CHAP. LXII. LORANTHA^CEiE. Fl'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. Everv 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 Gen t/e man's Magazine 

 for 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 a non 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 liamsel 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" from 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." 



Projiagation. In a state of nature, the mistletoe is propagated by the 

 berries being, bv 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 t)f the missel tlirush, which, after having satisfied 

 itself by eatin^^ 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 intluruted, 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 i)rocess of digestion, were 

 necessary to jirepare the seeds for vegetation. Kay first suggesteil the idea 

 of trying by experiment whether the seed would vegetate without passing 



3 Y 



