Untitled - Centrostudirpinia.it

TREES. 649
name a place Nimodon, Nimeden (Moser s Osnabr. gesch., urk. 3-1.
56. 8, 57. 84) ; the resemblance may lead to something further
(see Suppl.).
There can be no doubt that for some time after the conversion
the people continued to light candles and offer small sacrifices
under particular holy trees, as even to this day they hang wreaths
upon them, and lead the ring-dance under them (p. 58). In the
church-prohibitions it is variously
called :
(
vota ad arbores faoere
aut ibi candelam seu quodlibet munus deferre; arborem colere ;
votum ad arborem persolvere ; arbores daemonibus consecratas
colere, et in tanta veneratione habere, ut vulgus nee ramum nee
surculum audeat amputare. It is the AS. treow-weorcFung (cultus
arborum), the ON. biota lundinn (grove), Laudn. 3, 17. The
Acta Bened. sec. 2 p. 841 informs us : Adest quoque ibi (at
Lutosas, now Leuze) non ignoti miraculi fagus (beech), subter
quam lummaria saepe cum accensa absque hominum accessu
videmus, divini aliquid fore suspicamur. So the church turned
the superstition to account for her own miracles : a convent was
founded on the site of the tree. About Esthonians of the present
day we are told in Rosenplanter s Beitr. 9, 12, that only a few
years ago, in the parish of Harjel, on St. George s,
St. John s
and St. Michael s night, they used to sacrifice under certain trees,
i.e. to kill, a black fowl. 1 Of the Thunder-god s holy oak an
account has been given, pp. 72-3-4. 171. 184; and in Grramm.
2, 997 the OHG. scaldeih (ilex) is compared with the AS. names
of plants scaldhyfel, scaldj?yfel and the scaldo quoted above, p. 94.
All this is as yet uncertain, and needs further elucidation.
Among the Langobards we find a worship of the so-called
blood-tree or holy tree (p. 109). The Vita S. Barbati in the Acta
sanctor. under Febr. 19, p. 139. The saint (b. cir. 602,
d. cir.
683) lived at Benevento, under kings Grimoald and Eomuald;
uiman, neman would therefore be to cut, kill, divide, and nimidas the victims slain
in the holy grove, under trees ? Conf. what is said in the text of the Langobardic
tree of sacrifice. Celtic etymologies seem rather out of place for this plainly Saxon
Indiculus. Adelung already in Mithrid. 2, 65. 77 had brought into the field Nenietes
and nemet (templum) ; Ir. naomh is sanctus, nearnh (gen. nimhe) coelum, niem-
headh land consecrated, belonging
to the church.
1 The superstition of the Lausitz Wends holds that there are woods which
some person must lose his
yearly demand a human victim (like the rivers, p. 494) ;
life in them : hohla dyrbi kojzde lieto jeneho czloweka mjecz Lausitz mon. schr.
1797, p. 748.