those to whom he has given it. They believe that drinking of a potion prepared from it gives fecundity to barren animals, and that it is a remedy against all poison."
Add to this important passage the statement of Maximus Tyrius to the effect that the Celts worshipped Zeus, and that the Celtic ἄγαλμα or image of the god was a lofty oak,[1] and that the name of the Galatian place of assembly in Asia Minor, as given by Strabo,[2] was Δρυνέμετον or the sacred Oak-grove. The words of Maximus Tyrius might, according to Jacob Grimm, have been applied to the Teutons also and all nations originally related to them;[3] he establishes his opinion as regards the former, and briefly alludes to some of the latter, and among them to the Lithuanian branch as represented by the ancient inhabitants of Prussia. Their place of greatest holiness was a spot called Romove, in a meadow where a high and mighty oak afforded shelter against rain and the heat of the summer sun. Here, in niches cut in the sacred tree, were placed images of their three principal gods, and of these the chief was placed in the middle between the two others. His name was Perkunos, and he was reckoned the god of thunder, of rain, and other atmospheric phenomena. He was also the giver of health and the helper of those who suffered from disease. The water of the lakes held sacred to him was considered to possess remedial virtues, and so were the ashes of the perpetual fire kept up before the sacred oak. The priest who happened to let that fire go out atoned for his negligence with his life, and the sacrifices made
