern faith, and the great meeting place of the gods—as the reader may see in the following extracts from the Edda:
Ganglerdemanded: 'Which is the capital of the Gods, or the sacred city?'Haranswereth: 'It is under the Ash-treeYdrasil, where the Gods assemble every day and administer justice.' 'But,' sayethGangler, 'What is there remarkable about that place?' 'That Ash,' answerethJarnhar, 'is the greatest and best of all trees. Its branches extend themselves over the whole world, and reach above the heavens. It hath three roots, extremely different from each other; the one of them is among the Gods; the other among the Giants, in that very place where the abyss was formerly; the third covereth Neflheim, or Hell, and under this root is the fountain Vergelmer, whence flow the infernal rivers: this root is gnawed upon below by the monstrous serpent Nidhoger. Under that root which stretcheth out toward the land of the Giants, is also a celebrated spring, in which are concealed Wisdom and Prudence. He who hath possession of it is namedMimis: he is full of wisdom, because he drinketh thereof every morning. One day the Universal Father (Al-Fader) came and begged to drink a cup of this water; but he was obliged to leave in pledge for it one of his eyes, according as it is said in the Voluspa: 'Where hast thou concealed thine eye,Odin? Lo! I know where; even in the limpid fountain ofMimis. Every morning dothMimispour Hydromel upon the pledge he received from the Universal Father. Do you, or do you not understand this?' The third root of the Ash is in Heaven, and under it lieth the holy fountain of Time-Past (fons præteriti temporis—Urdar Brun). 'Tis here that the Gods sit in judgment. Every day they ride hither on horseback, passing over the Rainbow, which is the Bridge of the Gods. * * * * As forThor, he goeth on foot to the tribunal of the Gods, and fordeth the rivers Kormt and Gormt. These he is obliged to cross every day on foot, on his way to the Ash Ydrasil, for the Bridge of the Gods is all on fire. * * * *'Near the fountain which is under the Ash, stands a very beautiful city, wherein dwell three virgins, namedUrda, or the Past;Verdandi, or the Present; andSokulda, or the Future. These are they who dispense the ages of men; they are called Norn[=a]s, that is, Fates. But there are indeed very many others besides these, who assist at the birth of every child, to determine his fate. Some are of celestial origin; others descend from the Genii, and others from the dwarfs.' * * * *'Ganglerproceeds, desiring to know something more concerning the Ash.Harreplied: 'What I have farther to add concerning it is, that there is an eagle perched upon its branches, who knows a multitude of things, but he hath between his eyes a sparrow-hawk (qui Vederloefner vocatur). A squirrel runs up and down the Ash, sowing misunderstanding between the eagle and the serpent, which lies concealed at its root. Pour stags run across the branches of the tree, and devour its rind. There are so many serpents in the fountain whence spring the rivers of hell, that no tongue can recount them, as is said in these verses:
Ganglerdemanded: 'Which is the capital of the Gods, or the sacred city?'Haranswereth: 'It is under the Ash-treeYdrasil, where the Gods assemble every day and administer justice.' 'But,' sayethGangler, 'What is there remarkable about that place?' 'That Ash,' answerethJarnhar, 'is the greatest and best of all trees. Its branches extend themselves over the whole world, and reach above the heavens. It hath three roots, extremely different from each other; the one of them is among the Gods; the other among the Giants, in that very place where the abyss was formerly; the third covereth Neflheim, or Hell, and under this root is the fountain Vergelmer, whence flow the infernal rivers: this root is gnawed upon below by the monstrous serpent Nidhoger. Under that root which stretcheth out toward the land of the Giants, is also a celebrated spring, in which are concealed Wisdom and Prudence. He who hath possession of it is namedMimis: he is full of wisdom, because he drinketh thereof every morning. One day the Universal Father (Al-Fader) came and begged to drink a cup of this water; but he was obliged to leave in pledge for it one of his eyes, according as it is said in the Voluspa: 'Where hast thou concealed thine eye,Odin? Lo! I know where; even in the limpid fountain ofMimis. Every morning dothMimispour Hydromel upon the pledge he received from the Universal Father. Do you, or do you not understand this?' The third root of the Ash is in Heaven, and under it lieth the holy fountain of Time-Past (fons præteriti temporis—Urdar Brun). 'Tis here that the Gods sit in judgment. Every day they ride hither on horseback, passing over the Rainbow, which is the Bridge of the Gods. * * * * As forThor, he goeth on foot to the tribunal of the Gods, and fordeth the rivers Kormt and Gormt. These he is obliged to cross every day on foot, on his way to the Ash Ydrasil, for the Bridge of the Gods is all on fire. * * * *
'Near the fountain which is under the Ash, stands a very beautiful city, wherein dwell three virgins, namedUrda, or the Past;Verdandi, or the Present; andSokulda, or the Future. These are they who dispense the ages of men; they are called Norn[=a]s, that is, Fates. But there are indeed very many others besides these, who assist at the birth of every child, to determine his fate. Some are of celestial origin; others descend from the Genii, and others from the dwarfs.' * * * *
'Ganglerproceeds, desiring to know something more concerning the Ash.Harreplied: 'What I have farther to add concerning it is, that there is an eagle perched upon its branches, who knows a multitude of things, but he hath between his eyes a sparrow-hawk (qui Vederloefner vocatur). A squirrel runs up and down the Ash, sowing misunderstanding between the eagle and the serpent, which lies concealed at its root. Pour stags run across the branches of the tree, and devour its rind. There are so many serpents in the fountain whence spring the rivers of hell, that no tongue can recount them, as is said in these verses:
'Fraxinus Ygdrasil plura patitur,Quam ullus mortaliumCogitatione assequi valeat.Cervus depascitur inferius (rectius cacumen)Sed circa latera putrescit.Nidhoggius(the serpent)arrodit subtus.'
'The Destinies, who reside near the fountain of the Past, draw up water thence, with which they bedew the Ash, to prevent its branches from growing withered and decayed. Of so purifying a nature is that water, that whatever it touches becomes as white as the film which is within an egg.
'The Destinies, who reside near the fountain of the Past, draw up water thence, with which they bedew the Ash, to prevent its branches from growing withered and decayed. Of so purifying a nature is that water, that whatever it touches becomes as white as the film which is within an egg.
'Fraxinum novi stantem,Vocatem YgdrasilProceram et sacram albe luto,Hinc venit ros,Qui in valles cadit,Stat super virenteUrdar fonte.'
'Men call this the honey-dew, and it is the food of bees. There are also in this fountain two swans, which have produced all the birds of that species.'
'Men call this the honey-dew, and it is the food of bees. There are also in this fountain two swans, which have produced all the birds of that species.'
Does the reader care to know the meaning of all this? It is hardly worth while, since to those who feel its grotesque poetry quite enough of the symbolism is already revealed. But let the plodding GermanFriedreich'have his say.' 'The name of the Ash, Yggdrasil,' he tell us, 'signifies God's Horse, fromYggr, a name of the god Odin, anddrasil, the poetic term for a horse. With this name one hathGod'srule over all things, since he ruleth them even as a rider controls his steed, and byYggdrasilis consequently signified the almighty power ofGod. The Ash is the Universe, its twigs are the Ether, spread over the World-all; the eagle is the Infinite glance, penetrating heaven and earth; and the squirrel the medium by which the deeds and condition of the Gods are brought to men. The stags, whose swiftness betokens the restless, rapid passions of man, are the ailments of the soul; and the green leaves which they devour, are sound, healthy thoughts.' According to Hauch (Die Nordische Mythenlehre, Leipsic, 1847, p. 28), these swift stags are the four winds of heaven which scatter the leaves. The snake is the destroying force in Nature, and in the clear fountain lies wisdom—which at least teaches us the highly respectable origin of the assertion that 'truth lies at the bottom of a well.' In the next spring lies the knowledge of the future—hinting at much fortune telling by means of pools, and faces of future husbands in basins of water and mirrors; while the three virgins are theParcæ—the goddesses of destiny. You know these ladies, reader; but here they are grander, gloomier, diviner than were our old friends Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos. And the endless strife between the eagle and the serpent, stirred up by the squirrel, is the 'ever-battling, interchangeable action between Spirit and Matter, the ever hence-and-hither rolling, as of waves, to good or evil in the human heart.'
Quaint enough, yet strong, wild, and beautiful. One more explanation is however worth the giving. In all countries and in all ages, writers, from Pliny and Dioscorides down to the genial poet-author of 'Elsie Venner,' have said or hinted that the Ash is abhorred by serpents—an antipathy ridiculed by Evelyn, yet which I have heard maintained to be true by an eminent botanist. In our Edda legend, we find an enmity between the Serpent—the evil principle, and a foe to life and peace—and the Ash—the tree of fresh, vigorous life; the first ever striving to destroy the latter. Is this the origin of the old belief? So in the 'Arcana against Enchantment,' a German book of 1715, we are told that 'the antipathy between the Ash tree, blessed of God, and the Serpent, which so hateth man, is so great that a serpent would rather spring into the fire than into the shadow of an Ash tree.' And inFroschmäuslerthe same idea is expressed in these quaint verses:
'Ich bin von den Alten gelart,Der Eschenbaum hab diese Arth,Dass keine Schlang unter ihm bleib;Der Schatten sie auch hinweg treib,Ja die Schlang eher ins Feuer hinleufft,Ehe sie durch seinen Schatten schleyfft.''I have been by ancients told,The Ash tree hath this gift of old,That snake may never 'neath it stay,The shadow drives it, e'en, away.Sooner a snake in fire would dash,Than through the shadow of an Ash.'
There is yet another strange superstition connected with the Ash, which one hardly cares to grapple with—so vast is the mass of obscure myths and doctrines which it involves. Let it suffice to say, that from tradition and monuments, in vast variety, it appears that in very ancient times the Passing Through anything was a ceremony of deepest significance and solemnity. To go through a door, to put on a ring, to pass between upright stones (as for instance, thedolmen, or those of the serpent circle of Stonehenge), to wear armlets, all referred to going from death into life, from ignorance to knowledge, from an unregenerate condition to reconciliation. It referred to the life passing into the womb and coming forth as birth. Going into an ark and quitting it, was one form of this Passing Through. Caves were also very holy, because they furnished apt illustrations of it. Spring was typified as going down into the womb or cave or ark or casket or goblet of the earth, and coming forth or being poured out again in fresh beauty. Hence it came that marriage was surrounded in earliest times by symbols oftransit, or Passing Through. Lovers plighted their troth in Great Britain, as is yet done in some remote districts of Scandinavia, by joining their clasped hands through holes in the so-called Odin stones. As the Regenerate in the mysteries were obliged to pass through passages in rocks, it was naturally enough believed thatthose who were ill might be benefited in like manner. Of course the Ash—the tree of Odin and of all the gods—was hallowed in popular belief by healing virtues; and Evelyn tells us that 'the rupture, to which many children are obnoxious, is healed by passing the infant through a wide cleft made in the hole or stem of a growing Ash tree. It is then carried a second time round the Ash, and caused to repass the same aperture as before.' This act of being borne or passing around a stone or stick against the course of the sun, is a ceremony common to certain rites among almost all nations. It was known to Druids and Hindoos—traces of it may be found even among the debased Fetishism which lingers among American negroes. According to the old philosophy of planetary influences, the Ash tree is peculiar to the sun; whereas serpents are consecrated to dark and gloomy Saturn—another cause for the antipathy between them, and illustrative of the reason why the ailing child should be borne around in reference to the imaginary sympathetic solar rays of the tree.
All trivial enough, doubtless; no longer a matter worthy of deep research and wise marvelling. It is not even worth the while now for scholars to inveigh against the folly of such superstition. There was indeed enough of it. It was believed that by boring a hole in an ashen bough and imprisoning a mouse in it, a magic rod was obtained which would cure lameness and cramps in cattle—the ailments being transferred to the poor mouse, who was the supposed cause of them all. 'There is a proverb, says Loudon (Arboretum et Fruticetum Britannicum, p. 1223, edition of 1838), 'in the midland countries, that if there are no keys on the Ash trees, there will be no king within the twelvemonth.' Lightfoot says that in many parts of the Highlands of Scotland, at the birth of a child, the nurse or midwife puts one end of a green stick of this tree into the fire, and, while it is burning, gathering in a spoon the sap or juice, which oozes out at the other end, administers this as the first spoonful of food to the newly-born baby.' Trivial enough, yet worth noting as the fragments and humble remains of what was once the mighty mythology of the Northmen, hinting at the faith in the life-giving and life-preserving qualities of the great tree of life—the tree of knowledge of good and evil—theeritis sicut Deusof Runic lore.
Among the strangest and most beautiful after-echoes of this old Norse faith in the magic Ash as the great tree of life, is to my mind, one which has been preserved by Grimm in his 'Mythology' (2d edition, 2d book, page 912), and which the German poet Hoffmann has happily turned in a poem full of spirit and grace. The legend is as follows:
In the churchyard at Nortorf will one day be an Ash,No human eye hath seen it, yet silently it growsAmong the graves, and every year it bears a single sprout.Each New Year's night a rider white upon a snow-white steed,Comes silently among the graves to hew the sprout away;But there comes a coal-black rider upon a coal-black horse,And he strives to save the new-born tree and drive the foe afar:Long they fight till the New Year's dawn—until black knight yields,And the foeman hews away the twig, and rides into the dawn,But there will come a time,'tis said, when the white knight must yield,And the twig will grow and its leaves will blow until the trunk is great:So great that a proud war horse 'neath its lower branch may go.And when the branch is grown and blown will come the world's great fight;The fiercest of her battles, the last great strife of dread;And the war horse of the mighty king will stand beneath the tree,And the king will win, and all the world will be his heritage.
'The White Knight,' saith a commentator, 'is Freyr, one of the most glorious among Norse Asen, or children of the gods—he who rules over rain, sunshine, and earth's fruitfulness. His adversary is Surtur, the Black Demon—a pitiless foe of the Asen, who in the great battle will fight with the evil Loki—'the curse and shame of gods and men'—and set heaven and earth afire. But then there will come a new heaven and a new earth, in which eternal justice shall reign, and the 'Great King'—he whose steed shall wait beneath the Ash of Life—'will rule forever in peace and holiness.'
Dear reader, the battle between Freyr and Surtur is ever raging—in your heart as in all the world. But whenever a great strife for freedom and truth and man's rights is battled out,thenthe branch has grown, and the horse of the Great King is saddled beneath the Ash, and his rule draws nearer than ever. Even as I write the battle rages, as it never raged before on earth, between the infernal Loki and Surtur and the glorious Asen—the great children of light and of truth. You, soldier of the Lord, who read these lines—you, whose musket is borne in defence of the Union, are as true a child of the great race of light as was ever Odin or Balder, and you are in this great fight fulfilling the prophecies of a thousand years aforetime, which foretold the final battle of freedom.Youtoo are of the Northmen, the children of Odin and of Freyr, the inexhaustible race of warriors and of workmen—the free laborers who forged the swords they wielded against the dark and wily fiend who stole his weapons from the foe ere the war began. And the Horse so easily ruled—the all-powerfulWill—stands bridled beneath the eternal Ash Tree of Life; and while he lives and the tree grows, hope need not perish, and freedom cannot die.
In a Floral Lexicon I find it stated that the Ash tree signifies 'grandeur.'E ben trovato—it is not badly imagined—but its real meaning islife, and that not mere existence, but fresh, vigorous, exuberant life, the life of action and of enjoyment. The shaft of the Greek spear, which healed the wound given by the point, was, I doubt not, made of Ash, even as was that which slew Achilles. Thus the Ash, it will be seen, was an important letter in the ancient alphabet of the mysteries. May I hope that when you next sit beneath its graceful boughs, you will recall some of the lore which hallows it, and makes it a strange, living antique, not less curious than coin, weapon, or gem. Read it in all the significance, all the strange spirit of the old mythology, and then think what Nature must have been—or what it may yet be—to men finding as deep a symbol as even the Ash in every high place above the valleys, in every stream, cave, and rivulet, and in every green tree.
FOOTNOTES:[1]'On an island of the river Nerbudda, twelve miles beyond Broach, in the presidency of Bombay, stands the Banyan-tree, long since mentioned byMilton, and more recently described byHeber. It is calledKureor Bur, after the Hindu saint who planted it.'Dierbach,Flora Mythologica, page 22.
[1]'On an island of the river Nerbudda, twelve miles beyond Broach, in the presidency of Bombay, stands the Banyan-tree, long since mentioned byMilton, and more recently described byHeber. It is calledKureor Bur, after the Hindu saint who planted it.'Dierbach,Flora Mythologica, page 22.
[1]'On an island of the river Nerbudda, twelve miles beyond Broach, in the presidency of Bombay, stands the Banyan-tree, long since mentioned byMilton, and more recently described byHeber. It is calledKureor Bur, after the Hindu saint who planted it.'
Dierbach,Flora Mythologica, page 22.