As the
excited throng come in sight of it, they hail it with loud cries of
reverence and delight. Under it they gather; there a banquet is
spread. In the midst of the assemblage one figure towers--the Arch
Druid. Every eye is fixed fearfully on him, for on whomsoever his own
eye may fall with wrath, he may be doomed to become one of the victims
annually sacrificed to the oak.
A gold chain is around his neck; gold bands are around his arms. He is
clad in robes of spotless white. He ascends the tree to a low bough,
and making a hollow in the folds of his robes, he crops with a golden
pruning hook the mistletoe and so catches it as it falls. Then it is
blessed and scattered among the throng, and the priest prays that each
one so receiving it may receive also the divine favor and blessing of
which it is Nature's emblem. Two white bulls, the horns of which have
never hitherto been touched, are now adorned with fillets and are
slaughtered in sacrifice.
Then at last it is over, the people are gone, the forest is left to
itself, and the New Year's ceremony of cutting the mistletoe from the
oak is at an end.
Here he ended the story.
She had sat leaning far forward, her fingers interlocked and her brows
knitted.
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