116 
Greece, and was the chief seat of the worship of Demeter 
Chthonia, who appears to have been their principal deity. 
The god at Dodona,* was reputed to dwell in an oak-tree, 
reputed the oldest in Greece, and is said to have revealed his 
will from the branches. This oak was at first his only temple. 
All this sounds very Welsh. 
At Telmissus (in Lycia ?) there was also a renowned temple, 
circular and hypcethral, where a native god was worshipped 
with magnificent religious rites. t 
“In ancient times,” says Herodotus, J “the Pelasgi,as I know 
by information which I got at Dodona, offered sacrifices of all 
kinds, and prayed to the gods, but had no distinct names or 
appellations for them, since they had never heard of any. They 
called them gods (Oeo i), disposers , because they had disposed 
and arranged all things in such a beautiful order.” 
Our research thus tends to connect , if not to identify , the 
Welsh , by various analogies, with the vanished nation of the 
Pelasgi, the scattered remains of which were extant in the 
Classical aera in many parts of Greece and Italy. They were 
called by the Athenians Pelasgoi, or Storks, from their habit 
of migration. § They were told by an oracle in Italy that 
they suffered adversity because they had discontinued offering 
their firstborn, together with the firstfruits of the field. The 
Pelasgi certainly came from the East. 
The Mistletoe on the Oak. 
It is necessary to my argument that I should show the rela- 
tion of the mistletoe to the religion of the Druids. In order 
to do this I must use the golden key, of which I have spoken 
elsewhere, for this was the aureus ramus (the “golden branch” 
of Virgil), || than which Pliny (xvi. 95)^[ assures us the Druids 
held nothing more sacred. 
In order to understand the mystical secret involved, we 
must follow with some attention the proceedings of the Druids 
in gathering this sacred plant. 
* Smith’s Diet . , sub voce “Dodona.” t Gomer, p. 170. 
X Herodotus, book ii., sec. 52. § Smith’s Diet., sub voce “ Pelasgi.” 
|| Virgil, who was bom near Mantua, in Cisalpine Gaul, had probably 
some acquaintance with the tenets of the Druids ; at all events, he makes 
the golden branch, sacred to infernal Juno, the means of gaining access to 
the infernal regions. (JEneid, lib. vi.) 
IT Nihil habent Druides (ita suos appellant magos) visco et arbore, in qua 
gignatur, si modo sit robur, sacratius. J am per se roborum eligunt lucos, 
nec ulla sacra sine ea fronde conficiunt, ut vide appellati quoque interpreta- 
tion Graeca possint Druides videri, &c. Lib. xvi., 95. 
