•241 
Balder by tossing this little trifle at him, and I will 
direct your arm.” Hoder took the misletoe, and Loke 
guiding his hand, he darted it at Balder, who, as the 
legend asserts, “ pierced through and through, fell 
down devoid of life.” 
Such are the fables attached to this really singular 
plant: and it must be owned that its peculiar habits, 
the obscure mode of its propagation, &c. might almost 
countenance the superstitious regard in which it was 
held in those dark ages when ignorance and credulity 
reigned paramount over the human mind. The horrors 
with which it was associated in the bloody and cruel 
rites of Druidism, have probably obtained for it, in the 
following quotation from Shakspeare, “ a local habitation 
and a name” by no means enviable: — 
“ A barren and detested vale you see it is : 
The trees, though summer, yet forlorn and lean : 
O’ercomc with moss and baleful mistletoe; 
Here never shines the sun, here nothing breeds 
Unless the nightly owl, or fatal raven.” 
Connected as it is with gloomy reminiscences, it is 
somewhat strange that this plant should ever administer 
to “ heart-easing mirth; ” and yet, wherever old customs 
are preserved, 
K 
