in qua gignatur (si modo sit robur) sacratius. Iam per se roborum eligunt lucos, nec ulla sacra sine ea fronde conficiunt, ut inde appellati quoque interpretatione Graeca possint Druidae uideri.” (Hist. Nat. XVI, 95.)
In the year 723 S. Boniface clove to the ground with his sharp axe at Geismar, near Fritzlar, a huge oak which went by the name of Donares Eih, “the oak of Donar,” which the old chronicler translates as robur Iouis, since Donor or Thunar, who is the Norse Thor, is the equivalent of Jupiter. It has been said, and with truth, that the fall of this tree was the destruction of heathenism in Germany. Among the Slavs, the image at Novgorod of Perun, who is the counterpart of Zeus and Jupiter, was honoured by a huge pyre of oak logs which blazed before him day and night, and if by chance it were extinguished, his ministers expiated this negligence, which was considered the grossest profanity provoking the wrath of the god, by the instant sacrifice of their lives.
It is well, then, to remember that the first conference which the English King held with S. Augustine beneath the shade of the immemorial oaks of Kent was not arranged to take place there for any mere convenience sake, but with a very solemn and mysterious purpose, since the shadow of the trees was regarded as a spiritual safeguard and protection.
The earliest references to witchcraft among native historians are mostly concerned with superstitious rites and the clandestine, or it may be overt, observance of pagan festivals by obscene dances and lewd assemblies. William of Malmesbury tells the story of the Witch of Berkeley, and this is assigned to the year 852, although in its details
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