86 HOLLY AND MISTLETOE. 



vast wagon-loads wliicli pour into London from 

 the surrounding counties during the few weeks 

 immediately preceding a cold Christmas. 



The mystic interest of mistletoe, however, has 

 alwa3's very far transcended the merely pictoiial 

 beauty of the scarlet holly. There is something 

 about the very appearance of that weird and 

 singnlar parasite which at once suggests to tlie 

 mind the instinctive notion of uncanny mystery. 

 The curious dead-alive green of the leathery 

 leaves, the odd forking of the jointed branchlets, 

 the strange translucent color of the glutinous 

 berries, the marvellous origin and mode of 

 growth, all cons[iire to give to mistletoe a first 

 place among the mystic plants of primeval magic. 

 Every sprig of mistletoe grows parasitically in the 

 fork of a bough on some other tree, the English 

 species infesting especially the apple, and after 

 that the elm, seldom or almost never — in spite of 

 common opinion to the contrary — the British 

 oak-tree. The popular idea amongst townsmen 

 that mistletoe is peculiarly apt to inhabit oaks is 

 due, no doubt, in the main, to imperfect memories 

 of English history learned in childhood. As a 

 matter of fact, the mistletoe hardly ever grows on 

 those particular trees, and it was tlje very rarity 

 of an oak mistletoe that gave it its special and 

 peculiar sanctity. Tlie Druids — if the old story 

 be true at all — venerated the plant just because 



