45 



The old Scandinavians held the hazel bush sacred. Their 

 "open courts" were enclosed by rods of hazel and it was con- 

 sidered a desecration to break into such an enclosure. A violater 

 of this code became an outlaw, liable to lose his life if appre- 

 hended. The women were often protected by a similar enclosure ; 

 camping grounds likewise. The swift and summary punishment 

 meted out deterred many a one from violating the sanctity 

 within a hazel-fence. The famous divining rods were made of 

 hazel. The hazel bush is celebrated in song, and one of the 

 sweetest songs of old Sweden, one which is still sung by high 

 and low, is a dialogue between a hazel bush and a little maiden 

 going to the spring for water. Charlemagne directed the super- 

 intendents of his numerous estates to plant hazel. During the 

 middle ages in Sweden, no one was allowed to gather hazelnuts 

 from another man's domain. Whoever gathered more than a 

 mitten full was punished by a fine. The French language has 

 two words for this bush or tree: Noisetier and coudrier, the latter 

 being derived from coldre of the old French language, — and 

 presumably a prehistoric Celtic or Gallic word. Irish literature 

 and folk lore are full of stories involving shrubs, trees, fairies, etc. 



The Irish dictionary gives a large number of plant names 

 beginning with the letter C. Crann and craobh are the words 

 for "a tree" and a great number of names are recorded in which, 

 as in the Latin language, the word crann is the noun followed 

 by a modifying adjective or another noun in apposition: thus, 

 arbor foliis tremulis becomes crann criih, — the tree trembling 

 or the quaking aspen. Crann ola is the olive; crann-pion, the 

 piiion; and crann pobhuil, the poplar. Cal or coilis, cabbage, is 

 almost identical with the Swedish word kal and clearly cognate 

 with English "cole" (in colewort) and German kohl (as in kohl- 

 rabi). 



D stands for dair or darrach, the oak. The Welsh word is dar. 



Strabo applied the word Druidae to the Celtic priests or rulers, 

 the Draothi. It is doubtful if this word is at all related to drus 

 the Greek word for oak. The Scandinavian word Drott was 

 used for the Druids, and has nothing to do with the word for 

 oak. The Celtic word is also spelled Duir, — a word which re- 

 calls dur hard, duriis of the Latins. The original meaning of 

 the word drus is tree, a meaning it had in the Sanscrit language. 

 Drus may have been generally applied to the oaks by the old 



