“That such is a just interpretation of the circumstance will further appear when we consider that it is not merely in case of sickness (though a very frequent occasion), that the present Muselman Persians (no less averse from gross idolatry than their early predecessors) invoke the spirits supposed to dwell in certain trees, by hanging on the branches pieces torn from their garments; but as I have learned from several among them, on every undertaking which they deem of magnitude, such as a commercial or matrimonial speculation, the building of a new house, or a long journey; and as almost six hundred years ago, when Saadi wrote his work above quoted, offerings are daily made by votaries desirous of having children.
“On this subject an anecdote was told by a person at Shiraz, from whom I sought information respecting some trees and bushes covered with old rags, in the vale of Abdui and other places. He assured me that before the arrival of our Embassy at Bushehr, a merchant, lately married to a beautiful girl, but who had not yet given him reason to expect the blessing of an heir, was travelling with her, and finding a pleasant spot, halted there awhile, the sun’s excessive heat inducing him to seek shelter. He perceived at a little distance from the road some ancient walls, among which grew a shady and handsome tree, to this he retired with his young wife, leaving the mules or horses in a servant’s care. The tree, from its situation, had until that time, escaped the notice of most passengers, and did not exhibit on its branches even one votive offering, but the merchant, whose fondest wish was to obtain a son, fastened on it a shred torn from his clothes, and the united vows of himself and his fair companion were crowned with success before the expiration of a year. The circumstance being known (although some would, perhaps, think the event possible without any preternatural agency), was ascribed to the tree’s efficacious influence, and within another year the branches were covered with several hundred rags, by as many votaries; not all, however, acting from the same motive.”[15]
As might reasonably be anticipated, the imagination has readily lent itself to the development and propagation of the superstitious idea now under consideration, and we find many an ancient bush exalted into a Dirakht-i-fazel from the fancied appearance of fire glowing in the midst of it, and then suddenly vanishing; this name, as we have already seen, implying according to Chardin, “the excellent tree,” and bestowed, as several travellers have observed, on every bough or tree that exhibits votive offerings, without regard to size or species, age, beauty or situation.
“Where trees are generally scarce, the votary,” says Ousley, “must not be fastidious in selection; Dirakht-i-fazels are found near tombs containing the bodies of supposed saints, or Imámzádehs, but I have as frequently observed them in desert places where it could not be imagined that they derived any virtue from such sacred relics.
“As the Persian villagers in their rustic dialect give the name of fázel (still perhaps retaining its sense as the epithet excellent) to certain preternatural beings, so Dirakht-i-fazel would express ‘the tree of the genii.’ This circumstance I learn from a note written at my request, after some conversation on the subject, by Mirza Mohammed Saleh, of Shiraz, a very ingenious and well-informed young man of letters. And that preternatural beings were supposed to frequent a certain tree, I learn from an author of the twelfth century, quoted by Hamdallah Cozvini. He relates that among the wonders of Azerbaijan (or Media) there is at the foot of Mount Sabalan, a tree, about which grows much herbage; but neither is this nor the fruit of that tree ever eaten by beasts or birds, as they dislike it, and to eat of it is to die. This, as tradition reports, is the residence of jinn or genii.”[16]
The MS. Diet of Berhan Kattea, contains a long passage concerning two cypress trees of high celebrity among the Magians, the young plants of which had been brought, it is said, from Paradise, by Zeratusht or Zoroaster himself, who in an auspicious hour planted one at Kashmúr and the other at Fármad. After they had flourished one thousand four hundred and fifty years, the Arabian Khalifah, Motawakel (who reigned in the ninth century), commanded Taher Ben Abdallah, the governor of Khorásán, to cut them down and send both their trunks and branches to Baghdád, near which city he was constructing a palace. With such veneration were these ancient cypresses regarded by the Magians, that they offered, but in vain, fifty thousand dinars or pieces of gold coin, to save them from the fatal axe. At the moment of their fall, an earthquake spread consternation through the surrounding territory. Such was their immense size, that they afforded shade at once to above two thousand cows or oxen and sheep; with the branches alone, thirteen hundred camels were loaded, and in transporting the huge trunks on rollers to Baghdad, five hundred thousand direms (pieces of silver coin) were expended. On the very night that they reached the stage next to Motawakel’s new edifice, this Khálifah was assassinated by his servants.
Ousley says—“The assassination of Motawakel happened on the tenth of December, in the year of our era 861; and not without a strong suspicion that his own son concurred in the atrocious deed.”
Ancient writings supply an abundance of anecdotes relating to wonderful trees which have flourished at various periods of the world’s history, but many of these are so thickly encumbered with matter purely legendary that it is often difficult to distinguish the genuine from the apochryphal.
Among others there is in a Greek manuscript preserved in the library of Augsburgh, and quoted by Jacobus Gretser, in his work “De Sancta Cruce,” an account of an extraordinary triple tree, planted by the patriarch Abraham, and existing until the death of Christ—a period of about nineteen hundred years.
Greek writers tell of a wild olive which had taken root and grown from the club of Hercules, and Pausanias describes it as existing in the second century.