Page:Origin and Growth of Religion (Rhys).djvu/237

Rh Whatever the origin of the name of the god Perkunos may prove to have been, the priesthood devoted to the holy place of which he was the chief divinity is described as forming one of the most despotic hierarchies the world has ever seen; and its head is represented enjoying absolute power and seclusion more impenetrable than could probably be secured by the most influential druid among the Celts. For to read of the priests connected with the holy forest of Romove in ancient Prussia unavoidably leads one to this comparison, and reminds one in a striking manner of what is told us in the classics about the druids of Gaul, and in a later literature about those of Ireland. Seeing the importance of sacred trees in the ancient cult of the chief god of the Aryans of Europe, and the preference evinced for the oak as the tree fittest to be his emblem or even the residence of his divinity, I am inclined to regard the old etymology of the word druid as being, roughly speaking, the comet one. Pliny, alluding to the druids' predilection for groves of oak, adds the words: ut inde appellati quoque interpretatione Graeca possint Druidae videri. The necessity he seems to have been under of interpreting the term by reference to the Greek word, 'an oak,' was probably what made him express himself so hesitatingly. Had he possessed knowledge enough of the Gaulish language, he would have seen that it supplied an explanation which rendered it needless to have recourse to Greek, namely, in the native word dru, which we have in Drunemeton, or the sacred Oak-grove, given by Strabo as the name of the place of assembly of the Galatians. In fact, one has,