The Sacred Tree; or, the tree in religion and myth

An accessible synthesis of evidence for tree veneration worldwide, collating archaeological, literary, folkloric, and ethnographic material to trace how trees function as embodiments of deities, spirits, or demons and as ritual foci. It distinguishes tree-gods from wood-demons and surveys practices of dressing and dedicating trees, sacred groves and sanctuary-trees, oracular uses and divining rods, cosmological world-tree motifs, and the tree's links to birth, metamorphosis, fertility, family and community symbolism, illustrated with examples from the ancient Near East and Egypt to India, the classical world, Northern Europe, and indigenous American traditions.