Donar’s Oak
Long ago,
before the Christians came to Hessia,
there grew a mighty oak,
a tree so tall it naturally attracted
the attention of the hammer-welding One.
For a long time the oak grew
casting its shade upon a small grove
Then one day a sky chariot pulled by goats came by
and a red bearded warrior got out.
With him was another god
whom the Hammer bearer called Loki.
“This is the tree I spotted,” said Loki.
“It would be the perfect place for people to honor you.”
“You are right, my friend, this tree will be Donar’s Oak”
And with that, Donar struck the tree with his hammer.
Lightening hit the tree;
branches cracked and wood burnt,
but the tree lived thru its ordeal.
Donar’s Oak flourished over the years
and people came to it
to offer blot to Donar.
Each time the people came and offered gifts
the Oak saw Donar come to receive them.
This went on for as long as the tree could remember
and the people and tree were happy.
Then a dark age began
as black robed shaven headed men roamed the countryside.
And fewer and fewer people came to share gifts at Donar’s Oak.
Yet not all had abandoned the heathen way:
some secretly,
some openly continued to come to the tree
offering blot and consulting the runes.
yet this would not go on for long
and in the year 723CE
the English missionary Boniface went to the tree to cut it down.
But as he made his first ax cut,
the oak saw his friends chariot flow down to him.
Donar would not abandon his friend
even when the old way was ending.
And as the first axe blade bit into the tree
Donar removed the oak’s spirit
and took it with him to Thrudheim
Suddenly the tree’s spiritless body imploded
and the priest thought it was a miracle from his own god.
He awed the people with this event,
but twenty years later
he met his death in Frisia
at the hands of heathen revolutionaries.
Yet even today, Donar’s Oak is with him
shading the good folk of the Thunderer
outside the hall of Thrudheim.
a poem by Jim Davis