Literary notes about ASPEN (AI summary)
Writers use “aspen” to evoke both a delicate, trembling quality and a vivid sense of nature’s presence. In many texts the aspen becomes a metaphor for quivering emotion or physical agitation, as characters are described as trembling like aspen leaves ([1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6], [7]), while in other passages its fluttering foliage helps paint a picture of serene, mutable landscapes ([8], [9], [10], [11], [12]). Additionally, in folklore and myth it assumes symbolic roles—from enchanted stakes to emblematic features of wooded groves ([13], [14], [15], [16], [17])—underscoring its rich versatility in literary imagery.
- The cheeks of the beautiful girl were deeply suffused with crimson, her bosom was heaving wildly, and her whole frame was trembling like an aspen.
— from Gaut Gurley; Or, the Trappers of Umbagog: A Tale of Border Life by Daniel P. (Daniel Pierce) Thompson - His knees shook, and heavy drops of sweat came on his forehead, and he trembled like an aspen.
— from Dracula's Guest by Bram Stoker - The girl got to her feet, quivering like an aspen.
— from Brand Blotters by William MacLeod Raine - She ran back home, trembling like an aspen-leaf.
— from Household Tales by Brothers Grimm by Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm - His eyes were standing out of his head, his features twitching as though pulled by some unseen string; he was shaking like an aspen.
— from Tom Burnaby: A Story of Uganda and the Great Congo Forest by Herbert Strang - In that curious situation, I was highly amused at the surprise of Bellino, who stood there trembling like an aspen leaf.
— from The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt, 1725-1798. Complete by Giacomo Casanova - For one instant I shook like a quivering aspen leaf.
— from The Last of the Plainsmen by Zane Grey - We passed Kuil late in the afternoon, and camped for the night in a forest of birch, poplar, and aspen trees, on the banks of the Paren River.
— from Tent Life in Siberia A New Account of an Old Undertaking; Adventures among the Koraks and Other Tribes In Kamchatka and Northern Asia by George Kennan - A wild mountain valley patched with pine and aspen groves lay below them.
— from Wild Roses: A Tale of the Rockies by Howard R. (Howard Roscoe) Driggs - The tall aspen tree by the window made no sound as it touched the pane with its white velvet buds.
— from The Storm Centre: A Novel by Mary Noailles Murfree - Mountains green with fir, golden yellow with the aspen and the birch, and red and scarlet with the lutestring herb and lichens of the higher slopes.
— from In to the Yukon by William Seymour Edwards - Dawn broke cold, clear, frosty, with silvered grass sparkling, with a soft, faint rustling of falling aspen leaves.
— from To the Last Man by Zane Grey - In Russia an aspen stake is selected for that purpose, but in some places one made of thorn is preferred.
— from Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore - off he marched to the Starosta, and told him to call the peasants together and to get ready a hundred loads of aspen wood.
— from Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore - “If he fell into my hands, when I’d caught him I’d bury him in the ground with an aspen stake to fix him down.
— from War and Peace by graf Leo Tolstoy - Thus, Pilajatar, the daughter of the aspen, although as divine as Tapio, the god of the woodlands, is necessarily his servant.
— from Kalevala : the Epic Poem of Finland — Complete - If any one were to make a pyre of aspen boughs, a hundred loads of them, and were to burn me on that pyre, then he’d be able to get the better of me.
— from Russian Fairy Tales: A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore
