In the Æneid, Book IV., speaking of the Oak as _Quercus_, Virgil uses the same expression with regard to the roots of Jove’s tree descending to the infernal regions. Juvenal, also, in his sixth satire, alluding to the beginning of the world, speaks of the human race as formed of clay or born of the opening Oak, which thus becomes the mystical mother-tree of mankind, and, like a mother, sustained her offspring with food she herself created. Thus Ovid tells us that the simple food of the primal race consisted largely of “Acorns dropping from the tree of Jove;” and we read in Homer and Hesiod that the Acorn was the common food of the Arcadians. The belief of the ancient Greeks and Romans that the progenitors of mankind were born of trees was also common to the Teutons. At the present day, in many parts of both North and South Germany, a hollow tree overhanging a pool is designated as the first abode of unborn infants, and little children are taught to believe that babies are fetched by the doctor from cavernous trees or ancient stumps. “Frau Holda’s tree” is a common name in Germany for old decayed boles; and she herself, the cloud-goddess, is described in a Hessian legend as having in front the form of a beautiful woman, and behind that of a hollow tree with rugged bark. But besides Frau Holda’s tree the ancient Germans knew a cosmogonic tree, assimilating to the Scandinavian Yggdrasill. The trunk of this Teutonic world-tree was called _Irminsul_, a name implying the column of the universe, which supports everything. A Byzantine legend, which is current in Russia, tells of a vast world-tree of iron, which in the beginning of all things spread its gigantic bulk throughout space. Its root is the power of God; its head sustains the three worlds,--heaven, with the ocean of air; the earth, with its seas of water; and hell, with its sulphurous fumes and glowing flames. Rabbinic traditions make the Mosaic Tree of Life, which stood in the centre of the Garden of Eden, a vast world-tree, resembling in many points the Scandinavian Ash Yggdrasill. A description of this world-tree of the Rabbins, however, need not appear in the present chapter, since it will be found on page 13. [Tailpiece] [Headpiece] CHAPTER II. The Trees of Paradise and the Tree of Adam. Amongst all peoples, and in all ages, there has lingered a belief possessing peculiar powers of fascination, that in some unknown region, remote and unexplored, there existed a glorious and happy land; a land of sunshine, luxuriance, and plenty, a land of stately trees and beauteous flowers,--a terrestrial Paradise.