And vine worship was forest worship. Moreover, in the same
oak grove at Dodona bells were tied to the oak boughs and their
tinklings also were sacred auguries. The drum, which the modern boy
beats on Christmas Day, was beaten ages before Christ in the worship
of Confucius: the story of it dies away toward what was man's first
written music in forgotten China. In the first century of the
Christian era, on one of the most splendid of the old Buddhist
sculptures, boys are represented as beating the drum in the worship of
the sacred tree--once more showing how music passed into the service
of forest faith.
He touched the cornucopia; and he traced its story back to the ram's
horn--the primitive cup of libation, used for a drinking cup and used
also to pour out the last product of the vine in honor of the vine
itself--the forest's first goblet.
He touched the fruits and the flowers on the Tree: these were oldest
of all, perhaps, he said; for before the forest worshipper had learned
to shape or fabricate any offerings of his own skill, he could at
least bring to the divine tree and hang on it the flower of spring,
the wild fruit of autumn.
He kept on until only three things on the Tree were left
uninterpreted; the tinsel, the masks, and the dolls.
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