382 THE MISTLETOE IN HEREFORDSHIRE. 
if not in their veneration. There is scarcely a house or cottage in this 
- county that has not its bunch of Mistletoe for New Year's Day. The 
ancient custom is still observed aright in most of the farm-houses through 
the county, by all the old true Herefordshire inhabitants; and espe- 
cially by the lower classes. The Mistletoe-bough is cut on New Year’s 
Eve, and hung up in state as the clock strikes twelve; the old one, 
which has hung throughout the year, is at the same time taken down 
and burnt.* 
The Mistletoe does not appear to have been considered a Christmas | 
evergreen, until the close of the sixteenth or the beginning of the 
seventeenth century. ‘ We have Christmas Carols in praise of Holly 
and Ivy," says Timbs, (‘Generally Things not Known, lst series, 
p. 159,) of even earlier date than the fifteenth century ; but allusion to 
Mistletoe as a Christmas evergreen can scarcely be found for two cen- 
turies later, or before the time of Herrick :— 
* Down with the rosemary, and so, 
Down with the baies and iiid; : 
Down with the holly, ivie, all, 
Wherewith ye dressed the Christmas Hall.” 
Coles, in his * Knowledge of Plants’ (1656), says of Mistletoe :— 
“Tt is carried many miles to set up in houses about Christmas time, 
when it is adorned with a white glistening berry,” and in the tract 
i Round about our €oal-fire, or Christmas Entertainments,’ published 
“The Mistletoe-bough,” says Mr. Haywood, of Worcester, “ — always be 
ae by the last male domestic that has entered the led It is then dressed 
with nuts, apples, ribbons, ete., and suspended in the cen of the room, sometimes 
with a cord attached to a pulley, to allow of it remi ove for the lady to pick a 
berry. The berry should then be thrown over the left shoulder. I once saw, at an 
mansion near er,a Lis bunch of Mistletoe beautifully bedecked, and so 
cleverly suspende y means of strings it could ll e 
ceiling, and thus be brought over the heads any ladies who could not be induced 
à oper time for d ing up the " letoe, however, Mr 
aywood ry. decidedly, to be [Rare epp tershire custo 
thus giving very clear ear proof of a border district for eoe, where the true tradi- 
tions wit th regard to it have been lost at a much earlier period than in the centre. 
