Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition
The Gaelic Maundeville (Author: John Maundeville)

paragraph 11

Know ye that the Cross was lying down when Christ was cast upon it, and that His pain was increased when the Cross was raised with Him upon it. And the Greeks, and from the Greek sea east all men who read a book and have knowledge of the scripture, say that the tree of the Cross, which we call cypress, was of the fruit of the forbidden tree whereof Eve and Adam ate the apple, and they say that thus they find it written in their books. And they also say that when death sickness attacked Adam, he sent for his son Seth, and told him to go to Paradise and to entreat the angel who was guarding it for some small matter of the oil of the Tree of Life to be put to him to anoint his limbs so that they might be made whole. So, at his father's words, Seth went to Paradise, and the angel refused to let him in, or to give him the oil; but he gave him four seeds of the fruit of the tree whereof his father had eaten the apple, and he told him, when his father should die, to bury him


p.13

and to put the four seeds at the root of his tongue. and that out of them four branches would grow, and that from those branches fruit would spring forth to heal Adam with his race. When Seth came from Paradise to where his father lay, he found him dead, and he put the seeds at the root of his tongue, as the angel had said, and buried him honourably. And the four branches which we mentioned grew, and of them is the fourth tree of which the Cross was made, and which bore a goodly fruit, to wit, Jesus Christ, when Adam was saved and his descendants, excepting those who would not through their sin.