Chapter XIII
Reading edition
TREE AND PLANT WORSHIP.
Notes in this chapter
Note 1 · Footnote 659: (return) Sacaze, Inscr. des Pyren. 255; Hirschfeld, Sitzungsberichte (Berlin, 1896), 448.Note 2 · Footnote 660: (return) CIL vi. 46; CIR 1654, 1683.Note 3 · Footnote 661: (return) D'Arbois, Les Celtes, 52.Note 4 · Footnote 662: (return) Lucan, Phar. Usener's ed., 32; Orosius, v. 16. 6; Dio Cass. lxii. 6.Note 5 · Footnote 663: (return) Pliny, xvi. 44. The Scholiast on Lucan says that the Druids divined with acorns (Usener, 33).Note 6 · Footnote 664: (return) Max. Tyr. Diss. viii. 8; Stokes, RC i. 259.Note 7 · Footnote 665: (return) Le Braz, ii. 18.Note 8 · Footnote 666: (return) Mr. Chadwick (Jour. Anth. Inst. xxx. 26) connects this high god with thunder, and regards the Celtic Zeus (Taranis, iNote 9 · Footnote 667: (return) Helbig, Die Italiker in der Poebene, 16 f.Note 10 · Footnote 668: (return) Mannhardt, Baumkultus; Frazer, Golden Bough2 iii. 198.Note 11 · Footnote 669: (return) Frazer, loc. cit.Note 12 · Footnote 670: (return) Evans, Arch. Rev. i. 327 f.Note 13 · Footnote 671: (return) Joyce, SH i. 236.Note 14 · Footnote 672: (return) O'Curry, MC i. 213.Note 15 · Footnote 673: (return) LL 199b; Rennes Dindsenchas, RC xv. 420.Note 16 · Footnote 674: (return) RC xv. 455, xvi. 279; Hennessey, Chron. Scot. 76.Note 17 · Footnote 675: (return) Keating, 556; Joyce, PN i. 499.Note 18 · Footnote 676: (return) Wood-Martin, ii. 159.Note 19 · Footnote 677: (return) D'Arbois, Les Celtes, 51; Jullian, 41.Note 20 · Footnote 678: (return) Cook, Folk-Lore, xvii. 60.Note 21 · Footnote 679: (return) See Sébillot, i. 293; Le Braz, i. 259; Folk-Lore Journal, v. 218; Folk-Lore Record, 1882.Note 22 · Footnote 680: (return) Val. Probus, Comm. in Georgica, ii. 84.Note 23 · Footnote 681: (return) Miss Hull, 53; O'Ourry, MS. Mat. 465. Writing tablets, made from each of the trees when they were cut down, sprang toNote 24 · Footnote 682: (return) Stat. Account, iii. 27; Moore, 151; Sébillot, i. 262, 270.Note 25 · Footnote 683: (return) Dom Martin, i. 124; Vita S. Eligii, ii. 16.Note 26 · Footnote 684: (return) Acta Sanct. (Bolland.), July 31; Sulp. Sever. Vita S. Mart. 457.Note 27 · Footnote 685: (return) Grimm, Teut. Myth. 76; Maury, 13, 299. The story of beautiful women found in trees may be connected with the custom oNote 28 · Footnote 686: (return) De la Tour, Atlas des Monnaies Gaul, 260, 286; Reinach, Catal. Sommaire, 29.Note 29 · Footnote 687: (return) Pliny, HN xvi. 44.Note 30 · Footnote 688: (return) See p. 162, supra.Note 31 · Footnote 689: (return) See Cameron, Gaelic Names of Plants, 45. In Gregoire de Rostren, Dict. françois-celt. 1732, mistletoe is translated bNote 32 · Footnote 690: (return) Pliny, xxiv. 11.Note 33 · Footnote 691: (return) Ibid.Note 34 · Footnote 692: (return) Ibid. xxv. 9.Note 35 · Footnote 693: (return) See Carmichael, Carmina Gadelica; De Nore, Coutumes ... des Provinces de France, 150 f.; Sauvé, RC vi. 67, CM ix. 331Note 36 · Footnote 694: (return) O'Grady, ii. 126.Note 37 · Footnote 695: (return) Miss Hull, 172; see p. 77, supra.Note 38 · The Celts had their own cult of trees, but they adopted local cults—Ligurian, Iberian, and others. The Fagus Deus (the divine beech), the SeNote 39 · The Celts made their sacred places in dark groves, the trees being hung with offerings or with the heads of victims. Human sacrifices were hNote 40 · Pliny said of the Celts: "They esteem nothing more sacred than the mistletoe and the tree on which it grows. But apart from this they chooseNote 41 · Dr. Evans argues that "the original holy object within the central triliths of Stonehenge was a sacred tree," an oak, image of the Celtic ZeNote 42 · Other trees—the yew, the cypress, the alder, and the ash, were venerated, to judge by what Lucan relates of the sacred grove at Marseilles. Note 43 · The Irish bile was a sacred tree, of great age, growing over a holy well or fort. Five of them are described in the Dindsenchas, and one wasNote 44 · Tribal and personal names point to belief in descent from tree gods or spirits and perhaps to totemism. The Eburones were the yew-tree tribeNote 45 · The veneration of trees growing beside burial mounds or megalithic monuments was probably a pre-Celtic cult continued by the Celts. The treeNote 46 · The elder, rowan, and thorn are still planted round houses to keep off witches, or sprigs of rowan are placed over doorways—a survival from Note 47 · Tree-worship was rooted in the oldest nature worship, and the Church had the utmost difficulty in suppressing it. Councils fulminated againsNote 48 · Representations of sacred trees are occasionally met with on coins, altars, and ex votos.686 If the interpretation be correct which sees a rNote 49 · We now turn to Pliny's account of the mistletoe rite. The Druids held nothing more sacred than this plant and the tree on which it grew, proNote 50 · Pliny describes other Celtic herbs of grace. Selago was culled without use of iron after a sacrifice of bread and wine—probably to the spiriNote 51 · The ritual used in gathering these plants—silence, various tabus, ritual purity, sacrifice—is found wherever plants are culled whose virtue