All over that island one forest; in that forest one worship;
in that worship one tree--the oak of England; and on that oak one
bough--the mistletoe."
He spoke to her awhile about the oak, describing the place it had in
the early civilizations of the human race. In the Old Testament it was
the tree of the Hebrew idols and of Jehovah. In Greece it was the
tree of Zeus, the most august and the most human of the gods. In Italy
it was the tree of Jove, great father of immortals and of
mankind. After the gods passed, it became the tree of the imperial
Caesars. After the Caesars had passed, it was the oak that Michael
Angelo in the Middle Ages scattered over the ceiling of the Sistine
Chapel near the creation of man and his expulsion from Paradise--there
as always the chosen tree of human desire. In Britain it was the
sacred tree of Druidism: there the Arch Druid and his fellow-priests
performed none of their rites without using its leaves and branches:
never anywhere in the world was the oak worshipped with such
ceremonies and sacrifices as there.
Imagine then a scene--the chief Nature Festival of that forest
worship: the New Year's day of the Druids.
A vast concourse of people, men and women and children, are on their
way to the forest; they are moving toward an oak tree that has been
found with mistletoe growing on it--growing there so seldom.
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