Note 30 — Chapter X · OF GLASTONBURY AND THE PASSING OF ARTHUR
Reading edition
Glastonbury occupies a former site of Druidical worship, and Professor Rhys believes the name to be a corruption of the British word glasten, an oak, the Druids cultivating both the oak and the apple as foster parents of their sacred mistletoe. Glestenaburh, says Canon Taylor, was assimilated by the Saxons to their gentile form Glestinga-burh or Glæsting-burh, which being supposed by a false etymology to mean the “shining” or “glassy” town was mistranslated by the Welsh as Ynys-Widrin, the Island of Glass.