337 



It has occurred to me whether the " fructifying virtue," given to the Mistletoe 

 by the Druids might not explain, in part, why the Mistletoe should never have 

 been generally used in decorating oxir Churches. As a s>-mbol of the Paganism 

 of the Druids, its significance has passed away centm-ies since ; and if this were the 

 objection to its use, the Holly also should be rejected. " The Holly," says Shirley 

 Hibberd (Notes & Queries ist ser. Vol. v. p. 208), " owes also its importance in 

 the Christmas festivities to Paganism. The Romans dedicated the Holly to 

 Saturn, whose festival was held in December ; and the early Christians, to screen 

 themselves from persecution, decked their houses with its branches during their 

 own celebration of the Nativity." It may be, however, that the fact of the Mistle- 

 toe being the especial emblem of the New-year's-day festivities, has prevented its 

 use for Christmas decoration : or it may be also, I must add, that this favourite 

 parasite has taken too prominent a place in the rejeicings of the kitchen, to secure 

 for itself a place in th? church. 



For a time, indeed, it seems to have been used in decking the church, the poet 

 Gay (Trivia, Book ii. p. 437), thus refers to it : — 



" When rosemary and bays, the poets crown, 

 Are bawl'd in frequent cries through all the town ; 

 Then judge the festival of Christmas near, — 

 Christmas, the joyous period of the year ; 

 Now with bright holly all the temples strow, 

 With laurel green and sacred Mistletoe." 



" It seems something like caprice," says a wTiter in the Quarterly Review, 

 " which has excluded the Mistletoe as well from the decorations of our Churches 

 at present, as from their ancient sculpture and carvings. We know of one instance 

 only of its occurrence — Sprays of Mistletoe, with leaf and berry, fill the spandrels 

 of one of the very remarkable tombs in Bristol Cathedral, which were probably 

 designed by some artist monk in the household of the Berkeleys, whose ample and 

 broad lands are among the chief glories of the west Country, in which the Mistle- 

 toe is now for the most part found." We do not remember to hav< seen it else- 

 where, even lurking among quaint devices of ' Miserere ' ; whilst the Oak — every 

 portion of which, in the daj's of Celtic heathenism, was almost as sacred as the 

 Mistletoe which grew on it — was one of the principal trees ' studied ' by mediaeval 

 sculptors, when, during the so-called ' Decorated ' period, they reproduced leaf 

 and flower with such exquisite beauty and fidelity — witness the oak leaves laid 

 into the panels of the Cantilupe shrine at Hereford, or the twisted spra^-s of oak, 

 clustered with acorns, which form one of the most graceful corbels in the chofr of 

 Exeter Cathedral." (Quarterly Review, Vol. 114, p. 220.) 



"Certain it is," says a writer in Notes and Queries (Vol. vi. p. 523, n.s.), "that 

 Mistletoe formerly had place amongst Christmas decorations of Churches, but 

 was afterwards excluded. In the earlier ages of the Church many festivities not 

 tending to edification had crept in — mutual kissing amongst the number — but as 

 this soon led to indecorum, kissing and Mistletoe were both properly bundled out 

 of the Church." (Hone. Hook. Moroni. Bescherelle. Du Cange. &c., &c) 



