There just so happened to be a very wise tree spirit who was the leader of a large clan.
恰好有位很有智慧的树神，领导着一个庞大的树神宗族。Science (or rather half-way science)scoffs at reminiscence of dryad and hamadryad, and of trees speaking.
科学（甚至伪科学）嘲笑人们对森林女神和树神的回忆，和树与树的私语。He immediately thought there must be a god living there.
他立刻想到这棵树上一定住着一位树神。Take knocking on wood, thought to date back to pagan rituals aimed at eliciting help from powerful tree gods.
触摸木头，被认为起源于旨在帮助人们引出树神的异教徒仪式。Good-tempered tree fairy guard the ancient forest, leaving the valuable wealth for later generations.
慈祥的树神，守护着几百年留存下来的森林，为后人留下了宝贵的财富。We still do it today, though few, if any, of us worship tree gods.
我们今天依然会这么做，虽然崇拜树神的人为数不多。The tree has its own way to keep itself safe so we should not criticize it in the light of common criterion.
这棵树神它寻求安全的方式与众不同，因此我们也不应该用一般凡人的标准批评它。So they went to the villages, towns and cities, and moved into the big freestanding trees, looked after by people.
于是，这些树神去了村庄和城镇，住进人类栽种的高大独树。The man was sure the tree god had answered his prayer, so he wanted to keep his promise.
但是这个人自己相信一定是树神听到了他得祈祷，所以他就决定去还愿。