is probably that which has just been
considered, namely, that the giving and acceptance of food produces the
bond of kinship.

As various nuts and fruits were prized in Ireland as food, and were
perhaps used in some cases to produce an intoxicant,[1277] it is evident
that the trees of Elysium were, primarily, a magnified form of earthly
trees. But all such trees were doubtless objects of a cult before their
produce was generally eaten; they were first sacred or totem-trees, and
their food eaten only occasionally and sacramentally. If so, this would
explain why they grew in Elysium and their fruit was the food of the
gods. For whatever man eats or drinks is generally supposed to have been
first eaten and drunk by the gods, like the _soma_. But, growing in
Elysium, these trees, like the trees of most myths of Elysium, are far
more marvellous than any known on earth. They have branches of silver
and golden apples; they have magical supplies of fruit, they produce
wonderful music which sometimes causes sleep or oblivion; and birds
perch in their branches and warble melody "such that the sick would
sleep to it." It should be noted also that, as Miss Hull points out, in
some tales the branch of a divine tree becomes a talisman leading the
mortal to Elysium; in this resembling the golden bough plucked by AEneas
before visiting the underworld.[1278] This, however, is not the
fundamental characteristic of the tree, in Irish story. Possibly, as Mr.
A.B. Cook maintains, the branch giving entrance to Elysium is derived
from the branch borne by early Celtic kings of the wood, while the tree
is an imaginative form of those which incarnated a vegetation
spirit.[1279] Be this as it may, it is rather the fruit eaten by the
mortal which binds him to the Immortal Land.

The inhabitants of Elysium are not only immortal, but also invisible at
will. They make themselves visible to one person only out of many
present with him. Connla alone sees the goddess, invisible to his father
and the Druid. Mananuan is visible to Bran, but there are many near the
hero whom he does not see; and when the same god comes to Fand, he is
invisible to Cuchulainn and those with him. So Mider says to Etain, "We
behold, and are not beheld."[1280] Occasionally, too, the people of
Elysium have the power of shape-shifting--Fand and Liban appear to
Cuchulainn as birds.

The hazel of knowledge connects wisdom with the gods' world, and in
Celtic belief generally civ