150 ENGLISH BOTANY. 
a certain sign that the tree on which it grew was chosen by the Deity for religious 
reverence. So rarely was the mistletoe to be seen on the oak, that when found it 
was resorted to with the greatest devotion. In the ceremony of cutting it, the 
Druids used to observe that the moon was just six days old. The festival entertain- 
ment being made ready under the oak, two white bulls were brought thither and 
tied to the tree by their horns. This done, the officiating priest, habited in a white 
vestment, climbed the tree, and with a golden pruning-knife carefully separated the 
mistletoe from the oak on which it grew. It was received in a white woollen cloth 
by the attendant priests below, who then proceeded to kill the beasts for sacrifice, 
and make their prayers to their god, that he would bless this his own gift to those to 
whom they should dispense it. They believed that a decoction of mistletoe was a 
sovereign remedy for sterility, and a cure for all manner of poisons. At the present 
time there has been much discussion as to the growth of the mistletoe on the oak, 
and it is a popular fallacy to believe that it is at all common in such asituation. On the 
apple-crab and other trees it is constantly seen, but Mr. Jesse, surveyor of Her 
Majesty’s Parks, who made many enquiries on the subject, says that he never could 
hear of any instance of the mistletoe being found on the oak trees in any of the Royal 
Parks. Timber merchants have also assured him that they never had seen it on the 
oak. Some years ago the Society of Arts offered a reward for the discovery of it, 
and a single instance was found somewhere in Gloucestershire. Subsequently other 
specimens have been discovered. Dr. Prior suggests that the Quercus pubescens, on 
which the Loranthus, another form of parasitic plant, now grows in the south of 
Europe, may have once existed in Great Britain, and have afforded the Druids a 
means of gathering the fabled mistletoe. 
The ancient Yule-log was always made of oak ; and, according to Professor Burnett, 
was named after Hu, the Bacchus of the Druids ; others derive it from Baal, Bel, or 
Yiaoul, the Celtic god of fire, whose festival was kept at Christmas, the time of the 
Saturnalia. The Druids professed to maintain perpetual fire; and once every year 
all the fires belonging to the people were extinguished, to be relighted from the 
sacred fire of the Druids. This was the origin of the Yule-log, which, even so lately 
as the beginning of the last century, was used to kindle the Christmas fire. 
The Saxons held their national meetings under the oak; and the celebrated con- 
ference between the Saxons and the Britons, after the invasion of the former, was held 
under the oaks of Dartmoor. The wood of the oak was appropriated to the most 
memorable uses. King Arthur’s round table was made of oak, as was the cradle of 
Edward IIL, when he was born at Caernarvon Castle : this sacred wood being chosen 
in order to conciliate the feelings of the Welsh, who still retained the prejudices of 
their ancestors, the Ancient Britons. It was considered unlucky to cut down any 
celebrated tree, and Evelyn gravely relates a story of two men who cut down the 
Vicar’s Oak, in Surrey; one losing his eye, and the other breaking his leg, soon after. 
Among the noble specimens of the oak which adorn our woodland scenery, some of 
them have singular histories attached to them. There is the historical tree known 
as the Abbot’s Oak, at Woburn Abbey, on the branches of which, according to Stowe 
and other historians, the abbot and prior of Woburn, the vicar of Puddington, and 
« other contumacious persons,” were hanged by order of Henry VIII. 
Queen Elizabeth’s Oak, in Hatfield Park, under which she is said to have been 
sitting when the news of her sister's death was brought to her, is still standing. The 
“ Sidney Oak,” at Penshurst Park, is a handsome tree, and would be noticeable apart 
from its associations. It is said to have been planted to commemorate the birth of 
Sir Philip Sidney, “ whose spirit was too high for the Court, and his integrity too 
