TREE LEGENDS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 42, 18 January 1938, Page 12

TREE LEGENDS.

FOLKLORE IN FRANCE. Folklore in regard to trees in France is a rich mine of strange beliefs and customs, most of them of great antiquity. In the Gironde, in the southwest of France, it is affirmed that to make a sterile tree bear fruit, on the boughs where they spread out from the trunk, stones collected on Good Friday from a cemetery outside the parish must be placed. Many trees are considered sacred and protected against fire or lightning. In the Ardennes and m Lorraine there is a belief that lightning will never strike, nor fire burn, the beech ; the beech possessing this virtue, it is said, because it crowned Christ at the Passion. In Gascony, it is believed that lightning will never strike the hawthorn, because the Virgin Mary once shelted beneath the hawthorn tree. But in another part of Flanders it is said that the hawthorn is never struck by lightning because its roots are in Hell, and that the Devil, the producer of lightning, never allows his favourite tree to be struck by it. There is a pretty legend in Gascony that the white rose is sacred. According to this legend, the Virgin Mary cultivated a bush of red roses. One day when she could find no water with which to water it, neighbours kindly gave her some, but Joseph, hot and thirsty, drank it. The roses withered, and the Infant Jesus at the sight .began to cry, when His mother, seeing this, let fall on the drooping roses a drop of milk from her breast. The roses revived, but from red they had become white. If the branches of the fig-tree break easily it is because St. John the Baptist was beheaded beneath a fig-tree. In Upper Brittany there is a legend that the fruit of the elder tree long ago tasted sweet, but that since Judas Iscariot hanged himself upon this tree its fruit has become bitter. Apples, on the contrary, were once sour but became sweet because St. Gagloire, when hiding from pursuit and almost dying of. thirst, picked one, and instead of bitter, as the apple bad always been, lie found it sweet, and sweet it has remained to this day. . In Forez there is a legend that the aspen-tree has been condemned to tremble eternally because of its pride, for alone of all the trees it refused to bow before St. Pardoux. Trees planted near a place of habitation have to be treated with respect, and are supposed to take an interest in everything that. happens in the house. In some parts the trees round the dwelling are shaken when the master of the house dies and are told, “Your master is dead, and another will take his place,” this as a precaution against the tree going dry. Crepe is smnetimes hung on the trees. Christmas legends connected with trees are numerous in Upper Brittany. It is said that one branch of every haze] bush is turned into gold on Christmas Eve. In order to gather this precious branch it must be cut between the first and the last stroke of midnight. But woe betide him who fails, for he is never seen again. Also during Christmas Eve, according to a legend, St. Joseph, the Virgin Mary, and the Infant Jesus are everywhere where there are hazel bushes, and they pray for the souls in purgatory, obtaining the release of great numbers of them. On New Year’s Eve, in Auxois, the oldest member of the family makes the children wish the trees around the house a Happy New Year.