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Encyclopedia of Religion entry forApplesIn the Old Testament book, the Song of Songs, the apple (or the quince) is associated with love and marriage (ii. 3 and 4, viii. 5). A Hebrew Midrash states that in Egypt before the days of Moses the Hebrew women were delivered of children under the apple-trees. Among the Ottoman Jews it is the custom for a mother who is about to bear a child to put an apple on her head. Arab women eat fruit in order to make themselves fertile. Hartland notes that " among the Southern Slays the bride is unveiled beneath an apple-tree and the veil is sometimes hung on the tree." Tuscan women, when they want children, get a priest to bless an apple. Then they pronounce over it an invocation to Saint Anne. In King-yang-fu in China the women resort to a goddess of fertility. Appearing in a dream, the goddess " gives fruit to the pilgrim, an apple or a peach if She is to have a boy, plums or pears if a girl." See E. S. Hartland, P.P. citations: Encyc. of Rel., Canney
article created 2006-04-12 , last updated 2006-04-12 |
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