Attis, the Thyrsus, and the Tree of Midwinter

In the classical world the pine belonged to the cult of Cybele and her consort Attis, who was transformed into a pine, so that a felled pine was carried in procession and mourned in the spring rites; the pine cone tipped the thyrsus, the wand of Dionysus, as an emblem of fertility and life. Its evergreen persistence through the dead season placed it, with holly and ivy, among the greenery of the northern midwinter, and it is one of the trees behind the Christmas tree. Endurance, long life, steadfast virtue, fertility and the green held up in winter all gather to the resinous evergreen, read from the plain fact that it keeps its living green when the broadleaved trees are bare.

Pine resin had a major and entirely practical economic history of its own: tapped, distilled and processed into turpentine, rosin and pine tar, it supplied the naval stores industry that waterproofed and maintained the wooden ships and rigging of the age of sail, an industry so central to shipbuilding that the term naval stores survives in English long after sailing ships themselves have largely disappeared. Rosin from pine resin is still used today to grip the strings of violin and cello bows and to keep the hands of gymnasts, weightlifters and baseball pitchers from slipping, a small, unbroken chain from the pine forest to the concert hall and the sports field.