Elms leap where askes lay
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Jump to navigationJump to search- Elms leap where ashes lay → elms leap where askes lay
- Elms ... askes: in Norse mythology Askr (the ash tree) was the first man and Embla (the elm tree) was the first woman → Adam & Eve → HCE and ALP
- Elms leap: elms sleep
- Askes → a conflation of "ashes" and "oaks" → Ashes of oaks
- salmon leap: a waterfall or weir which salmon ascend by leaping → Leixlip (name means "salmon leap")
- askes: (Middle English) ashes → the Phoenix’s ashes (FW 004.17)
- askes lay. Phall: → ALP
- oaks ... ald ... elms ... askes: the letters of the early Irish alphabet (and of the Ogham alphabet which preceded it) were named after trees. The Ogham alphabet was called beithe-luis-nin or beithe-luis after its first, second and fifth characters:
- a = ailm (pine)
- b = beithe (birch)
- c = coll (hazel)
- d = dair (oak)
- e = edad (aspen)
- f = fern (alder)
- g = gort (ivy)
- h = úath (whitethorn)
- i = idad (yew)
- l = luis (rowan, mountain-ash)
- m = muin (vine)
- n = nin (ash)
- o = onn (furze, gorse)
- p = pin (pine? gooseberry? rowan?)
- r = ruis (elder)
- s = sail (willow)
- t = tinne (holly)
- u = úr (heather)
- oaks ... ald ... elm ... askes: trees are used proverbially to represent eternity; in Ulysses, Gerty MacDowell muses that Edy Boardman "never had a foot like Gerty MacDowell, a five, and never would ash, oak or elm". See also Rudyard Kipling's poem A Tree Song: "England shall bide Judgement tide / By oak and ash and thorn."
