In Munster’s Cosmography, a book which was several times reprinted between 1550 and 1570, we find an illustration of the wonderful goose-yielding tree, which we here reproduce in facsimile. Munster discourses as follows on the matter:—“In Scotland are found trees, the fruit of which appears like a ball of leaves. This fruit, falling at its proper time into the water below, becomes animated and turns to a bird which they call the tree-goose. This tree also grows in the island of Pomona, not far distant from Scotland towards the north.” Saxo Grammaticus, another old cosmographer, also mentions this tree. Æneas Sylvius notices it too; he says—“We have heard that there was a tree formerly in Scotland, which growing by the margin of a stream produced fruit of the shape of ducks; that such fruit, when nearly ripe, fell, some into the water and some on land. Such as fell on land decayed, but such as fell into the water quickly became animated, swimming below, and then flying into the air with feathers and wings. When in Scotland, having made diligent enquiry concerning this matter of King James, we found that the miracle always kept receding, as this wonderful tree is not found in Scotland but in the Orcadian isles.” Æneas Sylvius, afterwards better known to the world as Pope Pius II., visited Scotland in the year 1448. His book is in the Latin tongue. William Turner, one of the earliest writers on Ornithology, describes the Bernacle goose as being produced from “something like a fungus growing from old wood lying in the sea.” He quotes Giraldus Cambrensis as his authority for the statement, but says he, “As it seemed not safe to popular report, and as, on account of the singularity of the thing, I could not give entire credit to Giraldus, I, when thinking of the subject of which I now write, asked a certain clergyman, named Octavianus, by birth an Irishman, whom I knew to be worthy of credit, if he thought the account of Giraldus was to be believed. He swearing by the gospel, declared that what Giraldus had written about the generation of this bird was most true; that he had himself seen and handled the young unformed birds, and that if I should remain in London a month or two he would bring me some of the brood.” In Lobel and Pena’s “Stirpium Adversaria Nova,” published in London in 1570, there is a figure of the “Britannica Concha Anatifera” growing on a stem from a rock, while beneath, in the water, ducks are swimming about. In his description the writer refers to the accepted belief in such a bird, but declines expressing an opinion of his own until he shall have had an opportunity of visiting Scotland and judging for himself. Ferrer de Valcebro, a Spanish writer who wrote a book on birds in 1680, tells the story of the production from a tree of a bird he calls the Barliata, and lectures his countrymen soundly at their want of belief, and more than insinuates that it is not really so much a want of faith as a contemptible jealousy because the wonder is not found on Spanish soil.
A still more wonderful tree must be the Kalpa-Tarou mentioned in the Hindu mythology, since from this can be gathered not only Solan-geese, but what else may be desired. Whether so multitudinous an array of articles as may be included in the idea of whatever any one and every one, no matter how diverse their tastes may be, could desire, all hung exposed to the view, like the varied display on a Christmas-tree, or whether they sprang into existence as called for, we are unable to say. In either case the tree would be a most valuable possession; the housewife would no longer have to wait for the plums or raspberries to ripen for jam-making, but could at once, even in midwinter, replenish her waning stores with an abundant supply all ready-made; while the connoisseur of choice old etchings, the collectors of rare coins, or the schoolboy earnestly desiring a six-bladed knife could all equally go away with their varied requirements met. The tree is also called the tree of the imagination; and it might, we fear, be equally called the imaginary tree, as all the resources of science are strained in vain to tell us anything more definite about it.
Mohammed tells us in the Koran that a Lote-tree stands in the seventh heaven on the right hand of the throne of Allah, an idea derived, no doubt, from that Tree of Life that bloomed a while in earthly Eden, and that shall be found again in the celestial Paradise of God. The mystical tree that passes out of sight in the earliest chapters of the Bible as the woe descends upon mankind, and reappears at its close, is the welcome symbol that the weary ages of sin and sorrow are at an end for ever, that all tears shall be wiped from off all faces, that there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying: for all the bitter past is over, and the former things are now for ever passed away.
The sacred tree of the Assyrians, so often seen in the sculptures from Nineveh and Kyonjik, the idolatrous groves of the Israelites, the Hindu tree worship, all point to a most interesting symbolism that would be out of place in our present pages, but that will afford matter of the deepest interest to those who care to work the subject out.
Our readers will no doubt remember the reference in Homer’s Odyssey to the Lotophagi, the people who eat of the lotus-tree, and in so doing forgot their friends and homes in their far-off land, losing all desire to return to their native shores, and caring for nought but to rest in ease in the benumbing pleasures of Lotus-land.
The immortal Amaranth, “a flower which once in Paradise, fast by the tree of life, began to bloom, but soon for man’s offence to Heaven removed,” must not be omitted from our pages. Clement of Alexandria refers to it as the Amarantus flos, symbolum immortalitatis, and it was thus received for centuries. The name is from the Greek word for immortal, and was bestowed upon it from its never-withering flowers of ruby red. Felicia Hemans, amongst others, refers to it in her fine poem on “Elysium:”—
“Fair wert thou, in the dreams
Of elder time, thou land of glorious flowers,
And summer winds, and low-toned silvery streams
Dim with the shadows of thy laurel bowers!
Where, as they passed, bright hours
Left no faint sense of parting, such as clings
To earthly love, and joy in loveliest things.”
We could not forbear quoting the opening lines, but the reference we seek occurs a few verses farther on, in allusion to those—
“Who, called and severed from the countless dead,
Amidst the shadowy Amaranth-bowers might dwell
And listen to the swell
Of those majestic hymn notes, and inhale
The spirit wandering in th’ immortal gale.”