Chapter Traveller to Trees noted for Specific Virtues and Uses of T by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Treachery of the Long-Knives (The). Hengist invited the chief British nobles to a conference at Ambresbury, but arranged that a Saxon should be seated beside each Briton. At a given signal, each Saxon was to slay his neighbour with his long knife, and as many as 460 British nobles fell. Eidiol earl of Gloucester escaped, after killing seventy (some say 600) of the Saxons.—Welsh Triads.

Stonehenge was erected by Merlin, at the command of Ambrosius, in memory of the plot of the “Long- Knives.”…He built it on the site of a former circle. It deviates from older bardic circles, as may be seen by comparing it with Avebury, Stanton-Drew, Keswick, etc.—Cambrian Biography, art. “Merddin.”

Treasury of Peru (The), the Andes.

Treasury of Sciences (The), Bokhara, which has 103 colleges, besides schools and 360 mosques.

Trecentisti, the Italian worthies of the “Trecento” (thirteenth and fourteenth centuries). They were Dantê (1265–1321), Petrarch (1304–1374); Boccaccio, who wrote the Decameron. Others of less note were Giotto, Giovanna da Pisa, and Andrea Orcagna. (See Cinquecento, p. 210; Seicento, p. 978.)

In Italy he’d ape the Trecentisti.
   —Byron: Don Juan, iii. 86 (1820).

Tree (The Bleeding). One of the indictments laid to the charge of the marquis of Argyll, so hated by the royalists for the part he took in the execution of Montrose, was this: “That a tree on which thirty-six of his enemies were hanged was immediately blasted, and, when hewn down, a copious stream of blood ran from it, saturating the earth, and that blood for several years was emitted from the roots.”—Laing: History of Scotland, ii. 11 (1800); State Trials, ii. 422.

The Largest Tree. The largest tree in the world is said to be one discovered, in 1874, near Tule River, in California. Though the top has been broken off, it is 240 feet high, and the diameter of the tree where it has been broken is 12 feet. This giant of the forest is called “Old Moses,” from a mountain in the neighbourhood, and is calculated to be 4840 years old! The hollow of its trunk, which is 111 feet, will hold 150 persons, and is hung with scenes of California, is carpeted, and fitted up like a drawingroom, with table, chairs, sofa, and pianoforte. A section of this tree, 74 feet round and 25 feet across, was exhibited in New York, in 1879. (See New York Herald.)

(Australia claims to have still larger trees.)

The Poet’s Tree, a tree which grows over the tomb of Tan-Sein, a musician at the court of [Mohammed] Akbar. Whoever chews a leaf of this tree will be inspired with a divine melody of voice.—W. Hunter.

His voice was as sweet as if he had chewed the leaves of that enchanted tree which grows over the tomb of the musician Tan-Sein.—Moore: Lalla Rookh (1817).

The Singing Tree, a tree each leaf of which was musical, and all the leaves joined together in delightful harmony.—Arabian Nights (“The Story of the Sisters who envied their Younger Sister”).

In the Fairy Tales of the comtesse D’Aulnoy, there is a tree called “the singing apple,” of precisely the same character, but the apple tree gave the possessor the inspiration of poetry also.—“Chery and Fairstar.”

Tree of Knowledge (The), a tree in the garden of paradise, the fruit of which Adam and Eve were forbidden to eat, lest they should die.—Gen. ii. 9; iii. 3.

Next to [the tree of] Life,
…the Tree of Knowledge grew fast by,
Knowledge of good, bought dear by knowing ill.
   —Milton: Paradise Lost, iv. 221 (1665).

Tree of Liberty (The), a tree or pole crowned with a cap of liberty, and decorated with flags, ribbons, and other devices of a republican character. The idea was given by the Americans in their War of Independence; it was adopted by the Jacobins in Paris in 1790, and by the Italians in 1848.