Hey there I'm Mike Rugnetta, this is Crash Course Mythology and today
We're continuing our round-the-world tour of mythical features of the natural world. Today we behold
trees and yes technically trees do appear in gardens like the ones in the Garden of Eden
but trees have a mythological richness all their own
Also they're so nice and shady they deserve an episode all to themselves. Right Thoth ?
He's so tranquil. Don't worry. We'll fix that
So, if you've been watching this series closely you'll remember some of the trees we've already met,
like the tree of knowledge of good and evil from Eden that was the one tree
Yahweh told Adam and Eve not to eat from.
And then they did. It's the one that hosted a serpent which told Eve to eat the knowledge Apple
- which might have actually been a quince or a fig or a pomegranate - and which filled Eve and Adam both with the knowledge
that they were naked. As you may recall that didn't work out well
and it's the reason we now have pain in childbirth and infinite weeding.
But the tree of knowledge is hardly the only
mythically significant tree. We've also met Yggdrasil and we're about to encounter Aswatha, two trees which contain the whole of
cosmology in their roots and branches
We've talked a bit before about Yggdrasil, the great ash tree where Odin hangs himself to learn the secret of runes
Between the tips of its branches and its roots exists the entire
Cosmos, from the beginning to the end of time Yggdrasil has three
Great roots one reaching to Asgard where the æsir and white elves live one to Jotunheim
the home of men, dark elves, dwarves and giants and the last to Niffleheim where hell the person rules over the land of the
dead hell the place. Yggdrasil is both a tree of knowledge and a tree of life
connecting and sustaining all the plains of the Norse universe. It's foretold to be one of the few things to survive
Ragnarok and from its bark
mankind will be renewed
Fittingly, Yggdrasil teams with life and activity. On its top branches lives an eagle and on top of that eagle a hawk.
Down at the base of the tree lives Nidhogg (Níðhǫggr) a
Dragon who gnaws on the roots of the tree and baddies on their way to hell. A naughty squirrel named Ratatosk lives among the branches
Carrying insults back and forth between the eagle and the dragon making them even more insulting along the way. Indian mythology also
Features a tree that represents the entire cosmos in the Vedas and the Upanishads we find a giant
Inverted tree whose roots reached to the sky and whose branches covered the earth
This cosmic tree Aswatha often called a Bodhi tree
represents Brahma the supreme a cosmic spirit in full and
Glorious bloom. Aswatha is further described in the Mahabharata which explains
"Sprung from the unmanifested arising from it only as support the tree's trunk is Bodhi
(enlightenment or awakening). Its inward cavities the channels of the sense the great elements its
branches the objects of the senses its leaves its fair flowers good and
evil pleasure and pain the consequent fruits. This
Eternal Brahma tree is the source of life for all beings."
Whether upside down or right side up these trees have particular structures
which can be interpreted as containing the entire universe while also providing delicious and
Occasionally dangerous snacks sometimes though these trees represent far less than the whole world or universe
trees are also often involved in myths about
personal transformation
And it makes sense trees have an annual cycle of change and many even seem to die and come back to life each year
We've already seen one tree transformation myth in the story of totes pal Osiris
Although that one is complicated because Osiris is entombed in a coffin
Which is then enclosed in a tree for another tree's formation?
we're heading to Greece for Daphne and Apollo the myth of Daphne and Apollo begins with Apollo making fun of
Eros whom you may know better as Cupid. Here's a tip though
Don't make fun of babies with a bow and arrow because babies with a bow and arrow are
Dangerous in revenge eros looses two magic arrows one of gold and one of lead. The gold one is for Apollo
And it makes him fall in love with the nymph Daphne. So far so cute
But then he shoots, Daphne with the lead arrow and as soon as Daphne sees Apollo. She is deeply and madly
disgusted by him Apollo pursues
Daphne and Daphne rejects him Apollo is persistent and Daphne keeps shooting him down mortal men might take the hint
But Apollo is a God and gods do not take hints before you know it Apollo is literally chasing Daphne across Greece
Not especially interested in the advances of a god she despises Daphne cries out to her father Finneus the river god for help
Asking him to make the earth swallow her up or transform her into something else
Both are preferable to sex with Apollo her dad goes for the transformation option turning daphne into a laurel tree
Apollo looks at the tree and realizes he
loves
This tree after some rather uncomfortable and unfortunate tree molesting
He decrees that the laurel will forever be his symbol and Daphne
Well, we don't know how Daphne feels about it
She's a tree now
But my guess is that she is not
Super thrilled with this outcome a different tree transformation myth takes us to a part of the world. We haven't visited yet
Vietnam. here the story of ton lung and Tao is both a transformation story and an etiological
story explaining a traditional Vietnamese
Marriage custom tun and lung are two brothers
They're not twins
But they're very very similar almost no one can tell them apart except for their friend Tao
The daughter of the village teacher she learns which brother is which by staring deeply into their eyes
she knows the older brother tun is the
extroverted one while the young Lung is
Quiet and thoughtful one day Tao realizes that tun is in love with her before she knows what to do tons parents have come to
Ask for Tao's hand she and her parents
Agree Tun and Tao are married and Tao travels to live with her new husband's family
Tony is happily married, but still loves his younger brother so he tries to include Lung. Tun
AsksLung to come on walks with him and Tao, but the younger brother always refuses
Tao is sensitive to the emotions of the two brothers and one day she realizes that despite his quiet exterior, Lung is
Deeply in love with her eventually his desires become too much to bear so he moves to a remote mountain
To garden and to write, and I mean hey
We've all been after ten days without his brother Tun is beside himself with worry and goes to search for him leaving Tao behind
After another 10 days Tao becomes worried and goes to search for the brothers
She heads to the mountains up a treacherous path to a river. That's too fast and wide to cross
There's no ferry and the weather is starting to turn so she knocks on the door of a nearby Hut
Let's find out what happens next
In the thought bubble inside the hut town meets a kindly old couple she asked them if they'd seen
Two men one dressed in white and the other in green yes
The old man says about a month ago my wife found a man dressed all in white sitting by the river
He was weeping and acting as if he was embracing someone
But it was only the air it began to rain so she came back to the house to fetch a rain jacket for him
I brought the rain jacket the old woman says and asked the man to put it on and join us in the house
He said nothing so I laid the jacket down beside me the next day the man in white wasn't there?
But where he had been sitting there was a strange white rock ten days later another man this one dressed in green
Came by and asked if they'd seen a man dressed in white
We showed him the rock and told him the story the old man says the man in green cried that his brother
Had turned to stone he embraced the rock and wept bitterly and when another storm came through he like his brother
Refused to leave the spot the next day the man in green was also gone and by the rock stood a new
Tree that had not been there before the tree seemed to be protecting the rock the next morning Tao
Goes down to the river
she kneels by the rock and
Embraces the tree crying into its leaves when the couple wakes up Tao is nowhere to be found
but they do find a new vine with its roots deep in the ground twisting up the tree as if
Embracing and supporting it and when the old couple pluck a leaf from the vine
It's smell reminds them the young woman who had spent the night in their Hut
Thanks, thought-bubble this sweet, but tragic story of love and devotion
Doesn't end there though one summer afternoon the king comes to the river and sits on the strange rock under the strange tree
Supported by the strange vine. He asks his attendant. What sort of tree
Is it and orders him to pick one of its fruits another attendant tells the king the story of Lung Tun and Tao?
Explaining the white rock represents lung pure heart the tree represents
Tuns attempt to protect his brother and the vine shows
Tao's Love for her husband the king tastes the fruit wrapped in the leaf of the vine
Mixed with a bit of the rock and finds the taste most agreeable strange
He enjoyed eating rocks
but afterward he declares that the love of these two brothers and the
married couple is so strong that it has produced a
Lovely fruit and from that point the fruit and the leaf and the rock would be used at marriage
proposals and weddings as a symbol of both love and fidelity mythological trees vary in size and
Meaning some are large enough to contain the whole world others are slender plants meant to represent a single young woman or man
deciduous trees with their cycles of birth and death
Lend themselves to metaphor as does their shape with branches reaching towards the sky and roots
Burrowing into the ground trees can live for hundreds if not thousands of years much longer than humans
So it makes sense that they might come to represent something greater than the relatively frail human form
But poignantally they also serve as a retreat for Humanity when the sorrows of
Unrequited love or the threat of abuse become too much to endure
Thanks for watching and see you next time we're gonna talk about mythical cities
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Thanks for watching, and if crushing despair turned me into a tree. I'd want to be groot.