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Chapter 15. The Worship of the Oak
The worship of the oak tree or of the oak god appears to have been shared by
all the branches of the Aryan stock in Europe. Both Greeks and Italians
associated the tree with their highest god, Zeus or Jupiter, the divinity of
the sky, the rain, and the thunder. Perhaps the oldest and certainly one of
the most famous sanctuaries in Greece was that of Dodona, where Zeus was
revered in the oracular oak. The thunder-storms which are said to rage at
Dodona more frequently than anywhere else in Europe, would render the spot a
fitting home for the god whose voice was heard alike in the rustling of the
oak leaves and in the crash of thunder. Perhaps the bronze gongs which kept up
a humming in the wind round the sanctuary were meant to mimick the thunder
that might so often be heard rolling and rumbling in the coombs of the stern
and barren mountains which shut in the gloomy valley. In Boeotia, as we have
seen, the sacred marriage of Zeus and Hera, the oak god and the oak goddess,
appears to have been celebrated with much pomp by a religious federation of
states. And on Mount Lycaeus in Arcadia the character of Zeus as god both of
the oak and of the rain comes out clearly in the rain charm practised by the
priest of Zeus, who dipped an oak branch in a sacred spring. In his latter
capacity Zeus was the god to whom the Greeks regularly prayed for rain.
Nothing could be more natural; for often, though not always, he had his seat
on the mountains where the clouds gather and the oaks grow. On the Acropolis
at Athens there was an image of Earth praying to Zeus for rain. And in time of
drought the Athenians themselves prayed, Rain, rain, O dear Zeus, on the
cornland of the Athenians and on the plains.
Again, Zeus wielded the thunder and lightning as well as the rain. At
Olympia and elsewhere he was worshipped under the surname of Thunderbolt; and
at Athens there was a sacrificial hearth of Lightning Zeus on the city wall,
where some priestly officials watched for lightning over Mount Parnes at
certain seasons of the year. Further, spots which had been struck by lightning
were regularly fenced in by the Greeks and consecrated to Zeus the Descender,
that is, to the god who came down in the flash from heaven. Altars were set up
within these enclosures and sacrifices offered on them. Several such places
are known from inscriptions to have existed in Athens.
Thus when ancient Greek kings claimed to be descended from Zeus, and even
to bear his name, we may reasonably suppose that they also attempted to
exercise his divine functions by making thunder and rain for the good of their
people or the terror and confusion of their foes. In this respect the legend
of Salmoneus probably reflects the pretensions of a whole class of petty
sovereigns who reigned of old, each over his little canton, in the oak-clad
highlands of Greece. Like their kinsmen the Irish kings, they were expected to
be a source of fertility to the land and of fecundity to the cattle; and how
could they fulfil these expectations better than by acting the part of their
kinsman Zeus, the great god of the oak, the thunder, and the rain? They
personified him, apparently, just as the Italian kings personified Jupiter.
In ancient Italy every oak was sacred to Jupiter, the Italian counterpart
of Zeus; and on the Capitol at Rome the god was worshipped as the deity not
merely of the oak, but of the rain and the thunder. Contrasting the piety of
the good old times with the scepticism of an age when nobody thought that
heaven was heaven, or cared a fig for Jupiter, a Roman writer tells us that in
former days noble matrons used to go with bare feet, streaming hair, and pure
minds, up the long Capitoline slope, praying to Jupiter for rain. And
straightway, he goes on, it rained bucketsful, then or never, and everybody
returned dripping like drowned rats. But nowadays, says he, we are no
longer religious, so the fields lie baking.
When we pass from Southern to Central Europe we still meet with the great
god of the oak and the thunder among the barbarous Aryans who dwelt in the
vast primaeval forests. Thus among the Celts of Gaul the Druids esteemed
nothing more sacred than the mistletoe and the oak on which it grew; they
chose groves of oaks for the scene of their solemn service, and they performed
none of their rites without oak leaves. The Celts, says a Greek writer,
worship Zeus, and the Celtic image of Zeus is a tall oak. The Celtic
conquerors, who settled in Asia in the third century before our era, appear to
have carried the worship of the oak with them to their new home; for in the
heart of Asia Minor the Galatian senate met in a place which bore the pure
Celtic name of Drynemetum, the sacred oak grove or the temple of the oak.
Indeed the very name of Druids is believed by good authorities to mean no more
than oak men.
In the religion of the ancient Germans the veneration for sacred groves
seems to have held the foremost place, and according to Grimm the chief of
their holy trees was the oak. It appears to have been especially dedicated to
the god of thunder, Donar or Thunar, the equivalent of the Norse Thor; for a
sacred oak near Geismar, in Hesse, which Boniface cut down in the eighth
century, went among the heathen by the name of Jupiter's oak (robur Jovis),
which in old German would be Donares eih, the oak of Donar. That the
Teutonic thunder god Donar, Thunar, Thor was identified with the Italian
thunder god Jupiter appears from our word Thursday, Thunar's day, which is
merely a rendering of the Latin dies Jovis. Thus among the ancient Teutons,
as among the Greeks and Italians, the god of the oak was also the god of the
thunder. Moreover, he was regarded as the great fertilising power, who sent
rain and caused the earth to bear fruit; for Adam of Bremen tells us that
Thor presides in the air; he it is who rules thunder and lightning, wind and
rains, fine weather and crops. In these respects, therefore, the Teutonic
thunder god again resembled his southern counterparts Zeus and Jupiter.
Amongst the Slavs also the oak appears to have been the sacred tree of the
thunder god Perun, the counterpart of Zeus and Jupiter. It is said that at
Novgorod there used to stand an image of Perun in the likeness of a man with a
thunder-stone in his hand. A fire of oak wood burned day and night in his
honour; and if ever it went out the attendants paid for their negligence with
their lives. Perun seems, like Zeus and Jupiter, to have been the chief god of
his people; for Procopius tells us that the Slavs believe that one god, the
maker of lightning, is alone lord of all things, and they sacrifice to him
oxen and every victim.
The chief deity of the Lithuanians was Perkunas or Perkuns, the god of
thunder and lightning, whose resemblance to Zeus and Jupiter has often been
pointed out. Oaks were sacred to him, and when they were cut down by the
Christian missionaries, the people loudly complained that their sylvan deities
were destroyed. Perpetual fires, kindled with the wood of certain oak-trees,
were kept up in honour of Perkunas; if such a fire went out, it was lighted
again by friction of the sacred wood. Men sacrificed to oak-trees for good
crops, while women did the same to lime-trees; from which we may infer that
they regarded oaks as male and lime-trees as female. And in time of drought,
when they wanted rain, they used to sacrifice a black heifer, a black he-goat,
and a black cock to the thunder god in the depths of the woods. On such
occasions the people assembled in great numbers from the country round about,
ate and drank, and called upon Perkunas. They carried a bowl of beer thrice
round the fire, then poured the liquor on the flames, while they prayed to the
god to send showers. Thus the chief Lithuanian deity presents a close
resemblance to Zeus and Jupiter, since he was the god of the oak, the thunder,
and the rain.
From the foregoing survey it appears that a god of the oak, the thunder,
and the rain was worshipped of old by all the main branches of the Aryan stock
in Europe, and was indeed the chief deity of their pantheon.
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