So much for the tree-spirit conceived as incorporate or immanent in the tree. We have now to show that the tree-spirit is often conceived and represented as detached from the tree and clothed in human form, and even as embodied in living men or women. The evidence for this anthropomorphic representation of the tree-spirit is largely to be found in the popular customs of European peasantry. Sir James George Frazer.
This snippet of text from The Golden Bough immediately reminded me of the story of Myrrha and her incestuous relations with Theias. Her untimely transfiguration into tree-form while her wooden womb swelled with the fetus of Adonis was a transformation from human to tree. The quote from Frazer is the reinvention and perpetuation of the "tree-spirit" in European myth. These recreated European tree-spirits appear to have reversed the morphing process Myrrha underwent. They are reversing Myrrha's transformation and becoming "embodied in living men or women".
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