Let the reader pardon the digression. I am about to speak of the Ash tree--the successor of the Banyan--which has also its connection with English popular superstition. However it was, when the wave of Oriental emigration reached the utmost limits of Northern Europe, it changed its character with the climate. From a vast pantheism of fire, it became one of ice and of snow. In the grammar of its mythology, only a little of the vocabulary was retained, but the grand system of construction remained on the whole unchanged. There is the same stupendous ground-plan of a cosmogony founded on a sublime view of the powers of Nature, and the same exquisitely poetic elaboration of details in the Edda as in the Sacred Books of India, though the one is illumined by the burning sun of the tropics, and the other by the Northern Lights of a winter midnight.
So the children of Odin needed a tree signifying All Creation, All Time, All Nature, and they chose the Ash. Its picturesque beauty, its lightness and easy flowing lines, combined with great strength, and at times with enormous size; its elegant depending foliage and lithe vigor in its prime, and its gnarled, ancient expression when old, well fitted it to set forth the extremes of existence. The firm hold of these trees in the earth, 'their obstinate and deep rooting--_tantus amor terræ_,' as Evelyn expresses it, gives us a reason why the Ash of their mythology was fabled to reach down to hell; while its stern vitality, expressed by Horace, fitted it to be called the tree of life:
'Per damna, per cædes, ab ipso Ducit opes animumque ferro.'
'By havoc, wounds, and blows More lively and luxuriant grows.'
So the Ash became the Banyan of Northern faith, and the great meeting place of the gods--as the reader may see in the following extracts from the Edda:
GANGLER demanded: 'Which is the capital of the Gods, or the sacred city?' HAR answereth: 'It is under the Ash-tree YDRASIL, where the Gods assemble every day and administer justice.' 'But,' sayeth GANGLER, 'What is there remarkable about that place?' 'That Ash,' answereth JARNHAR, 'is the greatest and best of all trees. Its branches extend themselves over the whole world, and reach above the heavens. It hath three roots, extremely different from each other; the one of them is among the Gods; the other among the Giants, in that very place where the abyss was formerly; the third covereth Neflheim, or Hell, and under this root is the fountain Vergelmer, whence flow the infernal rivers: this root is gnawed upon below by the monstrous serpent Nidhoger. Under that root which stretcheth out toward the land of the Giants, is also a celebrated spring, in which are concealed Wisdom and Prudence. He who hath possession of it is named MIMIS: he is full of wisdom, because he drinketh thereof every morning. One day the Universal Father (AL-FADER) came and begged to drink a cup of this water; but he was obliged to leave in pledge for it one of his eyes, according as it is said in the Voluspa: 'Where hast thou concealed thine eye, ODIN? Lo! I know where; even in the limpid fountain of MIMIS. Every morning doth MIMIS pour Hydromel upon the pledge he received from the Universal Father. Do you, or do you not understand this?' The third root of the Ash is in Heaven, and under it lieth the holy fountain of Time-Past (_fons præteriti temporis--Urdar Brun_). 'Tis here that the Gods sit in judgment. Every day they ride hither on horseback, passing over the Rainbow, which is the Bridge of the Gods. * * * * As for _Thor_, he goeth on foot to the tribunal of the Gods, and fordeth the rivers Kormt and Gormt. These he is obliged to cross every day on foot, on his way to the Ash Ydrasil, for the Bridge of the Gods is all on fire. * * *
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