THE ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE OX. 
41 
small hamlet adjoining the castle, which seems to exist just as 
the ancient dependent hamlet of the feudal castle did in the 
feudal times themselves. The castle is a fine fabric, in true cas- 
tellated style, and well befitting the classic land of Northumber- 
land. The region of Alnwick, Warkworth, and Chevy Chase, 
of the skirmishes of Douglas and Percy, of many an ancient 
cross, convent, battle-stone and hermit cell, lies embossed in its 
woods, at the foot of wild hills which ascend eastward for a mile 
or more, and terminate in a range of bare and craggy eminences 
of a fine woodland character. The steep slope between the 
castle and those heights is the park. Various woods and dells 
are scattered over it, so that the cattle can choose a high and 
airy pasture, and whence they can see afar off any approach — a 
situation they seem particularly to enjoy, as at the slightest alarm 
they can plunge into the depths of woods and glens. 
The author of the article Bos, in the British Cyclopaedia, is of 
opinion that the breed are not even descended from the aborigi- 
nal stock, but that they were domesticated oxen, which have run 
wild from a race originally imported by the ecclesiastics from 
Italy, where herds of wild cattle much resembling them still exist: 
but we can very easily prove that this race existed in our island 
for several centuries before Christianity became promulgated here, 
since they were employed by the Druids in their different proces- 
sions and public sacrifices both in Wales and Cornwall. On the 
cutting of the sacred mistletoe, two white bulls were fastened by 
the horns to an oak. The arch-druid having ascended the tree 
in his consecrated white garments, with a golden pruning knife 
cropped the mistletoe ; which, having secured, he descended the 
tree, and the bulls were sacrificed to invoke the Deity to bless 
the sacred plant, and render it efficacious in the different dis- 
tempers for which it was usually employed. The history of 
Paganism in Italy also shews that they preserved a whole race 
for the same purpose as the British Druids, differing entirely 
from the common cattle of the country. We have already shewn 
that the Egyptians preserved a white breed, which they actually 
worshipped ; and it can be also shewn that the Syrians, like the 
people of Mo-Mernphis, held a white cow in great reverence. 
Other nations, where Paganism prevailed, followed the same 
practices — the Phoenicians and the people of Sicily, Cyprus, and 
Crete. 
From these facts we are led to the conclusion, that the white 
breed of cattle, which at one time were found so plentiful in our 
country, are descended from the breed that was preserved with 
religious care by the Druids for their Pagan sacrifices. After 
Druidism became abolished, the same race were preserved for a long 
VOL. XVI. F 
