Ancient Wisdom Atlas

Motif

Life or fate stored outside the body in a plant or animal

life_or_fate_stored_outside_the_body_in_a_plant_or_animal

A motif of the External Soul and Life-Token family, within the sub-family Animal-or-Plant Life Receptacles. Every row below is a tagged passage; each rests on a quote in its source text.

1 occurrences

1 traditions


comparative

  • The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion (Vol. 2 of 2) The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion (Vol. 2 of 2) / CONTENTS; lines 8043-8129 confidence: high

    Mistletoe stays green on a leafless oak in winter and grows from trunk or branches, leading Frazer to suggest that primitive man might imagine the oak-spirit depositing its life there in an intermediate place between earth and heaven.

    The passage treats mistletoe as containing the life of the oak or Balder, says the Hay family’s fate was bound to mistletoe, and compares the Lachlins’ life with deer on Finchra.

    read in the book