'The White Knight,' saith a commentator, 'is Freyr, one of the most glorious among Norse Asen, or children of the gods--he who rules over rain, sunshine, and earth's fruitfulness. His adversary is Surtur, the Black Demon--a pitiless foe of the Asen, who in the great battle will fight with the evil Loki--'the curse and shame of gods and men'--and set heaven and earth afire. But then there will come a new heaven and a new earth, in which eternal justice shall reign, and the 'GREAT KING'--he whose steed shall wait beneath the Ash of Life--'will rule forever in peace and holiness.'
Dear reader, the battle between Freyr and Surtur is ever raging--in your heart as in all the world. But whenever a great strife for freedom and truth and man's rights is battled out, _then_ the branch has grown, and the horse of the Great King is saddled beneath the Ash, and his rule draws nearer than ever. Even as I write the battle rages, as it never raged before on earth, between the infernal Loki and Surtur and the glorious Asen--the great children of light and of truth. You, soldier of the Lord, who read these lines--you, whose musket is borne in defence of the Union, are as true a child of the great race of light as was ever Odin or Balder, and you are in this great fight fulfilling the prophecies of a thousand years aforetime, which foretold the final battle of freedom. _You_ too are of the Northmen, the children of Odin and of Freyr, the inexhaustible race of warriors and of workmen--the free laborers who forged the swords they wielded against the dark and wily fiend who stole his weapons from the foe ere the war began. And the Horse so easily ruled--the all-powerful WILL--stands bridled beneath the eternal Ash Tree of Life; and while he lives and the tree grows, hope need not perish, and freedom cannot die.
In a Floral Lexicon I find it stated that the Ash tree signifies 'grandeur.' _E ben trovato_--it is not badly imagined--but its real meaning is _life_, and that not mere existence, but fresh, vigorous, exuberant life, the life of action and of enjoyment. The shaft of the Greek spear, which healed the wound given by the point, was, I doubt not, made of Ash, even as was that which slew Achilles. Thus the Ash, it will be seen, was an important letter in the ancient alphabet of the mysteries. May I hope that when you next sit beneath its graceful boughs, you will recall some of the lore which hallows it, and makes it a strange, living antique, not less curious than coin, weapon, or gem. Read it in all the significance, all the strange spirit of the old mythology, and then think what Nature must have been--or what it may yet be--to men finding as deep a symbol as even the Ash in every high place above the valleys, in every stream, cave, and rivulet, and in every green tree.