Then they descended and left him, and would have led Noma with them from the tree.

But this they could not do, for always she broke from them screaming, and fled back to its shadow.
Then, seeing that she was bewitched, Hafela commanded that they should bind a cloth about her mouth and leave her there till her senses returned to her in the sunlight--for none of them dared to stop with her in the shadow of that tree, since the odours of it were poisonous to man.

Also they believed the place to be haunted by evil spirits..