WEBVTT - From the Vault: Lightning-Struck Wood and the Rowan 0:00:06.280 --> 0:00:10.200 Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. My name is Robert Lamb. 0:00:10.200 --> 0:00:14.160 It is Saturday, and in this classic episode, we're going 0:00:14.200 --> 0:00:18.239 to be discussing lightning, struck Wood, and the Rowan. This 0:00:18.560 --> 0:00:22.520 originally published twelve ten, twenty twenty four. Let's dive right in. 0:00:26.000 --> 0:00:29.760 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:35.600 --> 0:00:38.400 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name 0:00:38.440 --> 0:00:39.520 is Robert Lamb. 0:00:39.600 --> 0:00:42.760 And I am Joe McCormick. And hey everybody, I got 0:00:42.800 --> 0:00:45.200 to apologize right here at the start for my voice 0:00:45.240 --> 0:00:49.560 and my brain. Possibly today I am wrestling a pretty 0:00:49.640 --> 0:00:53.040 nasty cold, but we're plowing right through. And today we're 0:00:53.040 --> 0:00:56.080 going to be talking about a topic. We're actually returning 0:00:56.120 --> 0:00:58.080 to a topic we talked about a couple of weeks ago, 0:00:58.520 --> 0:01:03.440 the subject of sake trees. In that previous episode, Rob, 0:01:03.480 --> 0:01:06.919 you talked about the giants Equoia of western North America, 0:01:07.040 --> 0:01:09.759 arguably the largest tree in the world depending on how 0:01:09.800 --> 0:01:13.240 you measure, and we talked about the history of how 0:01:13.240 --> 0:01:17.080 people regarded these massive plants with reverence. And I ended 0:01:17.120 --> 0:01:20.160 up talking about the Ohea, the Hua tree of Hawaii 0:01:20.480 --> 0:01:23.760 and a lot of interesting, beautiful ways that it interlocks 0:01:23.760 --> 0:01:28.200 with Hawaiian religion and traditional practices. In some cases it's 0:01:28.240 --> 0:01:31.040 the physical embodiment of a god. In other cases it's 0:01:31.040 --> 0:01:33.959 like a tree beloved by the gods in storytelling and 0:01:34.000 --> 0:01:37.640 so forth. But when we were researching that episode, we thought, man, 0:01:37.640 --> 0:01:40.440 there are so many interesting angles on sacred trees that 0:01:40.480 --> 0:01:43.080 we could come back to. So that's what we're doing today. 0:01:43.120 --> 0:01:46.320 Here's a new installment. I'm sure this is something we'll 0:01:46.360 --> 0:01:48.000 probably return to again in the future. 0:01:48.320 --> 0:01:50.520 Yeah, and it's a good month for it, since we're 0:01:50.560 --> 0:01:53.520 into December here, and a lot of December holiday traditions 0:01:53.560 --> 0:01:57.120 center around a sacred tree. I guess one of the 0:01:57.120 --> 0:02:00.000 things I think we both encountered it in the last episode, 0:02:00.120 --> 0:02:02.800 especially in this episode. It's the thing about sacred trees 0:02:03.400 --> 0:02:06.080 is that it's never just a case of like, oh, well, 0:02:06.080 --> 0:02:07.960 you know, there's this tree around and at one point 0:02:08.000 --> 0:02:09.960 there's a group of people that thought it was sacred 0:02:10.000 --> 0:02:14.280 and then they stopped. You know, No, the trees have 0:02:14.480 --> 0:02:17.600 been around a long time, and human cultures enter into 0:02:17.680 --> 0:02:20.919 these areas where these trees grow, develop these ideas about them, 0:02:21.360 --> 0:02:24.280 and build upon those ideas, pass them down, and the 0:02:24.320 --> 0:02:28.600 trees remain and So you start pulling the threads on 0:02:28.639 --> 0:02:31.240 some of these beliefs, and you know, those threads connect 0:02:31.520 --> 0:02:36.000 across different peoples, you know, into neighboring territories, and oftentimes 0:02:36.000 --> 0:02:38.520 there is far flung as a particular you know, it's 0:02:38.520 --> 0:02:42.440 the range of a tree species itself. So before long 0:02:42.480 --> 0:02:45.359 you realize, oh, well, this isn't necessarily just a look 0:02:45.400 --> 0:02:48.840 at one particular tree and or one particular folk belief 0:02:48.919 --> 0:02:52.240 or mythology, but you can easily touch upon like a 0:02:52.280 --> 0:02:55.200 dozen different folk beliefs and mythologies concerning the same tree. 0:02:55.560 --> 0:02:55.880 M h. 0:02:56.720 --> 0:02:59.120 Which is to say, we're not going to pull all 0:02:59.240 --> 0:03:01.919 We're not going to pull all those those threads today. 0:03:02.480 --> 0:03:04.680 We're going to pull some of those threads, and we're 0:03:04.720 --> 0:03:07.680 going to find some, I think, some very tantalizing, very 0:03:07.680 --> 0:03:10.840 interesting things to say about a couple of different topics 0:03:11.040 --> 0:03:13.080 related to sacred trees. 0:03:13.720 --> 0:03:16.680 That's right. So to kick things off today, I wanted 0:03:16.720 --> 0:03:19.880 to explore something interesting I came across in a book. 0:03:20.520 --> 0:03:24.720 The book is called European Paganism The Realities of cult 0:03:24.800 --> 0:03:27.840 from Antiquity to the Middle Ages, originally published in the 0:03:27.919 --> 0:03:30.160 year two thousand. I think the edition I was reading 0:03:30.240 --> 0:03:33.720 was from maybe twenty thirteen, but from Rutledge Press by 0:03:33.760 --> 0:03:36.840 an author named Ken Dowden, who was a professor of 0:03:36.880 --> 0:03:40.760 classics at the University of Birmingham in the UK. This 0:03:40.840 --> 0:03:44.360 is a book about the religious practices of European cultures 0:03:44.400 --> 0:03:48.880 before the introduction of Christianity, and then also those pagan 0:03:49.280 --> 0:03:54.120 religions interacting with Christianity once it was introduced. And these 0:03:54.200 --> 0:03:57.480 religious beliefs and practices were, of course not all the same, 0:03:57.680 --> 0:04:00.800 though there are some themes that kind of emerge repeatedly, 0:04:01.400 --> 0:04:03.720 so you can kind of make some rough generalizations about 0:04:03.720 --> 0:04:07.080 pre Christian European paganism, but they don't apply in every case. 0:04:08.000 --> 0:04:11.480 And one is that a lot of pre Christian European 0:04:11.520 --> 0:04:16.400 religions saw sacred dimensions in the features of the physical land, 0:04:16.640 --> 0:04:20.840 like rocks, waters, and of course trees. But there are 0:04:20.920 --> 0:04:25.360 many different ways to understand the sacredness of trees. Now 0:04:25.480 --> 0:04:28.880 down and actually begins this section of the book with 0:04:28.960 --> 0:04:32.400 an ancient passage describing something that's a little bit of field, 0:04:32.440 --> 0:04:34.160 but I thought it was so interesting I wanted to 0:04:34.480 --> 0:04:37.359 throw it in here. It's describing one way of showing 0:04:37.400 --> 0:04:41.000 appreciation for trees that's kind of hard to classify. It 0:04:41.040 --> 0:04:43.880 doesn't seem exactly right to call it a religious practice, 0:04:43.920 --> 0:04:47.000 but it definitely goes beyond, like, Oh, look at the poplars, 0:04:47.000 --> 0:04:51.159 they're so nice. This is a translated passage from Plenty 0:04:51.160 --> 0:04:54.640 of the Elder that reads as follows. On a hill 0:04:54.720 --> 0:04:58.279 called Corna in the suburban part of the land of Tusculum, 0:04:58.680 --> 0:05:02.000 there is a grove in a ancient reverence dedicated by 0:05:02.120 --> 0:05:05.920 Latium to Diana. And that would be by the way Diana, 0:05:05.960 --> 0:05:08.400 goddess of the hunt of wild animals in the moon, 0:05:08.560 --> 0:05:11.000 sort of a wilderness goddess. The ranger of the party 0:05:11.640 --> 0:05:15.840 Plenty goes on. The foliage of the beech forest is sheared, 0:05:15.880 --> 0:05:19.919 as though by topiary. In it. An exceptional tree was 0:05:20.040 --> 0:05:25.520 loved in our times by Passienus Crispus twice Console, the orator, 0:05:26.080 --> 0:05:29.680 later more famous thanks to his marriage with Agrippina, through 0:05:29.720 --> 0:05:32.880 which he became the stepfather of Nero. He was in 0:05:32.920 --> 0:05:36.320 the habit of kissing and embracing it. Talking about the 0:05:36.320 --> 0:05:40.400 tree kissing and embracing it, not only of lying under 0:05:40.440 --> 0:05:42.560 it and pouring wine over it. 0:05:44.320 --> 0:05:45.640 Literal tree hugging here. 0:05:45.920 --> 0:05:50.440 Yes, So this tree is interesting in the example here 0:05:50.560 --> 0:05:55.560 because it is in one sense a literal sacred tree. 0:05:55.600 --> 0:05:58.760 In a religious sense, it's part of an ancient sacred grove. 0:05:58.960 --> 0:06:01.440 And I guess one thing we could talk about is 0:06:01.480 --> 0:06:05.920 a distinction between sacred trees, as in, like a type 0:06:05.960 --> 0:06:09.680 of tree or a tree species has a religious significance 0:06:09.720 --> 0:06:14.680 within a particular culture, versus an individual tree like this 0:06:14.760 --> 0:06:19.000 tree right here has religious significance of some kind, versus 0:06:19.080 --> 0:06:22.919 a collection of trees have some kind of religious significance, 0:06:23.080 --> 0:06:25.640 a sort of expanded version of this tree right here, 0:06:25.760 --> 0:06:28.560 this forest right here has significance. And there are a 0:06:28.600 --> 0:06:33.120 lot of those in pre Christian European religions, sacred groves, 0:06:33.200 --> 0:06:37.880 sacred forests throughout the continent. But so in this case, 0:06:37.960 --> 0:06:41.040 it is a particular sacred grove, a forest of beech 0:06:41.120 --> 0:06:44.760 trees that are in honor of the goddess Diana. So 0:06:44.800 --> 0:06:47.679 these are the trees of Diana, the goddess of the hunt. 0:06:48.680 --> 0:06:53.039 But this Roman politician isn't necessarily worshiping Diana. I don't know. 0:06:53.080 --> 0:06:55.680 Maybe he is, but it's not discussed in the passage here. 0:06:56.360 --> 0:06:59.279 He's not just honoring the sacred forest as a whole 0:06:59.480 --> 0:07:03.080 in its relation to the goddess Diana. It sounds like 0:07:03.120 --> 0:07:08.040 he is in erotic love with one particular, very special tree. 0:07:09.200 --> 0:07:11.120 Hard to think of a parallel to this, I just 0:07:11.160 --> 0:07:14.760 thought I thought it worth mentioning. But anyway, From here, 0:07:14.920 --> 0:07:17.880 Doubtan goes on to a section where he sort of 0:07:17.920 --> 0:07:21.680 thinks about the implicit logic of our relationship to trees, 0:07:21.760 --> 0:07:25.320 especially in our desire to think of them as persons, 0:07:25.440 --> 0:07:28.640 as like a symbol of a person, or as containing 0:07:28.760 --> 0:07:32.240 the essence of a divine person, and he notes an 0:07:32.280 --> 0:07:36.679 interesting parallel between trees and humans which has been observed 0:07:36.680 --> 0:07:39.000 by a number of scholars of religion. It's not unique 0:07:39.040 --> 0:07:42.120 to this book, and that parallel is in the form 0:07:42.160 --> 0:07:47.400 of posture. Humans are mostly unique in the animal world 0:07:47.600 --> 0:07:52.960 for our verticality. What appears to physically differentiate humans from 0:07:53.000 --> 0:07:57.160 other animals is that we are a column a standing 0:07:57.240 --> 0:08:00.880 straight up, compared to most other animals, which tend to 0:08:01.320 --> 0:08:04.680 position their bodies in a more horizontal fashion. You can 0:08:04.720 --> 0:08:06.840 think of a few little counter examples here and there, 0:08:06.840 --> 0:08:08.960 but for the most part this does really hold true. 0:08:09.240 --> 0:08:11.760 Humans appear to be different from all other animals in 0:08:11.800 --> 0:08:14.880 that we stand straight up. And what makes a tree 0:08:14.920 --> 0:08:18.000 different from a bush or a shrub or lots of 0:08:18.040 --> 0:08:22.080 other plants. Is that it is also a tall vertical column. 0:08:22.680 --> 0:08:24.840 So it's true of both trees and humans that we 0:08:24.920 --> 0:08:27.960 take the form of a vertical column. We grow taller 0:08:28.080 --> 0:08:30.920 as we age, and when we die, we fall down. 0:08:31.600 --> 0:08:32.360 That's a good point. 0:08:32.480 --> 0:08:35.120 Yeah, So with this kind of knowledge just sort of 0:08:35.120 --> 0:08:38.679 operating in our minds all the time, it seems very 0:08:38.800 --> 0:08:41.520 natural to think of the tree as the sort of 0:08:41.600 --> 0:08:46.080 human analog within the alien kingdom of plant life, except, 0:08:46.120 --> 0:08:49.280 of course, trees grow much larger than humans, and are 0:08:49.360 --> 0:08:53.040 much tougher than humans, and often live for hundreds of years, 0:08:53.040 --> 0:08:54.600 so in a sense, you can think of them as 0:08:54.600 --> 0:08:58.120 something that has always been here. So it's I think 0:08:58.200 --> 0:09:01.920 quite natural to start thinking of them as like superhuman 0:09:02.160 --> 0:09:04.160 super persons. They are gods. 0:09:05.000 --> 0:09:07.880 Yeah, yeah, these are great points. Yeah, it stands tall 0:09:07.960 --> 0:09:11.560 like a human, it has the verticality, and then you know, 0:09:11.679 --> 0:09:14.880 lives before and after us and on this different time 0:09:14.920 --> 0:09:15.760 scale than we are. 0:09:16.200 --> 0:09:17.880 So that's just sort of one theory as to why 0:09:17.920 --> 0:09:21.559 we're sort of primed to see godhood in the form 0:09:21.640 --> 0:09:25.560 of trees. But Doubtin also emphasizes that many trees are 0:09:25.760 --> 0:09:29.679 integrated into religion, not simply by their nature, not by 0:09:29.720 --> 0:09:33.800 being trees, but in a specific sense, by being connected 0:09:33.880 --> 0:09:38.240 directly to myth or to history, as in like this 0:09:38.400 --> 0:09:42.040 plane tree at Delphi was planted by Agamemnon and that's 0:09:42.040 --> 0:09:46.280 why it's special. Or when Io was transformed into a 0:09:46.280 --> 0:09:49.280 cow by Hera and tied to a tree, it was 0:09:49.520 --> 0:09:53.320 this olive tree right here. Or this tree was the 0:09:53.320 --> 0:09:57.520 source of heracles first oak leaf crown, or this tree 0:09:57.559 --> 0:09:59.959 is where Helen of Troy was hanged after she fled 0:10:00.080 --> 0:10:03.560 to roads. So in those cases you might say that 0:10:03.640 --> 0:10:10.079 these physical existing trees are sacralized by way of intersections 0:10:10.120 --> 0:10:13.920 with stories, and whether those are like sort of founding 0:10:14.000 --> 0:10:17.160 ethnic stories, like founding histories of a people or a nation, 0:10:17.880 --> 0:10:20.760 or myths about the gods. On one hand, you have 0:10:20.840 --> 0:10:23.840 a physical object that is right here, right now, this 0:10:23.960 --> 0:10:26.079 tree we're all looking at, And on the other hand, 0:10:26.440 --> 0:10:29.520 you have the story we all know. And so by 0:10:29.559 --> 0:10:33.040 connecting the to the tree, the physical object makes the 0:10:33.080 --> 0:10:36.760 story more real, and the story makes the physical object 0:10:36.840 --> 0:10:37.559 more meaningful. 0:10:38.280 --> 0:10:40.520 Yeah, yeah, Like eventually we'll come around to talking about 0:10:40.520 --> 0:10:44.200 the body tree in this series. The Bodhi tree, of course, 0:10:44.200 --> 0:10:47.160 in Buddhist traditions, is the tree under which the Buddhist 0:10:47.160 --> 0:10:49.880 sat when he attained enlightenment. You know, it is the 0:10:49.920 --> 0:10:53.679 place where it happened. Yeah, yeah, so yeah. We see 0:10:54.120 --> 0:10:57.640 versions of that in various different myths and religions. 0:10:58.200 --> 0:11:00.319 But one example I really wanted to focus sun for 0:11:00.320 --> 0:11:03.200 a minute because I thought it was so interesting, was 0:11:03.720 --> 0:11:06.080 something Dowdin brings up in this chapter. That is the 0:11:06.160 --> 0:11:11.440 idea of a sacred tree struck by lightning. Dowtan writes 0:11:11.520 --> 0:11:15.440 that the ancient Romans had a practice of enclosing a 0:11:15.480 --> 0:11:19.040 tree after it was struck by lightning, so like after 0:11:19.080 --> 0:11:20.800 a tree was hit by lightning, that it would be 0:11:20.840 --> 0:11:26.520 subject to a type of sacrificial or religious immurement. The 0:11:26.600 --> 0:11:30.000 enclosure for a tree would sometimes be what this author 0:11:30.040 --> 0:11:35.440 identifies as a puteal put el pleural would be putealia, 0:11:36.000 --> 0:11:39.840 which usually refers to a well head. So this would 0:11:39.840 --> 0:11:43.200 be the raised stone structure around the opening of a 0:11:43.240 --> 0:11:46.160 water well. Now, in the case of a water well, 0:11:46.480 --> 0:11:48.920 usually you have a wellhead raised in part to prevent 0:11:48.960 --> 0:11:50.880 the well from simply being a hole in the ground 0:11:50.880 --> 0:11:52.640 that people can fall into. You know, it's like a 0:11:52.679 --> 0:11:57.160 wall for safety. In ancient Rome, these well heads were 0:11:57.200 --> 0:12:00.840 often made of marble and decorated with carvings or with 0:12:00.960 --> 0:12:04.160 bas relief. I've got a picture from from a well 0:12:04.200 --> 0:12:06.800 headed venice for you to look at here, Rob, so 0:12:06.840 --> 0:12:09.240 you can see, you know, it's a there's a cap 0:12:09.280 --> 0:12:10.800 on it right now. I think it's a it's an 0:12:10.880 --> 0:12:13.560 iron cap. I don't know what the original material of 0:12:13.600 --> 0:12:16.440 the cap would have been, possibly iron, you know, hundreds 0:12:16.440 --> 0:12:18.960 of years ago or thousands of years ago as well. 0:12:19.640 --> 0:12:22.240 But in this case, you know, you could open it 0:12:22.320 --> 0:12:25.000 up and imagine looking down into the well, but then 0:12:25.080 --> 0:12:27.280 down on the wall around it, we've got I don't know, 0:12:27.320 --> 0:12:30.160 some kind of creepy dancing god babies who are thrown 0:12:30.200 --> 0:12:32.880 around some what do you what do you think that is? 0:12:32.880 --> 0:12:35.440 Is that grape leaves or olives or something? 0:12:35.640 --> 0:12:37.640 Yeah, some sort of like wreaths and leaves. 0:12:38.120 --> 0:12:42.679 Yeah. Yeah. But as Dowdan says in this chapter, sometimes 0:12:42.720 --> 0:12:46.640 a poute al would be built not around a water well, 0:12:47.080 --> 0:12:50.920 but around a tree or really any spot that had 0:12:50.960 --> 0:12:55.760 been touched by a bolt of lightning. So a lightning 0:12:55.840 --> 0:13:00.920 kissed location like this was called in Roman times a dental. 0:13:01.480 --> 0:13:03.440 And I was reading about this in an older source 0:13:04.240 --> 0:13:07.559 from the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities by William 0:13:07.559 --> 0:13:11.000 Smith from the nineteenth century. This reference book goes into 0:13:11.400 --> 0:13:15.960 sources from ancient history describing what the bidental was and 0:13:16.000 --> 0:13:19.840 what its religious significance was. And so it says that 0:13:19.840 --> 0:13:23.760 the Bidental was named after the fact that you would 0:13:23.840 --> 0:13:27.680 sacrifice a sheep here after lightning struck. It would be 0:13:27.720 --> 0:13:30.400 a two year old sheep called a biden, which means 0:13:30.440 --> 0:13:35.120 two tooth by DN like dental, and the sequence would 0:13:35.120 --> 0:13:39.320 go like this. So lightning strikes somewhere and people witness it, 0:13:39.400 --> 0:13:42.800 and whatever was struck, be that a tree or a 0:13:42.840 --> 0:13:49.080 person or just the earth, whatever is there is buried, 0:13:49.200 --> 0:13:52.200 in some cases burned, in other cases not burned, but 0:13:52.440 --> 0:13:56.679 is buried by priests in the ground in that very spot. 0:13:56.880 --> 0:13:59.800 So if you get struck by lightning and killed in 0:13:59.840 --> 0:14:04.319 a rome where these bidental priests are operating, you are 0:14:04.360 --> 0:14:07.200 not Your body is not transported to a cemetery and 0:14:07.360 --> 0:14:10.880 is not cremated. You are buried in the spot where 0:14:10.920 --> 0:14:14.320 you fell. And then the two year old sheep is 0:14:14.400 --> 0:14:17.640 sacrificed and added to the lot. And then that spot 0:14:17.840 --> 0:14:21.600 is in some sense sort of walled off from human contact. 0:14:21.720 --> 0:14:25.640 It is capped with an altar and then enclosed in 0:14:25.720 --> 0:14:28.320 some way by a fence or in some cases by 0:14:28.640 --> 0:14:33.480 a poutel a marble wellhead, and thereafter it is made taboo. 0:14:34.080 --> 0:14:36.440 No one may walk there, no one may touch it, 0:14:36.560 --> 0:14:39.240 no one may even look at it. And if a 0:14:39.280 --> 0:14:43.120 person were to violate this taboo, like to remove the 0:14:43.520 --> 0:14:46.400 well head or the altar, or in some other way 0:14:46.520 --> 0:14:51.240 violate the prohibition against treading there, they would be subject 0:14:51.280 --> 0:14:55.200 to swift, violent punishment by the gods, and this connects 0:14:55.240 --> 0:14:58.880 to the original action there. Lightning was often thought to 0:14:58.920 --> 0:15:00.800 be the weapon of the god. It's an ancient Rome, 0:15:00.840 --> 0:15:05.040 particularly of Jupiter, so a place struck by lightning was 0:15:05.040 --> 0:15:09.000 both terrifying and holy. It was a sacred point of 0:15:09.040 --> 0:15:13.200 connection with divine power and a conduit of divine wrath. 0:15:14.000 --> 0:15:17.480 So as one example of a puteal which may once 0:15:17.520 --> 0:15:21.960 have covered a tree made wholly by lightning, Dowdin mentions 0:15:22.080 --> 0:15:26.320 a fig tree attested in ancient sources in the area 0:15:26.480 --> 0:15:29.640 of the Committium of Rome. The committium is an ancient 0:15:30.080 --> 0:15:33.520 public meeting space in the city center, and this fig 0:15:33.560 --> 0:15:38.040 tree was known as the Ficus romanaalis, which literally means 0:15:38.080 --> 0:15:42.360 the ficus of suckling. Though experts apparently debate whether that's 0:15:43.320 --> 0:15:47.120 its original meaning or how it should be understood. But 0:15:47.200 --> 0:15:50.560 there are actually a couple of sacred objects said to 0:15:50.560 --> 0:15:53.280 be in the vicinity here. One thing is this tree 0:15:53.320 --> 0:15:57.720 the ficus room analyis. But there is also a stone 0:15:58.040 --> 0:16:00.600 which was said to have been cut in half with 0:16:00.680 --> 0:16:06.240 a razor by the ancient Roman augur Attus Navius, and 0:16:06.560 --> 0:16:08.920 the story goes that he cut the stone in half 0:16:08.960 --> 0:16:11.720 in a display of his powers when he is in 0:16:11.760 --> 0:16:14.600 the middle of rebuking a legendary king of Rome who 0:16:14.640 --> 0:16:18.560 was sort of arrogantly trying to expand his own glorification 0:16:19.040 --> 0:16:21.560 at Us. Navius was rebuking him and saying, like you 0:16:21.640 --> 0:16:24.920 go to far king, And in their conflict, he's like, 0:16:24.960 --> 0:16:27.880 I better show how strong my divinatory skills are and 0:16:27.920 --> 0:16:29.800 the kind of power I can command. So I'm going 0:16:29.880 --> 0:16:32.160 to cut a stone, cut a wet stone in half 0:16:32.160 --> 0:16:32.720 of a razor. 0:16:33.320 --> 0:16:35.640 Oh wow, I guess it worked. 0:16:36.400 --> 0:16:39.520 It did, according to the story. So you've got this 0:16:39.680 --> 0:16:43.240 split stone here, and then you've got the Ficus tree. 0:16:43.760 --> 0:16:47.280 And here Doubdan again quotes a passage from Plenty of 0:16:47.280 --> 0:16:49.600 the Elder describing the site of the tree and the 0:16:49.640 --> 0:16:54.680 sliced rock. So Plenty in translation rights, a fig tree 0:16:54.760 --> 0:16:58.560 growing in the actual Forum and Committium of Rome is 0:16:58.640 --> 0:17:04.360 revered sacred because of the lightning bolts buried there, and 0:17:04.440 --> 0:17:07.240 still more to commemorate the fig tree under which the 0:17:07.359 --> 0:17:11.439 nurse of Romulus and Remus first sheltered those founders of 0:17:11.520 --> 0:17:15.600 empire at the lupercal. It is called ruminalis because it 0:17:15.680 --> 0:17:18.320 was beneath it that they found the she wolf offering 0:17:18.359 --> 0:17:21.000 her RuMIS. That is what they used to call abreast 0:17:21.400 --> 0:17:25.880 to her babies, a miracle commemorated nearby in bronze, as 0:17:25.960 --> 0:17:28.560 though the wolf had of her own accord crossed the 0:17:28.560 --> 0:17:32.360 Committeum while Adis Navius was acting in his role as Auger. 0:17:33.040 --> 0:17:36.399 Nor is it without significance when it dries up and must, 0:17:36.560 --> 0:17:40.199 through the efforts of the priests, be replaced. So I 0:17:40.240 --> 0:17:42.920 thought this was interesting in that the way Plenty tells 0:17:42.960 --> 0:17:45.399 the story, the way he understands it, at least this 0:17:45.520 --> 0:17:50.200 fig tree is in part sacred because of an intersection 0:17:50.320 --> 0:17:53.880 with legend, like we mentioned earlier. So you know, much 0:17:53.960 --> 0:17:56.480 like you might say this tree was planted by Agamemnon, 0:17:56.880 --> 0:17:58.680 in this case you would say this tree is the 0:17:58.720 --> 0:18:02.000 site where Romula and Remus were nursed by wolf Mother, 0:18:02.920 --> 0:18:07.280 and then also by proximity to the site where Adis 0:18:07.359 --> 0:18:11.880 Navius split the stone. That's another connect intersection with legend. 0:18:12.400 --> 0:18:16.240 But then according to Plenty, it's also sacred because lightning 0:18:16.320 --> 0:18:21.320 bolts are buried beneath it. And then here Dowban also 0:18:21.359 --> 0:18:25.240 mentions a possible connection of the legend of the ficus 0:18:25.240 --> 0:18:28.639 from Analys to the interesting sort of botanical fact that 0:18:28.720 --> 0:18:32.560 the fig tree produces a sap like secretion, which I 0:18:32.600 --> 0:18:35.520 believe is part of an anti predator strategy that is 0:18:35.560 --> 0:18:38.159 said to look like milk. So, like you, if you 0:18:38.280 --> 0:18:41.680 wound a fig tree, the ficus will we'll leak out 0:18:41.680 --> 0:18:44.760 this white milky substance that is said to be quite 0:18:44.800 --> 0:18:48.160 bitter and I think is supposed to deter things from 0:18:48.240 --> 0:18:48.960 munching on it. 0:18:49.359 --> 0:18:51.520 Yeah, yeah, we used to have a fig tree, and yeah, 0:18:51.520 --> 0:18:52.320 I can attest to. 0:18:52.280 --> 0:18:55.239 This, And so Dowbdan's saying, you know, so you have 0:18:55.280 --> 0:18:57.840 a place where, according to these ancient texts, you have 0:18:57.880 --> 0:19:01.160 a stone which is interesting because of its shape it's 0:19:01.280 --> 0:19:04.119 like a split stone. And then you also have a 0:19:04.160 --> 0:19:08.440 tree which has interesting sort of biological features. This tree 0:19:08.480 --> 0:19:12.000 appears to leak milk and then can be kind of 0:19:12.359 --> 0:19:16.200 attached to myths, and so he writes, quote the tree 0:19:16.280 --> 0:19:19.800 is tended and when necessary renewed by the priests. If 0:19:19.840 --> 0:19:22.439 it is surrounded by a puute al, then originally this 0:19:22.560 --> 0:19:25.640 may have been understood as a place where lightning had struck. 0:19:26.040 --> 0:19:29.320 And the wet stone, that's the stone that was apparently 0:19:29.320 --> 0:19:32.400 split in the story. The wetstone might have been considered 0:19:32.440 --> 0:19:33.399 a thunderstone. 0:19:33.840 --> 0:19:36.520 Wow, this is all really fascinating and fascinating to me, 0:19:36.600 --> 0:19:38.720 especially when you think about the idea that, like the 0:19:39.560 --> 0:19:44.120 world tree in myth is often situated as this thing 0:19:44.200 --> 0:19:47.320 that connects Earth to the heavens and lightning as well. 0:19:47.880 --> 0:19:51.760 Is this momentary connection between Earth and heaven that leaves 0:19:51.800 --> 0:19:55.000 like a physical sign. You know, we see it and 0:19:55.040 --> 0:19:57.640 then we can if we can find where it hit. 0:19:58.280 --> 0:20:04.359 We have evidence this contact between like a lightning and 0:20:04.400 --> 0:20:07.080 the earth, between storm clouds and the earth, but on 0:20:07.119 --> 0:20:12.360 another level, between the divine and the mundane world totally. 0:20:12.440 --> 0:20:14.200 And you know, one thing I like is the kind 0:20:14.240 --> 0:20:18.320 of ambiguity of the is this good magic or bad magic? 0:20:18.440 --> 0:20:20.120 The way you know that you can have a place 0:20:20.160 --> 0:20:23.440 where a tree is struck by lightning and it becomes 0:20:23.440 --> 0:20:26.080 in some sense sacred. But it seems to me rather 0:20:27.320 --> 0:20:29.720 there's a kind of ambivalence, like is this a place 0:20:29.800 --> 0:20:33.760 that is cursed and dangerous and will hurt you? Or 0:20:33.800 --> 0:20:36.200 is this a place that is in some way blessed 0:20:36.280 --> 0:20:39.800 and is showing off the power of the gods or 0:20:39.800 --> 0:20:44.000 God's power in a way that can be celebrated and sacralized. 0:20:44.800 --> 0:20:47.199 There's almost kind of a U curve, right, It's like 0:20:47.280 --> 0:20:49.159 this the place is so sacred or it is so 0:20:49.280 --> 0:20:51.840 cursed that it essentially amounts to the same thing, and 0:20:51.880 --> 0:20:54.439 that is no trespassing. Sorry, you can't visit it, you 0:20:54.440 --> 0:21:06.280 can't touch it. Well, that is all really fascinating. And 0:21:07.400 --> 0:21:10.600 another cool thing is that it does lead directly into 0:21:10.640 --> 0:21:12.760 the tree that I'm going to talk about here, the 0:21:13.080 --> 0:21:17.960 Rowan tree. I was looking at several different sources on this, 0:21:18.160 --> 0:21:20.119 one of which was I didn't spend a lot of 0:21:20.160 --> 0:21:22.040 time with this source, but there was an older article 0:21:22.080 --> 0:21:25.800 titled the Folklore of Trees by Lizzie M. Hadley. This 0:21:26.040 --> 0:21:29.080 was published in the Journal of Education back in eighteen 0:21:29.160 --> 0:21:33.119 ninety four, and it's very short, little kind of wordy 0:21:33.200 --> 0:21:36.840 right up touching on various sacred ideas of trees, but 0:21:37.160 --> 0:21:40.040 the Rowan tree is mentioned in passing and just a 0:21:40.040 --> 0:21:42.679 few ideas connected to it or thrown out, including the 0:21:42.760 --> 0:21:48.000 idea in some European traditions that the tree grew from 0:21:48.040 --> 0:21:51.000 a place where lightning struck. That's like the origin of 0:21:51.000 --> 0:21:51.640 this tree. 0:21:53.080 --> 0:21:56.280 That would be interesting in the So remember the phrasing 0:21:56.359 --> 0:22:00.200 plenty uses is that lightning bolts are buried there where 0:22:00.200 --> 0:22:02.600 the tree is. So it's like when lightning hits the ground, 0:22:03.520 --> 0:22:05.719 it's almost like a seeding of the ground, like it 0:22:05.840 --> 0:22:10.760 plants something when it hits. And so you could imagine, well, 0:22:10.800 --> 0:22:13.040 if what it's planting is some kind of seed, what 0:22:13.200 --> 0:22:16.000 grows it could be a type of tree, that's right. 0:22:16.920 --> 0:22:18.920 So why did I pick the Rowan tree? Well, I 0:22:19.240 --> 0:22:21.960 recently had the opportunity, in the privilege, to to go 0:22:21.960 --> 0:22:23.840 on a little tour of Whales with my family, and 0:22:24.320 --> 0:22:27.720 I was enraptured by the haunting beauty of its rolling hills, 0:22:27.800 --> 0:22:32.560 these dramatic valleys and in some cases hilltop ruins of 0:22:32.640 --> 0:22:35.560 which there ghost stories about. So I thought, well, I 0:22:35.560 --> 0:22:38.120 should I should cover a tree that is sacred within 0:22:38.160 --> 0:22:40.959 Welsh traditions. There's obviously going to be a lot of 0:22:41.000 --> 0:22:46.000 overlap with other sacred trees in the British Isles and 0:22:46.000 --> 0:22:49.080 and so forth. But yeah, I wanted to pick something 0:22:49.080 --> 0:22:53.000 that had significance in Whales. And I realized I was 0:22:53.000 --> 0:22:56.480 already talking a little bit about Welsh tradition and mythology 0:22:56.520 --> 0:22:58.960 on the monster fact, and I should go ahead and 0:22:59.040 --> 0:23:01.240 drive home. If anyone's not familiar Wales as a country 0:23:01.480 --> 0:23:04.200 in western Great Britain, it is part of the United Kingdom, 0:23:04.440 --> 0:23:06.960 but it boasts its own distinctive culture and language. We've 0:23:07.000 --> 0:23:11.040 touched on Welsh Welsh mythology before, which of course shares 0:23:11.119 --> 0:23:13.679 various ideas with other cultures of the British Isles. But 0:23:14.320 --> 0:23:16.440 I don't know if we'd really if we've ever really 0:23:16.480 --> 0:23:19.399