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Saxons. Two popular observances belonging to Chris- 

 tians are more specially derived from the worship of 

 our pagan ancestors : the hanging up of the mistletoe 

 and the burning of the yule log." 



As regards the former of these practices, it is well 

 known that in the religion of the Druids, the mistletoe 

 was regarded w r ith the utmost veneration, though the 

 reverence which they paid to it seems to have been 

 restricted to the plant when found growing on the oak, 

 the favourite tree of their divinity, Teutanes, who 

 appears to have been the same as the Phenician god, 

 Baal, or the sun, worshipped under so many different 

 names by the pagan nations of antiquity. At the period 

 of the winter-solstice a great festival was celebrated in 



his honour When the sacred anniversary 



arrived the ancient Britons, accompanied by their priests, 

 the Druids, sallied forth with great pomp and rejoicings 

 to gather the mystic parasite, which, in addition to the 

 religious reverence with which it was regarded, was 

 believed to possess wondrous curative powers. When 

 the oak was reached on which the mistletoe grew, two 

 white bulls were bound to the tree, and the chief 

 Druid, clothed in white (the emblem of purity), 

 ascended, and, with golden knife, cut the sacred plant, 

 which was caught by another priest in the folds of his 

 robe. The bulls, and also human victims, were sacri- 

 ficed, and various festivities followed. The mistletoe 

 thus gathered was divided into small portions and dis- 

 tributed among the people, who hung up the sprays 

 over the entrances to their dwellings, as a propitiation 

 and shelter to the sylvan deities during the season of 

 frost and cold. The rites in connection with the mistletoe 

 were retained throughout the Eoman dominion in 

 Britain, and also for a long period under the sovereignty 

 of the Jutes, the Saxons and the Angles." 





