Note 1207 — Chapter XX · THE WORSHIP OF THE OAK

M. Praetorius, l.c.; S. Grunau, Preussische Chronik, ed. M. Perlbach, i. (Leipsic, 1876) p. 78 (ii. tract. cap. v. § 2). The chronicler, Simon Grunau, lived as an itinerant Dominican friar at the beginning of the sixteenth century in the part of Prussia which had been ceded to Poland. He brought his history, composed in somewhat rustic German, down to 1529. His familiar intercourse with the lowest classes of the people enabled him to learn much as to their old heathen customs and superstitions; but his good faith has been doubted or denied. In particular, his description of the images of the three gods in the great oak at Romove has been regarded with suspicion or denounced as a figment. See Chr. Hartknoch, op. cit. pp. 127 sqq.; M. Toeppen, op. cit. pp. 122 sqq., 190 sqq.; M. Perlbach’s preface to his edition of Grunau; H. Usener, Götternamen, p. 83. But his account of the sanctity of the oak, and of the perpetual sacred fire of oak-wood, may be accepted, since it is confirmed by other authorities. Thus, according to Malecki, a perpetual fire was kept up by a priest in honour of Perkunas (Pargnus) on the top of a mountain, which stood beside the river Neuuassa (Niewiaza, a tributary of the Niemen). See Malecki (Maeletius, Menecius), op. cit., Scriptores rerum Livonicarum, ii. 391; id., Mitteilungen der Litterarischen Gesellschaft Masovia, Heft 8 (Lötzen, 1902), p. 187. Again, the Jesuit S. Rostowski says that the Lithuanians maintained a perpetual sacred fire in honour of Perkunas in the woods (quoted by A. Brückner, Archiv für slavische Philologie, ix. (1886) p. 33). Malecki and Rostowski do not mention that the fire was kindled with oak-wood, but this is expressly stated by M. Praetorius, and is, besides, intrinsically probable, since the oak was sacred to Perkunas. Moreover, the early historian, Peter of Dusburg, who dedicated his chronicle of Prussia to the Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights in 1326, informs us that the high-priest of the nation, whom the Prussians revered as a pope, kept up a perpetual fire at Romow, which is doubtless the same with the Romowo or Romewo of Grunau (Preussische Chronik, pp. 80, 81, compare p. 62, ed. M. Perlbach). See P. de Dusburg, Chronicon Prussiae, ed. Chr. Hartknoch (Frankfort and Leipsic, 1679), p. 79. Martin Cromer says that the Lithuanians “worshipped fire as a god, and kept it perpetually burning in the more frequented places and towns” (De origine et rebus gestis Polonorum, Bâle, 1568, p. 241). Romow or Romowo is more commonly known as Romove. Its site is very uncertain. See Chr. Hartknoch, Alt- und neues Preussen, pp. 122 sqq. Grunau’s account of Romove and its sacred oak, with the images of the three gods in it and the fire of oak-wood burning before it, is substantially repeated by Alex. Guagnini. See J. Pistorius, Polonicae historiae corpus (Bâle, 1582), i. 52; Respublica sive status regni Poloniae, Lituaniae, Prussiae, Livoniae, etc. (Leyden, 1627), pp. 321 sq. I do not know whether the chronicler, Simon Grunau, is the same with Simon Grynaeus, editor of the Novus Orbis regionum ac insularum veteribus incognitarum, which was published at Paris in 1532.