While from the banks they gazed upon the flood,
The angry goddess fixed them where they stood,
Transformed to sets, and just examples made
To such as slight devotion for their trade.
At length, well watered by the bounteous stream,
They gained a root, and spreading trees became;
Yet pale their leaves, as conscious how they fell,
Which croaking frogs with vile reproaches tell.”
In Germany, Alders have often a funereal and almost diabolic character. It is a popular belief that they commence to weep, to supplicate, and to shed drops of blood if there is any talk of cutting them down.——A legend of the Tyrol narrates how a boy who had climbed a tree, overlooked the ghastly doings of certain witches beneath its boughs. They tore in pieces the corpse of a woman, and threw the portions in the air. The boy caught one, and kept it by him. The witches, on counting the pieces afterwards found that one was missing, and so replaced it by a scrap of Alder-wood, when instantaneously the dead came to life again.——Of the wood of the Alder, Virgil tells us, the first boats were made:—Tunc Alnos primum fluvii sensere cavatas.——The Alder, or Aller, is said to be a tree of Venus, under the celestial signs of either Cancer or Pisces.
Alecost.—See [Costmary].