both of them go in Bavaria and many other parts of Germany under the
name of _Truten-fuss_, or Druid's foot, and are thought potent charms in
guarding fields and cattle from harm; but there too, as with us,
possibly the oldest title of guy, the term Druid, has grown into a name
of the greatest disgrace: "_Trute, Trute, Saudreck_," "Druid, Druid, sow
dirt," is an insulting phrase reserved for the highest ebullitions of a
peasant's rage in Schwaben and Franken.

Whilst on the subject of the mistletoe, I cannot forbear to mark the
coincidences that run through the popular notions of a country in all
ages. Pliny, in his very exact account of the druidical rites, tells us,
when the archdruid mounted the oak to cut the sacred parasite with a
golden pruning-hook, two other priests stood below to catch it in a
white linen cloth, extremely cautious lest it should fall to earth. One
is almost tempted to fancy that Shakspeare was describing a similar
scene when he makes Hecate say

"Upon the corner of the moon,
There hangs a vap'rous drop profound,
I'll catch it ere it come to ground."

In a very excellent note to Dr. Giles' translation of Richard of
Cirencester, p. 432., he adduces the opinion of Dr. Daubeny, of Oxford,
that as the mistletoe is now so rarely found in Europe on oaks, it had
been exterminated with the other druidical rites on the introduction of
Christianity. I am not sufficiently botanist to determine how far it is
possible to destroy the natural habitat of a plant propagated by
extrinsic means, and should be more inclined to account for the
difference then and now by supposing that the Druids may have known the
secret of inoculating a desirable oak with the seeds where birds had not