"The custom of physically marrying men and women to trees is still practiced in India and other parts of the East" -Frazer, Golden Bough, p. 9

I can recall people in our class alluding to or directly talking about tree-hugging, but the recent influx of blog posts, as tonight is the last night to compose such blog posts, renders my task of finding these particular references almost impossible. I was just looking to see if anyone had used this quote and the post that I did manage to find about tree-hugging, Jase's, did not so I figured I could go right ahead.

This quote can be considered closely related to the story of Apollo and Daphne, in which Daphne prays to become a tree to escape Apollo's lust and preserve her chastity.

[Apollo:] "'But since you cannot be my wife, you'll be my tree...'"-Ovid, p. 24


Good thing for Daphne, Apollo didn't know about this Indian/Eastern custom of marrying trees, or who know what he would have done. Little did he know he could have had her as his tree and his wife. Instead, he had to settle for wearing her laurel leaves as a sort of headdress. At least she approved of that, or at least he assumed that she approved in her tree-like indications of such that could undoubtedly be easily misinterpreted.