The ceremony of gathering the mistletoe was always performed with much solemnity, and in such a manner as to strike the multitude with awe. This plant is very rare, and when any of it was discovered, the Druids set out with great pomp to procure it. This was always done on the sixth day of the moon, a day which they deemed of particular sanctity. When they arrived at the oak on which the mistletoe grew, a great banquet and sacrifice was prepared under the tree. Two white bulls were tied by the horns to the trunk of the tree. One of the priests, clad in a white garment, then mounted the tree, and with a golden knife cut off the mistletoe, which was received by another priest in a white cloak. They then offered up their prayers and sacrifices. The mistletoe, besides being an object of religious veneration, was considered an antidote to poison, and to possess many other virtues. The Druids performed their worship in the deepest recesses of the woods, far from human dwellings; a circumstance which added to the superstitious awe with which the common people regarded them. One of these spots is described by the poet Lucan. This wood, according to his account, had never been touched by the axe since the creation. The trees of it grew so thick and were so interwoven, that the rays of the sun could not penetrate through the branches, and a damp and chilling darkness reigned throughout. Nothing was to be seen in the neighborhood except a multitude of altars, on which human victims had been sacrificed, and the blood of which had stained the trees of a horrid crimson. Ancient traditions affirmed that no bird ever perched upon their branches, no beast ever walked under them, no wind ever blew through them, and no lightning ever struck them. The idols which these gloomy recesses contained, were a species of rude and shapeless trunks, having some resemblance to the human figure, and covered with a tawny yellow moss. If the superstitious belief of the multitude might be credited, these mystic groves were frequently shaken by some unearthly movement, and dreadful sounds issued from the caverns and hollows which abounded in them. Sometimes, we are told, the woods would be wrapt in a flame of fire without being consumed; and sometimes the oaks would be twined round with monstrous dragons. At the hours of noon and midnight the priests entered these gloomy abodes, to celebrate their mysteries with trembling and terror. Such appalling accounts of these frightful regions, probably originated with the Druids themselves, who wished to deter the multitude, by every sort of dreadful description, from penetrating into the secrets of their superstitious practices.