Amongst others, _Guy_ was a term by which, no doubt, the Druids were
very early designated, and is cognate, with the Italian _Guido_ and our
own _Guide_, to the Latin _cuidare_, which would give it great
appropriativeness when applied to the offices of teachers and leaders,
with which these lordly flamens were invested. Narrowly connected with
their rites, the term has descended to the present day, as is decidedly
shown in the French name of the mistletoe, _le Gui_, and as denoting the
priesthood. The common cry of the children at Christmas in France, _au
gui l'an neuf_, marks the winter solstice, and their most solemn
festival; so _ai-guil-lac_, as the name of new year's gifts, so
necessary and expensive to a Frenchman, which they particularly bear in
the diocese of Chartres, can only be explained by referring it to the
same origin. In the French vocabulary at present this word, as I have
before observed, is restricted to the mistletoe, the _viscum album_ of
Linnaeus: but in Germany we have pretty much the same conversion of a
favourite druidical plant, the trefoil, or shamrock, and the cinquefoil;
both of them go in Bavaria and many other parts of Germany under the
name of _Truten-fuss_, or Druid's foot, and are thought potent charms in
guarding fields and cattle from harm; but there too, as with us,
possibly the oldest title of guy, the term Druid, has grown into a name
of the greatest disgrace: "_Trute, Trute, Saudreck_," "Druid, Druid, sow
dirt," is an insulting phrase reserved for the highest ebullitions of a
peasant's rage in Schwaben and Franken.
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