The lime tree, or linden, ( Tilia ) is important in the mythology, literature, and folklore of a number of cultures.
The lime tree, or linden, ( Tilia ) is important in the mythology, literature, and folklore of a number of cultures.
In old pagan Slavic mythology, the linden (lipa, as called in all Slavic languages) was considered a sacred tree. [1] Particularly in Poland, many villages have the name "Święta Lipka" (or similar), which literally means "Holy Linden". To this day, the tree is a national emblem of the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Lusatia.[ citation needed ]Lipa gave name to the traditional Slavic name for the month of June (Croatian, lipanj) or July (Polish, lipiec, Ukrainian "lypen'/липень"). It is also the root for the German city of Leipzig, taken from the Sorbian name lipsk. [2] The former Croatian currency, kuna , consisted of 100 lipa (Tilia). "Lipa" was also a proposed name for Slovenian currency in 1990, however the name "tolar" ultimately prevailed. [3] In the Slavic Orthodox Christian world, limewood was the preferred wood for panel icon painting. The icons by the hand of Andrei Rublev, including the Holy Trinity (Hospitality of Abraham), and The Savior, now in the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, are painted on linden wood. Its wood was chosen for its ability to be sanded very smooth and for its resistance to warping once seasoned. The southern Slovenian village of "Lipica" signifies little Lime tree and has given its name to the Lipizzan horse breed. [4]
In Baltic mythology, there is an important goddess of fate by the name of Laima /laɪma/, whose sacred tree is the lime. Laima's dwelling was a lime-tree, where she made her decisions as a cuckoo. For this reason Lithuanian women prayed and gave sacrifices under lime-trees asking for luck and fertility. They treated lime-trees with respect and talked with them as if they were human beings.
The linden was also a highly symbolic and hallowed tree to the Germanic peoples in their native pre-Christian Germanic mythology.
Originally, local communities assembled not only to celebrate and dance under a linden tree, but to hold their judicial thing meetings there in order to restore justice and peace. It was believed that the tree would help unearth the truth. Thus the tree became associated with jurisprudence even after Christianization, such as in the case of the Gerichtslinde , and verdicts in rural Germany were frequently returned sub tilia (Unter der linden) until the Age of Enlightenment.
In the Nibelungenlied , a medieval German work ultimately based on oral tradition recounting events amongst the Germanic tribes in the 5th and 6th centuries, Siegfried gains his invulnerability by bathing in the blood of a dragon. While he did so, a single linden leaf sticks to him, leaving a spot on his body untouched by the blood and he thus has a single point of vulnerability.
The most notable street in Berlin, Germany, is called Unter den Linden , named after the trees lining the avenue. It leads from the center of Berlin to Potsdam, the country residence of the Prussian kings.
In German folklore, the linden tree is the "tree of lovers." The well-known Middle High German poem Under der linden by Walter von der Vogelweide (c. 1200) describes a tryst between a maid and a knight under a linden tree.
Hohenlinden (translated as "High linden") is a community in the upper Bavarian district of Ebersberg in which the Battle of Hohenlinden took place; Thomas Campbell wrote the poem Hohenlinden about said battle.
Homer, Horace, Virgil, and Pliny mention the linden tree and its virtues. As Ovid tells the old story of Baucis and Philemon, she was changed into a linden and he into an oak when the time came for them both to die.
Herodotus says:
The Scythian diviners take also the leaf of the linden tree, which, dividing into three parts, they twine round their fingers; they then unbind it and exercise the art to which they pretend. [5]
Philyra, mother of the centaur Chiron, turned into a linden tree after bearing Chiron.
For a long time, in northern China, because there is no Bodhi tree, the sacred tree of Buddhism, and the leaf shape of the "椴樹/Tilia" tree is similar to that of Bodhi tree, it was planted in temples to replace the sacred Bodhi tree. They are also often called Bodhi trees, just like the two Tilia trees next to the 英華殿/Yinghua Dian - the place where the empress dowager, empress and concubines worship Buddha - in the Forbidden City in Beijing, planted by Empress Dowager Li, the biological mother of Wanli Emperor about five hundred years ago. [6] Qianlong Emperor of the Qing dynasty even wrote two poems for them: "菩提树诗/The Poem of the Bodhi Tree (in the Yinghua Dian)" and "菩提树歌/The Song of the Bodhi Tree (in the Yinghua Dian)", and carved them on stone tablets and placed them in the stele pavilion in front of the Yinghua Dian. [6]
J. R. R. Tolkien composed the poem Light as Leaf on Lindentree which was originally published in 1925 in volume 6 of The Gryphon magazine. After many emendations it was later included in The Lord of the Rings as a song sung by Aragorn about the tale of Beren and Lúthien.
One of the best known poems of the Minnesanger Walther von der Vogelweide is Under der linden , which describes a tryst between a maid and a knight under a linden tree.
A play called The Linden Tree (1947) was written by Bradford-born English novelist, playwright and broadcaster J. B. Priestley.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge features linden trees as an important symbol in his poem "This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison" (written 1797; first published 1800).
Several of the short poems (Fraszki) of Polish poet Jan Kochanowski feature the linden. His "Na Lipę" ("To The Tilia Tree"), published in 1584, was inspired by a much-favoured tree on his country estate at Czarnolas. Kochanowski contemplated, rested and wrote in its shade, and offered refreshment to guests under its shelter, and these moments were all represented in his poetry. [7]
A poem from Wilhelm Müller's Winterreise cycle of poems is called "Der Lindenbaum" ("The Linden Tree"). In 1827, Franz Schubert wrote the famous song cycle "Winterreise" (D 911) based on these poems. In Thomas Mann's novel The Magic Mountain , a recording of this song cycle is an important plot device and philosophical touchstone.
Hans Christian Andersen's short story "The Elf of the Rose" mentions a linden tree and its leaves frequently.
In The Grimm Brothers' fairy tale The Frog Prince , the princess drops her golden ball into the pond while sitting under a linden tree.
Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther features a linden tree throughout the novel, and the protagonist, Werther, is buried under the tree after his suicide.
In Swann's Way , the first book of Proust's In Search of Lost Time , the narrator dips a petite madeleine into a cup of lime-blossom tea. The aroma and taste of cake and tea triggers his first conscious involuntary memory.
"The Three Linden Trees" is a 1912 fairy tale by Hermann Hesse strongly influenced by the Greek legend of Damon and Pythias. The story, set in the medieval period, tries to explain three huge linden trees whose branches intertwine to cover the entire cemetery of the Hospital of the Holy Spirit in Berlin (see The Complete Fairy Tales of Hermann Hesse).
John Updike's novel The Centaur , like James Joyce in Ulysses, uses myth in an attempt to turn a modern and common scene into something more profound, a meditation on life and man's relationship to nature and eternity. In it Updike parallels the lives of modern characters with the Greek myth in which Chiron's mother Philyra transforms into a linden tree to escape the shame of giving birth to a seemingly mutant half-horse, half-man as a result of her being raped by Cronus. [8]
The lime tree is referred to in the story "The Man Who Planted Trees" by Jean Giono. The unnamed narrator of the story re-visits a once abandoned and desolate village around which the man referenced by the books title (Elzéard Bouffier) has planted a forest over a period of 40 years. He returns to find by the fountain:
I saw that there was indeed a fountain, that it was abundant, and, which touched me most, that someone had planted a lime tree next to it, which might already have been four years old, already thick; an undeniable symbol of resurrection. [9]
Eminescu's Linden Tree (Romanian : Teiul lui Eminescu) is a 500-year-old silver lime situated in Iași, Romania. Mihai Eminescu reportedly wrote some of his best works underneath this lime, rendering the tree one of Romania's most important natural monuments and an Iași landmark. [10]
Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote the song "Linden Lea" in the 1900s.
The coat of arms of Mariehamn features lime tree leaves, referring to the local tree plant. [11] [12] [13] [14]
O-Zone's song Dragostea din Tei (love from the linden) is titled after the tree.
Trevor Hall’s song: The Lime Tree was named for the tree and is based on Ovid's narration of Baucis and Philemon and the poem Under der linden by Walter von der Vogelweide.
In Sweden, where the lime tree is named "Lind", the 100 most common surnames in 2015 included at 17 Lindberg (Lime-hill), at 21 Lindström (Lime-stream), at 22 Lindqvist (Lime-twig), at 23 Lindgren (Lime-branch), and at 99 Lindholm (Lime-island). [15]
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, WWV 96, is a music drama, or opera, in three acts, by Richard Wagner. It is the longest opera commonly performed, taking nearly four and a half hours, not counting two breaks between acts, and is traditionally not cut. With Hans von Bülow conducting, it was first performed on 21 June 1868 at the National Theater in Munich, today home of Bavarian State Opera.
Pollarding is a pruning system involving the removal of the upper branches of a tree, which promotes the growth of a dense head of foliage and branches. In ancient Rome, Propertius mentioned pollarding during the 1st century BC. The practice has occurred commonly in Europe since medieval times, and takes place today in urban areas worldwide, primarily to maintain trees at a determined height or to place new shoots out of the reach of grazing animals.
Mihai Eminescu was a Romanian Romantic poet from Moldavia, novelist, and journalist, generally regarded as the most famous and influential Romanian poet. Eminescu was an active member of the Junimea literary society and worked as an editor for the newspaper Timpul, the official newspaper of the Conservative Party (1880–1918). His poetry was first published when he was 16 and he went to Vienna, Austria to study when he was 19. The poet's manuscripts, containing 46 volumes and approximately 14,000 pages, were offered by Titu Maiorescu as a gift to the Romanian Academy during the meeting that was held on 25 January 1902. Notable works include Luceafărul, Odă în metru antic, and the five Letters (Epistles/Satires). In his poems, he frequently used metaphysical, mythological and historical subjects.
Iași, also referred to mostly historically as Jassy, is the third largest city in Romania and the seat of Iași County. Located in the historical region of Moldavia, it has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Romanian social, cultural, academic and artistic life. The city was the capital of the Principality of Moldavia from 1564 to 1859, then of the United Principalities from 1859 to 1862, and the capital of Romania from 1916 to 1918.
Tilia is a genus of about 30 species of trees or bushes, native throughout most of the temperate Northern Hemisphere. The tree is known as linden for the European species, and basswood for North American species. In Britain and Ireland they are commonly called lime trees, although they are not related to the citrus lime. The genus occurs in Europe and eastern North America, but the greatest species diversity is found in Asia. Under the Cronquist classification system, this genus was placed in the family Tiliaceae, but genetic research summarised by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group has resulted in the incorporation of this genus, and of most of the previous family, into the Malvaceae.
Ludevít Štúr, also known as Ľudovít Velislav Štúr, was a Slovak revolutionary, politician, and writer. As a leader of the Slovak national revival in the 19th century, and the author of the Slovak language standard, he is lauded as one of the most important figures in Slovak history.
The common linnet is a small passerine bird of the finch family, Fringillidae. It derives its common name and the scientific name, Linaria, from its fondness for hemp seeds and flax seeds—flax being the English name of the plant from which linen is made.
Tilia cordata, the small-leaved lime or small-leaved linden, is a species of tree in the family Malvaceae, native to much of Europe. Other common names include little-leaf or littleleaf linden, or traditionally in South East England, pry or pry tree. Its range extends from Britain through mainland Europe to the Caucasus and western Asia. In the south of its range it is restricted to high elevations.
Bilzingsleben is a former stone quarry in Thuringia, Germany, notable for its wealth of palaeolithic human fossils and artifacts.
The kuna was the currency of Croatia from 1994 until 2022. It was replaced by the euro in 2023. The kuna was subdivided into 100 lipa. It was issued by the Croatian National Bank and the coins were minted by the Croatian Mint.
The Balto-Slavic languages form a branch of the Indo-European family of languages, traditionally comprising the Baltic and Slavic languages. Baltic and Slavic languages share several linguistic traits not found in any other Indo-European branch, which points to a period of common development and origin.
The samodiva, samovila or vila, are woodland fairies or nymphs found in South and West Slavic folklore.
Tilia tomentosa, known as silver linden in the US and silver lime in the UK, is a species of flowering plant in the family Malvaceae, native to southeastern Europe and southwestern Asia, from Romania and the Balkans east to western Turkey, occurring at moderate altitudes.
In Ancient Greek religion and mythology, Cronus, Cronos, or Kronos was the leader and youngest of the first generation of Titans, the divine descendants of the primordial Gaia and Uranus. He overthrew his father and ruled during the mythological Golden Age, until he was overthrown by his own son Zeus and imprisoned in Tartarus. According to Plato, however, the deities Phorcys, Cronus, and Rhea were the eldest children of Oceanus and Tethys.
The Lindenhof is a moraine hill and a public square in the historic center of Zürich, Switzerland. It is the site of the Roman and Carolingian era Kaiserpfalz around which the city has historically grown. The hilltop area—including its prehistoric, Roman, and medieval remains—is listed as a Swiss heritage site of national significance.
The Eckbach is a small river in the northeastern Palatinate and the southeastern Rhenish Hesse. It is slightly over 39 kilometres (24 mi) long.
The lime tree of Kaditz is a natural landmark situated in the churchyard of Emmaus Church in Kaditz, a district of Dresden in Saxony, Germany. The large-leaved lime tree is 20 metres (66 ft) high and is estimated to be between 500 and 1,000 years old. The girth of the trunk is about 10 metres (33 ft). In 1818 the tree was badly damaged by a huge fire in the village, which caused the trunk to split in two. It developed an abnormal growth to compensate for the damage done by the fire. This lime tree has often been written about and depicted, especially in Germany, and has also been used as a case study in dendrology, the science of trees and wooded plants. With its large girth it was ranked among the biggest lime trees in Germany even in the 19th century. The Kaditz Lime is also said to have served as a kind of pillory in the Middle Ages. The German Tree Archive includes it in its list of the most significant trees in the nation, in which the most important criterion is the girth of the trunk measured at a height of 1 metre.
A plant epithet is a name used to label a person or group, by association with some perceived quality of a plant. Vegetable epithets may be pejorative, such as turnip, readily giving offence, or positive, such as rose or other flowers implying beauty. Tree and flower forenames such as Hazel, Holly, Jasmine and Rose are commonly given to girls. Tree surnames such as Oakes (Oak) and Nash (Ash) are toponymic, given to a person in the Middle Ages who lived in a place near a conspicuous tree. A few plant surnames such as Pease and Onions are metonymic, for sellers of peas and onions respectively. Finally, plant surnames are sometimes emblematic, as in the name Rose, used as a family emblem.
The natural monument Kasberger Linde, also known as Kunigundenlinde or Franzosenlinde, is a summer lime tree (Tilia platyphyllos) located on the outskirts of the Gräfenberg district of Kasberg in the Forchheim district. In the vicinity of the tree, court days were presumably held during the Middle Ages. Estimates suggest that the lime tree is between 600 and 1000 years old, and it has been officially recognized as a natural monument by the Lower Nature Conservation Authority of the Forchheim district since at least 1976. Adjacent to the ancient Kasberger Linde stands another lime tree, approximately 150 years old.
The Linde in Schenklengsfeld, also known as the Schenklengsfeld Dorflinde or Riesenlinde, is a thousand-year-old linden tree and is considered one of the oldest trees in Germany. This large-leaved lime tree is located in Schenklengsfeld, approximately ten kilometers southeast of Bad Hersfeld in the eastern Hessian district of Hersfeld-Rotenburg. Throughout its history, this tree served as a court lime tree, where legal proceedings and gatherings took place for several centuries. Additionally, a pillory was constructed near the tree for carrying out sentences.