WHEN Æneas visited ‘ the place that hath no road for living men,’ he carried in his hand a golden bough. Whether the poet found this branch growing in the forest of his own luxuriant ...

the bough was a tree branch with golden leaves that enabled the Trojan hero Aeneas to travel through the underworld safely. They discovered the remains while excavating religious sanctuary built ...

“The inspiration was a folklore of the silver bough,” she said, “which is a branch that a mortal would find somewhere in the world. When he picked up that branch that had these golden apples on it, ...

“Bough,” it turns out, can be traced to the 11th century and comes from Middle English where it meant “shoulder” as well as its current meaning of “a large or main branch of a tree.” ...

Mr. Frazer's book takes its title from the tradition that the branch guarded by the priest was the Golden Bough which Eneas plucked before he attempted his journey to the realm of the dead.