, and, despite the fact of its being thrice
cut down, grew again, ever embracing the same fair image. Among the
North American Indians there was, and maybe still is, a general belief
that the spirits of those who died, naturally reverted to trees--to the
great pines of the mountain forests--where they dwelt for ever amid the
branches. The Indians believed also that the spirits of certain trees
walked at night in the guise of beautiful women. Lucky Indians! Would
that my experience of the forest phantasms had been half so entrancing.
The modern Greeks, Australian bushmen, and natives of the East Indies,
like myself, only see the ugly side of the superphysical, for the
spirits that haunt their vegetation are irredeemably ugly, horribly
terrifying, and fiendishly vindictive.

The idea that the dead often passed into trees is well illustrated in
the classics. For example, AEneas, in his wanderings, strikes a tree, and
is half-frightened out of his wits by a great spurt of blood. A hollow
voice, typical of phantasms and apparently proceeding from somewhere
within the trunk, then begs him to desist, going on to explain that the
tree is not an ordinary tree but the metamorphosed soul of an unlucky
wight called Polydorus, (he must have been unlucky, if only to have had
such a name). Needless to say, AEneas, who was strictly a gentleman in
spite of his aristocratic pretensions, at once dropped his axe and
showed his sympathy for the poor tree-bound spirit in an abundant flow
of tears, which must have satisfied, even, Polydorus. There is a very
similar story in Swedish folk-lore. A voice in a tree addressed a man,
who was about to cut it down, with these words, "Friend, hew me not!"
But the man on this occasion was not a gentleman, and, instead of
complying with the modest request, only plied his axe the more heartily.
To his horror--a just punishment for his barbarity--there was a most
frightful groan of agony, and out from the hole he had made in the
trunk, rushed a fountain of blood, real human blood. What happened then
I cannot say, but I imagine that the woodcutter, stricken with remorse,
whipped up his bandana from the ground, and did all that lay in his
power--though he had not had the advantages of lessons in first aid--to
stop the bleeding. One cannot help being amused at these marvellous
stories, but, after all, they are not very much more wonderful than many
of one's own ghostly experiences. At any rate, they serve to i