Dec 17, 2018
When
the heathen raged through the forests of the ancient Northland
there grew a giant tree branching with huge limbs toward the
clouds. It was the Thunder Oak of the war-god Thor.
Thither, under cover of night, heathen priests were
wont to bring their victims—both men and beasts—and slay them upon
the altar of the thunder-god. There in the darkness was wrought
many an evil deed, while human blood was poured forth and watered
the roots of that gloomy tree, from whose branches depended the
mistletoe, the fateful plant that sprang from the blood-fed veins
of the oak. So gloomy and terror-ridden was the spot on which grew
the tree that no beasts of field or forest would lodge beneath its
dark branches, nor would birds nest or perch among its gnarled
limbs.