The Bottle Tree Multi-Cache
Good Neighbors: All good things must come to an end.
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(small)
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THE BOTTLE TREE
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The invention of glass dates back to the Early
Bronze Age, around 3000 BC, in northern Africa. The earliest
examples include cutting tools and glass beads. It
wasn’t until 1600 BC that true hollow glass bottles began to
appear in Egypt and Mesopotamia. But even then, the glass
vessels were not much more than highly decorative pottery, since
the glass was wound around clay cores.
It was centuries later that modern glass appeared,
originating in Alexandria during the Ptolemaic period somewhere
between 300 and 30 BC. The artisans of that time created
mosaic glass, slices of colored glass arranged in order to
create decorative patterns.
The discovery of glass blowing some time between 27
BC and 14 AD by Syrian glass makers was a major breakthrough.
From that point on, glass production soared, particularly in the
Roman world, where glass became available to both rich and
poor.
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About that time, strange tales began to
circulate. It was said that spirits could be trapped in glass
bottles. These tales may have begun when people heard the
soft moaning sounds caused by the wind blowing over the bottle
openings and mistook them for the sounds of the spirits wailing as
they tried to escape. Or the tales may have had a much older
origin. Remember Aladdin and the magic lamp? That
Arabian folk tale about a captured genie dates back thousands of
years, even before the invention of clear glass.
These tales were brought down through sub-Saharan
Africa, up into Eastern Europe, and finally to the Americas.
Eventually, they evolved into the legend of the bottle tree.
Folk lore has it that bottles hung on the branches
of a tree can be used to capture evil spirits. The idea is
that roaming night spirits find the colorful bottles so appealing
that they are lured into them and become trapped. In the
morning, the evil spirits are destroyed by the brilliant rays of
light from the rising sun.
But that was long ago and a much different
time. We don’t believe in such childish superstitions
nowadays.
Do we?
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Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Guvf fubhyq or na rnfl gjb-fgntr zhygvpnpur. Tb gb gur cbfgrq ybpngvba va beqre gb svaq gur pbbeqvangrf sbe gur svany fgntr. Cnexvat vf ninvynoyr arne gur vagrefrpgvba bs 91fg Fgerrg naq Gbyrqb. Ersre gb gur zncf va gur vzntr tnyyrel. Vs lbh'er univat gebhoyr jvgu gur svany fgntr, guvax "obggyr gerr."