Mistletoe

“ And the mistletoe, of which I spoke just now—oh, the mistletoe! What was not enshrined for us in that insignificant bit of weed! Two leaf blades and one berry were enough to work the charm—to turn a humdrum house into a world of romance, filled with the interest of that passion which is the most interesting thing in life, without its carking cares and its deadly responsibilities. Like a trap in the run of a wild animal, a pale sprig would be hidden for special purposes by a more ardent player of the game, but that was considered to be a breach of rules ”

“ Lying on his back, a prey to somewhat alarmed surprise, he became aware through his nose of a pleasant scent, and through his eyes, of the pendant mistletoe-like twigs of the jhand tree. Mistletoe,--yes, that might account for the kiss; but what about the perfume of roses? There it was again, in company with an old peacock's feather fan which looked as if it were half through a severe moulting. Some one was fanning him, positively fanning him! for the feathers swooped again and again just above his face in composed curves suggestive of leisure and perpetual motion. ”

“ Skirting the stream out toward the higher back woods, I chanced to spy a bunch of snow in one of the great sour gums, that I thought was an old nest. A second look showed me tiny green leaves, then white berries, then mistletoe.
It was not a surprise, for I had found it here before,—a long, long time before. It was back in my school-boy days, back beyond those twenty years, that I first stood here under the mistletoe and had my first romance. There was no chandelier, no pretty girl, in that romance,—only a boy, the mistletoe, the giant trees, and the somber, silent swamp. ”

“ Imagine then a scene—the chief Nature Festival of that forest worship: the New Year’s day of the Druids.
A vast concourse of people, men and women and children, are on their way to the forest; they are moving toward an oak tree that has been found with mistletoe growing on it—growing there so seldom. As the excited throng come in sight of it, they hail it with loud cries of reverence and delight. ”

“ Lifting itself above the smaller growths stands the young manhood of the woods—a splendid oak past its thirtieth year, representing its youth and its prime conjoined. In its trunk is the summer heat of the all-day sun. Around its roots is velvet turf, and there are wild violet beds. Its huge arms are stretched toward the ground as though reaching for some object they would clasp; and on one of these arms as its badge of divine authority, worn there as a knight might wear the colors of his Sovereign, grows the mistletoe. There he stands—the Forest Lover. ”

“ Whatever may be the origin of these beliefs and practices concerning the mistletoe, certain it is that some of them have their analogies in the folk-lore of modern European peasants. For example, it is laid down as a rule in various parts of Europe that mistletoe may not be cut in the ordinary way but must be shot or knocked down with stones from the tree on which it is growing. Thus, in [pg 082] the Swiss canton of Aargau “all parasitic plants are esteemed in a certain sense holy by the country folk, but most particularly so the mistletoe growing on an oak. ”

“ New Year’s day—the winter woods—the journeying throng—the oak—the bough—the banquet beneath—the white bulls with fillets on their horns—the white-robed priest—the golden sickle in his hand—the stroke that severs the mistletoe—the prayer that each soul receiving any smallest piece will be blessed in life’s sorrows! If I were a great painter, I should like to paint that scene. In the centre should be some young girl, pressing to her heart what she believed to be heaven’s covenant with her under the guise of a blossom. How could you have wished to withhold such a story from me? ”

“ Here were kept up the old games of hoodman blind, shoe the wild mare, hot cockles, steal the white loaf, bob apple, and snap dragon; the Yule-clog and Christmas candle were regularly burnt, and the mistletoe with its white berries hung up, to the imminent peril of all the pretty housemaids.*
* The mistletoe is still hung up in farm-houses and kitchens at Christmas, and the young men have the privilege of kissing the girls under it, plucking each time a berry from the bush. When the berries are all plucked the privilege ceases. ”

“ During this season of the year many of our English steamers have among their freight great quantities of mistletoe. This bit of Christmas beauty from Merrie England will pass the custom-house without charge, and add its beauty to our Christmas evergreens. No evergreen is more famed in story or more celebrated in song. Its opposite fleshy leaves and beautiful pearl-like berries have long been held in high reverence. Among the earliest myths of the mistletoe is that from the Scandinavians:—
Balder, a great God, was warned in dreams that his life was in danger. ”

“ In portions of the south of England the parasite is very common. In winter its evergreen leaves stand out conspicuously from the bare branches of the trees. In the lore of British Druid and ancient German the mistletoe had prominent place. The mistletoe of Europe is Viscum album; while the common American mistletoe is Phoradendron flavescens, a small, shrubby, brittle form of yellowish color and with white berries, growing in bunches on deciduous trees of various kinds, found from New Jersey southward and westward. ”

“ And they laughed and said that it grew on the apple tree in the orchard, and that the old gardener had cut it for them, and promised to let them bob for apples in a bucket in the wood-shed if they were quick back. That is really and truly the way the mistletoe grows. It is just like a baby that will not leave its nurse. It pines away and will do nothing by itself, so it has to be stuck into another tree to grow there more happily. ”

“ Whereas the Druids thought that mistletoe cured everything, modern doctors appear to think that it cures nothing. If they are right, we must conclude that the ancient and widespread faith in the medicinal virtue of mistletoe is a pure superstition based on nothing better than the fanciful inferences which ignorance has drawn from the parasitic nature of the plant, its position high up on the branch of a tree seeming to protect it from the dangers to which plants and animals are subject on the surface of the ground. ”

“ The Kadeir Taliasin says that [108] the mistletoe was one of the ingredients in the awen a gwybodeu, or water of inspiration, science, and immortality, which the goddess Kod prepared in her cauldron. Witches were thought to have no power to hurt those who bore mistletoe round their neck. Sir Thomas Browne speaks of the virtues of mistletoe in cases of epilepsy.”— (“Folk-Medicine,” Black, London, 1883, p. 196.) ”

“ Some grow strong and lusty in the clinging clasp of the mistletoe, and are only saved from being smothered in its tender embraces by the pruning-knife, which cuts down and strews the ground with all such pleasant parasites as would otherwise sap the strength and destroy the life of the strong young oaks. ”

“ When mistletoe was scarce, Welsh farmers used to say, “No mistletoe, no luck”; but if there was a fine crop of mistletoe, they expected a fine crop of corn.285 In Sweden mistletoe is diligently sought after on St. John's Eve, the people “believing it to be, in a high degree, possessed of mystic qualities; and that if a sprig of it be attached to the ceiling of the dwelling-house, the horse's stall, or the cow's crib, the Troll will then be powerless to injure either man or beast.”286
A favourite time for gathering mistletoe is Midsummer Eve. ”

“ In the winter, when the flow of food is very slow in the host, it is likely that the mistletoe does some of its own food building in its yellow-green leaves, which would be exposed to the full light, as the host’s leaves would have fallen away. The mistletoe has soft, white fruits which are scattered by birds, and as they are very sticky, they hold for some time on to the branch where they are dropped, and there the seedling sprouts and fastens itself on to the tissues of the host, growing every year with its growth. ”

“ One author says of the mistletoe, "And this is the nature of it: unless it be mortified, altered, and digested in the stomach and belly of birds it will never grow." The earliest name I have been able to find for the mistletoe is the Celtic guid, meaning "the shrub," par excellence. The present French name, gui, is evidently a direct descendant of this. In Hooker & Arnott's "British Flora" the Greek name for this plant, written variously, iks, iksos, and iksia, is derived directly from the Celtic guid, though perhaps the derivation is somewhat strained. ”

“ High above the roof rose the greenery, and over the edge of the verandah, throughout its length, hung a deep fringe of green, reaching right down to the ground at the posts; everywhere among the boughs trailed long strands of bright red mistletoe, while within the leafy bower itself hanging four feet deep from the centre of the high roof one dense elongated mass of mistletoe swayed gently in the breeze, its heaped-up scarlet blossoms clustering about it like a swarm of glorious bees.
Cheon interrupted the decorations with a call to “Bressfass! ”

“ The custom of “kissing under the mistletoe” dates back to the days of Scandinavian mythology, when the god of darkness shot his rival, the immortal Apollo of the North, with an arrow made from its boughs. But the supposed victim being miraculously restored to life, the mistletoe was given into the keeping of the goddess of affection, as a symbol of love and not of death, to those who passed beneath it. A berry was required [8] to be picked with every kiss and presented to the maiden as a sign of good fortune, the privilege ceasing when all the berries were gathered. ”

“ 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. ”

“ To greet the willow civilly, and leave a bit behind.
“Who cares,” said the children, “for this old Willow-man?
We’ll take the Mistletoe, and he may catch us if he can.”
With rage the ancient Willow shakes in every limb,
For they have taken all, and have not left a bit for him.
[Pg 177] Then bright gleamed the holly, the Christmas berries shone
But in the wintry wind, without the Willow-man did moan:
“Ungrateful, and wasteful! the mystic Mistletoe
A hundred years hath grown on me, but never more shall grow.” ”

“ The white berries are full of a thick clammy juice by which the seeds are fastened to the branches where they take root. The mistletoe has been the object of a very special regard for centuries, and traces of this high esteem still survive in the well-known Christmas custom. One variety of this practice has it that each time a kiss is snatched under the mistletoe, a berry is plucked from the bush, and that when the berries have all been removed the privilege ceases. The Druids thought that the mistletoe which grew upon the oak possessed magical virtues, and they valued it accordingly. ”

“ Brand (“Popular Antiquities,” London, 1849, vol. i. article “Mistletoe”) cites the opinion of various old authors that mistletoe was regarded “as a medicine very likely to subdue not only the epilepsy, but all other convulsive disorders.... The high veneration in which the Druids were held by the people of all ranks proceeded in a great measure from the wonderful cures they wrought by means of the mistletoe of the oak.... The mistletoe of the oak, which is very rare, is vulgarly said to be a cure for wind-ruptures in children ”

“ This plant was also regarded as a symbol of the resurrection. The use of mistletoe along with holly is probably due to the notion that in winter the fairies took shelter under its leaves, and that they protected all who sheltered the plant. The origin of kissing under the mistletoe is considered to have come from our Saxon ancestors, who regarded this plant as dedicated to Friga, the goddess of love. ”

“ The bronze mistletoe branches with their orange-red flowers are said to be the disappointed babies whose wailing in vain for mothers has wearied the spirits who transform them into these bunches, the red flowers being formed from their baby blood. The spirits of babies and children who die young are reincarnated, and should their first mother have pleased them they choose her again and are called millanboo—the same again. ”

“ From time immemorial the mistletoe has been the object of superstitious veneration in Europe. ”

“ Now, this arrangement exactly suits the mistletoe, for apple and poplar are just the two trees best adapted for its depredations, while a fork in a bough is the one likely place where it has a chance of rooting itself. A great many unobservant people imagine to-day that mistletoe grows chiefly on oaks, because they have heard about the sanctity of oak-grown mistletoes in the eyes of the Druids. ”

“ Perhaps there would be mistletoe. . . . Suppose he found himself alone with Myra beneath the mistletoe bough? Suppose he kissed her? Suppose she turned upon him with her dignified little air and reproached him, saying he had no right? Suppose he said, "Myra! will you give me the right?" . . .
No wonder that the car seemed slow to the lover's mind; no wonder that every fresh jerk and strain deepened the frown on his brow. The road was strewn with rough, sharp stones; but in another mile or two they would be on a smooth high-road once more. If only they could last out those few miles! ”