ILLUSTRATIONS. 389 



world to assist at the ceremony, in these words — ' The new 

 year is at hand, gather the Mistletoe !^ Their sacrifices being 

 ready, the priest ascended the Oak, and with a golden hook 

 cut the Mistletoe, which was received in a white garment, 

 spread for the purpose. Two white bulls that had never been 

 yoked were then brought and offered to the Deity, with prayers 

 that He would prosper those to whom He had given so precious 

 a boon.^^ The new year's day of the Druids did not however 

 exactly correspond with ours, for according to Toland it was 

 the 10th of March ; and this idolatrous veneration was confined 

 to the Mistletoe of the Oak, perhaps on account of its rarity. 

 Now, however, 



" Past is the time when, bending low, 

 Druids revered thee, Mistletoe ! 

 Error's broad shades are chased away 

 By Revelation's brilliant ray, 

 And superstition can no more 

 Bid us an humble plant adore. 

 Yet who, in hour of Christmas mirth, 

 Can place thee o'er the social hearth, 

 With ivy and with holly gay. 

 Or twme thee with the fragrant bay, 

 Nor lift with joy his heart above, 

 Nor hymn the notes of praise and love ?" 



The Mistletoe has in later times been rather associated 

 with mirth and glee, than with religious superstition — " Forth 

 to the woods did merry men go, to gather in the Mistletoe ;" 

 and then, they "opened wide the baron's hall to vassal, 

 tenant, serf, and all." 



The popular regard in which it came to be held appears 

 — so says Mr. Lees — "to have arisen from a superstition 

 extending back as far as Druidical times, when the young 

 bride wore a branch of Mistletoe suspended from her neck, 

 which was supposed (as it was considered a remedy against 



