DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.8944#0036
134
ARTHUR J. EVANS
him commander.1 Holy fires play about the branches of such trees, without
consuming them, as in the case of 'the burning bush,' the terebinth of
Mamre and the sacred olive tree at Tyre.2 The tree itself was at times
endued with a mysterious power of locomotion and the fable of the trees
going forth to choose a king3 may find its origin in a circle of ideas still
represented in modern folklore. The Tyrian olive tree came out of the sea
like the Ambrosian Stones that it overshadowed. Macbeth's incredulous
exclamation :
' Who can impress the forest; bid the tree
Unfix his earth-bound root ?' 4
suggests no difficulty to primitive imagination. The saying of Birnam Wood
moving to Dunsinane, rationalised in Shakespeare, receives a more literal
fulfilment in Caucasia. Hotly pursued by his enemies the Ossete hero,
Khetag of Cabarda, fell powerless outside the sacred grove to which he had
fled for protection. A voice came from the linden trees, ' To the grove,
Khetag, to the grove !' 'I cannot reach it,' he cried ; ' I am quite worn
out, let the grove rather come to me.' Thereupon the grove came and
covered him from his enemies, and the glade is pointed out to this day from
which the trees removed to save their votary/'
We are here no longer on Semitic ground, but the Caucasian folk-tale
is singularly illustrative of the old ideas touching the spiritual life of sacred
trees and groves, and the asylum given by them.
What gives the tree and pillar cult of the Semitic world and its border-
land such a special value as an illustration of the distant records of the
Mycenaean worship is its long continuous survival. While the aesthetic
sense of the Greeks transformed their rude aniconic idols into graceful
human shapes and veiled the realities of tree-worship under elegant allegories
of metamorphosis, the conservative East maintained the old cult in its
pristine severity. The pillar or cone, or mere shapeless block still stood
within the sacred grove as the material representative of the divinity. In
the famous black stone of Mecca Islam itself has adopted it, and the traditions
of prae-Islamic Arabia maintain themselves in the shape of countless lesser
Caabas and holy pillars throughout the Mohammedan world. In how un-
changed a form this ancient pillar cult of the Semitic races still survives—
even upon what was once counted as Hellenic soil—will be seen from a
striking illustration given below from personal experience.0
In the foregoing pages it has simply been my object to recall some of
the characteristic features of the old Semitic cult, many of them very
1 Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semite*,
p. 133, who compares ' the old Hebrew fable
of trees that speak and act like human beings.'
2 Op. cit. p. 193.
3 Judges ix. 8 fcqq.
4 Macbeth, act iv. sc. 1.
Svashcheniiya roshdi i derevja u Kav-
ka/.kih narodov. (In Reports of the Russian
Geographical Society, Caucasian Section, t. v.
p. 158 xeqq.) Khetag is the legendary ancestor
of a peculiar dark-haired tribe among the
Ossetes whose badge is the lime tree.
6 See p. 200 neqq.
ARTHUR J. EVANS
him commander.1 Holy fires play about the branches of such trees, without
consuming them, as in the case of 'the burning bush,' the terebinth of
Mamre and the sacred olive tree at Tyre.2 The tree itself was at times
endued with a mysterious power of locomotion and the fable of the trees
going forth to choose a king3 may find its origin in a circle of ideas still
represented in modern folklore. The Tyrian olive tree came out of the sea
like the Ambrosian Stones that it overshadowed. Macbeth's incredulous
exclamation :
' Who can impress the forest; bid the tree
Unfix his earth-bound root ?' 4
suggests no difficulty to primitive imagination. The saying of Birnam Wood
moving to Dunsinane, rationalised in Shakespeare, receives a more literal
fulfilment in Caucasia. Hotly pursued by his enemies the Ossete hero,
Khetag of Cabarda, fell powerless outside the sacred grove to which he had
fled for protection. A voice came from the linden trees, ' To the grove,
Khetag, to the grove !' 'I cannot reach it,' he cried ; ' I am quite worn
out, let the grove rather come to me.' Thereupon the grove came and
covered him from his enemies, and the glade is pointed out to this day from
which the trees removed to save their votary/'
We are here no longer on Semitic ground, but the Caucasian folk-tale
is singularly illustrative of the old ideas touching the spiritual life of sacred
trees and groves, and the asylum given by them.
What gives the tree and pillar cult of the Semitic world and its border-
land such a special value as an illustration of the distant records of the
Mycenaean worship is its long continuous survival. While the aesthetic
sense of the Greeks transformed their rude aniconic idols into graceful
human shapes and veiled the realities of tree-worship under elegant allegories
of metamorphosis, the conservative East maintained the old cult in its
pristine severity. The pillar or cone, or mere shapeless block still stood
within the sacred grove as the material representative of the divinity. In
the famous black stone of Mecca Islam itself has adopted it, and the traditions
of prae-Islamic Arabia maintain themselves in the shape of countless lesser
Caabas and holy pillars throughout the Mohammedan world. In how un-
changed a form this ancient pillar cult of the Semitic races still survives—
even upon what was once counted as Hellenic soil—will be seen from a
striking illustration given below from personal experience.0
In the foregoing pages it has simply been my object to recall some of
the characteristic features of the old Semitic cult, many of them very
1 Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semite*,
p. 133, who compares ' the old Hebrew fable
of trees that speak and act like human beings.'
2 Op. cit. p. 193.
3 Judges ix. 8 fcqq.
4 Macbeth, act iv. sc. 1.
Svashcheniiya roshdi i derevja u Kav-
ka/.kih narodov. (In Reports of the Russian
Geographical Society, Caucasian Section, t. v.
p. 158 xeqq.) Khetag is the legendary ancestor
of a peculiar dark-haired tribe among the
Ossetes whose badge is the lime tree.
6 See p. 200 neqq.