Her wing; no beast here slumbered in his lair;
No zephyr woke the silence of the boughs;
Alone at eve the trembling Druid sought
The mystic oracle; alone entranced
Amid the sanctuary stood, whose foul
Expanse in horrors veiled a dreaded god.”
When an Oak died, the Druids stripped off its bark, and shaped it reverently into the form of a pillar, a pyramid, or a cross, and still continued to worship it as an emblem of their god. In Anglesea, the ancient Mona, are still dug up great trunks of Oak, relics of the Druids’ holy groves. The central Oak was the peculiar object of veneration. The poet relates how men of old,
“When through the woods the Northern blast
Howled harsh appeased with horrid cries and blood
The Scythian Taranis; or bowed around