The Sacred Tree or The Tree in Religion and Myth
by Mrs. J.H. Philpot
1897

Alleged by ancient cultures around the world to possess both divine and demonic aspects, trees have frequently been linked with cult worship and pagan rituals. This volume focuses on the subject with lively insight, examining topics ranging from the deity-inhabited sycamores worshipped in Egypt to the dreaded moss-women in Central Germany.

Excerpt:

The reader is requested to bear in mind that this volume lays no claim to scholarship, independent research, or originality of view. I ts aim has been to select and collate, from sources not always easily accessible to the general reader, certain facts and conclusions bearing upon a subject of acknowledged interest. In so dealing with one of the many modes of primitive religion, it is perhaps inevitable that the writer should seem to exaggerate its importance, and in isolating a given series of data to undervalue the significance of the parallel facts from which they are severed. It is undeniable that the worship of the spirit-inhabited tree has usually, if not always, been linked with, and in many cases overshadowed by other cults; that sun, moon, and stars, sacred springs and stones, holy mountains, and animals of the most diverse kind, have all been approached with singular impartiality by primitive man, as enshrining or symbolising a divine principle.
(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)

1897. Contents: Tree-worship - its distribution and origin; The God and the tree; Wood-demons and tree-spirits; The tree in its relation to human life; Tree as oracle; Universe-tree; Paradise; May celebrations; Christmas observances.