THE PRINCIPLES OF BOTANY. 
247 
in' hand for all practical purposes, well knowing that the virtues 
real or supposed would be the same from one tree as from 
another. 
Mrs. Lankester having collected so much matter upon this 
interesting' subject, we quote the following from ‘ English 
Botany :’— 
“ The simple fact of the extreme rarity of oak-fed mistletoe 
appears to have given its sanctity in the early days of supersti¬ 
tion and darkness. On a tree famous from all antiquity, and 
consecrated in the earliest ages—the very name of the priests 
of religion signifying a connection with oaks and oak-woods, it 
does not seem unnatural that the tiny plant deriving its life 
from this venerated tree and growing in a manner almost super¬ 
natural, when compared with surrounding vegetation, should have 
become invested with a mysterious sanctity. 
Pliny writes of our British ancestors :—“ The Druids (thus 
they call their chief priests) hold nothing in greater veneration 
than the mistletoe, and the tree on which it grows, provided only 
that it be the oak. They select groves of oak trees standing by 
themselves, and perform no sacred ceremonies without green oak 
foliage. Indeed, they truly believe that whenever the mistletoe 
grows upon the oak it has been sent from heaven, and they con¬ 
sider it a sign of a chosen tree. But the mistletoe is very rarely 
found upon the oak. When it is discovered, they proceed to 
collect it with very great devotion and ceremony, and especially 
on the sixth day of the moon. This period of the moon’s age, 
when it has sufficient size, without having attained the half of its 
fulness, makes the beginning of their months and years, and of 
an age, which consists but of thirty years.-” ‘ C. Plinii Nat. 
Hist.,’ lib. xvi, c. 44. 
The grand ceremony of cutting the mistletoe from the oak 
was the New Year’s Day festival of the ancient Britons, and it 
was held on the sixth day of the moon, as near the 10th of March 
as the age of the moon permitted. 
The New Year’s Day festival of our forefathers would have 
fallen this present year on the 14th of March. The exact pro¬ 
ceedings of the Druids on this great annual festival are thus 
described by Pliny :—“ Calling the mistletoe, in their manner 
of speaking, a cure-all (or all-heal), and having got the sacri¬ 
fices and the good things for the feast all properly ready under 
the tree, they lead up two white bulls, and begin by tying them by 
their horns to the tree. The Arch-Druid, clothed in a white robe, 
then mounts the tree and cuts the mistletoe with a golden sickle. 
It is caught as it falls in a white cloth. Then they offer up 
the victims as a sacrifice, praying that God would make his gift 
prosperous to those to whom it had been presented. They be- 
LII* 18 
