A'jO ©Pant "bore, "Isege^/, anil Tsijrlc/. 



suffering from ague, for the purpose of transferring to them their 

 malady : this they did by pegging a lock of their hair into one of 

 the trees, and then, by a sudden wrench, transferring the lock from 

 their heads to the Oak, and with the lock the ague. 



In Germany, there still exists a custom of creeping through an 

 Oak cleft to cure hernia and other disorders. There was, near 

 Wittstock, in Altmark, a bushy Oak, the branches of which had 

 grown together again at some distance from the stem, leaving open 

 spaces between them. Whoever crept through these spaces was 

 freed from his malady, whatever it might be, and many crutches 

 lay about, which had been thrown away by visitors to the tree 

 whose ailments had been cured. In Russia, a similar custom is 

 extant, the favourite tree there being the Quercus Ilex. 



A belief that Oak-trees were the homes of Dryads, Hama- 

 dryads, spirits, elves, and fairies has existed since the days of 

 the ancient Greeks. Pindar speaks of a Hamadryad as "doomed 

 to a term of existence coeval with the Oak." Callimachus repre- 

 sents Melia "deeply sighing for her coeval Oak," and tells us that 



" The Dryads laugh when vernal showers return ; 

 O'er Autumn's fading leaves the Dryads mourn," 



Preston, in his translation of Apollonius, makes a Hamadryad 

 plead in vain for her existence, threatened by the destru(ftion of 

 the Oak in which she dwelt : — 



" As in the mountain, with repeated stroke, 

 The churlish fellow felled the stubborn Oak ; 

 Impious, he scorned the Hamadryad's prayer, 

 And smote the tree coeval with the fair. 

 With streaming tears she pleads a suppliant strain 

 To that unfeeling chuil, but pleads in vain. 

 ' Oh, rustic, stay, nor wound the hallowed rind, 

 For ages with that stem I live entwined.' " 



In Germany, the holes in the trunks of Oaks are thought to 

 be utilised by the elves inhabiting the trees as means of entry 

 and exit ; in our own country. Oaks have always been reputed as 

 the trees in whose boughs elves delighted to find shelter. The 

 fairies, too, were fond of dancing around Oaks: thus Tighe, apos- 

 trophising the monarch of the forest, exclaims: — • 



" The fairies from their nightly haunt, 

 In copse, or dell, or round the trunk revered 

 Of Heme's moon-silvered Oak, shall chase away 

 Each fog, each blight, and dedicate to peace 

 Thy classic shade." 



In these lines allusion is made to a famous tree in Windsor 

 Forest, one of a long series of celebrated Oaks — " lusty trees," 

 which, as Robert Turner writes, England " did once so flourish 

 with, that it was called Druina by some." One of these, known 

 as the Cadenham Oak, in the New Forest, is said, like the Glas- 

 tonbury Thorn, to mark the birthday of our Lord by budding on 

 Christmas Day, Another, renowned as the Royal Oak, is rever- 



