NATURAL HISTORY OF THE MISTLETOE. 
307 
employed in pumping up a supply of provisions for its many-handed branches, 
equally in Winter as in Summer. 
It is familiar to almost every educated person that the Mistletoe was honoured 
by the Druids of Gaul and Britain as an heaven-descended plant, which they 
denominated 44 pren-awyr” the celestial, or tree of the firmament; and also oll- 
yach , all-heal , and distributed at certain times with remarkable solemnities as a 
precious gi f t. 44 When the end of the year approached, the Druids marched with 
great solemnity to gather the Mistletoe, in order to present it to God, inviting all 
the world to assist at the ceremony in these words:— The new year is at hand , 
gather the Mistletoe f The 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 that purpose. Two white bulls that had never been yoked were then 
brought forth and offered to the Deity, with prayers that he would prosper those 
to whom he had given so precious a boon.” 
It was, however, only the Mistletoe of the Oak that received this idolatrous 
veneration; and hence, as in the present day the Mistletoe appears most com¬ 
monly upon the Apple-tree, and hardly ever upon the Oak, a suspicion has arisen 
that there must be some mistake in the matter. A gentleman, who has published 
several ingenious theories, once proposed the hypothesis to me that in the lapse 
of years a misnomer had arisen, and that in fact our Apple-tree was the Oak of 
the Druids ! I believe he was at last fairly laughed out of the position he had 
proposed to take up; but if he had not been, the matter is put to rest by Davies, 
who, in the Celtic Researches , says that the Apple-tree was considered by the 
Druids the _ next sacred tree to the Oak, and that orchards of it were planted by 
them in the vicinity of their groves of Oak. This, by-the-bye, was a sly trick 
on their parts, as they thus, no doubt, made a nursery for the Mistletoes among 
the Apple-trees, and thus offered a very fair chance of getting it easily trans¬ 
planted to their sacred Oaks. Professor Burnet says, that the curious basket of 
garlands with which 44 Jack-in-the-Green” is occasionally even now invested on 
May-Day, is a relic of a similar garb assumed by the Druidical assistants, when 
about to hunt for the Mistletoe, which when they had found they danced round 
the Oak to the tune 44 Hey derry down , down down derry” which literally 
signified— In a circle move we round the Oak. Whether the Druids really 
capered about to the tune of 44 Derry down ” as stated by the learned professor, 
I shall leave to Cambro-britons, and bards interested in the matter, to decide 
at their leisure. There are certainly Oak woods in Monmouthshire still called 
44 the Derry ; 7 and Ovid, at any rate, affirms that the Druids used to sing to 
the Mistletoe. 
Fosbrooke thus details the ceremony, perhaps, however, amplifying from 
Pliny, who merely states that a priest, clothed in a white robe, ascended the tree 
VOL. iv.— no. xxx. 2 s 
