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The Mistletoe has entered into the Mythology of other nations besides the 

 Britons and Gauls. The fact of its great peculiarity in ripening its fruit and thus 

 coming to its perfection in the winter solstice, has been very happily rendered in 

 Icelandic poetry, where Baldur, the Sun, is supposed to be slain by a sprig of 

 Mistletoe, as the only plant capable of injuring him. In the poem of Voluspa, 

 or visions of Vala, in the GEdda of Sa?mund, Vala tells of the death of Baldur in the 

 following stanza, translated from the French of M. Bergmann : — 



" I foresaw for Baldur, for that bloody victim. 



For that son of Odin, the destiny reserved for him : 



He was raising in a charming valley 



A tender and beautiful Mistletoe. 



From that stalk, which appeared so tender, grew 



The fatal arrow of bitterness, that Hoder took upon himself to dart." 



(Madame Ida Pfeiffer's " Visit to Iceland," p. 329.) 



But the idea is so much more fully and beautifully expressed in the legend 

 on the death of Baldur, given in the tale of " The Young Norseman," by Mr. W. 

 B. Rands, which appeared in the " Boy's Own Volume," that I attach it entire, 

 as an appendix to this paper.* 



" More than one sword of a Northern Champion was named ' Mistilteinn,' 

 after the weapon which had slain the white god. The story affords one of many 

 points of resemblance between the mythology of Northern Europe, and those of 

 Persia and the far East. In the Shah Nameh, the hero of Asfendiar is represented 

 as invulnerable, except by a branch from a tree growing on the remotest shore of 

 the ocean. Desthan his enemy found it, hardened it with fire, and killed the hero. 

 Both legends possibly refer to the ' death ' of the Sun ; perishing in his youthful 

 vigour, either at the end of a day struck by the powers of darkness, or at the end of 

 the sunny season stung by the thorns of winter." (Max Muller's " Comparative 

 Mythology" in Oxford Essays for 1856.) "The ' Marentakken,' or 'branch of 

 spectres ' which still in Holstein is believed to confer the power of ghost -seeing on 

 its possessor, is unquestionably the true Viscum album." — (Quarterly Review, 

 Vol. 114, P- 220.) 



It is very difi&cult to trace down in history the customs relative to the Mistle- 

 toe, after the overthrow of the Druidical ceremonies in which it plaj'ed so impor- 

 tant a part. We know that in more serious matters — superstitions of deeper 

 import, and more injurious tendency, — our stubborn ancestors resisted for many 

 centuries all attempts to set them aside : " so deeply rooted " says Dr. Henry, 

 " were these pernicious principles and superstitious practices in the minds of the 

 people, both of Gaul and Britain, that they not only baffled all the powers of the 

 Romans, but even resisted the superior power and divine light of the Gospel for a 

 long time after they had embraced the Christian Religion. This is the reason we 



* The Mistletoe, Trefoil, Oak, and Wheat form the Rardic emblems of the four seasons, and, 

 as such, the Klistletoe was figured on the jewelled National Token, given by the Ladies of South 

 Wales to the Princess of Wales. (Illustrated London News March 5th 1863.) 



