In Switzerland, there is a long tradition of men becoming trees. Men in the village
of Le Noirmont dress up as fir trees and run through the village searching for
maidens to "sacrifice." The chosen one has her face painted with soot, and she
is then dunked in the village fountain. Then the treemen transform themselves
back into humans until the next year.
- Tom Kemmerer

There is no botanical class for the tree of Siberian legend, which sprang up
without branches. God caused nine limbs to shoot from it, and nine men
were born at its foot: fathers of the nine races. Five of the branches, that
turned toward the east, furnished fruit for men and beasts, but the fruits
that grew on the four western branches God forbade to men, and he sent
a dog and a snake to guard them. While the snake slept, Erlik, the tempter,
climbed into the western branches and persuaded Edji, the woman, to eat
the forbidden fruit. This she shared with her husband, Torongoi, and the
pair, realizing their guilt, covered themselves with skins and hid under the tree.
- Charles M. Skinner, Myths and Legends of Flowers, Trees, Fruits and Plants, 1911

 

 

Do not be afraid to go out on a limb ... That's where the fruit is.
- Anonymous

A tree falls the way it leans.
Bulgarian Proverb

 

 

And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the
running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.
- William Shakespeare

A seed hidden in the heart of an apple is an orchard invisible.
- A Welsh proverb

 

 

A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.
William Blake, Proverbs of Hell, 1790