It has already been suggested that _derry_ or _dru_, an oak or tree, was equivalent to _tre_, an abode or Troy, and there is perhaps a connection between this root and _tere_binth, the Tyrian term for an oak tree. That the oak was regarded as the symbol of hospitality is exceedingly probable, and one of the earliest references to the tree is the story of Abraham's hospitable entertainment given underneath the Oak of Mamre. The same idea is recurrent in the legend of Philemon and Baucis, which relates that on the mountains of Phrygia there once dwelt an aged, poor, but loving couple. One night Jupiter and Mercury, garbed in the disguise of two mysterious strangers who had sought in vain for hospitality elsewhere, craved the shelter of this Darby and Joan.[252] With alacrity it was granted, and such was the awe inspired by the majestic Elder that Baucis desired to sacrifice a goose which they possessed. But the bird escaped, and fluttering to the feet of the disguised gods Jupiter protected it, and bade their aged hosts to spare it. On leaving, the Wanderer asked what boon he could confer, and what gift worthy of the gods they would demand. "Let us not be divided by death, O Jupiter," was the reply: whereupon the Wandering One conjured their mean cottage into a noble palace wherein they dwelt happily for many years. The story concludes that Baucis merged gradually into a linden tree, and Philemon into an oak, which two trees henceforward intertwined their branches at the door of Jupiter's Temple. The name Philemon is seemingly _philo_, which means _love of_, and _mon_, man or men, and at the time this fairy-tale was concocted _Love of Man_, or hospitality, would appear to have been the motif of the allegorist. We British pre-eminently boast our ships and our men as being Hearts of Oak: the Druids used to summon their assemblies by the sending of an oak-branch, and at the national games of Etruria the diadem called _Etrusca Corona_, a garland of oak leaves with jewelled acorns, was held over the head of the victor.[253] There is little doubt that Honor Oak, Gospel Oak, Sevenoaks, etc., derived their titles from oaks once sacred to the _Uch_ or High, the _Allon_ or Alone, who was alternatively the Seven Kings or the Three Kings. "It is strange," says Squire, "to find Gael and Briton combining to voice almost in the same words this doctrine of the mystical Celts, who while still in a state of semi-barbarism saw with some of the greatest of ancient and modern philosophers the One in the Many, and a single Essence in all the manifold forms of life."[254] FOOTNOTES: [193] Virgil, _The Æneid_, Bk. III., c. liii. [194] _Cf._ Geoffrey's _Histories of the Kings of Britain_ (Everyman's Library), p. 202. [195] Virgil, _The Æneid_, Bk. III., 37. [196] _Irish Mythological Cycle_, p. 50. [197] xx. 8. [198] Wood, E. J. _Giants and Dwarfs_, p. 54. [199] Chap. xxvi. [200] _The Irish Mythological Cycle_, p. 116.