4 THE OAK. 



the excuse of ignorance, should have fallen into nearly the 

 same fatal error, and that, too, with respect to the very same 

 tree. The Oak grove at Dodona in Epirus was long 

 resorted to by the inhabitants of the whole of Greece when 

 they wished to inquire the will of their imaginary god, 

 Jupiter ; and we have seen that the Israelites resorted to 

 the Oak-woods of Palestine with a similar object. 



Baal, the false god of the Canaanites, is considered by 

 learned men to be identical with the Eoman Saturn, the 

 Celtic Yiaoul, and the British Yule, whose festival was 

 kept at the time when we celebrate Christmas. By one 

 of these nations this name was worshipped as significant 

 of the god of fire ; by another it was identified with the 

 sun ; by a third venerated under the form of an Oak. 

 Its priests, who were called " Druids," professed to main- 

 tain perpetual fire, and once every year all the fires 

 belonging to the people were extinguished, and relighted 

 from the sacred fire of the Druids. This was the origin 

 of the Yule-log, with which, even so lately as the com- 

 mencement of the present century, the Christmas fire in 

 some parts of the country was always kindled, and is 

 even now in Devonshire and Yorkshire ; a fresh log being 

 thrown on and lighted, but taken off before it was con- 

 sumed, and reserved to kindle the Christmas fire of the 

 following year. The Yule-log was generally of Oak, though 

 sometimes of Ash ; and as the ancient Britons believed 

 that it was essential for their hearth-fires to be renewed 

 every year from the sacred fire of the Druids, so their 

 descendants thought that some misfortune would befal 

 them if any accident happened to the Yule-log. The 

 worship of the Druids was generally performed under an 

 Oak ; and a heap of stones was erected, on which the 

 sacred fire was kindled, which was called a " cairn," as 

 Professor Burnet says, from kern, an acorn. 1 



1 This etymology, however, is doubtful, and must be received 

 with caution. Cairn usually signifies "a rock ; " the Hebrew keren 

 has the same meaning. 



