hl 
THE MISTLETOE IN HEREFORDSHIRE. 319 
(* Notes and Queries,’ Ist series, vol. v. p. 208,) “ owes also its im- 
portance in the Christmas festivities to Paganism. The Romans dedi- 
cated it 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 Mistletoe 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 fa- 
vourite parasite has taken too prominent a place in the rejoicings of 
the kitchen to secure for itself a place in the church. 
For a time, indeed, it seems to have been used in decking the 
church, and the fact is referred to by the poet Gay (‘ Trivia,’ Book ii. 
p. 437). 
“It seems something like caprice,” says a writer in the * Quarterly 
Review,’ * which has excluded the Mistletoe as well from the decora- 
tions 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 spandrils of one of the very re- 
markable 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 Mistletoe is now for the most part found. We do not re- 
member to have seen it elsewhere, even lurking among quaint devices 
of * Miserere; whilst the Oak, every portion of which, in the days of 
Celtic heathenism, was almost as sacred as the Mistletoe which grew 
on it, was one of the principal trees ‘studied’ by medieval sculp- 
tors, 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 Cantalupe shrine at Hereford, or 
the twisted sprays of Oak, clustered with acorns, which form one of . 
the most graceful corbels in the choir of Exeter Cathedral." (* Quar- 
terly Review," vol. exiv. p. 220.) 
“Certain it is," says a writer in ‘Notes and Queries,’ vol. vi. p. 
523, new series, “that Mistletoe formerly had place amongst Christ- 
mas 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, 
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