Chapter IV: The Tree in Its Relation to Human Life

The tree represented as the progenitor of the human race; as related
in the Eddas; in Iranian mythology; amongst the Sioux Indians—The
classical view—Human beings represented as the fruit of a
tree—Individual births from a tree—Mythical births beneath a tree;
Zeus; Hermes; Hera; Apollo and Artemis; Romulus and Remus.

Metamorphoses—Apollo and Daphne—Meaning of the legend—The daughters of
Clymene—Baucis and Philemon—Other instances of metamorphosis—The
growth of flowers from the blood of the dead, or from the tears
shed over them—Transmigration of souls into trees—Tristram and
Iseult—Sweet William and Fair Margaret—Other instances.

The conception of the tree as sympathetically interwoven with human
life—The family tree—The community tree—The fig-tree in the Roman
Comitium—The patrician and plebeian myrtle-trees.

The tree as the symbol of reproductive energy—The Semitic
mother-goddess—Interpretation of the Chaldaean sacred tree as the
symbol of fertility—The tree-inhabiting spirit of vegetation as
the patron of fertility—Observances connected therewith 72

CHAPTER V
THE TREE AS ORACLE

The oracular power a corollary to the belief in the tree-inhabiting
god—Connection of the tree-oracle with the earth-oracle—The
oracles of the Chaldaeans—Canaanite tree-oracles—“The tree of the
soothsayers”—The oracular oak of Zeus at Dodona—The oracle of Zeus
Ammon—The prophetic laurel of Delphi—Oracular trees in Armenia, in
Arabia—Alexander the Great and the Persian tree-oracles—The
prophetic ilex grove at Rome—Other Italian tree-oracles: at Tibur;
at Preneste—Tree-omens—Legends of speaking trees—Oracle-lots—The
origin of the divining-rod—Cut rods believed to retain some of the
divine power resident in the tree—The life-rood—The divining-rod a
survival of the tree-oracle—Its modern use—Divination by roots and
leaves 93