Book (Ang.-Saxon, boc; Danish, beuke; German, buche, a beech-tree)

Beech-bark was employed for carving names on before the invention of printing.

“Here on my trunk’s surviving frame,

Carved many a long-forgotten name…

As love’s own altar, honour me:

Spare, woodman, spare the beechen tree.”

Campbell: Beech Tree’s Petition.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.