Its position in Scandinavian mythology we mention at length in other pages.
Pliny says such is its influence that snakes will not rest in its shadow, shunning it at a distance. From personal knowledge, he says if a serpent be so encompassed by a fence of ash leaves as that he cannot escape without passing through fire, he will prefer the fire rather than come in contact with the leaves.[21]
“The juniper,” says De Gubernatis, “is much venerated in Italy, in Germany, and on the shores of the Baltic, by reason of its alleged power to dispel evil influences. In Esthonias, holes and crevices in the walls or dwellings are beaten with a branch of juniper, lest evil spirits bring sickness there. When the wicked spirits draw nigh and see the juniper they take themselves off. At Pistoja the explanation given of a local custom of hanging a branch of juniper over every door is that whenever witches see the juniper they are impelled by an uncontrollable desire to count the leaflets; but these are so numerous that they can never make the number right, and in despair take flight lest they be surprised and detected. There is an analogous belief in Germany. In Waldeck, according to Dr. Maunhardt when a child falls sick it is customary for the parents to put a lock of wool and a piece of bread in a bunch of juniper, that the evil spirits may find employment in eating and spinning therein, and so forget the child, with whom it is feared, they have been over busy.
‘Ye fiends and ministers of hell
Here bring I wherewithal that ye may spin,
And eat likewise;
Eat, therefore, and spin,
And forget my child.’”[22]
“In Germany a “Frau Wachholder” (Dame Jupiter) personifies the genius of the juniper tree, and is invoked to make robbers give up their spoil. A branch of a juniper bush is bent down to the ground and kept down with a stone, the name of the real or supposed thief being repeated at the same time, with injunctions to bring back the booty. Whenever the desired result comes about the stone is removed and the branch set free. Here seems to be a counterpart of the thief-catching staff or rod of Indian folk-lore, which survives in so many Aryan usages and customs. Like other trees with hispid foliage, the juniper has the special attribute of detaining fugitives; but it sometimes shields them as well. An Italian legend described the Madonna as saved in her flight by a juniper bush, just as in German story the holy Walpurga is hidden from her pursuers by a peasant in a patch of wheat. An aged crone of Signa, in Tuscany, thus relates the legend to De Gubernatis:—Our Lady was flying with the infant Jesus, and Herod’s soldiers were in hot pursuit. As they went the broom trees and chick peas rustled, risking betrayal; the flax stood bolt upright and apart; but as the fugitives drew near, a juniper bush parted its branches to receive them in its friendly embrace. Wherefore the Virgin then and there cursed both the broom and the chick pea, which from that day forth have never ceased to rustle. The fragility of the flax she forgave, but she laid her blessing on the juniper; and to this clay at Christmastide, in nearly every Italian stall juniper is hung, as bunches of holly are in England, France, and Switzerland.”
“Like the holly, juniper drives away evil influences of every kind from house and fold, and is held to be peculiarly efficacious in protecting horses and cattle from the incorporeal monsters which sometimes haunt and trouble them.
“In a very rare little work, published at Bologna in 1621, the author, Amadeo Castra, makes mention of a Bolognese custom on Christmas Eve of distributing branches of juniper to every house. He adds, that all writers are agreed as to its efficacy against serpents and venomous beasts; that it supplied the wood of the cross; that it covered the flight of Elias; finally arriving at the conclusion that the sanctity of the juniper equals that of the cedar; that its usage is not a fashion or superstition, but a holy mystery; and that as its fragrant smoke arises from our hearths we should remember that so should our prayers ascend to the ears of the Deity.”[23]
“The ancients regarded the Elm as a funereal tree, it is said, because it bears not fruit; but De Gubernatis supposes because of its longevity and the ease with which it multiplies.
“In Catullus, the elm is the husband and the vine the wife. So, too, the Sanscrit Kâlidasa makes the mango the husband of a climbing plant, a species of jasmine. When the charming Sakuntala comes into the presence of the young king Dushyanti, one of the female courtiers murmurs in the king’s ear, ‘This navamallika (jasmine) that you call the light of the forest is married of her own free will to sahakara (the mango).’
“In the ‘Iliad,’ Achilles bridges the enchanted streams Xanthus and Simois with the trunks of an elm tree. When Achilles kills the father of Andromache he raised in his honour a tomb, around which the nymphs came to plant elms. At the first note of Orpheus’ lyre bewailing the loss, of Eurydice, there sprang up a forest of elms.”[24]