Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/316

 292 The European Sky- god.

Greek writers reply that Zeus was the life-giving god, and that the oak, thanks to its acorns, was the life-supporting tree of primitive man.^^^ But it is obvious that this ex- planation depends for its validity on an etymology that we now know to be mistaken, viz. the supposed connection between the words Zei;? and ^rjv, " to live." More probable is the view ^^"^ that the oak represented to the Greeks the Yggdrasill-tree of Germanic mythology. This world- tree [Weltbauni), as it used to be called, or cloud-tree ( IVolkenbaum), as it is termed nowadays, was an enormous ashj which with its three stems ^^^ spread throughout the w^orld towards heaven and earth and hell.^^^ It is described as an ash [askr), that being the highest leaf-tree of the north. ^'^" But further south the oak was the principal tree. Consequently the name askr was transferred from the ash to the oak : Hesychius mentions daKpa as a kind of oak,'"^°^ and Zeus 'AaKpaio 33 ff- "i iraXaiol Sid to tov Ala, Ij-yovv tov depa, ?^)jc tlvai aiTiov toiovtov dk Koi t>)v Spvv irdXai ttote ■)(priiiaTi<7ai, oti 01 avOputiroi SpvKdpiroig direrpEipovTO, S16 kui. (ptjyoQ i) Spvg Xsysraiy irapd to (payeii', Sid to'ivvv Tovra rip Ati rrjv Spvv dvifpwcrav to ^tfjoTpofov fvTov Tip Z,i^oy6vi^,' id. 664, 35 ff. On the Greek derivation of TitvQ from 'Cfiv, a derivation as old as the sixth century B.C., see Gruppe, p. Iioi, ti., Th. Gomperz Greek Thinkers, i., 64, 86. On the oak as the oldest food-tree, P. Wagler Die Eiche in alter u. neuer Zeit, i., 34 ff.

^^ Advanced, though without adequate proof, by Prof. Angelo de Guber- natis La mythologie des plantes, ii., 65 ff.

'"' J. Grimm, Teutonic Mythology trans. Stallybrass, p. 796, says " three roots " ; but see E. H. Meyer, Indogermanische My then, ii., 653, «. " Yggdrasill mit den drei Stiimmen (nicht Wurzeln)."

109 Further details in Grimm loc. cit.

200 Bugge Stud, i., 52S, cited by E. II. Meyer Germanische Mythologie, p. 81.

-"' Hesych., daKpa ' cpZc dKapiroQ. O. Schrader, Prehistoric Antiquities of the Aryan People, p. 226, identifies askr with diricpa and further connects dcnrpoQ or dairpiQ, a variety of oak spoken of by Theophr. hist, plant., 3. S. 7.

2« Infra, p. 296.