ABSTRACT
A source of food, fuel, and shelter, trees are also symbolic of eternal life or cyclical rebirth as they lose their leaves and sprout new ones every year. The Assyrians depicted the tree of life as the date tree, and since they artificially pollinated their date trees to produce a greater amount of fruit, the trees were also a symbol of conception. In the Hebrew Garden of Eden, there are two special trees among many: "And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil". In the Norse Prose Edda, the gods come upon two trees which they fashion into the first man and woman, from whom all humans descended. Magic trees figure in the Grimms' tale "The Old Woman in the Wood".
