347 



just as it is, at this day, of that of the Indians ; the caste of the Druids strongly 

 resembling in position and privileges the caste of the Brahmins. In fact, the 

 very existence of a sacerdotal caste invested with such powers, and regarded with 

 such reverence as the Druids were, betrays the oriental origin of the system. 

 Nothing like it existed in any other western nation ; not even among the 

 Germans, the close neighbours of the Gauls and Britons, was there anything of 

 the kind. Such a connection is by no means improbable, when we recollect that 

 there is [also an undoubted connection between the languages of Britain and 

 India, the Celtic and the Sanscrit : when, moreover, it is remembered that ethno- 

 logists are agreed in the belief that extensive migrations took place in pre- 

 historic times from Central Asia, the great seat of the Aryan races, into western 

 Europe. 



Such remarks are as interesting as they are suggestive, but seeing that the 

 subject of this paper is " Mistletoe " and not " Druidism," with all due deference, 

 the text has been allowed to remain. If it has been shown, successfully, that 

 Mistletoe has been held in honour from the times of the Britons to our own : that 

 it has always been connected with the celebration of the New Year, and sup- 

 posed to have certain mysterious virtues ; that even among races of other name 

 and blood — such as the hardy conquerors of Roman Britain and their Scandi- 

 navian kinsmen — it held an honoured place : a history has been traced for it, 

 more ancient and more romantic than almost any other native plant can boast. 

 Its other rivals of Christmas-tide, the holly and the ivy, scarcely vie with it in 

 ancient fame and wide-spread honour : only the oak, on which it grows, has 

 associations more venerable and historic : only the yew carries back the thoughts 

 to a more remote antiquity, or into more poetic scenes : and none of these has 

 the same homely charm, or is so exclusively connected with Christmas and the 

 New Year, with England and with Herefordshire. 



