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object:1.15 - The Worship of the Oak
book class:The Golden Bough
author class:James George Frazer
subject class:Occultism
class:chapter



XV. 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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