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The story of the origin of these trees, as related in the Veda, is somewhat curious. It exhibits the root of the superstitious reverence, so common amongst all the Aryan tribes, in which certain trees and plants are held, and of the belief in their medical and magical properties. It appears that the demons had stolen the heavenly soma, or drink of the gods, and cellared it in some mythical rock or cloud. The falcon (a lightning bird) undertook to restore to the thirsty deities their much prized liquor. The feathered hero triumphed, but he gained his honours at the expense of a claw and a plume, of which an arrow from one of
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deprived him during his retreat. Both fell to the earth and took root. From the feather sprung the parna or palasa tree, which possessed red sap and bore scarlet blossoms. From the claw a species of thorn was developed. This Dr. Kuhn contends is the _Mimosa catechu_, or the
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referred to. The falcon being regarded as a lightning-god, the plants and trees sprung from him were supposed to possess largely the divine attributes of their progenitor. The Aryan tribes, on migrating into distant lands, found, of course, that the botanical characteristics of their new homes differed from those pertaining to that they had left. They, therefore, selected what, to them, appeared the nearest representatives of the _parna_ and the _mimosa_, and endowed them with their supernatural properties. Amongst the most reverenced in Europe were the fern, which appears to be but a modern form of the word _parna_; the mountain ash, or rowan; the hazel, and the black and white thorn, and the springwort or St. John's-wort. Kelly says:--
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Among the many English names of the mountain ash are witchen tree, witch elm, witch hazel, witch wood; quicken tree, quick beam (_quick_--alive, _beam_, German _baum_--tree); roan tree, roun tree, rowan. These last three synonyms are from the Norse tongues, and denote, as Grimm conjectures, the runic or mysterious and magic character of the tree.