Again, as 147 apple trees—
Seven sweet apple-trees, and seven score
Of equal age, equal height, equal length, equal bulk;
Out of the bosom of mercy they sprung up.
Again—
They who guard them are one curly-headed virgin.”
In fairy-tale the apple figures as the giver of rejuvenescence and new life, in Celtic mythology it figures as the magic Silver Branch which corresponds to Virgil’s Golden Bough. According to Irvine the word bran meant not only the Druidical system, but was likewise applied to individual Druids who were termed brans: I have already suggested that this “purely mystical and magical name” is our modern brain; according to all accounts the Druids were eminently men of brain, whence it is possible that the fairy-tale “Voyage of Bran” and the Voyage of St. Brandon were originally brainy inventions descriptive of a mental voyage of which any average brain is still capable. The Voyage of Bran relates how once upon a time Bran the son of Fearbal[785] heard strange music behind him, and so entrancing were the sounds that they lulled him into slumber: when he awoke there lay by his side a branch of silver so resplendent with white blossom that it was difficult to distinguish the flowers from the branch. With this fairy talisman, which served not only as a passport but as food and drink, and as a maker of music so soothing that mortals who heard it forgot their woes and even ceased to grieve for their kinsmen whom the Banshee had taken, Bran voyaged to the Islands called Fortunate, wherein he perceived and heard many strange and beautiful things:—
A branch of the Apple Tree from Emain
I bring like those one knows;
Twigs of white silver are on it,