WEBVTT - Sacred Trees II: Lightning-Struck Wood and the Rowan 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:07.040 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:12.640 --> 0:00:15.000 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. 0:00:15.120 --> 0:00:18.360 My name is Robert Lamb, and I am Joe McCormick. 0:00:18.480 --> 0:00:21.120 And hey everybody, I got to apologize right here at 0:00:21.120 --> 0:00:24.360 the start for my voice and my brain. Possibly today 0:00:24.400 --> 0:00:28.840 I am wrastling a pretty nasty cold, but we're plowing 0:00:28.960 --> 0:00:31.520 right through. And today we're going to be talking about 0:00:31.520 --> 0:00:33.960 a topic. We're actually returning to a topic we talked 0:00:33.960 --> 0:00:38.000 about a couple of weeks ago, the subject of sacred trees. 0:00:38.440 --> 0:00:42.000 In that previous episode, Rob you talked about the giant's 0:00:42.040 --> 0:00:45.600 Equoia of western North America, arguably the largest tree in 0:00:45.600 --> 0:00:49.200 the world depending on how you measure, and we talked 0:00:49.240 --> 0:00:52.400 about the history of how people regarded these massive plants 0:00:52.400 --> 0:00:55.480 with reverence, and I ended up talking about the Ohia, 0:00:55.600 --> 0:00:58.760 the Hua tree of Hawaii, and a lot of interesting, 0:00:58.840 --> 0:01:03.840 beautiful ways that interlocks with Hawaiian religion and traditional practices. 0:01:04.280 --> 0:01:07.039 In some cases it's the physical embodiment of a god. 0:01:07.120 --> 0:01:09.560 In other cases it's like a tree beloved by the 0:01:09.600 --> 0:01:12.959 gods in storytelling and so forth. But when we were 0:01:13.000 --> 0:01:15.559 researching that episode, we thought, man, there are so many 0:01:15.600 --> 0:01:18.520 interesting angles on sacred trees that we could come back to. 0:01:18.840 --> 0:01:21.800 So that's what we're doing today. Here's a new installment. 0:01:22.040 --> 0:01:24.479 I'm sure this is something we'll probably return to again 0:01:24.520 --> 0:01:25.080 in the future. 0:01:25.400 --> 0:01:27.600 Yeah, and it's a good month for it, since we're 0:01:27.640 --> 0:01:30.600 into December here, and a lot of December holiday traditions 0:01:30.600 --> 0:01:34.160 center around a sacred tree. I guess one of the 0:01:34.200 --> 0:01:37.080 things I think we both encountered it in the last episode, 0:01:37.160 --> 0:01:39.880 especially in this episode. It's the thing about sacred trees 0:01:40.440 --> 0:01:43.120 is that it's never just a case of like, oh, well, 0:01:43.160 --> 0:01:45.039 you know, there's this tree around and at one point 0:01:45.080 --> 0:01:47.000 there's a group of people that thought it was sacred 0:01:47.080 --> 0:01:50.920 and then they stopped. You know, No, the trees have 0:01:51.560 --> 0:01:54.720 been around a long time, and human cultures enter into 0:01:54.760 --> 0:01:57.960 these areas where these trees grow, develop these ideas about them, 0:01:58.440 --> 0:02:01.320 and build upon those ideas, pass them down, and the 0:02:01.360 --> 0:02:05.640 trees remain. And so you start pulling the threads on 0:02:05.680 --> 0:02:08.320 some of these beliefs, and you know, those threads connect 0:02:08.560 --> 0:02:13.040 across different peoples, you know, into neighboring territories and oftentimes 0:02:13.040 --> 0:02:15.560 there as far flung as a particular you know, it's 0:02:15.560 --> 0:02:19.519 the range of a tree species itself. So before long 0:02:19.560 --> 0:02:22.399 you realize, oh, well, this isn't necessarily just a look 0:02:22.440 --> 0:02:25.880 at one particular tree and or one particular folk belief 0:02:26.000 --> 0:02:29.280 or mythology, but you can easily touch upon like a 0:02:29.360 --> 0:02:32.280 dozen different folk beliefs and mythologies concerning the same tree. 0:02:32.639 --> 0:02:33.040 Mm hmm. 0:02:33.760 --> 0:02:36.240 Which is to say, we're not going to pull all 0:02:36.280 --> 0:02:38.959 We're not going to pull all those those threads today. 0:02:39.520 --> 0:02:41.760 We're going to pull some of those threads and we're 0:02:41.760 --> 0:02:44.720 going to find some, I think, some very tantalizing, very 0:02:44.720 --> 0:02:47.880 interesting things to say about a couple of different topics 0:02:48.080 --> 0:02:50.120 related to sacred trees. 0:02:50.760 --> 0:02:53.720 That's right. So to kick things off today, I wanted 0:02:53.760 --> 0:02:56.920 to explore something interesting I came across in a book. 0:02:57.600 --> 0:03:01.799 The book is called European Pageaganism The Realities of cult 0:03:01.840 --> 0:03:04.919 from Antiquity to the Middle Ages, originally published in the 0:03:04.960 --> 0:03:07.239 year two thousand. I think the edition I was reading 0:03:07.280 --> 0:03:10.799 was from maybe twenty thirteen, but from Rutledge Press, by 0:03:10.800 --> 0:03:13.880 an author named Ken Dowden, who was a professor of 0:03:13.919 --> 0:03:17.799 classics at the University of Birmingham in the UK. This 0:03:17.880 --> 0:03:21.440 is a book about the religious practices of European cultures 0:03:21.480 --> 0:03:25.920 before the introduction of Christianity, and then also those pagan 0:03:26.320 --> 0:03:31.200 religions interacting with Christianity once it was introduced, and these 0:03:31.240 --> 0:03:34.519 religious beliefs and practices were, of course not all the same, 0:03:34.720 --> 0:03:37.840 though there are some themes that kind of emerge repeatedly, 0:03:38.440 --> 0:03:40.760 so you can kind of make some rough generalizations about 0:03:40.800 --> 0:03:44.160 pre Christian European paganism, but they don't apply in every case. 0:03:45.040 --> 0:03:48.520 And one is that a lot of pre Christian European 0:03:48.600 --> 0:03:53.440 religions saw sacred dimensions in the features of the physical land, 0:03:53.680 --> 0:03:57.880 like rocks, waters, and of course trees, but there are 0:03:57.960 --> 0:04:02.400 many different ways to understand the sacredness of trees. Now 0:04:02.520 --> 0:04:05.920 Down And actually begins this section of the book with 0:04:06.000 --> 0:04:09.440 an ancient passage describing something that's a little bit of field, 0:04:09.520 --> 0:04:11.240 but I thought it was so interesting I wanted to 0:04:11.520 --> 0:04:14.400 throw it in here. It's describing one way of showing 0:04:14.440 --> 0:04:18.080 appreciation for trees that's kind of hard to classify. It 0:04:18.080 --> 0:04:20.960 doesn't seem exactly right to call it a religious practice, 0:04:20.960 --> 0:04:24.040 but it definitely goes beyond like, oh, look at the poplars, 0:04:24.080 --> 0:04:28.200 they're so nice. This is a translated passage from Plenty 0:04:28.279 --> 0:04:32.000 the Elder that reads as follows on a hill called 0:04:32.080 --> 0:04:35.360 corney in the suburban part of the land of Tusculum. 0:04:35.760 --> 0:04:39.680 There is a grove in ancient Reverence dedicated by Latium 0:04:39.760 --> 0:04:42.960 to Diana, And that would be by the way Diana, 0:04:43.000 --> 0:04:45.480 goddess of the hunt of wild animals in the moon, 0:04:45.640 --> 0:04:48.080 sort of a wilderness goddess. The ranger of the party 0:04:48.680 --> 0:04:52.880 plenty goes on. The foliage of the beech forest is sheared, 0:04:52.920 --> 0:04:56.960 as though by topiary. In it an exceptional tree was 0:04:57.080 --> 0:05:01.840 loved in our times by Passienus crisp Us twice Console, 0:05:01.960 --> 0:05:06.000 the orator, later more famous thanks to his marriage with Agrippina, 0:05:06.480 --> 0:05:09.800 through which he became the stepfather of Nero. He was 0:05:09.839 --> 0:05:13.280 in the habit of kissing and embracing it. Talking about 0:05:13.279 --> 0:05:17.120 the tree kissing and embracing it, not only of lying 0:05:17.200 --> 0:05:19.520 under it and pouring wine over it. 0:05:21.400 --> 0:05:22.719 Literal tree hugging here. 0:05:23.000 --> 0:05:27.120 Yes, So this tree is interesting in the example here 0:05:27.600 --> 0:05:32.560 because it is in one sense a literal sacred tree. 0:05:32.640 --> 0:05:35.839 In a religious sense, it's part of an ancient sacred grove. 0:05:36.000 --> 0:05:38.480 And I guess one thing we could talk about is 0:05:38.520 --> 0:05:42.960 a distinction between sacred trees, as in, like a type 0:05:43.000 --> 0:05:46.720 of tree or a tree species has a religious significance 0:05:46.760 --> 0:05:51.719 within a particular culture versus an individual tree like this 0:05:51.800 --> 0:05:56.039 tree right here has religious significance of some kind, versus 0:05:56.120 --> 0:05:59.920 a collection of trees have some kind of religious significance, 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:02.719 A sort of expanded version of this tree right here, 0:06:02.800 --> 0:06:05.599 this forest right here has significance. And there are a 0:06:05.640 --> 0:06:10.160 lot of those in pre Christian European religions, sacred groves, 0:06:10.240 --> 0:06:14.920 sacred forests throughout the continent. But so in this case, 0:06:15.000 --> 0:06:18.080 it is a particular sacred grove, a forest of beech 0:06:18.160 --> 0:06:21.840 trees that are in honor of the goddess Diana. So 0:06:21.880 --> 0:06:24.719 these are the trees of Diana, the goddess of the hunt. 0:06:25.720 --> 0:06:30.080 But this Roman politician isn't necessarily worshiping Diana. I don't know. 0:06:30.160 --> 0:06:32.760 Maybe he is, but it's not discussed in the passage here. 0:06:33.400 --> 0:06:36.320 He's not just honoring the sacred forest as a whole 0:06:36.560 --> 0:06:40.120 in its relation to the goddess Diana. It sounds like 0:06:40.160 --> 0:06:45.120 he is in erotic love with one particular, very special tree. 0:06:46.240 --> 0:06:48.120 Hard to think of a parallel to this. I just 0:06:48.200 --> 0:06:51.800 thought I thought it worth mentioning. But anyway, from here, 0:06:51.960 --> 0:06:54.960 Dowbtan goes on to a section where he sort of 0:06:54.960 --> 0:06:58.719 thinks about the implicit logic of our relationship to trees, 0:06:58.839 --> 0:07:02.360 especially in our desire to think of them as persons, 0:07:02.480 --> 0:07:05.680 as like a symbol of a person, or as containing 0:07:05.800 --> 0:07:09.280 the essence of a divine person. And he notes an 0:07:09.320 --> 0:07:13.720 interesting parallel between trees and humans which has been observed 0:07:13.720 --> 0:07:16.080 by a number of scholars of religion. It's not unique 0:07:16.080 --> 0:07:19.160 to this book, and that parallel is in the form 0:07:19.200 --> 0:07:24.440 of posture. Humans are mostly unique in the animal world 0:07:24.640 --> 0:07:30.000 for our verticality. What appears to physically differentiate humans from 0:07:30.080 --> 0:07:34.200 other animals is that we are a column, a standing 0:07:34.280 --> 0:07:37.920 straight up, compared to most other animals, which tend to 0:07:38.360 --> 0:07:41.720 position their bodies in a more horizontal fashion. You can 0:07:41.760 --> 0:07:43.880 think of a few little counter examples here and there, 0:07:43.880 --> 0:07:46.040 but for the most part this does really hold true. 0:07:46.280 --> 0:07:48.800 Humans appear to be different from all other animals in 0:07:48.840 --> 0:07:51.920 that we stand straight up. And what makes a tree 0:07:51.960 --> 0:07:55.080 different from a bush or a shrub or lots of 0:07:55.080 --> 0:07:59.120 other plants is that it is also a tall, vertical column. 0:08:00.000 --> 0:08:02.200 It's true of both trees and humans that we take 0:08:02.240 --> 0:08:05.320 the form of a vertical column. We grow taller as 0:08:05.360 --> 0:08:07.960 we age, and when we die, we fall down. 0:08:08.680 --> 0:08:09.400 That's a good point. 0:08:09.520 --> 0:08:12.160 Yeah, So with this kind of knowledge just sort of 0:08:12.200 --> 0:08:15.760 operating in our minds all the time, it seems very 0:08:15.840 --> 0:08:18.560 natural to think of the tree as the sort of 0:08:18.680 --> 0:08:23.160 human analog within the alien kingdom of plant life, except, 0:08:23.160 --> 0:08:26.320 of course, trees grow much larger than humans, and are 0:08:26.400 --> 0:08:30.080 much tougher than humans, and often live for hundreds of years, 0:08:30.120 --> 0:08:31.640 so in a sense, you can think of them as 0:08:31.640 --> 0:08:35.200 something that has always been here. So it's I think 0:08:35.280 --> 0:08:39.080 quite natural to start thinking of them as like super humans, 0:08:39.200 --> 0:08:41.200 super persons, they are gods. 0:08:42.040 --> 0:08:44.920 Yeah, yeah, these are great points. Yeah, it stands tall 0:08:45.000 --> 0:08:48.640 like a human, it has the verticality, and then you know, 0:08:48.720 --> 0:08:51.920 lives before and after us and on this different time 0:08:51.960 --> 0:08:52.800 scale than we are. 0:08:53.280 --> 0:08:54.960 So that's just sort of one theory as to why 0:08:54.960 --> 0:08:58.640 we're sort of primed to see godhood in the form 0:08:58.679 --> 0:09:02.600 of trees. But Doubtan also emphasizes that many trees are 0:09:02.840 --> 0:09:06.719 integrated into religion not simply by their nature, not by 0:09:06.760 --> 0:09:10.840 being trees, but in a specific sense by being connected 0:09:10.920 --> 0:09:15.280 directly to myth or to history, as in like this 0:09:15.440 --> 0:09:19.080 plane tree at Delphi was planted by Agamemnon and that's 0:09:19.080 --> 0:09:23.280 why it's special. Or when Io was transformed into a 0:09:23.360 --> 0:09:26.360 cow by hera and tied to a tree. It was 0:09:26.559 --> 0:09:30.360 this olive tree right here, or this tree was the 0:09:30.400 --> 0:09:34.560 source of heracles first oak leaf crown, or this tree 0:09:34.600 --> 0:09:37.120 is where Helen of Troy was hanged after she fled 0:09:37.120 --> 0:09:40.640 to Rhodes. So in those cases you might say that 0:09:40.720 --> 0:09:47.120 these physical existing trees are sacralized by way of intersections 0:09:47.160 --> 0:09:50.960 with stories, and whether those are like sort of founding 0:09:51.040 --> 0:09:54.200 ethnic stories, like founding histories of a people or a nation, 0:09:54.920 --> 0:09:57.840 or myths about the gods. On one hand, you have 0:09:57.880 --> 0:10:00.720 a physical object that is right here here, right now, 0:10:00.800 --> 0:10:03.120 this tree we're all looking at. And on the other hand, 0:10:03.480 --> 0:10:06.600 you have the story we all know. And so by 0:10:06.600 --> 0:10:10.080 connecting the to the tree, the physical object makes the 0:10:10.120 --> 0:10:13.760 story more real, and the story makes the physical object 0:10:13.880 --> 0:10:14.600 more meaningful. 0:10:15.360 --> 0:10:17.560 Yeah. Yeah, Like eventually we'll come around to talking about 0:10:17.600 --> 0:10:21.240 the body tree in this series. The body tree, of course, 0:10:21.280 --> 0:10:24.199 in Buddhist traditions, is the tree under which the Buddhist 0:10:24.200 --> 0:10:26.960 sat when he attained enlightenment. You know, it is the 0:10:26.960 --> 0:10:31.560 place where it happened. Yeah. So yeah, we see versions 0:10:31.559 --> 0:10:34.679 of that in various different myths and religions. 0:10:35.240 --> 0:10:37.360 But one example I really wanted to focus on for 0:10:37.400 --> 0:10:40.240 a minute because I thought it was so interesting. Was 0:10:40.800 --> 0:10:43.120 something Dowdin brings up in this chapter, that is the 0:10:43.200 --> 0:10:48.480 idea of a sacred tree struck by lightning. Dowtan writes 0:10:48.559 --> 0:10:52.480 that the ancient Romans had a practice of enclosing a 0:10:52.559 --> 0:10:56.120 tree after it was struck by lightning, so like after 0:10:56.120 --> 0:10:57.840 a tree was hit by lightning that it would be 0:10:57.880 --> 0:11:03.559 subject to a type of sacrificial or religious immurement. The 0:11:03.679 --> 0:11:07.080 enclosure for a tree would sometimes be what this author 0:11:07.120 --> 0:11:11.640 identifies as a putel put e a l pleural would 0:11:11.640 --> 0:11:16.480 be puutealia, which usually refers to a well head. So 0:11:16.520 --> 0:11:19.920 this would be the raised stone structure around the opening 0:11:20.040 --> 0:11:22.520 of a water well. Now, in the case of a 0:11:22.559 --> 0:11:25.520 water well, usually you have a wellhead raised in part 0:11:25.559 --> 0:11:27.520 to prevent the well from simply being a hole in 0:11:27.559 --> 0:11:29.439 the ground that people can fall into. You know, it's 0:11:29.480 --> 0:11:33.520 like a wall for safety. In ancient Rome, these well 0:11:33.600 --> 0:11:37.679 heads were often made of marble and decorated with carvings 0:11:37.760 --> 0:11:40.960 or with bas relief. I've got a picture from a 0:11:41.000 --> 0:11:43.240 well head in Venice for you to look at here, Rob, 0:11:43.720 --> 0:11:46.000 so you can see, you know, it's a there's a 0:11:46.040 --> 0:11:47.760 cap on it right now. I think it's a it's 0:11:47.760 --> 0:11:50.480 an iron cap. I don't know what the original material 0:11:50.520 --> 0:11:52.960 of the cap would have been, possibly iron, you know, 0:11:53.120 --> 0:11:56.040 hundreds of years ago or thousands years ago as well. 0:11:56.679 --> 0:11:59.280 But in this case, you know, you could open it 0:11:59.360 --> 0:12:02.079 up and imagine looking down into the well, but then 0:12:02.160 --> 0:12:04.360 down on the wall around it, we've got I don't know, 0:12:04.400 --> 0:12:07.199 some kind of creepy dancing god babies who are thrown 0:12:07.240 --> 0:12:10.160 around some What do you think that is? Is that 0:12:10.440 --> 0:12:12.480 grape leaves or olives or something. 0:12:12.679 --> 0:12:14.680 Yeah, some sort of like wreaths and leaves. 0:12:15.160 --> 0:12:19.839 Yeah. But as Dowdan says in this chapter, sometimes a 0:12:19.960 --> 0:12:24.200 poutel would be built not around a water well, but 0:12:24.320 --> 0:12:28.200 around a tree or really any spot that had been 0:12:28.240 --> 0:12:33.280 touched by a bolt of lightning. So a lightning kissed 0:12:33.400 --> 0:12:37.959 location like this was called in Roman times a bidental. 0:12:38.559 --> 0:12:40.520 And I was reading about this in an older source 0:12:41.320 --> 0:12:44.600 from the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities by William 0:12:44.640 --> 0:12:48.040 Smith from the nineteenth century. This reference book goes into 0:12:48.440 --> 0:12:53.040 sources from ancient history describing what the bidental was and 0:12:53.040 --> 0:12:56.880 what its religious significance was. And so it says that 0:12:56.880 --> 0:13:00.480 the bidental was named after the fact that a you 0:13:00.520 --> 0:13:04.640 would sacrifice a sheep here after lightning struck it would 0:13:04.679 --> 0:13:07.200 be a two year old sheep called a biden, which 0:13:07.240 --> 0:13:11.960 means two tooth by DN like dental, and the sequence 0:13:11.960 --> 0:13:15.800 would go like this. So lightning strikes somewhere and people 0:13:15.840 --> 0:13:18.959 witness it, and whatever was struck, be that a tree 0:13:19.400 --> 0:13:23.880 or a person or just the earth, whatever is there 0:13:24.720 --> 0:13:29.079 is buried, in some cases burned, in other cases not burned, 0:13:29.120 --> 0:13:32.679 but is buried by priests in the ground in that 0:13:33.000 --> 0:13:36.320 very spot. So if you get struck by lightning and 0:13:36.400 --> 0:13:40.559 killed in ancient rome where these bidental priests are operating, 0:13:41.080 --> 0:13:43.160 you are not Your body is not transported to a 0:13:43.160 --> 0:13:47.200 cemetery and is not cremated. You are buried in the 0:13:47.240 --> 0:13:50.840 spot where you fell. And then the two year old 0:13:50.880 --> 0:13:54.120 sheep is sacrificed and added to the lot. And then 0:13:54.160 --> 0:13:57.480 that spot is in some sense sort of walled off 0:13:57.520 --> 0:14:01.440 from human contact. It is capped with an altar and 0:14:01.480 --> 0:14:04.480 then enclosed in some way by a fence or in 0:14:04.559 --> 0:14:08.720 some cases by a poutel a marble wellhead, and thereafter 0:14:08.880 --> 0:14:12.600 it is made taboo. No one may walk there, no 0:14:12.640 --> 0:14:15.079 one may touch it, no one may even look at it. 0:14:15.920 --> 0:14:18.960 And if a person were to violate this taboo, like 0:14:19.040 --> 0:14:22.760 to remove the well head or the altar, or in 0:14:22.840 --> 0:14:27.520 some other way violate the prohibition against treading there they 0:14:27.520 --> 0:14:31.160 would be subject to swift, violent punishment by the gods, 0:14:31.560 --> 0:14:35.280 and this connects to the original action there. Lightning was 0:14:35.320 --> 0:14:37.240 often thought to be the weapon of the gods in 0:14:37.320 --> 0:14:41.440 ancient Rome, particularly of Jupiter, so a place struck by 0:14:41.520 --> 0:14:45.200 lightning was both terrifying and holy. It was a sacred 0:14:45.240 --> 0:14:49.360 point of connection with divine power and a conduit of 0:14:49.400 --> 0:14:53.800 divine wrath. So as one example of a pouteal which 0:14:54.000 --> 0:14:57.040 may once have covered a tree made wholly by lightning, 0:14:57.960 --> 0:15:02.720 Doubtan mentions a fi tree attested in ancient sources in 0:15:02.800 --> 0:15:06.080 the area of the Committium of Rome. The Committeum is 0:15:06.120 --> 0:15:10.040 an ancient public meeting space in the city center, and 0:15:10.120 --> 0:15:14.280 this fig tree was known as the Picus romanaalis, which 0:15:14.320 --> 0:15:18.840 literally means the ficus of suckling, though experts apparently debate 0:15:18.880 --> 0:15:22.840 whether that's its original meaning or how it should be understood. 0:15:24.080 --> 0:15:27.480 But there are actually a couple of sacred objects said 0:15:27.520 --> 0:15:30.360 to be in the vicinity here. One thing is this tree, 0:15:30.400 --> 0:15:35.320 the Ficus roominalis, but there is also a stone which 0:15:35.480 --> 0:15:37.840 was said to have been cut in half with a 0:15:38.000 --> 0:15:43.680 razor by the ancient Roman augur Attus Navius, and the 0:15:43.720 --> 0:15:46.080 story goes that he cut the stone in half in 0:15:46.160 --> 0:15:48.840 a display of his powers when he is in the 0:15:48.880 --> 0:15:51.800 middle of rebuking a legendary king of Rome who was 0:15:52.320 --> 0:15:56.440 sort of arrogantly trying to expand his own glorification. ADUs 0:15:56.520 --> 0:15:58.920 Navius was rebuking him and saying, like, you go to 0:15:59.080 --> 0:16:02.360 far king, and in their conflict, He's like, I better 0:16:02.400 --> 0:16:05.200 show how strong my divinatory skills are and the kind 0:16:05.240 --> 0:16:07.600 of power I can command. So I'm going to cut 0:16:07.640 --> 0:16:09.760 a stone, cut a wetstone in half of the razor. 0:16:10.360 --> 0:16:12.640 Oh wow, I guess it worked. 0:16:13.480 --> 0:16:16.560 It did, according to the story. So you've got this 0:16:16.720 --> 0:16:20.320 split stone here, and then you've got the ficus tree. 0:16:20.800 --> 0:16:24.400 And here Doubdan again quotes a passage from Plenty the 0:16:24.480 --> 0:16:27.400 Elder describing the site of the tree and the sliced rock. 0:16:27.880 --> 0:16:32.440 So Plenty in translation rites a fig tree growing in 0:16:32.520 --> 0:16:37.080 the actual Forum and Committium of Rome is revered sacred 0:16:37.200 --> 0:16:42.120 because of the lightning bolts buried there, and still more 0:16:42.160 --> 0:16:44.920 to commemorate the fig tree under which the nurse of 0:16:45.040 --> 0:16:49.400 Romulus and Remus first sheltered those founders of empire at 0:16:49.400 --> 0:16:53.280 the Loopercol. It is called Ruminalys because it was beneath 0:16:53.320 --> 0:16:56.000 it that they found the she wolf offering her rumas 0:16:56.240 --> 0:16:59.320 that is what they used to call abreast to her babies, 0:17:00.000 --> 0:17:04.040 miracle commemorated nearby in bronze, as though the wolf had 0:17:04.040 --> 0:17:07.400 of her own accord, crossed the Committeum while adis Navius 0:17:07.760 --> 0:17:10.560 was acting in his role as auger. Nor is it 0:17:10.600 --> 0:17:13.960 without significance when it dries up and must, through the 0:17:14.000 --> 0:17:17.600 efforts of the priests, be replaced. So I thought this 0:17:17.760 --> 0:17:20.359 was interesting in that the way Plenty tells the story, 0:17:20.359 --> 0:17:23.280 the way he understands it, at least this fig tree 0:17:23.400 --> 0:17:28.000 is in part sacred because of an intersection with legend. 0:17:28.119 --> 0:17:30.960 Like we mentioned earlier, you know, so you know, much 0:17:31.000 --> 0:17:33.560 like you might say this tree was planted by Agamemnon, 0:17:33.920 --> 0:17:35.719 in this case you would say this tree is the 0:17:35.760 --> 0:17:39.040 site where Romulus and Remus were nursed by wolf Mother. 0:17:39.960 --> 0:17:44.320 And then also by proximity to the site where adas 0:17:44.400 --> 0:17:48.920 Navius split the stone, that's another connect intersection with legend. 0:17:49.440 --> 0:17:53.320 But then, according to Plenty, it's also sacred because lightning 0:17:53.359 --> 0:17:58.359 bolts are buried beneath it. And then here Doubtan also 0:17:58.440 --> 0:18:02.280 mentions a possible connection of the legend of the ficus 0:18:02.280 --> 0:18:05.720 from Analys to the interesting sort of botanical fact that 0:18:05.760 --> 0:18:09.639 the fig tree produces a sap like secretion, which I 0:18:09.680 --> 0:18:12.560 believe is part of an anti predator strategy that is 0:18:12.600 --> 0:18:15.200 said to look like milk. So, like you, if you 0:18:15.320 --> 0:18:18.720 wound a fig tree, the ficus will will leak out 0:18:18.760 --> 0:18:21.840 this white milky substance that is said to be quite 0:18:21.840 --> 0:18:25.240 bitter and I think is supposed to deter things from 0:18:25.280 --> 0:18:26.000 munching on it. 0:18:26.400 --> 0:18:28.560 Yeah, yeah, we used to have a fig tree, and yeah, 0:18:28.600 --> 0:18:29.520 I can attest to this. 0:18:30.359 --> 0:18:32.439 And so Doubtan's saying, you know, so you have a 0:18:32.480 --> 0:18:35.000 place where, according to these ancient texts, you have a 0:18:35.680 --> 0:18:38.439 stone which is interesting because of its shape, it's like 0:18:38.560 --> 0:18:41.520 a split stone. And then you also have a tree 0:18:41.640 --> 0:18:45.960 which has interesting sort of biological features. This tree appears 0:18:46.000 --> 0:18:50.080 to leak milk and then can be kind of attached 0:18:50.240 --> 0:18:53.439 to myths, and so he writes, quote the tree is 0:18:53.520 --> 0:18:56.960 tended and when necessary renewed by the priests. If it 0:18:57.000 --> 0:18:59.800 is surrounded by a poutel. Then originally this may have 0:18:59.840 --> 0:19:03.199 been understood as a place where lightning had struck and 0:19:03.280 --> 0:19:06.800 the wetstone, that's the stone that was apparently split in 0:19:06.840 --> 0:19:10.440 the story, the wetstone might have been considered a thunderstone. 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:13.440 Wow, this is this is all really fascinating and fascinating 0:19:13.440 --> 0:19:15.360 to me, especially when you think about the idea that 0:19:15.440 --> 0:19:20.680 like the world tree and myth is often situated as 0:19:20.720 --> 0:19:23.680 this thing that connects Earth to the heavens and lightning 0:19:23.840 --> 0:19:27.800 as well. Is this momentary connection between Earth and heaven 0:19:28.080 --> 0:19:31.440 that leaves like a physical sign, you know, we see 0:19:31.480 --> 0:19:34.360 it and then we can if we can find where 0:19:34.359 --> 0:19:40.800 it hit. We have evidence of this contact between like 0:19:41.000 --> 0:19:43.639 lightning and the earth, between the storm clouds and the earth, 0:19:43.800 --> 0:19:47.600 but on another level, between the divine and the mundane 0:19:47.680 --> 0:19:49.400 world totally. 0:19:49.480 --> 0:19:51.239 And you know, one thing I like is the kind 0:19:51.280 --> 0:19:55.360 of ambiguity of the is this good magic or bad magic? 0:19:55.480 --> 0:19:57.160 The way you know that you can have a place 0:19:57.200 --> 0:20:00.480 where a tree is struck by lightning and it becomes 0:20:00.520 --> 0:20:03.160 in some sense sacred, But it seems to me rather 0:20:04.400 --> 0:20:06.760 there's a kind of ambivalence like is this a place 0:20:06.840 --> 0:20:10.760 that is cursed and dangerous and will hurt you, or 0:20:10.880 --> 0:20:13.240 is this a place that is in some way blessed 0:20:13.359 --> 0:20:16.840 and is showing off the power of the gods or 0:20:16.880 --> 0:20:21.080 God's power in a way that can be celebrated and sacralized. 0:20:21.840 --> 0:20:24.399 There's almost kind of a U curve, right, It's like this, 0:20:24.600 --> 0:20:26.719 the place is so sacred or it is so cursed 0:20:27.000 --> 0:20:29.040 that it essentially amounts to the same thing, and then 0:20:29.119 --> 0:20:31.720 that is no trespassing. Sorry, you can't visit, you can't 0:20:31.720 --> 0:20:44.760 touch it. Well, that is all really fascinating. And another 0:20:44.800 --> 0:20:47.760 cool thing is that it does lead directly into the 0:20:47.840 --> 0:20:50.880 tree that I'm going to talk about here, the Rowan tree. 0:20:51.560 --> 0:20:55.480 I've looking at several different sources on this, one of 0:20:55.520 --> 0:20:57.480 which was I didn't spend a lot of time with 0:20:57.480 --> 0:20:59.679 this source, but there was an older article titled The 0:20:59.720 --> 0:21:03.119 Full Floor of Trees by Lizzie M. Hadley. This was 0:21:03.160 --> 0:21:06.720 published in the Internal of Education back in eighteen ninety four, 0:21:07.240 --> 0:21:11.639 and this very short, little kind wordy right up, touching 0:21:11.680 --> 0:21:14.840 on various sacred ideas of trees. But the Rowan tree 0:21:14.880 --> 0:21:18.360 is mentioned in passing and just a few ideas connected 0:21:18.400 --> 0:21:20.879 to it or thrown out, including the idea in some 0:21:21.320 --> 0:21:25.760 European traditions that the tree grew from a place where 0:21:25.840 --> 0:21:29.119 lightning struck. That's like the origin of this tree. 0:21:30.119 --> 0:21:33.320 That would be interesting in the So remember the phrasing 0:21:33.400 --> 0:21:37.200 plenty uses is that lightning bolts are buried there where 0:21:37.200 --> 0:21:39.679 the tree is, so it's like when lightning hits the ground, 0:21:40.560 --> 0:21:42.760 it's almost like a seeding of the ground, like it 0:21:42.920 --> 0:21:47.800 plants something when it hits. And so you could imagine, well, 0:21:47.840 --> 0:21:50.080 if what it's planting is some kind of seed, what 0:21:50.280 --> 0:21:53.040 grows it could be a type of tree, that's right. 0:21:54.000 --> 0:21:55.960 So why did I pick the Rowan tree? Well, I 0:21:56.280 --> 0:21:59.040 recently had the opportunity, in the privilege, to go on 0:21:59.080 --> 0:22:01.520 a little tour of Whales with my family, and I 0:22:01.560 --> 0:22:04.760 was enraptured by the haunting beauty of its rolling hills, 0:22:04.880 --> 0:22:09.639 these dramatic valleys and in some cases hilltop ruins of 0:22:09.720 --> 0:22:12.560 which there are ghost stories about. So I thought, well, 0:22:12.560 --> 0:22:14.840 I should I should cover a tree that is sacred 0:22:14.920 --> 0:22:17.879 within Welsh traditions. There's obviously going to be a lot 0:22:17.920 --> 0:22:21.560 of overlap with other sacred trees in the British Isles 0:22:22.560 --> 0:22:25.760 and and so forth, But yeah, I wanted to pick 0:22:25.800 --> 0:22:29.960 something that had significance in Wales. And I realized I 0:22:29.960 --> 0:22:32.960 was already talking a little bit about Welsh tradition and 0:22:33.000 --> 0:22:35.960 mythology and the monster fact. And I should go ahead 0:22:35.960 --> 0:22:37.879 and drive home if anyone's not familiar Whales as a 0:22:37.920 --> 0:22:40.480 country in western Great Britain. It is part of the 0:22:40.560 --> 0:22:43.640 United Kingdom, but it boasts its own distinctive culture and language. 0:22:43.840 --> 0:22:47.760 We've touched on Welsh Welsh mythology before, which of course 0:22:47.800 --> 0:22:50.600 shares various ideas with other cultures of the British Isles. 0:22:50.640 --> 0:22:53.240 But I don't know if we'd really if we've ever 0:22:53.280 --> 0:22:56.400 really stopped to just talk about the idea of Wales 0:22:56.400 --> 0:22:59.920 in Welsh tradition and Welsh language in any degree of detail. Maybe, 0:23:00.200 --> 0:23:02.639 And I forgot about it, but I just wanted to 0:23:02.960 --> 0:23:05.600 bring it up again. So again. It's the rowan tree 0:23:05.960 --> 0:23:11.760 or sorbus occuparia, also known as the mountain ash, though 0:23:11.840 --> 0:23:15.920 it is not closely related to either true ash trees 0:23:16.840 --> 0:23:21.879