the water small pieces of bark and twigs, which are quickly carried to
the chamber where Isolde is waiting and watching. And one eventide a
perilous encounter befalls. Tristan has been banished the Court, for
evil tongues have whispered in King Mark's ear of his love for Isolde,
and have further whispered of secret meetings in the garden, beside
the fountain. Now near the fountain is a pine-tree, into which King
Mark resolves to climb, and perchance to discover the meeting of the
lovers. As daylight fades, Tristan scales the wall, and hastens to
throw into the water the little signals for his lady. But as he stoops
over the pool he sees, reflected in its clear surface, the image of
the king, with bow ready bent. Can he stop the floating twigs as they
are hurried along on their mission? No. The water carries them away
out of sight, and Isolde must come. She comes, but Tristan does not go
to meet her as was his wont, but remains standing by the water. She
wonders at her lover's seeming unconcern, but as she approaches him,
suddenly, in the bright moonlight, she, too, sees in the water the
reflection of the king, and the lovers are saved.

A pine-tree is so often mentioned as a special feature in a mediaeval
garden that one is led to think that its use may either have been a
survival from the days of Tree Worship, seeing that the tree was
sacred to Adonis, Attis, and Osiris[44] (all, perhaps, varying forms
of one and the same divinity), or have been suggested by some northern
Saga. It makes its appearance in the _Chanson de Roland_, which has
come down to us in a thirteenth-century form, incorporating the
earlier Epic of _Roland_, probably composed towards the end of the
eleventh century. In this we find mention of it when Charlemagne,
after he is said to have taken Cordova, retires to a garden with
Roland and Oliver and his barons, the elder ones amusing themselves
with chess and tric-trac, and the younger ones with fencing, the king
meanwhile looking on, seated under a pine-tree. Later in the day tents
are set up, in which they pass the night, and in the early morning
Charlemagne, after hearing mass, again sits under the pine-tree to
take counsel of his barons.

[44] J. G. Frazer, _Adonis, Attis, Osiris_, 1906.

In the _Roman de la Rose_, the fateful fountain of Narcissus is
described as being beneath a pine-tree, which is represented as being
taller and fairer than any that mortal eye had seen since the glorious