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218 the oak seems to suggest itself; but if we go back to the ancient Gauls, their preference for it is placed beyond all doubt. Witness Pliny's well-known account of the druids in his Natural History, xvi. 95; the whole passage is so much to the point that I cannot help quoting it at full length: "Nor is the admiration of Gaulish lands in this matter to be passed over in silence: the druids, for so they call their magicians, have nothing which they hold more sacred than the mistletoe and the tree on which it grows, provided only it be an oak [robur]. But apart from that, they select groves of oak, and they perform no sacred rite without leaves from that tree, so that the druids may be regarded as even deriving from it their name interpreted as Greek. For they believe whatever grows on these trees to be actually sent from heaven, and to form a mark in each instance of a tree selected by the god himself. That is, however, very rarely to be met with, and when it is found it is sought with much religious ceremony. They do this especially at the time of the sixth moon, the luminary which marks the beginning of their months and their years, and after the tree has passed the thirtieth year of its age, because of its having even then plenty of vigour, though not half the size to which it may grow. Addressing it in their language as the universal healer, and taking care to have sacrifices and banquets prepared with the correct ceremony beneath the tree, they bring to the spot two white bulls, whose horns have never been bound before. The priest, clad in a white robe, climbs the tree, and with a golden sickle cuts the mistletoe: it is caught in a white cloth. Then at length they sacrifice the victims, with a prayer that god may make his own gift benefit