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HABDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



it now bears. Before that it had borne the names 

 of Viscus quercus, Yiscum qitercinum, Viscum bac- 

 cis albis, &c. The name mistletoe has shared the 

 same fate, being further distinguished as white 

 missel-toe, mistletoe of the oak, &c. In an old 

 German-Latin-French dictionary, the German mistl 

 is made equivalent to the Latin viscum and the 

 French glu. Where this name is to come in I do 

 not know. 



The old Druidic names for the mistletoe were 

 expressive of their veneration for it, thus Pren 

 puraur,* the tree of pure gold ; Pren awyn, the 

 ethereal tree ; Pren uchelvar, the lofty tree ; and Mr. 

 Davies, in his " Pates and Mythology of the British 

 Druids," mentions that there are four other names, 

 compounded of Uchel, lofty, but he does not record 

 them. The Welsh, Breton, Erse, Gaelic, and Channel 

 Island names for the mistletoe would doubtless 

 throw some light on those mentioned here. Would 

 some correspondent kindly supply them ? 



The "Prose Edda," the sacred book of the 

 religion of Odin and Thor, contains a legend given 

 under the name of the Misteltheinni Voluspa, which 

 is perhaps the earliest notice of the mistletoe we 

 have, as it has evidently been traditional for cen- 

 turies before it was committed to writing. It is 

 the legend of the death of Baldur. Baldur, one 

 of the sons of Odin— the fairest, the wisest, and 

 best of all the inhabitants of Valhalla — was troubled 

 with dreams that his life would be "suddenly cut 

 short by some painful death. The gods set them- 

 selves to prevent this dread calamity ; and Freya, 

 the mother of the gods, obtained from all things — 

 earth, air, fire, water, metals, weapons, &c. — a vow 

 never to hurt or injure Baldur in any way. But 

 the mistletoe was at the time forgotten, and after- 

 wards thought too insignificant to be feared. This 

 pledge was so powerful that from that time Baulder 

 was accustomed to make sport for the gods by 

 standing in their midst, and allowing them to try 

 their most deadly arts and weapons upon him, 

 always without effect. Loki (fire, or the spirit of 

 mischief), jealous of this power of Baldur's, ex- 

 tracted from Freya the fact that the mistletoe had 

 been overlooked, and the oversight not afterwards 

 repaired. He hastened to the woods, pulled the 

 mistletoe, and selecting the strongest branch, he 

 fashioned of it a dart slender and keen. Going 

 into the circle of the gods while at their usual 

 play, he invited Hod the Blind (the type of the 

 Diind forces of Nature) to fling at Baldur the little 

 dart he had prepared. Hod does so, and directed 

 by the hand of Loki, the dart made from the insig- 

 nificant mistletoe pierces Baldur's eye to the brain, 

 and he falls a corpse ! Great was the lamentation 

 in Valhalla. Sir Walter Scott's translation of the 



* Virgil's Aiirum frondens and Hamas aureus are this 

 plant. Note also the close resemblance between the Druidic 

 Puraur and the Latin Purum aurum (pure gold). 



whole Edda is to be found in " Mallet's Northern 

 Antiquities," published by Bohn; in Schow's 

 " Earth, Plants, and Man," by the same publisher ; 

 and in an early volume of " Good Words for the 

 Young." It is full of interest, and will well repay 

 a perusal. 



A curious and very interesting remnant of this 

 legend is found in the north of Germany at the 

 present day. It is there believed that a man pro- 

 vided with a piece of mistletoe can never be 

 wounded, while his own weapons cannot fail to 

 take effect. It is well known that the mistletoe 

 was held in great esteem by the Druids ; its very 

 names in their tongue are a sufficient evidence of 

 this, and the writings of their bards and other 

 remains have a frequent reference to this. It 

 doubtless owes its celebrity to its close connection 

 with the oak, which was their chosen symbol for 

 Huon, their chief deity.* This close connection 

 with the oak, its mysterious growth, totally unlike 

 the tree on which it grows, its birth sudden and 

 apparently without cause, all combined to impress 

 such accurate observers as the Druids undoubtedly 

 were with a sense of mystery and awe. Add to 

 this, that, as Vallancey says, "Not only its berries 

 but its leaves also grow in clusters of three united 

 to one stock" (three, the sacred and universal 

 number almost all the world over !), and we can 

 understand in some measure how it came to acquire 

 its great importance, and how there came to be 

 ascribed to it such manifold, diverse, and mira- 

 culous properties. 



The ceremonies of gathering the mistletoe were 

 among the Druids most impressive, but are too 

 well known to need enumeration here. They were 

 performed on New Year's Day, and portions of the 

 gathered mistletoe " were distributed to the people 

 throughout Gaul because of the great virtues which 

 they attributed to it," from whence New Year's 

 Gifts are still called in some parts of France gui 

 Van neuf. In Worcestershire, up to the present 

 time, the ceremony of hanging up a new branch of 

 mistletoe is annually performed at 12 p.m. on New 

 Year's Eve. The old branch, that has hung the 

 year through, is given to the first cow that calves 

 after I\ ew Year's Day, to ensure luck to the dairy 

 throughout the year. In Herefordshire the only 

 variation in this ceremony is that the old branch is 

 burnt. 



The Druids are said to have believed that the 

 mistletoe was the retreat of the sylvan deities 

 during the winter, when there was no other shelter 

 for them in their favourite wood. We seem to 

 have some trace of this belief in the custom of 

 burning the old branches not only of mistletoe but 



* Huon, according to Mr. Bryant, was none other than 

 the patriarch Noah, invested with various characters as the 

 He loarkite g d. He refers nearly all the heathen gods and. 

 goddesses to Noah in his different characters. 



