•280 
January 1, 1898. 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
Mints for ||mateurs. 
THE MISTLETO BOUGH 
“ The Mistletoe hung in the castle hall, 
The Holly branch shone on the old oak wall." 
These words are upon the tongue of every one at the 
season of Yule, and the sweetly pathetic air to which 
they are attuned almost haunts the mind, so subtle 
is its sound, and so sublime the influence of both 
ballad and tune. But though the tragic death of the 
baron’s daughter at the season when the “ Mistletoe 
hung,” and the "Holly branch shone ” would be 
sufficient in itself to form the foundation of many a 
romance, the historic bough had achieved notoriety 
ages before the fair and unfortunate lady lived. 
Amongst all the numerous chapters on plant lore 
that have been penned by various writers, none is 
more intetesting than that of the Mistleto. From 
the earliest record we have it has been wrapped in 
" mysterie and diablerie,” and this has continued 
even down to our own practical nineteenth century, 
although in a considerably modified form. The 
potent spell of the Mistleto at Yule shows no signs 
of decadence, and neither will it so long as oscula 
dulcia are exchanged by brave lads and fair maidens 
'neath the shelter and sane.ion of its shade. 
The mystery attached to the plant probably 
originated from ignorance as to its origin and life 
history, and in the human mind ignorance and fear 
of a subject are very closely allied. It was supposed 
not to grow from seeds as ordinary plants do, and 
this in itself was uncanny enough. 
Virgil tells its story thus in the Aeneid, lib. VI. 
line 205 - 
. “ Quale solet sylvis brumali frigore visenm 
Fronde verere nova quod non sna seminit orbos. 
Et ctoceo fetu teretes circumdare truncos .” 
In this way Virgil draws a veil over his ignor¬ 
ance, but we find that in the 18th century in the 
Delphic classics a commentator who did not lack 
courage boldly avows the story to be true, saying : — 
Non nascitur e simine proprio arboris, at neque ex 
insiden um volucnun fimo, ut putavere veteres, sed ex ipso 
arborum vitali excremento .” 
Lord Bacon ridiculed the idea that the Mistleto 
was propagated by the action of birds, and says that 
the sap which produces the plant is such as " the 
tree doth excerne, and cannot assimilate,” and 
"Browne,” in “Vulgar Errors” endorsed this 
opinion. 
Geralde boldly wrote that “ this excrescence hath 
not any root, neither doth increase himself of his 
seed, as some have supposed, but it rather cometh of 
a certain moisture gathered together upon the boughs 
and joints of the trees through the bark, whereof this 
vaporous moisture proceeding bringeth forth the 
" Missletoe.” 
The belief in the agency of birds in the propagation 
of the Mistletoe was shared by most of the writers of 
Shakespeare’s day, as the following verse will 
show 
" Upon the oake, the plumb tree and the holm, 
The stock dove and the blackbird should not 
come, 
Whose mooting on the trees does make to 
grow, 
Rots curing hyphear and the Mistletoe." 
Browne. 
Of course, we now know that the Mistleto pro¬ 
pagates itself by seed in the ordinary way, and also 
that birds are active agents in the distribution of 
these seeds. 
Whatever the reason or reasons may have been, it 
is certain that the Mistleto has figured conspicuously 
in many a curious legend. One of the best known of 
these is the story ot the way in which Baldur the 
Mighty met his death. Baldur had a very loving 
and attentive mother, Friga, who put herself to a 
great deal of trouble to assure for her son immunity 
from peril. Fire, earth, wind, and water were 
severally adjured by the mother not to harm her son, 
but the Mistleto was forgotten. The evil spirit Lok 
took advantage of this to fashion an arrow out of the 
forgotten plant. This arrow was handed over to 
Hoder, the blind deity, who with it slew Baldur. 
The gods, however, decided to resuscitate Baldur, 
and as a sort of reparation for the injury done to him 
dedicated the Mistle:o to Friga, who had made 
such strenuous efforts to preserve him from harm. 
A condition was attached to this concession, and this 
was that the Mistleto must never touch the earth, 
which was regarded as the empire of Lok. The 
legend goes on to saj that this is the reason why the 
Mistleto is always suspended from the ceilings of 
houses when employed in festal decorations. 
Apart from this legendary reason, however, it 
seems very probable that the custom of suspending 
the Mistleto in our dwellings is a remnant of the 
ancient Druidical custom of dancing round the tree 
on which the plant was growing, the habit of seeing 
it aloft being so strong as to cause those who placed 
it in their houses after it was cut to suspend it on 
high. 
The mystic bough entered very largely into the 
religious rites of the Druids, who regarded it as 
specially sacred when found growing upon the Oak. 
On such an occasion the Arch Druid cut the plant 
from its host tree with a golden sickle, taking care to 
receive it as it fell in the lap of his white robe. A 
solemn ceremonial and sacrifices were the prelude to 
the cutting of the Mistleto. 
In Holstein the peasants speak of the Mistleto as 
the " spectre's wand,” the holder of a spray beiDg 
able to discover ghosts, to call them to him, and if 
he so desires to speak with them. 
Numbers of trees are pointed to by legends as 
having furnished the wood for the cross upon which 
Christ was crucified, and the Mistleto has been cited 
as one of them, and that its punishment was that of 
being reduced from a stately forest tree to a parasite. 
Culpepper speaks of it as being occasionally called 
lignum sanctae crucis, and that it was held to be 
efficacious in cases of palsy, consumption, and 
apoplexy, the cure being effected by hanging it 
against the body next the skin, and also by taking it 
internally. 
In Sweden Mistleto coming from the Oak is hung 
in the bouse all the year round as an insurance 
against fire and other injuries, and in parts of this 
country, notably East Anglia, there is a great disin¬ 
clination to take down the Christmas Mistleto unlil 
it is quite dead, for fear of subsequent sickness. 
Other superstitions connected with the medicinal 
value of the plant might also be cited did space 
permit. 
One other instance of its occult influence is given 
in the " Garden of Eden,” wherein the legend stated 
by the author was that “ By sitting on a hill late in 
a evening near a wood in a few nights a fire drake 
will appear, mark where it lighteth, and there you 
shall find an Oak with Mistleto, there at the roote 
whereof is a Misle-childe, whereof many strange 
things are conceived. Beati qui non crediderunt. 
If our ancestors believed half the powers credited 
to the mystic branch it is no wonder that they re¬ 
garded it with suspicion and refused to allow it to be 
used in the decoration of their churches and temples. 
Even now we vigorously shut it out from our places 
of worship, although Box, Laurel, and Ivy are 
admitted freely enough. 
Gray, in the lines quoted under made a technical 
mistake when he said : 
“ Now with bright Holly all the temples strow. 
With Laurel green, and sacred Mistleto.” 
Mistleto is only once alluded to in Shakespeare's 
works, and this solitary mention is in " Titus 
Andronicus,” Act II., sc. III. 
“ The trees, though summer yet, forelorn and lean, 
O'ercome with moss, and baleful Mistleto.” 
We thus see that Shakespeire had no good opinion 
of the influence of Mistleto upon the trees on which it 
grew. If he regarded it as a parasite he was justi¬ 
fied in calling it “ baleful,” but perhaps people in 
those days credited it with other evil qualities. 
In the palmy days of Cranborne Chase, where 
fine herds of deer were kept, the magic plrnt was 
employed in a curious way. The season for killing 
dry does began at Martin’s tide (November 2nd), and 
ended at Candlemas (February 2nd). The keepers 
tried to procure abortion in the does by placing in 
the feeding grounds branches of Mistleto. The 
desired effect was obtained, but the venison suffered 
in flavour. It is stated that Mistleto will produce 
the same effect upon dogs, although the practice, if 
genuine, was probably a piece of woodcraft not 
generally known. 
Among the ancients Pliny considered that the 
plant was baleful both to the trees on which it grew, 
and to those people who ate of the berries. The 
Druids, according to Pliny, called the Mistleto 
" suo vocabulo omnia sanitatem," i.e., uchel-wydd, mean¬ 
ing all-heal. The name all-heal in modern English 
is not applied to the Mistleto, but to the herb Basil. 
The equivalent in German is kraft-wurzel, and in that 
language also has no reference to Mistleto, 
Anyone who wishes for further icformaiion as to 
Pliny 's views of the plant under discussion can ob¬ 
tain it in his Natural History, books, 10, 16, t7, 2o„ 
22, 23, 24, 27, 28, and 32. 
With regard to the etymology of the word 
Mistleto there has been a good deal of discussion at 
various times, and various views are held by philo¬ 
logists. Dr. Bosworth writes it Mistel-ti, and re'ers 
it to German, Danish, and Swedish without further 
explanation. Richardson derives it from Anglo- 
Saxon, Mist, dung, and ta or toe, i.e., that part of the 
foot by which the bird is caught by the viscus or 
bird-lime. The Anglo-Saxon form appears to be 
Mistelta or Mistiltan, and the Old Norse equivalent, 
Mistiltein, which literally means duDg plant. 
Prior, in " Popular Names of British Plants,” de¬ 
rives it from Anglo-Saxon Mistletan—Mis'.l,, meaning 
unlike, and tan, a twig, the whole word signifying 
that the plant is unlike the tree on which it grows. 
Junius spells it Missel-den, and Colgrave gives the 
three forms, Missell, Misseltoe, and Misseldine. In 
Old German it is Mistil, and in Modern High Ger¬ 
man, Danish, and Swedish it is Mistel. The Dutch 
equivalent is Mistelboom. 
A bird-lime was formerly made from the glutinous 
berries, and this fact gave rise to the proverb, 
" turdus malum sibi cacat quia ex baccis visci fit gluten quo 
turdi capiuntur ” The Latin name Viscum applied to 
the genus is another allusion to the glutinous pro¬ 
perty of the berries. 
Wachter, curiously enough has taken the Anglo- 
Saxon corruption Mistel-ta to mean the bird-lime in-' 
stead of the plant, and says, “ altera digitum pedis sig - 
nificat earn scilicet partem, quiavis tenelur a viseo." This, 
has given rise to a good deal of discussion .into which 
it would not be profitable now to plunge. 
Meanwhile, shorn from all its erstwhile dread 
powers, and emancipated from the thrall of supersti¬ 
tion, may the Mistleto bough still continue to bring 
each Yuletide a message of joy and peace to all my 
readers.— A. S. Galt. 
-- 
Correspondence. 
Questions ashed by amateurs on any subject pertaining 
to gardens or gardening will be answered on this page. 
Anyone may give additional or more explanatory answers 
to questions that have already appeared. Those who desire 
their communications to appear on this page should write 
" Amateurs' Page ” on the top oj their letters. 
Berried Solanum leaves falling — P. P. : From 
what you say we are inclined to think that too much 
water is the cause of the plant’s ailment. Keep it a 
good deal drier, and give no stimulants. 
Pruning Wall Roses. — Geo. Saunders : Ycu may, 
if you wish, prune the Roses now, but we should 
advise you to wait until spring in the case of the 
majority of the plants if you can do so without incon¬ 
veniencing yourself. Tne plant that has been blown 
from its fastenings may be pruned, as it would be a 
waste of time to nail up a lot of shoots that may 
have to be cut away. 
Apricots. — Y. : Branches will often die in large 
trees without any apparent cause, and it is difficult 
in such cases to assign a reason. The dead branch 
should be cut clean out, and the others on either side 
shifted a little so as to fill up the gap as far as 
possible. 
Brier Cuttings.— Rose: To prepare cuttings of the 
Brier or Dog Rose take plump, well ripened shoots 
of the current year's growth. Cut these into pieces 
about 9 ir. long. Leave three buds at the top of the 
cutting, and pick out the rest with a sharp knife. 
Insert the cutting 6 in. or 8 in. deep, and make the 
soil firm around it. Next autumn lift the cuttings, 
which will then be rooted, and re-plant them in rows, 
about 18 in. apart each way. They must stay in 
their new quarters until the following July, when 
they will be ready for budding. It thus takes a year 
and ten months from the insertion of the cutting to 
the putting in of the bud. Stocks raised in this way 
are very suitable for dwarf Roses. For standards 
and hall-standards it will be much better to raise the 
stocks you want from seed. Collect the heps or 
fruits from the hedges as soon as possible, and sow 
the seed in drills. Next year the seedlings must be 
