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Many types of trees found in the Celtic nations are considered to be sacred, whether as symbols, or due to medicinal properties, or because they are seen as the abode of particular nature spirits. Historically and in folklore, the respect given to trees varies in different parts of the Celtic world.
Sacred trees and groves leave few archaeological traces, but two such sites may have been identified, both in Sweden. A mouldering birch stump surrounded by animal bones, especially from brown bear and pig, was discovered under the church on Frösön in Jämtland in 1984. The finds have been carbon dated to the late Viking Age. [15]
Human beings, observing the growth and death of trees, and the annual death and revival of their foliage, [1] [2] have often seen them as powerful symbols of growth, death and rebirth. Evergreen trees, which largely stay green throughout these cycles, are sometimes considered symbols of the eternal, immortality or fertility.
There are numerous folkloric Russian songs in which the birch tree occurs. The Ornäs birch is the national tree of Sweden. The Czech word for the month of March, Březen, is derived from the Czech word bříza meaning birch, as birch trees flower in March under local conditions. The silver birch tree is of special importance to the Swedish ...
Cad Goddeu (Middle Welsh: Kat Godeu, English: The Battle of the Trees) is a medieval Welsh poem preserved in the 14th-century manuscript known as the Book of Taliesin. The poem refers to a traditional story in which the legendary enchanter Gwydion animates the trees of the forest to fight as his army.
A world tree is a common motif in Persian mythology, the legendary bird Simurgh (alternatively, Saēna bird; Sēnmurw and Senmurv) perches atop a tree in the center of the sea Vourukasa. This tree is described as having all-healing properties and many seeds. [66] In another account, the tree is the very same tree of the White Hōm (Haōma). [67]
The Auraicept na n-Éces contains the tale of the mythological origins of Beith [2]. This moreover is the first thing that was written by Ogham, [illustration of seven b's, in Ogham script] i.e. (the birch) b was written, and to convey a warning to Lug son of Ethliu it was written respecting his wife lest she should be carried away from him into faeryland, to wit, seven b’s in one switch of ...
Also, in Immacallam in dá Thuarad, or The Dialogue of the Two Sages, the mystic symbol used by gods, fairies, magicians, and by all initiates who know the mystery of life and death, is thus described as a Druid symbol:–'Neidhe' (a young bard who aspired to succeed his father as chief poet of Ulster), "made his journey with a silver branch over him.