Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 4.djvu/508

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NOTES AND QUERIES. m s. iv. DEC. 23, 1911.

A terrible tale is told of a farmer who, having been unmerciful to his beasts, was condemned to return from the other world at this season, and to be trodden underfoot by the occupants of the stable until his offences were expiated by suffering. Many a Breton soul is supposed to come ba?k to earth to work out its sentence.

Not only animate beings, but the whole creation enters into the joy of Christmas- tide. While the twelve strokes of mid- night sound on the Eve of the Nativity, both land and water are stirred ; treasure hoards and enchanted halls are revealed, and brown leaves which may yet nutter on the trees become momentarily green ; love-compelling golden grass (Vherbe d'or) flowers, and scents the meadows. The wells give wine instead of water. M. Le Braz asserts that there are poor people in Brittany who have never tasted wine. Why, it is asked, should not the Jesus, who is then being born repeat in their favour just once a. year the miracle of Cana ?

ST. SWITHIN.

MISTLETOE.

SOME account of this " quaint and mystic " plant, the Viscum album of the botanist, and its association with superstition, may be suitable at this festive season. Although it was the mistletoe of the oak that the Druids consecrated, yet the green tufts of mistletoe are rarely to be found on the oak tree. Its favourite trees, in this country, appear to be the poplar, whitethorn, and especially the apple tree ; it also grows on willows, limes, elms, and firs ; less often on the mountain ash and maple. It has been found on the larch and the cedar of Lebanon. In Scotland it is almost unknown. At no period of its existence does it derive any nourishment from the soil. The mistle- toe held 111 veneration by the Druids was that which was found only on the oak, and its virtues depended altogether upon the manner in which it was obtained. A religious procession of Druids and Druid- esses repaired to the forest, and having found the mistletoe, the chief priest ascended the oak in which it was growing. They sang a hymn " ad viscum cantare Druidse solebant " and then the plant was cut down with a silver sickle and received in a clean white sheet spread out below, and held up by the other priests ; for the mistletoe lost all its virtues if it touched the ground. The other Druids received it with respect, and the attendant youths dis-

tributed it to the people as a holy thing,, crying, " The mistletoe for the New Year."

Other superstitions connected with this plant are recorded. For instance, in Sweden, a ring made from its wood is considered to be a charm against evil. In Worcester- shire there is a popular belief that farmers- were in the habit of cutting a bough of mistletoe, and giving it to the cow that first calved after New Year's Day to eat, as this was supposed to avert ill-luck frcm the dairy. In the West of England there is also a tradition that the Cross was made of mistletoe, which until that time had been a fine forest tree, but was henceforth, as a punishment, condemned to lead a parasitical existence, and never to draw sustenance from the earth again. In Brittany the plant is named herbe de la Croix. In some districts it is called the devil's fuge also the spectre wand, from a belief that with due incantations a branch held in the hand will compel the appearance of a spectre, and require it to speak. Medicinally it was formerly used as an anti-spasmodic. Persons in Sweden afflicted with epilepsy carry with them a knife having a handle of oak mistletoe, which plant they call " thunder- besom," connecting it with lightning and fire. The oak mistletoe had such repute for "helping" in the diseases incidental to infirmity and old age that it was called lignum Sanctce Crucis wood of the Holy Cross. Sir John Colbatch in 1720 pub- lished ' A Dissertation concerning the Mistletoe : a Most Wonderful Specifick for the Cure of Convulsive Distempers,' in which he says :

" This beautiful plant must have been designed by the Almighty for further and more noble purposes than barely to feed thrushes, or to be hung superstitiously in houses to drive away evil spirits."

Sculptured sprays and berries, with leaves of mistletoe, fill the spandrels of the tomb of one of the Berkeleys in Bristol Cathedral a very rare adornment, because, for some unknown reason, the parasite has been generally excluded from the decorations of churches. The custom of decorating houses at Christmas with evergreens, of which the mistletoe is one, is a remnant of Druidism, and was originally intended as an inducement to the sylvan spirits to

" repair to them, and remain unnipped with frost and cold winds, until a milder season had renewed the foliage of their darling abodes."

The custom of kissing under the mistletoe seems to have been derived from the Scandi- navians. According to them one of their most beautiful, bright, and good-natured