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Quercus
"Choose
the Oak of the Sun"
-old Scottish rhyme
Mara Freeman 1996
Of all the trees in Britain and Ireland,. the oak is considered king. Famed
fir its endurance and longevity, even today it is synonymous with strength and
steadfastness in the popular mind. John Evelyn in his 'Sylva. Or a Discourse
of Forest-Trees", calls it the "pride and glory of the forest",
and in "The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries", Evans-Wenze proclaims
that "the oak is pre-eminently the holy tree of Europe. In the Classical
world it was regarded as the Tree of Life as its deep roots penetrate as deep
into the Underworld as its branches soar to the sky, and it was held sacred
to Zeus and Jupiter. In Scandinavia the oak was the tree of the Thunder-God,.
Thor,. as it was to his Finnish counterpart,. Jumala.
Its name derives from the Anglo-Saxon word,. ac,. but in Irish the word is 'daur',
and in Welsh 'dar' or 'derw'. probably cognate with the Greek, 'drus'. Same
scholars consider this the origin of the term 'Druid", since Druids have
always been associated with sacred groves. and particularly oak forests. Dense
forests of oak once covered most of Northern Europe in those days, so it is
not surprising to find this tree help most sacred by people who "live in
oak forests, used oak timber for building, oak sticks for fuel, and oak acorns
for food and fodder." (1) Combined with the Indo-European root "wid":
to know, "Druid" may have referred to those with "knowledge of
the oak," the "Wise Ones of the Oakwood". The Sanskrit word,
"Duir", gave rise both to the word for :oak: and the English word
"door", which suggests that this tree stands as an opening into greater
wisdom, perhaps an entryway into the otherworld itself.
We first learn about the oak as sacred to the Druids in the well-known passage
from the writings of Pliny, who lived in Gaul during the 1st century CE. He
writes that the Druids performed all their religious rites in oak-groves, where
they gathered mistletoe from the trees with a golden sickle. Strabo also describes
three Galatian tribes (Celts living in Asia Minor) as holding their councils
at a place called, "Drunemeton", the "oak grove sanctuary".
The 2nd century Maximus of Tyre, describes the Celts as worshipping Zeus-- probably
referring to the Romano-Celtic god of thunder, Taranis- as a tall oak tree,
Elsewhere we learn that the Druids of Gaul ate acorns as a way of divining the
future. Another Roman writer referred to them as "Dryads" whom he
defined as "those who delight in the oaks". (2)
We can never know for sure whether the Druids of the British Isles and Ireland
practiced their religion in oak-groves like their continental cousins, but it
seems likely. We know that the insular Celts worshipped in groves, or "nematon",
and the evidence from Ireland in particular makes it likely that these were
oaks. Ireland was covered with oak trees, whose presence still echoes down the
centuries in place names such as Derry, Derrylanan, Derrybawn (whiteoak), Derrykeighan
and, or course, Londonderry, once Derry Calgagh, the oakwood of a fierce warrior
of the name
Many early Christian churches were situated in oak-groves, probably because
they were once pagan places of worship. Kildare, where St. Brigid founded her
abbey, derives from "Cill-dara", the Church of the Oak. Legend says
she loved and blessed a great oak and held it so sacred that no-one dare harm
a leaf of it. Under its shade she built her cell. (This ties in neatly with
pre-Christian tradition, as the pagan goddess Brigid was daughter to the Sun-God
Dagda to whom the oak was sacred.)
St. Columcille, also known as Columba, whom many believe to have been a Druid
before he embraced the new faith, likewise founded churches in an oak-grove
at Derry (Doire), the monastery at Durrow (Dairmag, 'the Plain of the Oaks')
and a monastery at Kells where he lived under an oak tree. According to the
Irish "Life of St. Columcille" a man took some of the bark of his
tree to tan his shoes and contracted leprosy as a consequence.
When he was founding the church at Derry, St. Columcille burned down the town
and the king's fort in order to eradicate the works or worldly men and sanctify
the site for his church. But the fire blazed out of control and he had to pronounce
an invocation to save the grove of trees. He loved these trees so much that
he built his oratory facing north-south instead of by the usual Christian orientation
of east-west so none would be disturbed. He ordered his successors not to touch
any tree that might fall, but to let it lie for nine days (the sacred Celtic
number) before cutting it up and distributing the wood among the poor. When
later in life he lived at the abbey he founded on the Isle of Iona in Scotland,
he declared that although he feared death and hell, the sound of an ax in Derry
frightened him more.
There were also some places that show traces of pre-Christian groves, however
faint. We hear of an oak-grove near Loch Siant in the Isle of Skye that was
once held so sacred that no person would dare cut the smallest twig from the
trees. Also in Scotland is the sacred oak on the island in Lock Maree. The local
story goes that it was once "Eilean-a-Mhor-Righ (the island of the Great
King) who was in fact a pagan god. And in England, the remains of ancient oaks
were discovered near the Romano-British temple at Lydney, dedicated to the god
Nodons.
Early literature gives more evidence of the importance of the oak to pagan Celts.
A great oak was on of the five sacred trees brought to Ireland by the strange
being called Trefuilngid Tre-ochair who appeared suddenly at Tara on the day
Christ was crucified. An emissary from the otherworld, he bore a branch on which
were acorns, apples, nuts and berries which he shook onto the ground. These
wondrous fruits were planted into five different parts of Ireland, and from
them grew five great trees that oversaw each province until they were blown
down-- by the disapproving winds of the Church?-- in the 7th century. Among
these was the great Oak of Mugna which stood in southern Kildare. This 'bile'
or sacred tree was celebrated in the Edinburgh Dinnsenchas as:
"Mughna's oak-tree without blemish
Whereon were mast and fruit,
Its top was as broad precisely
As the great plain without…" (3)
It was said to bear nine hundred bushels of acorns 3 times a year and red apples
besides, making its Otherworldly origins clear. The moment the last acorn fell,
the first blossom of the year appeared, reminding us of the perpetual cycle
of death and rebirth.
Another godlike personage bearing the insignia of the oak us described in "The
Feast of Bricrui" where three famous warriors including Cuchullain take
turns in guarding the dun of Curoi while he is away. Two of then fail, then
during Cuchullain's watch, a gigantic warrior attacks the settlement who hurls
great branches of oak at Cuchullain. After a tremendous battle, Cuchullain defeats
him. Later, it becomes apparent that the assailant was Curoi himself, whose
other name is Mac Daire - Son of Oaktree. IN the course of the story, he also
challenges Cuchullain to behead him and to be beheaded himself in return. It
is clear that this tale is a forerunner of the mediaeval poem, "Sir Gawain
and the Green Knight", and the symbolic beheading of the Oak King links
these tales with the well-known ritual sacrifice of the old king in the oak-grove
of the Nemi which forms the argument of Frazier's "the Golden Bough".
The sacrifice at Nemi took place at Summer Solstice, which brings us to the
battle between the Oak King personifying the waxing wear, and the Holly King,
who ruled the waning year. At Midsummer, as the year began its turn towards
the dark again, the Holly was victorious, but at Midwinter, the Oak King defeated
the forces of darkness once again, revealing himself as a Vegetation God who
must die each year so that Life can be renewed. It is not surprising, then,
that images of the Green Man carved in wood and stone in mediaeval churches
most frequently show oak leaves growing out of his ears and mouth.
The Oaks connection with sacrifice is again echoed in the Welsh story, "Math,
son of Mathonwy". The hero Lleu is betrayed and killed, but after his "death"
he turns into an eagle and perches atop a magical oak tree on a plain (the place
where most sacred trees where situated), where he suffered "nine-score
hardships". Lleu's fate reminds us of the famous sacrifice by Odin of "himself
to himself" on the great ash-tree, Yggdrasil. With this new facet of the
oaks symbolism revealed, it is clear that the oak's reputation as a tree of
strength, abundance and endurance depends on its yearly death and rebirth: unless
we align ourselves with the great cycle of Life "and" Death, there
can be no true renewal in Springtime.
The oak held its place of honour in the British landscape long after its veneration
by the early Celts. John Evelyn told how one great oak was held in such high
esteem, that if a bastard was born within its ample shade, neither mother nor
child would incur the usual heavy censure of the church or magistrate.
Country-people frequented the oak for its curative powers, which in some places
was considered so great that healing could occur simply by walking around the
tree and wishing the ailment to be carried off by the first bird alighting on
its branches. In Cornwall, a nail driven into an oak cured toothache, while
in Wales, rubbing the oak with the palm of your left hand on Midsummer's Day
kept you healthy all year. It gave a special virtue to other plants that grew
upon its trunk or branches, such as the mistletoe and polypody fern. The herbalist
Gerard said, "that which growth on the bodies of olde Okes is preferred
before the rest: in steede of this most do use that which is found under the
Okes...." (4).
As we noted in above, the oak is especially the tree of thunder gods in other
Northern cultures, and this tradition holds true in Britain also. In Anglo-Saxon
times, Thor was known as Thunor and groves of oak-trees were dedicated to him
in the south and east of England, the village of Thundersley in Essex originally
being one. Like the ash, it is said to "court the lightning flash":
lightning is popularly supposed to strike the oak more than any other tree.
Such trees often survived the blow and flourished remarkably well, henceforth
being known as "lightning oaks." People often took pieces of these
trees to put on their houses for good luck. In shamanistic cultures, a person
who survived being struck by lightning often became a shaman, for the lightning
bolt is seen worldwide is the sudden spiritual illumination that rends the darkness
with a terrifying and irrevocable transforming force.
Under Christianity, large oaks often became designated as "Holy Oaks",
giving rise to place-names such as Holy Oakes in Leicestershire and Cressage
in Shropshire, originally Cristesache, or Christ's Oak. Many English towns today
have areas called "Gospel Oak", larking back to the time when an oak
marked a parish boundary. Every spring at Rogation-tide, parishioners would
circle the boundaries in the ceremony known as 'bearing the bounds" and
assemble to hear the gospel read beneath the tree.
Oak-trees have always been regarded as great protectors and guardians of the
virtuous. When King Charles II was fleeing from Roundheads after the battle
at Worcester, he took refuge in the branches of a great oak, and after his Restoration
on May 29th, 1660, this day -also his birthday - was henceforth celebrated as
"Royal Oak Day", when loyal subjects wore oak-apples, twigs and leaves
in their buttonholes and caps, and decorated their horses with garlands of oak.
The immense popularity of this day points very clearly to a pagan origin of
this custom, probably connected with the rites of May Day that in many places
had been prohibited in the Puritan years because of its sexual associations.
As late as the beginning of the 20th century, a Herefordshire resident explained,
"The 29th of May was our real May Day in Bromyard. You'd see maypoles all
the way down Sheep Street decorated with oak boughs and flowers, and people
dancing round them, all wearing oak leaves." (5)
An oak was often the guardian tree of a family, as in the case of the famous
Oak of Errol in Scotland, which was bound up with the good fortune of the Hay
family. A nineteenth century descendant of the family described how "It
was believed that a sprig of the Mistletoe cut by a Hay on Allhallowmas eve,
with a new dirk, and after surrounding the tree three times sunwise and pronouncing
a certain spell, was a sure charm against the glamour or witchery, and an infallible
guard in the day of battle. A spray, gathered in the same manner, was placed
in the cradle of infants, and thought to defend them from being changed for
elf-bairns by the Fairies.". (6)
When the root of the oak decayed, then the Hay family would likewise perish,
as the old prophecy attributed to Thomas the Rhymer states:
When the mistletoe bats on Errol's aik,
And that aik stands best,
The Hays shall flourish, and their good
grey hawk
Shall not flinch before the blast.
But when the root of the aik decays
And the mistletoe dwines on its withered breast
The grass shall grow on Errol's hearthstone,
And the corbie roup (croak) in the falcon's nest. (7)
Folklorist Ruth L. Tongue tells the Somerset folktale of an oak that helps a
girl escape a cruel king, by sending a bough crashing onto his head. The king's
men come to fell the tree, but meet with a sorry fate:
Oh they rode in the wood, where the oaken tree stood
To cut down the tree, the oaken tree
Then the tree gave a groan and summoned his own,
For the trees closed about and they never got out
Of the wood, the wonderful wood. (8)
In another tale from the same source, "The Vixen and the Oakmen",
the oak-tree spirits hide a pursued vixen from hunters and hounds, for "they
guard all forest beasts." When the pursuers are gone, the "Oakmen"
invite the vixen to "Wipe your sore paws in our oaktree rainpool",
which makes her pads heal and her torn fur grow again.
In death, too, the powerful presence of the oak as a living being could be felt:
John Aubrey, writing in the 17th century reports: "When an oake is falling,
before it falls it gives a kind of shriekes or groanes that may be heard a mile
off, as it were the genus of the oake lamenting. E. Wyld, Esq. hath heard it
severall times. " (9)
A famous mistletoe-bearing oak in Derbyshire had the reputation of being semi-human
as late as the 19th century. If its branches were severed, it screamed and bled,
and spoke with the voice of prophetic doom. Aubrey also tells of an oak whose
mistletoe was cut and sold to some London apothecaries, all of whom met with
horrible misfortunes thereafter: "One fell Iamb shortly thereafter; soon
after each of the others lost an eye, and he that felled the tree though warned
of these misfortunes of the other men, would, notwithstanding, adventure to
do it, and shortly afterwards broke his leg; as if the Hamadryads had resolved
to take an ample revenge for the injury done to their venerable and sacred oak.
(10)
The avenging power of the oak was famous, particularly in Somerset where until
recently the oak was regarded with much respect as a tree of formidable power.
It was well-known that oaks resented being cut down, so people studiously avoided
going near a coppice which sprang from the stumps of the felled trees. Ruth
Tongue writes that in 1945 her chauffeur refused to drive past a grove that
had been felled in the Second World War. A local story also told of Carming
family that came to grief because of disregarding the power of Oak: the Carmer
and his oldest son were greedy and cut down oaks in a nearby coppice, although
they had plenty of wood of their own. The story continues:
''Trees didn't say nothing - which was bad. If they do talk a bit you do get
a warning, but if they'm dead still there's summat bad a-brewing. And zo t'was.
Be danged if gurt oak didn 't drop a limb on can and timber and farmer and eldest
son. Killed they two stark dead outright, but when the youngest came to rescue
the dead the tree rustled fit to deafen he. "
The youngest son was spared because he was always respectful to trees, being
sure to ask the 'great oak by the gate' if he might go past when he entered
the forest, and after he inherited the farm, "trees never followed 'n nor
closed about 'n, nor let drop branches."' (11)
These days road protesters fight desperately to save these venerable Old Ones
from the bulldozers and other weapons of the war against the Living Earth. I
have a fantasy that, just as in C.S. Lewis's second Narnia Chronicle, "Prince
Caspian ", one day the trees themselves will rise up and march like a summer
storm to put an end to those who would replace their beauty and grandeur with
concrete and tarmac. In which case, Oak will no doubt be the formidable general
leading the onslaught.
Foot notes:
1. Sir James Frazer. The Golden Bough 1911-16
2. Nora K. Chadwick, The Druids
3. 1966 Whitley Stokes. The Edinburgh Dinnsenchas. Folk-Lore Col
4.Quoted in Grigson, Geoffrey. The Englishman's Flora. London: Phoenix House,
1960.
5. Leather, Ella Mary. The Folk-lore of Herefordshire. Hereford: )akeman &
Carver, 1912
6. Porteous, Alexander. Forest Folk-lore, Mythology and Romance. New York: Gordon
Press, 1978
7.lbid.
8. Tongue, Ruth L. Forgotten Folk-tales of the English Counties.
London: Routledge & Kegan Paul,1970
9. Quoted in Grigson, ibid.
10. Ibid.
11. Tongue, Ruth L. Somerset Folklore. London: The Folk-lore Society,1965..
Sacred Tree and Grove Planting Programme