Trees of Inspiration

From ancient times, people appreciated the other-worldly value of trees, often singling out individual trees for special veneration. In Ireland the roots of tree worship reach deep into pagan Celtic religion and spirituality. From Fairy Thorns to Rag Trees, from Mass Bushes to Monument, this book explores the stories and legends of all of Ireland's sacred trees. It also reveals their social and historical functions from pagan times to the present. Did you know that landmark trees were meeting places to install chieftains or that lawsuits were often heard there? People throughout Ireland revered trees so much that they included them in their celebrations of seasonal festivals and held military, political and secret religious conventions on the sites of particular trees. Sacred trees were channels of communication with the divine, through which seers and saints, poets and scholars gained insight and sacred knowledge. In words and images, this is a rich compendium about our relationship with trees and gathers many tree-related remnants of our pagan spiritual past and tree-related oral history into one place.