The old form ran thus—
"I pray thee, O green tree, that thou yield abundantly."
In some districts the lash of the Bohemian peasant's whip is well applied to the bark of the tree, reminding one of the terse verse—
"A woman, a spaniel, and walnut tree,
The more you beat them the better they be."
There is also something akin, in this Bohemian's former sentiment, to the wish our nursery children make while eating apples. Coming to the cores they take out the pippins and throw them over the left shoulder, exclaiming—
"Pippin, pippin, fly away;
Bring me an apple another day."
Surely a tree hidden within its fruit.
In the German fairy tale of Ashputtel, also known as the golden slipper—a similar legend is extant amongst the Welsh people—and from which our modern tale of Cinderella and her glass slipper came, a tree figured as the mysterious power. After suffering many disappointments Ashputtel, so the legend relates, goes to a hazel tree and complains that she has no clothes in which to go to the great feast of the king.
"Shake, shake, hazel tree,
Gold and silver over me,"
she exclaims, and her friends the birds weave garments for her while the tree makes her resplendent with jewels of gold and silver.