THE MISTLETOE. 113^^ 



with the words '' Au gui inenez" or ''Au guif Ian 

 neuf!" (pronounced, in the patois of Touraine, Agui- 

 lanneu). Rabelais refers to a similar custom in the 

 clause "aller a la gui I'an neuf," rendered by Sir 

 Thomas Urquhart "to go a-hansel-getting on the 

 first day of the ne^v year." Now, these are the very 

 parts of France where the Normans gained sway, 

 and though they adopted the language of those they 

 conquered, there is every reason to suppose that 

 they retained their old customs. It is probable that 

 from this custom and French j)hrase our Scottish 

 word Hogmanay, and the observances connected 

 with it, took origin. In that case we possess a Low- 

 land word that has only one letter (gj left to signify 

 the mistletoe, somewhat as a rudimentary organ in 

 some living beings, the last survival of many 

 changes. 



I shall now refer to the word inisthtoe. In Ogil- 

 vie's Imperial Dictionary (1882), as allied words, are • 

 given Anglo-Saxon mistel-ta or mistel-faii, Icelandic 

 mistel-teinn, &c. The following remark is added : 

 " The name seems to mean twig of darkness or mist,^ 

 and to have been given from the fact that the 

 Scandinavian Sun-God, Balder, was said to have 

 been slain by a twig of this plant, his death sym- 

 bolizing the victory of darkness over light in the 

 northern winters." I think such a derivation as this 

 is very far-fetched. 



That the great sun-myth is brought forward too 

 readily to explain details relating to the mistletoe 

 will appear still more conspicuoasly in the following 

 extract from Dr. Brewer's Dictionaiy of Phrase and 

 Fable (15th Edition, 1883) : " Shakespeare calls it ' the 

 baleful mistletoe' {Tifns Andronicus, ii. 3.), in allu- 

 sion to the Scandinavian story that it was with an 

 arrow made of mistletoe that Balder was slain." 

 Now, in the works of Shakespeare I have failed to 

 find any reference to Balder, or, indeed, to any of 

 the Gods of the North, or any hint that he had even 

 the faintest glimmering notion of a Scandinavian 



