the Druids, and the heathen superstitions of the
earlier inhabitants.

Amongst others, _Guy_ was a term by which, no doubt, the Druids were
very early designated, and is cognate, with the Italian _Guido_ and our
own _Guide_, to the Latin _cuidare_, which would give it great
appropriativeness when applied to the offices of teachers and leaders,
with which these lordly flamens were invested. Narrowly connected with
their rites, the term has descended to the present day, as is decidedly
shown in the French name of the mistletoe, _le Gui_, and as denoting the
priesthood. The common cry of the children at Christmas in France, _au
gui l'an neuf_, marks the winter solstice, and their most solemn
festival; so _ai-guil-lac_, as the name of new year's gifts, so
necessary and expensive to a Frenchman, which they particularly bear in
the diocese of Chartres, can only be explained by referring it to the
same origin. In the French vocabulary at present this word, as I have
before observed, is restricted to the mistletoe, the _viscum album_ of
Linnaeus: but in Germany we have pretty much the same conversion of a
favourite druidical plant, the trefoil, or shamrock, and the cinquefoil;
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 ra