_or Indian fig) among trees." Hence it came that many
Christians believed that the Tree of Life in Eden was not an apple but a
fig-tree. The traditions which establish the fig-tree as being above all
others one on whose existence that of individuals, families, and states
depended, are extremely numerous and varied. "It was," remarks Alt, "not
only a symbol of fertility, but an emblem of ever-renewed and
never-extinguished _vitality_, and one of eternity, the resurrection, and
of the transmigration of the soul." On the celebrated altar in Ghent,
the Tree of Life is represented as a fig-tree (Menzel, _Christliche
Symbolik_, i. 277). This universal belief explains why the fig-tree
determines the duration and destiny of lives and families.

It may have struck the reader as singular that those who eat of the
forbidden figs are punished by the visit of a beautiful girl who whirls
around with a buzzing sound till they are overcome by awe. Here be it
noted first of all, that the fig, like the pear, is exactly the shape of
a top, even the stem representing the peg. Now, in ancient Latin
witchlore or sorcery, extraordinary magic power, or even sanctity, was
attached to everything which made a humming or buzzing sound. It was
supposed, when properly made, with certain incantations or instruments,
to be capable of throwing people into a trance. Chief among these
instruments was the top. Thus Horace begs Crattidia to stop the
enchantment of the buzzing top (Ode xv. Book v.).

On this subject I find the following in _Diavoli e Streghe_, by Dr. A.
Zangolini, 1864:

"The _rombo_ {208} is an instrument not unlike the _trottola_ or
peg-top of our boys, called in Latin _turbo_, and in common language
also _paleo_. It was believed that with it in witchcraft a lover
could have his head turned with passion, or that he would be turned
at will while it spun. The same held true of other disks
(tee-totums) of wood, iron, or copper."

This idea was extended to the hum of spinning-wheels, which aided the
conception of the Fates, and the thread of life, to the buzzing of bees
and flies, and many other variations of such sounds. Mr. Andrew Lang has
in an admirable paper shown that the _bull-roarer_ has been regarded as
so sacred among certain savages that women, or the profane, were not
allowed to touch it. A bull-roarer is so easily constructed, that it is
remarkable how few people are familiar with it. Tak