[1192]. The Gael’s “faith in druidism was never suddenly undermined; for in the saints he only saw more powerful druids than those he had previously known, and Christ took the position in his eyes of the druid κατ’ ἐξοχήν. Irish druidism absorbed a certain amount of Christianity; and it would be a problem of considerable difficulty to fix on the point where it ceased to be druidism, and from which onwards it could be said to be Christianity in any restricted sense of that term” (J. Rhys, Celtic Heathendom, p. 224).
[1193]. P. W. Joyce, Social History of Ancient Ireland, i. 236.
[1194]. J. Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, 4th ed., i. 55 sq. Tacitus often mentions the sacred groves of the Germans, but never specifies the kinds of trees of which they were composed. See Annals, ii. 12, iv. 73; Histor. iv. 14; Germania, 7, 9, 39, 40, 43.
[1195]. J. Grimm, op. cit. ii. 542.
[1196]. Willibald’s Life of S. Boniface, in Pertz’s Monumenta Germaniae historica, ii. 343 sq.; J. Grimm, op. cit. i. pp. 58, 142.
[1197]. J. Grimm, op. cit. i. 157. Prof. E. Maass supposes that the identification of Donar or Thunar with Jupiter was first made in Upper Germany between the Vosges mountains and the Black Forest. See his work Die Tagesgötter (Berlin, 1902), p. 280.
[1198]. Adam of Bremen, Descriptio insularum Aquilonis, 26 (Migne’s Patrologia Latina, cxlvi. col. 643).
[1199]. Adam of Bremen, l.c.
[1200]. E. H. Meyer, Mythologie des Germanen (Strasburg, 1903), p. 290.
[1201]. Adam of Bremen, op. cit. 26, 27, with the Scholia (Migne’s Patrologia Latina, cxlvi. coll. 642-644).