TREE AND SERPENT WORSHIP.
Sylvarum numina, Fauni
Et satyri fratres.
Ovid, Metamorp. iii. 163.
Αὐτὰρ ἐπ’ αὐτῷ
Κυάνεος ἐλέλικτο δράκων, κεφαλαὶ δὲ οἱ ἢσαν
Τρεῖς ἁμφιστρεφέες, ἑνὸς αὐχένος ἐκπεφυυῖαι.
Iliad, xi. 38–40.
The worship of trees and serpents may be conveniently considered together; not that there is much connection between these two classes of belief, but because this course has been followed in Mr. Ferguson’s elaborate monograph on the subject.
The worship of trees appears to be based on many converging lines of thought, which it is not easy to disentangle. Mr. H. Spencer[1] classes it as an aberrant species of ancestor worship: “A species somewhat more disguised externally, but having the same internal nature; and though it develops in three different directions, still these have all one common origin. First, the toxic excitements produced by certain plants are attributed to the agency of spirits or demons; secondly, tribes that have come out of places characterized by particular trees or plants, unawares change the legend of emergence from them into the legend of descent from them; thirdly, the naming of individuals after plants becomes a source of confusion.”