With streaming tears she pleads a suppliant strain
To that unfeeling churl, but pleads in vain.
‘Oh, rustic, stay, nor wound the hallowed rind,
For ages with that stem I live entwined.’”
In Germany, the holes in the trunks of Oaks are thought to be utilised by the elves inhabiting the trees as means of entry and exit; in our own country, Oaks have always been reputed as the trees in whose boughs elves delighted to find shelter. The fairies, too, were fond of dancing around Oaks: thus Tighe, apostrophising the monarch of the forest, exclaims:—
“The fairies from their nightly haunt,
In copse, or dell, or round the trunk revered
Of Herne’s moon-silvered Oak, shall chase away
Each fog, each blight, and dedicate to peace
Thy classic shade.”