This strange tale, which is evidently of great antiquity, and deeply inspired with real witch tradition, has, indeed, nothing in common with the pretty fairy stories which are so generally presented as constituting the whole of popular narrative folklore. It was not made nor intended to serve as a pleasing tale for youth, but to embody certain ideas which the witch-teacher explained to the pupil. The first of these is, that the _fig-tree_ planted under certain circumstances became a kind of Luck of Eden Hall to its possessor. This story comes from the Etruscan-Roman land, where traditions have been preserved with incredible fidelity. In the olden time Tarquin the Elder planted a fig-tree in a public place in Rome, and it was a matter of common faith that this tree would flourish for ever if undisturbed, and that on it depended the prosperity and preservation of the city. {207} And in India, the motherland of Greek and Roman mythology, it was believed that whenever one of certain ancient fig-trees died, that the reigning family would pass away. The opinion was widely spread that the fig-tree was above all others the one of life and destiny. In the Bagvatgeta, Krishna says of himself: “I am the spirit, the beginning, the middle, and the end of creation. I am as the _Aswatha_ (_pipal _or Indian fig) among trees.” Hence it came that many Christians believed that the Tree of Life in Eden was not an apple but a fig-tree. The traditions which establish the fig-tree as being above all others one on whose existence that of individuals, families, and states depended, are extremely numerous and varied. “It was,” remarks Alt, “not only a symbol of fertility, but an emblem of ever-renewed and never-extinguished _vitality_, and one of eternity, the resurrection, and of the transmigration of the soul.” On the celebrated altar in Ghent, the Tree of Life is represented as a fig-tree (Menzel, _Christliche Symbolik_, i. 277). This universal belief explains why the fig-tree determines the duration and destiny of lives and families. It may have struck the reader as singular that those who eat of the forbidden figs are punished by the visit of a beautiful girl who whirls around with a buzzing sound till they are overcome by awe. Here be it noted first of all, that the fig, like the pear, is exactly the shape of a top, even the stem representing the peg. Now, in ancient Latin witchlore or sorcery, extraordinary magic power, or even sanctity, was attached to everything which made a humming or buzzing sound. It was supposed, when properly made, with certain incantations or instruments, to be capable of throwing people into a trance. Chief among these instruments was the top. Thus Horace begs Crattidia to stop the enchantment of the buzzing top (Ode xv. Book v.). On this subject I find the following in _Diavoli e Streghe_, by Dr. A. Zangolini, 1864: