"WHICH THE BULK OF PEOPLE" (GALEN)
That animals move is long-lasting. Yet pervasive in writing is a noteworthy alternative of something else moving-- members of the Plant Kingdom.
Ancient Tree Worship
The first recorded stories of trees seem to be of a "world-tree," a centerpiece, named Irminsul, Yggdrasil or Ceiba, of the Scandinavians, Mayans, Yakuts, or other tribes. This infers a centeredness and a stasis, nonmotional. Some of these world trees were oracular-- their moving, rustling leaves were heard as voices. In this early form of animism for plants (and other objects), the oracle, we see what is now thought aberrant-- ¬a belief that becomes extinct.
After this. good translations from ancient Greek and Latin show a rift (and indeed an eventual clash) between belief forces regarding nature. In the Greco-Roman time span comes the recognized beginning of contemporary scientific discourse. A flourishing of reason began; there was comfort and safety, survival was taken care of, and the logic of thinking was used. Both Greek and Roman cities bore a major responsibility for this.
Contrasted in Europe at the time were the extensive country (better to say wilderness) dwellers variously known as barbarians, pagans, Kelts, or Gauls.
Caesar warred against the Gauls.
He attacked Marseilles, and his chronicler Lucan writes circa 70 AD:
He sent men in all directions to fell forest timber... The axe-men came on an ancient and sacred grove. Its interlacing branches enclosed a cool central space into which the sun never shone, but where an abundance of water spouted from dark springs. Yet this was not the haunt of such innocent country deities as Pan, or Silvanus, or the nymphs: the barbaric gods worshipped here had their altars heaped with hideous offerings, and every tree was sprinkled with human blood. According to the local tradition, no birds ventured to perch upon these trees, and no wild beast made his lair beneath them; they were proof also against gales and lightning, and would shudder to themselves though no wind stirred... Superstitious natives believed that the ground often shook, that groans rose from hidden caverns below, that yews were uprooted and miraculously replanted, and that sometimes serpents coiled about the oaks, which blazed with fire but did not burn... Nevertheless, Caesar gave orders for the grove to be felled... having escaped destruction in all previous wars, (it) was the one patch of forest left in the neighborhood. Yet the loneliness and solemnity of the grove awed his very toughest soldiers; they shrank from the task, convinced that if they struck at the sacred trees the axes would rebound, turn in the air, and chop off their legs. Caesar, realizing what was passing through their minds, snatched an axe and swung it fiercely at the nearest oak... Ash-trees; gnarled holm-oaks; esculent oaks like those at Dodona; alders whose timber does not rot in salt water; cypresses, which are used only at rich funerals -- all were felled... Every Gaul present shuddered at the sight (Pharsalia, transl. Graves 1957).
Lucan says a number of interesting things here. He mentions the use of wood. He mentions the superstition of his fellows, excepting Caesar. He ascribes an animacy to the grove, and that barbarians attended the event. He mentions Dodona of Greece:
The best known of all the sacred groves of Greece was that of Dodona (sometimes called the Chaonian Forest)... It is said that thunderstorms rage more frequently at Dodona than anywhere else in Europe... it was by the rustling of the leaves of this Oak, which moved without being stirred by the wind (Alexander 1928:58).
The superstition of deep forests is completely relevant, even today, if one tries an unfamiliar excursion into any. The feeling easily persists-- but ancient writings show that, historically, question was being made of this aspect of paganism by the beginners of science as we know it. Galen's comment stating animism only for animals (the title of the chapter) suggests strongly an existing population who thought plants could move, including not just Gauls but his Greek fellows. One, Virgil in Eclogue VIII, says that
Maenalus, a mountain in Arcadia sacred to Pan, and now called Roino, clad with Pine trees, 'always has a vocal grove and shaking pines' (Alexander 1928:62).
So there were beliefs in moving trees 2000 years ago; they seem to have been more formal than today, addressed in Galen's science and Caesar's war.
Alexander further shows how common stories like these were:
Page 20 -- Dante describes the Cimmerian Forest, that infernal forest where the knotted, dark-leaved trees spoke to the wanderer when he endeavored to pluck a twig.
25-26 -- ... but that which seemed strangest of all to him (Yvon) was the sight of two trees lashing each other angrily with their branches... in a moment they became two human beings...
33 -- ... when all the great trees, the briars and the thorns, moved aside of themselves to let him (the Prince) pass... no one could follow him, because the trees had closed in again as soon as he had passed.
49 -- they (Druids) made choice of the deepest recesses of groves and woods for their most sacred places, and groves were often planted for that purpose with those trees in which they most delighted.
59 -- When the oracle was to be questioned the leaves rustled...
85 -- In the forest of Rugaard in Denmark there is said to be a leafless tree which, although it resembles other trees, is nevertheless an Elf who strolls about the forest by night.
He mentions the Druids, most famous tree-worshipers of all, objects of everyone from scholars to Spinal Tap. Their 20th century scholar Piggott writes
Lucan's dryadae look as though they have been influenced by the name of the Greek water and tree nymphs, dryades in Latin... Current opinion tends to concur with those ancient scholars such as Pliny who regarded it as related to the Greek word for an oak-tree, drus. The second syllable is regarded as cognate with the Indo-European root *wid-, 'to know' (1975:100).
Herm (1975) sums "druid" to "the apparent absurdity of 'oak-knower.'" He says too that only after Etruscan influence did they give their gods human shape; previously, it seems to be faces in trees, and before that, trees.
From other researched works by Kendrick (1927) and Webster (1986) we learn that druids are prehistoric-- ¬their tree-alphabet written language scarce and enigmatic-- ¬and had different, revered trees in many areas. Early churches were built on sacred groves (drunemeton) and indeed the word "church" is like "Quercus" which is the scientific name for oaks today; they are thought to have a common root.
Research has shown that "druid" is a plural form (Piggott 1975:100). This nuance is lost on new age "druids."
Sources suggest that the replacement of the druid pagan gods was quite slow by the ones of classical Greece and Rome, which further suggests the replacers were in a marked minority when out of their cities. Was Galen writing of this? Science, with its agreement in principle on animism at his time is certainly choosing a path, attempting a form of control, it seems -- over vegetation.
A way to sense this is to attempt to weed a large garden, and then think what it would be to tame the plants of the world. In the 20th century, it's been realized that the Judeo-Christian heritage, perhaps beginning with Caesar's first axe-blow at Marseille, has had a hand in this taming. This was crucial for modern civilization, a realization of the conquest of nature.
In Kendrick there is mention of a megalithic site in England, possibly 20 thousand years old, with an oak coffin and oak branches with mistletoe adorned: tree reverence that long ago. Galen's questioning of vegetative "soul" came some 17 thousand years after -- quite a long time for beliefs to build.
Thus it is documented that the primeval forest (which virtually none of us know today) was venerated and given ceremony to. It is fairly obvious that it was feared by many; this relates to the writings on animism by the Greco-Roman immortals. Speaking of desire, soul and an unmoving earth as Aristotle did happened at a time when, of course, the earth was moving. Limiting vegetation to growth and nutrition, nothing more, was a form of lion-taming in those forests.
Even in the language of the Roman people, there are clues to a feeling about odd motion, plants in motion:
vib, =ex, -ic (Latin).A whip mark
vibr, -a, -i, -o (L). Shake, vibrate
=vibrissa (L). A hair of the nostrils
viburn, =um (L). The wayfaring tree
...vine, vino (L). Wine
...vit, =a, -al (L). Life
vit, -i, =is (L). A vine; a winding
(Borror 1960:109-110).
A moving plant belief thus shows itself to be common. Scientific Romans shared everyday life with people who used vital, vibrant words for plants, and very close words for motion.
Plant Beliefs in the Middle Ages
Page 59 -- ...one of their (witches) most favorite vehicles was a besom or broom, an implement which, it has been suggested, from its being a type of the winds, is an appropriate utensil "in the hands of the witches, who are windmakers and workers in that element"
89 -- ...the Wood or Moss people... are "clad in moss"... their lives... are attached to the trees
127 -- ... how the Hoedysarums have been well known ever since the days of Linnaeus to suddenly begin to quiver without any apparent cause, and just as suddenly to stop... heat will set in motion... the leaves... the leaves of the Colocasia esculenta... will often shiver at irregular times of the day and night... it has been suggested that they are due to changes in the weather of such a slight character…
From Hannay, 1622--
183 -- "The quaking aspen, light and thin, to the air quick passage gives"
183 -- from the fierceness with which it grabs the passer-by with its straggling prickly stems
214 -- (for) shaking... the quaking-grass (Briza media)... acted as a most powerful deterrent... the aspen, from its constant trembling, has been held a specific for this disease.
Note the reference to the famous Doctrine of Signatures- plants having a curative ability related to the human organ
they look like-- itself a form of animism.
The term Middle Ages is somewhat misleading for reference. A great span of time is involved, and many documents from that time are much older. When scholars look for exacting information in distant and more distant histories, great care is needed and some things are irrevocably altered by time.
Such may be the meaning of the famous poem by Gwion, or Taliesin, the Cad Goddau (The Battle of The Trees). Its translations and interpretations are diverse. Depending on who one reads, Taliesin is real and one of the last of the Druid, or possibly mythic, or a child, and the "battle" from as early as 400 BC but written of circa 600 AD (and possibly from an unknown earlier form). Or, the battle is an allegory, a form of wordplay related to the tree-alphabet of the Kelt priests mentioned before, or a seasonal representation of some form. There are evidences for any of these. But the poem is completely striking in itself, in any translation. Here are excerpts from two.
I have been in many shapes,
...I have been a book originally.
...I have been a tree in a covert.
...I have fought, though small,
In the Battle of Goddeu Brig
...I was in Caer Fefynedd,
Thither were hastening grasses and trees.
Wayfarers perceive them,
Warriors are astonished
...Assume the forms of the principal trees,
...When the trees were enchanted
There was hope for the trees,
That they should frustrate the attention
Of the surrounding fires...
...The alder-trees in the first line,
They made the commencement.
Willow and quicken tree,
They were slow in their array.
...Great is the gorse in battle.
...The pine-tree in the court,
Strong in battle,
...He turns not aside the measure of a foot,
But strikes right in the middle,
And at the farthest end.
...The holly dark green,
He was very courageous:
Defended with spikes on every side,
Wounding the hands.
The long-enduring poplars
Very much broken in fight.
...The heath was giving consolation,
Comforting the people.
The black cherry-tree was pursuing.
The oak-tree swiftly moving,
Before him tremble heaven and earth,
Stout doorkeeper against the foe
Is his name in all lands
(transl. D. W. Nash in Graves 1948:30-33)
Note the suggestion of a great forest fire in the above. The poem is much longer.
And a second translation:
From my seat at Fefynedd,
A city that is strong,
I watched the trees and green things
Hastening along.
Wayfarers wondered,
Warriors were dismayed
At renewal of conflicts
Such as Gwydion made,
Under the tongue-root
A fight most dread,
And another raging
Behind, in the head.
The alders in the front line
Began the affray.
Willow and rowan-tree
Were tardy in array.
The holly, dark green
Made a resolute stand;
He is armed with many spear-points
Wounding the hand.
With foot-beat of the swift oak
Heaven and earth rung;
'Stout Guardian of the Door'
His name in every tongue.
Great was the gorse in battle,
And the ivy at his prime;
The hazel was arbiter
At this charmed time.
Uncouth and savage was the [fir?]
Cruel the ash-tree-
Turns not aside a foot-breadth,
Straight at the heart runs he.
The birch, though very noble,
Armed himself but late:
A sign not of cowardice
But of high estate.
The heath gave consolation
To the toil-spent folk,
The long-enduring poplars
In battle much broke.
Some of them were cast away
On the field of fight
Because of holes torn in them
By the enemy's might
Very wrathful was the [vine?]
Whose henchmen are the elms;
I exalt him mightily
To rulers of realms.
In shelter linger
Privet and woodbine
Inexperienced in warfare;
And the courtly pine.
(Graves 1948:36-37)
Graves mentions, two pages after that the "black cherry does not 'pursue’."
There is a suggestion in the beginning of the Cad Goddeu of hallucinogenic mushroom use which could account for the entire frame of reference. There is the thought by Graves that the tree animism is actually in the form of human wooden weapons. One sees from study that this poem has attracted attention. It is a supreme example of work, descended from the paganistic tree-cults, at direct odds with the lineage of the Greco-Roman scientists. At whatever level one interprets it, it is obviously related to an idea of moving trees -- they are the subjects of its verbs. It is limiting to think the author was only referring to an alphabet or weapons in the forested surroundings of the time. Possibly the writing was inspired by a fire or a great storm (Goddeu Brig translates to "treetops").
Note too that there is almost no use of the oracular voice in the poem, but much use of diverse action verbs for trees in seeming defiance of universal animacy. And Taliesin, the author, claimed to be a Druid. It is curious that interpreters may sometimes, derisively, ascribe supernatural powers of the Druid to make the trees move, but rarely if ever state that the Druid may have thought trees could move, through some perceptual difference. And if the priests did then would common folk hold this belief in awe, as we do today's religions? This is a straightforward explanation to the poem, in effect. But what would be the perceptual difference?
After the 13th century Book of Taliesin from which the Cad Goddeau is taken, another story surfacing in the Middle Ages is of the king Macbeth. First Holinshed in 1587 and then Shakespeare in 1623 make use of a previously existing legend of the woods of Bernane (Birnam). The resemblance to the Latin "viburnum" which could translate to "vibrating tree" is apparent. Viburnums are so-named to this day; they are small understory woodland trees for the most part. They would be excellent candidates for seeming to move without wind, from their location well under the forest canopy.
Shakespeare writes in Act 4, Scene One:
3rd apparition --...Macbeth shall never vanquished be until Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill Shall come against him.
Macbeth -- That will never be; Whom can impress the forest, bid the tree Unfix his earth-bound root?
And in Act 5 Scene Five:
Messenger -- As I did stand my watch upon the hill, I looked toward Birnam, and anon, methought The wood began to move... Within this, three mile may you see it coming. I say, a moving grove.
The device by which this is done is soldiers holding branches. It is of note that a) witches are the ones who make the prophecy and b) Macbeth agrees because it seems to be the last thing on earth that could possibly happen.
Still the idea of moving plants is there. And there are others:
But I retiring from the flood
Take sanctuary in the wood;
And while it lasts, myself imbark
In this yet green, yet growing ark...
Out of these scattered sybil's leaves
Strange prophecies my phancy weaves...
Thrice happy he who not mistook
Hath read in nature's mystick book...
And see how chance's better wit
Could with a mask my studies hit!
The oak-leaves me embroyder all,
Between them caterpillars crawl
And ivy, with familiar trails,
Me licks, and clasps, and curies, and hales.
Under this antick cope I move
Like some great prelate of the grove...
Bind me ye woodbines in your 'twines,
Curie me about ye gadding vines,
And oh so close your circles lace
That I may never leave this place
But lest your fetters prove too weak,
Ere I your silken bondage break,
Do you, 0 brambles, chain me too,
And courteous briars nail me through
(Andrew Marvell, 1681 in Free Spirit, Aug-Sept
1991:42).
Thus, for two thousand recorded years there have been fairly consistent archetypes of both hybrid plant-humans (flower fairies, dryads, etc.) and plants themselves "animated." A line is hard to draw between these but is there nevertheless. Oracular powers and motion are older; plant-human spirits, a bit newer. The spirits are the more anthrocentric trend.
Modern
Marvell's poem both reaches back in time to the Druid, "prelates of the grove," and anticipates much more recent stories of what are called man-eating plants. These coincide with the ages of exploration for Europe. Numbers of these stories were told by travelers as they returned from what were often tropical expeditions (Madagascar, South America, Africa, Mexico), and they are summarized nicely by Menninger (1967), Schwartz (1974), and Mackal (1980). When one keeps in mind how amazing tropical plants may be in form (e.g., the giant Victoria Water Lily), the ambiguousness of translation from native languages, and a certain gullibility (or fear-- we know of the world vastly more now than then), man eating plant stories make more sense.
Now we know there are not plants like those-- ¬period, case closed. But if there is a feeling that transforms a person stuck in a thorny jungle to one grabbed by a thing, the trend makes sense. A deeper meaning is implied. The existence of the stories show this.
After his great Origin of Species, Charles Darwin wrote three books on the motion of plants in the late 1800s, The Power of Movement in Plants, The Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants, and Insectivorous Plants. In his lab he examined microscopic tendencies of cells to have phototaxis, other taxes, and circumnutation (growing tips constantly describing microscopic ellipses). It is interesting to note in light of this chapter that Darwin's formative and famous voyage was mostly by sea. He was most certainly grounded in a normal animacy but in later years, back on land, seemed to feel some need to address the moving plant question. Was this because of contemporary, sensational plant stories?
In this century, J.R.R. Tolkien (who curiously enough I seemed to meet in a dream once) had a love for trees, and showed this in his description of the Withywindle area in The Lord of The Rings trilogy, where the vegetation lets hikers go only one way until they meet Old Man Willow, who enfolds one of them. In later writings he reveals walking trees, the Ents, in much splendor -- and even their mating habits.
And even more recently:
"Let me (KaIs, 1977) just present my personal favorite... the tree theory. Trees cause the wind. You can check that easily yourself. When the leaves are motionless, there's no wind. When the leaves begin to rustle, you'll notice a slight breeze; when small branches move, you'll feel a moderate breeze. Whole trees in motion give you a gale... You may object: 'What causes the wind on a prairie with not a tree in sight?' That's easily answered: 'Trees beyond the horizon.' You must not object that the tree theory seems to mix up cause and effect. The two seem inseparable in weather science. Does the wind bring the weather, or does a passing weather system bring certain winds? As you will see, cause and effect are still intertwined in the most sophisticated explanation of winds."
We are at the present day. There are many more references to moving plants available. One of the points of this chapter is how common through history they are, and for the interested reader I have included some, with just as much focus as those in the chapter, in another afterword.
So fascination with moving plants has stayed with us for that long.
The more undecipherable older languages like the Gauls' seem to provide tree animation in more factual terms. The Middle Age stories of woodland elves and spirits were explanatory in their time. We cannot be sure about the reason for the Cad Goddeu. How real was this idea the farther back we go?
In older languages and alphabets, we can translate nouns and verbs but are uncertain of meanings. Virgil in the first century BC wrote "the baleful yew to northern blasts assigns" (Hartzell 1991:6). Note the verb usage in translation, after 2000 years. It may be ambiguous, as if the tree could have started the north wind.
Note, too, that some tales are of entire forests in motion.
One may take different paths at this mark. I see the referencing to be indicative of a widespread and long-lasting belief in motional plants. Some might say that we could similarly infer the historic presence of a griffon or chimaera, which is to say that the realm of relativity or fantasy must be invoked. But moving plant stories work at a different level. Animals can run from humans and thus are harder to identify, hence mythical beasts. One would think that trees would not inspire that much fantasy, over that long a time, unless humanity had a willingness to conspire in the archetype.
And we still conspire, in this highly technologic age when root growth of plants has been found to exceed 50 miles per day. It is easy to hear children, after a night walk in the woods, say they felt the trees reaching for them. Although this chapter's tales may evoke a fear in some, perhaps thrill (or thrall) is the right emotion for others. If there was real fear, like for a disease, the tales would not have been embellished -- especially if they were damaging. With a deeper fascination, subconscious, like an instinctive group memory, the tales would, as they have.
Stories of plant motion seem to draw one into a mystery of nature, not just of humanity. The more I search back, the more I sense our animal-like ancestors in awe of tree animacy -- the more real it was for them. Did we become objective in denying this?
If it could be shown that our modern idea of motion has evolved and was not completely linked to the rest of living things, what would this lead to? Would our desire for truth be serious enough to give up another power? What if other animals actually know plants to move as in these stories, and what is being shown in these references is near-evolution, a slow process of change?
Chapter Afterword
What follows is a list of more quotes regarding motion in the Kingdom Plantae.
"now hopping with short, quick springs along the ground, onward in a spirit-like dance over the turf, now caught by an eddy, rising suddenly a hundred feet in the air. Often one Wind-witch hangs on to another" (a kind of thistle) (Friend 1884)
"Presently the trees and bushes directly before him moved silently apart and showed a broad path... as he stepped forward upon it the trees and bushes beyond moved silently aside in their turn, and the path grew before him, as he walked along, like a green carpet slowly unrolling itself through the wood. It made him a little uneasy, at first, to find that the trees behind him came together again... By and by the path seemed to give itself a shake, and, turning abruptly around a large tree..." (Carryl 1884:63--"The Moving Forest")
"Wayfaring Tree, Hobble Bush, Witch Hobble, Viburnum alnifolium ("alder-leaved"): A very straggling, irregular shrub of woodlands commonly 5 rarely 9 feet high; the supple branches often drooping to the ground and taking root, forming loops which may trip up a careless wayfarer; hence the common names." (Mathews 1915:392)
"deeper and deeper into the Chaco forest... The trees were not tall, but they grew so closely together that their branches interlinked; beneath them the ground was waterlogged and overgrown with a profusion of plants, thorny bushes, and, incredibly enough, cacti... others were like octopuses, their long arms spread out across the ground, or curling round the tree-trunks in a spiky embrace...And indeed, the whole landscape did look as though nature had organised an enormous bottle party... Everywhere the palms leaned" (Durrell 1925:66-67)
"In returning to the old alternating life of animal and vegetable, the plant-men, jaded and deranged by the long fever of industrialism, found in their calm day-time experience an overwhelming joy... Little by little they gave less and less energy and time to 'animal' pursuits, until at last their nights as well as days were spent wholly as trees... 'Vegetable humanities,' if I may so call them, proved to be rather uncommon occurrences... In worlds where plant-men or other creatures had achieved civilization and science before rotation had become seriously retarded, great efforts were made to cope with the increasing harshness of the environment." (Stapledon 1937:340-342)
"This is Opuntia bigelovii, also known as 'jumping cactus." (Weight, 1952)
"Here are two cases of hostile spirits appropriating thorn trees growing beside a well-used high road... Thereupon there was a rush as of wind in the thorn tree above them, and they turned to see it bending down and swaying under a terrific gust which roared through it, and yet there was no wind at all, not even a gentle breeze, and the air around them was as still and quiet as ever." (MacManus 1959:53-54)
81 -- "The toothed arching branches come down... and above you like cruel living arms, and the more you struggle the more desperately you are entangled... The South has plant fly-catchers. It also has plant man-catchers."
190 -- "our own little journeys, away and back again, are only little more than tree-wavings -- many of them not so much."
315 -- "though fast rooted they travel about as far as we do. They go wandering forth in all directions with every wind, going and coming like ourselves, traveling with us around the sun two million miles a day, and through space heaven knows how fast and far!" (Muir 1954)
54 -- "'But this one was walking, I tell you; and there ain't no elm tree on the North Moors.'"
121 -- "'They do say the trees do actually move, and can surround strangers and hem them in.'"
122 -- "and the trees seemed constantly to bar their way."
123 -- "The trees grew close again on either side..."
124 -- "'The Withywindle valley is said to be the queerest part of the whole wood -- the centre from which all the queerness comes, as it were."
125 -- "somehow would not yield to the left, but only gave way when they turned to the right..."
129 -- "The branches of the willow began to sway violently. There was a sound as of a wind rising and spreading outwards to the branches of all the other trees round..."
141 -- "the fathers of the fathers of trees..." (Tolkien 1954)
44 -- "'Cut no living wood!'... certainly to each of the companions the boughs appeared to be bending this way and that..."
45 -- "'Yes, it is old,' said Aragorn, 'as old as the forest by the Barrow-downs, and it is far greater."
66 -- "'Almost felt you liked the Forest! That's good! That's uncommonly kind of you,' said a strange voice."
67 -- Treebeard" others make it."'
70 -- "Then carefully and solemnly_ he stalked down from step to step, and reached the floor of the Forest."
71 -- "'We are tree-herds, we old Ents.'"
73 -- "As the old Ent approached, the trees lifted up their branches, and all their leaves quivered and rustled."
78 -- "'Leaflock has grown sleepy, almost tree-ish, you might say: he has taken to standing by himself half-asleep all through the summer... He used to rouse up in winter; but of late he has been too drowsy to walk far even then.'"
155 -- "The king was silent. 'Ents!' he said at length. 'Out of the shadows of legend I begin a little to understand the marvel of the trees, I think."
158 -- "...in the middle night men heard a great noise, as a wind in the valley, and the ground trembled... for the slain Ores were gone, and the trees also." (Tolkien 1965)
109 -- "Tolkien's sense of the aliveness of this poplar..."
112 -- "huorns, half-tree, half-ent...Relapsing back toward raw nature the passions of the huorns are no longer bridled by rationality." (Kocher 1972)
"in Shakespeare of the coming of 'Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane I longed to devise a setting by which the trees might really march to war." (Tolkien in Carpenter 1977:28)
"For the majority of plants, however, this is the one and only time in their lives when they are free to travel." (as seeds) (Stone 1964:192)
"one scene on the walls as 'an eager crowd watching a diviner's search for water.' Eight thousand years ago!... The very name 'divining rod' implies association with a supreme being or beings. The pagan Druids, who were the spiritual, political, and judicial functionaries of the Celts in Gaul and what is now Britain, kept dowsing as a trade secret of the priest" (Howells 1979:11)
"The name Euphorbium was used in classical times for a plant of this genus and is said by Pliny to be in honour of King Juba's physician, Euphorbus." (like "euphoria," a type of motion) (Codd 1951:96)
"Quaking aspen... stalks, stir in the faintest breeze, giving the tree its name." (Zim and Martin 1956)
"The tree could not defend itself physically. Not against a man wielding an axe or saw. It could move its branches and roots, but far too slowly for that."
"It could survive high winds or shifting ground by rearranging its branches or roots. This was not lightly done, because it required intense heat to soften the living wood, and rapid, selective growth to force a branch or root into a new configuration; it could not be done at all when the sun was shining, because there was no adequate way to dissipate the heat before it killed the wood. In darkness, or during rain -- then it could be accomplished." (Anthony 1986:338, 342)
"the trees closed out the heat as their leaves waved restlessly" (Taylor 1975:11, The Song of the Trees)
"People Portrayed as Animals and Vegetation" (heading in article from Rowell and Goodkind 1989:32)
"The heart first shaped white flutters like a butterfly and then red mature lips blow and pucker blow and pucker like an origami flower man-eating plant crawling vine." (poem, Nammack 1989)
"Roots and rocks stuck out of the ground and low-hanging branches snatched at me. One yanked the hood back. When I tugged myself free, the overhanging branches dumped water down my neck." (Heise! 1991:101)
"instantly wilt upon being touched, as if to shrink away from their attacker." (Roach 1992)
"For Druids, there is no heaven or hell, there is only nature."
"Editor's Note: The writer is a Druid." (Petry 1993)
"I am that Tree planted by the River, Which will not be moved." (Angelou 1993 in The New York Times)
"Coming home I drove into the wrong house and collided with a tree I don't have."
"I had been shopping for plants all day and was on my way home. As I reached an intersection, a hedge sprang up, obscuring my vision and I did not see the other car." ("actual statements from insurance forms")
"Wind, Kind to trees, swings branches... So dance trees, Dance for all you're worth! Take the wind in your arms and dance!" (Ferrara 1993)
"Marshall's research suggests that the wild radish is leading a surprisingly active sex life... 'As it turns out, plants are far from passive -- they're just slower than animals." (Lynn 1990)
xv -- "many churchyard tales... the yew sends its roots onto the throats of the buried dead, retrieves their secrets and transforms them into whispers to be blown loose from the foliage in the wind."
19 -- "the trees were the abode of spirits or divinities who in many cases had power over vegetation" (MacCulloch 1911)
109 -- "In the Cad Goddeau, the poet Gwion says of the yew, 'The dower-scattering yew/ Stood glum at the fight's fringe.'" (Graves 1948)
131 -- "When the people began to talk to the trees, then the change came" (referring to a flood -- the legend "The Beginning of the Skagit World")
251 -- (from Tennyson, "In Memorium") "he adds the possibility of 'whispers' being 'kindled at their tips'
264 -- "Dr. Leyden implies a sensate being..."
272 -- (from T.S. Eliot, "Burnt Norton" (1935)) "circulation of the lymph/ Are figured in the drift of stars/ Ascend to summer in the tree/ We move above the moving tree...Below, the boarhound and the boar/ Pursue their pattern as before/ But reconciled among the stars"
278 -- (from Silvia Plath, "Little Fugue") "The yew's black fingers wag... The horrific complications." (the above group courtesy of Hartzell, 1991)
180 -- "Sometimes its (Celtic design) bizarre motifs hinted at convolutions of grotesque petals or the tendrils of vines. The smith enjoyed almost supernatural status" (The Epic of Man, 1961)
"Nemeton Productions"
"Magic Forest"
"Singingtree Counseling"
"The City of Living Trees"
"Dancing Oak Landscaping" (titles for 1994 businesses)
"U Huya Nokame (The Talking Tree): The Pre¬history and History of the Yaqui People" (Kaczkurkin, 1991 lecture title)
A story of a little girl, her grandma, moving trees, and a horse was told to me by Peggy Turco, an upstate New York Native who spoke it as truth.
"And he says things like this about the system: 'To quote Somerset Maugham: "The difference between genius and insanity is the trembling of a leaf” (Layden, 1994 quoting Paul Westhead (basketball))
The author wishes to thank the reader for coming through this long section. For one, it shows the weight of the idea. To me, writing it, there was an overwhelming, as in a sense of balance changed. This in itself is interesting and is contained within the hypothesis. Would moving trees affect our balance?
