CHAP. LXII. LORANTHA‘CEZ. V1'SCUM. 1023 
feeble and insignificant a plant was not likely to injure Balder. Loke no 
sooner left Friga, than he formed of the branches of the mistletoe a sharp 
arrow, with which he instructed Heder (the blind god of fate) how to kill 
Balder. All nature mourned the loss of the god of the sun ; and Hela (the 
goddess of death), moved by the universal grief, agreed to restore him, if it 
could be proved that every living thing had shed tears. Every creature 
wept; and even the trees drooped their branches to the earth, dripping like 
rain. Loke alone remained with dry eyes; till the gods, enraged at his apathy, 
rushed upon him en masse, and chained him in the bottomless pit; where he 
soon shed tears enough to release Balder; but where he is still left, and 
occasionally, by his struggles to get free, causes earthquakes. The magical 
properties of the mistletoe are mentioned both by Virgil and Ovid; and 
Apuleius has preserved some verses of the poet Lelius, in which he mentions 
the mistletoe as one of the things necessary to make a man a magician. In 
the dark ages, a similar belief prevailed; and, even to the present day, the 
peasants of Holstein, and some other countries, call the mistletoe the 
“ spectre’s wand;” from a supposition that holding a branch of mistletoe in 
the hand will not only enable a man to see ghosts, but to force them to 
speak to him. Forster mentions that a writer in the Gentleman’s Magazine 
fer 1791 states that the guidbel, or mistletoe, is supposed by some to have 
been the forbidden tree in the Garden of Eden; and adds that hence, pro- 
bably, arose the custom of kissing under it at Christmas ; though this appears 
to be anon sequitur. It is more probable that the custom has been handed 
down to us from our Saxon ancestors, who, on the restoration of Balder, 
dedicated the plant to their Venus, Friga, to place it entirely under her con- 
trol, and prevent it from being again used against her as an instrument of 
mischief. In the feudal ages, it was gathered with great solemnity on Christ- 
mas Eve, and hung up in the great hall, with loud shouts and rejoicing. 
“© On Christmas Eve the bells were rung ; 
On Christmas Eve the mass was sung : 
That only night in all the year 
Saw the stoled priest the chalice rear. 
The damsel donned her kirtle sheen ; 
The hall was dressed with holly green : * 
Forth to the woods did merry men go, 
To gather in the misseltoe. 
Then opened wide the Baron’s hall 
‘To vassal, tenant, serf, and all.” 
In France, New Year’s gifts are still called, in some of the provinces, guy 
’an neuf. This is said by Forster, in his Perennial Calendar, p. 2., to have 
arisen from a practice of the druids; who, “ with great ceremonies, used to 
scrape off trom the outside of the oak the mistleden, which they consecrated to 
their great Teutates,” on the first day of the New Year; and then distributed 
it to the Gauls, “ on account of the extraordinary virtues they attributed 
to it.” 
Propagation. In a state of nature, the mistletoe is propagated by the 
berries being, by some means or other, made to adhere to the bark of a living 
tree. The common agency by which this is effected is supposed to be that 
of birds ; and more especially of the missel thrush, which, after having satisfied 
itself by eating the berries, wipes off such of them as may adhere to the 
outer part of its beak, by rubbing it against the branch of the tree on 
which it has alighted; and some of the seeds are thus left sticking to the 
bark. If the bark should be smooth, and not much indurated, the seeds will 
germinate, and root into it the following spring; that is, supposing them to 
have been properly fecundated by the proximity of a male plant to the 
female one which produced them. Aristotle and Pliny, among the ancients, 
and Dr. Walker among the moderns, considered that the mistletoe was pro- 
pagated by the excrements of the birds, which had fed on the berries ; sup- 
posing that the heat of the stomach, and the process of digestion, were 
necessary to prepare the seeds for vegetation. Ray first suggested the idea 
of trying by experiment whether the seed would vegetate without passing 
3Y 
