The olive tree is often referenced when describing a successful or safe outcome of a challenging endeavor. The safe return of Odysseus to Ithaca, under the watchful eye of the goddess Athena, is placed under the sign of the olive tree. In song V of the Odyssey, Calypso’s “olive-handle ax” becomes a marvelous tool for the weary and tired sailor who fells twenty trees to build what Homer, in a great understatement, calls a “raft”. On Scheria Island he makes a bed under two olive trees, “one wild, one planted”…”and covered himself up”. Finally Odysseus gouges the eye of Polyphemus the Cyclops with “a club of green olivewood hardened by…