94 



protection against witchcraft, and the possession of the devil. 

 Many a good wife has travelled for days, perchance, on a pillion 

 behind her husband, through bogs and fords, and over wide tract* 

 of uncultivated land and primeval forest, to attend this festival ; 

 leading a sumpter horse, laden with their offerings to the 

 priesthood, and all the good things they could muster for the fes- 

 tival ; venison and salmon; roasted bustards and boars' hams; 

 with cakes and other delicacies ; not forgetting some well filled 

 skins of Metheglin, or mead : happy, in being able, as a recom- 

 pense for so much toil, to pi'ocure from the hand of the Arch- 

 Druid, for herself and her husband, so many blessings in the 

 coming year.f 



The memory of the Druidical ceremonies is still kept up in 

 Normandy, as they give IMistletoe to each other on new year's- 

 day, by the saying "An guy I'an neiif," and in Picardy they 

 add the word "plantez " to wish a plentiful and prosperous 

 new-year to each other. (Chambers' Encyclopaedia.) 



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 Ice- 

 landic 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 ffidda of 

 Sfcmund, Vala teUs of the death of Baldur in the following 

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



■f "You recognise amongst the Druids the conditions of all primeval 

 people, as they are found in the East amongst the Egyptians, the Israel- 

 ites, &c. They had comhined completely in themselves the whole conduct 

 and rule of the people as the Priest-physicians, and many of their customs 

 accorded fully with those of the East. The Druids communicated their 

 fundamental doctrines and customs only to the initiated whom they taught 

 in sacred groves and remote places (Csesar lib iii., c. 14.) In the exercise 

 of the sacred services, the Druids, like the Egyptians and the Pythago- 

 reans were clad in a white robe. They healed sicknesses and diseases by 

 magical practices; while they professed to have intercourse wiih the Gods; 

 thev proclaimed future events : they were also acquainted with the means 

 of producing ecstasy; and as one of the most excellent magical means — 

 and as one adapted to nearly all possible cases— they used the Mistletoe 

 of the Oak, which they gathered at certain times and with certain ceremo- 

 nies. (Enneraoser's Histnrv of I\iagic, Vol. ii., p. 87, translated by Mary 

 Howilt.) 



