I once heard a tale of a great tree - a tree so large that you could not appreciate how tall it was until darkness fell over the earth.

Then, as the last light faded away in the west, stars began to appear, hanging from the upper branches of the tree.

This magnificant tree had three large roots. One root went down to the source of all life; where there was sweet water, which was in the essence of all living things, and from which all things grew and blossomed. Fairies sprinkled this water on the leaves of the tree each morming.

The second root, on the other side of the tree went down into deep cold water. On this side of the tree decay began, and the tree aged and was worn down by all sorts of creatures that consumed and gnawed at the life of the tree. As you know, there never was a good that evil came not; their never was growth and beauty without decay.

In the center of the tree, the largest and deepest root went way down, into the center of the earth, to the region of memory and renewal. Many tiny dark little creatures worked very hard in these depths of the earth to restore the decay of the tree into a life-giving mead.

It is said that any mortal which walks through the forest and gathers in the sweet smell of this mead as it sifts up through the soil, will become so intoxicated with the divine that words will fall from their mouth as if from the mouth of the creator, and poetry is born.