Willibald, life of St. Boniface: Chapter 6
" . . . Boniface in their presence attempted to cut down, at a place called
Gaesmere, . . . a certain oak tree of extraordinary size called by the
pagans of olden times the oak of Jupiter. Taking his courage in his hands
(for a great crowd of pagans stood by watching and bitterly cursing in their
hearts the enemy of the gods), he cut the first notch. But when he had made
a superficial cut, suddenly the oak's vast bulk, shaken by a mighty blast of
wind from above, crashed to the ground shivering its uppermost branches into
fragments in its fall. As if by the express will of God (for the brethern
present had done nothing to cause it) the oak broke asunder into four parts,
each part having a trunk of equal length. At the sight of this extraordinary
spectacle, the heathens who had been cursing ceased to revile and began, on
the contrary, to bless the Lord."
Tia Ballantine
University of Hawai`i at Manoa
----- Original Message -----
From: mbloy <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, June 05, 2000 3:19 PM
Subject: Re: Interim Saints - June 5th
> Greetings
>
> Didn't Boniface have something to do with chopping down oak trees? I've a
> vague recollection from something I read, that he chopped down a sacred
oak
> and so incensed the locals that they bumped him off. Does this sound
> familiar to anyone??
>
> Marjie
> [log in to unmask]
>
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