110 TRANSACTIONS, NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 



are mingled with the debris left to us from the 

 residences of a very ancient race, of which we can 

 say little with certainty. That there was some 

 reason for these lake-dwellers keeping mistletoe about 

 their houses we cannot doubt, and that that reason 

 was a belief in its mystic virtues — health-giving, 

 disease-banishing, poison-resisting — is probable. 



So far as spontaneous Celtic customs survive, we 

 find little to lead us to supjDose that the mistletoe was 

 ever held by these races in much regard. Welsh, 

 Manx, Gael, and Irish care popularly little about it. 

 In Wales it is the Bardic emblem of Winter, as 

 Trefoil, Oak, and Wheat are of the other seasons. 

 The Trefoil, as the emblem of Spring, suggests the 

 probability of the wearing of the Shamrock in Ireland 

 having its origin from i)aganism rather than from 

 St. Patrick. As the mistletoe is not native in the 

 districts now inhabited by Manx, Gael, or Irish, the 

 non-existence of popular customs there in connection 

 with it cannot be much insisted on. The Frenchj 

 again, are of somewhat mixed descent, though their 

 blood may have a decidedly Celtic strain ; and mistle- 

 toe customs prevail mainly among them in Normandy 

 and other districts where the infusion of Scandinavian 

 blood is evident. It is among races of such northern 

 origin that the mistletoe holds its place in popular 

 festivity, and to these the remarks of Pliny do not 

 ^PPly- The order of the Druids is now too long- 

 extinct for certainty or precision as to the details of 

 its existence or downfall ; but the Celtic indifference 

 with regard to a plant so intimately associated with 

 ancient Druidical ascendency and jDre-Christian 

 paganism may have arisen from a determined stand 

 made against it by the early missionaries and con- 

 verts. Connected with the superstitious rites of a 

 heathen priesthood, it would probably be banned by the 

 first Christian j)reachers, with all the customs as well 

 that clung around it. When the sacred groves were 

 cut down and Druidism died out, the memory of the 

 mistletoe would also fade away, and the connected 



