These oracular Trees of the Sun and Moon, somewhere on the confines of India, appear in all the fabulous histories of Alexander, from the Pseudo-Callisthenes downwards.  Thus Alexander is made to tell the story in a letter to Aristotle:  “Then came some of the towns-people and said, ’We have to show thee something passing strange, O King, and worth thy visiting; for we can show thee trees that talk with human speech.’  So they led me to a certain park, in the midst of which were the Sun and Moon, and round about them a guard of priests of the Sun and Moon.  And there stood the two trees of which they had spoken, like unto cypress trees; and round about them were trees like the myrobolans of Egypt, and with similar fruit.  And I addressed the two trees that were in the midst of the park, the one which was male in the Masculine gender, and the one that was female in the Feminine gender.  And the name of the Male Tree was the Sun, and of the female Tree the Moon, names which were in that language Muthu and Emausae.[2] And the stems were clothed with the skins of animals; the male tree with the skins of he-beasts, and the female tree with the skins of she-beasts....  And at the setting of the Sun, a voice, speaking in the Indian tongue, came forth from the (Sun) Tree; and I ordered the Indians who were with me to interpret it.  But they were afraid and would not,” etc. (Pseudo-Callisth. ed.  Mueller, III. 17.)

The story as related by Firdusi keeps very near to the Greek as just quoted, but does not use the term “Tree of the Sun.”  The chapter of the Shah Nameh containing it is entitled Didan Sikandar dirakht-i-goyara, “Alexander’s interview with the Speaking Tree.” (Livre des Rois, V. 229.) In the Chanson d’Alixandre of Lambert le Court and Alex. de Bernay, these trees are introduced as follows:—­

  “‘Signor,’ fait Alixandre, ’je vus voel demander,
  Se des merveilles d’Inde me saves rien conter.’ 
  Cil li ont respondu:  ’Se tu vius escouter
  Ja te dirons merveilles, s’es poras esprover. 
  La sus en ces desers pues ii Arbres trover
  Qui c pies ont de haut, et de grossor sunt per. 
  Li Solaus et La Lune les ont fait si serer
  Que sevent tous langages et entendre et parler.’”
      (Ed. 1861 (Dinan), p. 357.)

Maundevile informs us precisely where these trees are:  “A 15 journeys in lengthe, goynge be the Deserts of the tother side of the Ryvere Beumare,” if one could only tell where that is![3] A mediaeval chronicler also tells us that Ogerus the Dane (temp.  Caroli Magni) conquered all the parts beyond sea from Hierusalem to the Trees of the Sun.  In the old Italian romance also of Guerino detto il Meschino, still a chapbook in S. Italy, the Hero (ch. lxiii.) visits the Trees of the Sun and Moon.  But this is mere imitation of the Alexandrian story, and has nothing of interest. (Maundevile, pp. 297-298; Fasciculus Temporum in Germ.  Script.  Pistorii Nidani, II.)