Just so do the half-savage natives of
Thibet, and the Irishwomen of Kerry, by a strange coincidence--
unless the ancient Irish were Buddhists, like the Himalayans--tie
just the same scraps of rag on the bushes round just the same holy
wells, as do the Negros of Central Africa upon their "Devil's
Trees;" they know not why, save that their ancestors did it, and it
is a charm against ill-luck and danger.
And the sacred tree? That, too, might undergo a metamorphosis in
the minds of men. The conquerors would see their aboriginal slaves
of the old race still haunting the tree, making stealthy offerings
to it by night: and they would ask the reason. But they would not
be told. The secret would be guarded; such secrets were guarded, in
Greece, in Italy, in medieval France, by the superstitious awe, the
cunning, even the hidden self-conceit, of the conquered race. Then
the conquerors would wish to imitate their own slaves. They might
be in the right. There might be something magical, uncanny, in the
hollow tree, which might hurt them; might be jealous of them as
intruders. They, too, would invest the place with sacred awe. If
they were gloomy, like the Teutonic conquerors of Europe and the
Arabian conquerors of the East, they would invest it with unseen
terrors. They would say, like them, a devil lives in the tree.
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