Wild Apples by Henry David Thoreau (best non fiction books of all time TXT) 📕

The tree is mentioned in at least three places in the Old Testament,and its fruit in two or three more. Solomon sings, "As the apple-tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons."And again, "Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples." Thenoblest part of man's noblest feature is named from this fruit, "theapple of the eye."

The apple-tree is also mentioned by Homer and Herodotus. Ulysses sawin the glorious garden of Alcinous "pears and pomegranates andapple-trees bearing beautiful fruit." And according to Homer, appleswere among the fruits which Tantalus could not pluck, the wind everblowing their boughs away from him. Theophrastus knew and describedthe apple-tree as a botanist.

According to the prose Edda, [Footnote: The stories of the earlyScandinavians.] "Iduna keeps in a box the apples which the gods,when they feel old age approaching, have only to taste of to becomeyoung again. It is in this manner that the