plant

Oak

Nature

A long-lived hardwood tree. Thunder gods, law assemblies, and ordinary timber have used oaks; those uses do not cancel one another.

Celtic tradition

  • Oak appears in Celtic tradition.

    Pliny’s Natural History attests that Gaulish Druids hold the oak sacred and cut mistletoe from it. A Roman visitor’s report of Celtic oak-rite, not timber as a generic hardwood and not the mistletoe itself.

    from Pliny the Elder · Natural History, c. 77 CE

    appears in · sourced · documented

Hellenic religion

  • Oak appears in Hellenic religion.

    Herodotus reports the oracle at Dodona as a speaking oak of Zeus. A named Hellenic oak-oracle, not Pliny’s Druid oak, and not Yggdrasil.

    from Herodotus · Histories, c. 440s BCE

    appears in · sourced · culturally specific

sources