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Traditionally, mistletoe has always formed part of the decorations of the Christmas season if only to provide the excuse for a kiss when hung in a prominent doorway. This tradition is decidedly pagan in origin and dates back to Scandinavian mythology when Baldur, god of peace was slain by Loki, god of destruction with an arrow made from mistletoe. Outraged by the injustice of Baldur’s death the other gods and goddesses demanded his life be restored. As a token of thanks, Baldur’s mother, Frigga, hung mistletoe and promised to kiss all who passed beneath it, thus establishing the symbolism of love, peace and forgiveness that is now associated with mistletoe.
The Celts, whose uses of the plant included a much darker side, gave us the Christmas connection by using mistletoe as part of the Yule festival where it decorated the houses and strengthened all magical workings, protected the home and caused beautiful dreams during the shadowy, dream time of midwinter when the dark force of Mean Geimhridh held back the life giving light of the sun. This winter festival eventually became absorbed into the Christian calendar along with the mistletoe customs and other pagan practices such as the burning of the Yule log and the gathering of holly.
Neither herb nor plant, and suspended high in the branches of sacred trees, Mistletoe was thought by the Druids to be an "in between", or a gateway to other worlds. Such was their reverence for the plant that the Celtic Tree alphabet had no word for it. The Anglo-Saxons however, though acknowledging its specialness were not so particular and named it mistl (different), tan (twig).
A parasitically plant that favours hardwoods, especially the oak that the Druids held so sacred, it is able to produce it’s own chlorophyll, but depends on out-competing it’s host for vital nutrients. Birds help it to proliferate by dispersing the seeds to other tree limbs where a sticky viscin layer allows it to adhere to the branch. Once established it is extremely difficult to eradicate and generally kills its host when it has exhausted the available food supply.
The small white berries, produce by the plant, are generally considered to be extremely toxic and if eaten by children produce epileptic type fits and convulsions. Not surprisingly then, the Celts and other cultures were quick to realise the homeopathic uses of the plant and used extracts of the berries for many ailments including convulsions, delirium, hysteria, neuralgia and heart conditions and as an antidote for poison.
The Native Americans used a "Tea ooze" for bathing the head as a cure for headache while an infusion of the plant helped to lower blood pressure and ease lung problems. The plant, dried and powdered, particularly if it came from an oak tree was said to be good for epilepsy and to cure "love sickness" and other uses included cures for debility and paralytic weakness.
Much of the folklore surrounding the plant is deeply entwined with Celtic history and particularly the Druids who were a bardic cult that held great sway amongst tribal leaders. This class of priest/philosophers was well aware of mistletoe’s ability to alter levels and states of consciousness and used it with great reverence in many of their ceremonies.
Wearing white robes, priests and priestesses would ceremonially harvest the plant with golden sickles on the sixth day of the moon, which was the first day of the Druidic month, slaughtering two oxen as sacrificial gifts for the harvest.
Used as a powerful antidote to all poisons it seems as if this also included that most deadly of all poisons, death itself, for according to recent archaeological findings, Mistletoe played a prominent part in human sacrifice.
Lindow man, discovered in 1984 in a peat bog south of Manchester, lived during the end of the iron age and forensic analysis of his body shows that he was a victim of ritualistic murder resulting in a "three fold" death that was an important theme of Celtic culture.
The first "death" involved a number of heavy blows to the head using a narrow bladed ax which would cause him to loose consciousness and allow the head wounds to swell. The second "death", caused by having his neck broken by using a tightened cord actually dispatched the victim and it was the ensuing death struggles that provided the means of divination that the Druid priest and priestesses so desired.
Though by now clinically dead, a third "death" was procured by cutting the victim’s throat and further omens read from the spilled blood.
Examination of Lindow man’s stomach contents revealed that before his ordeal began, he had been given a concoction of mistletoe so perhaps the Druid priests were not so callous as history portrays them and their victims were given the "antidote for all poisons" to help them on their journey to the Other world. The consciousness altering properties of the plant giving some protection from the horrors that were to come.
The magical properties surrounding mistletoe are legion and although sceptics are likely to argue that the only thing you will get from mistletoe is a cold from kissing infected strangers, true believers know better.
Staffordshire folk, for instance, know that burning mistletoe under the following year’s xmas pudding repels witches while for Yorkshire farmers good health and luck is guaranteed for the cow herd by feeding a sprig of mistletoe to the first cow to calve during the new year.
According to apple growers in Worcestershire, mistletoe should only be cut at midnight on Christmas Eve but if preserved throughout the following year, fortunate times will follow.
Mistletoe hung over a doorway during the winter and summer solstices protects against thunder, lightening and all evil and a sprig hung over a child’s cradle prevents theft from fairies, but as everyone knows, the most powerful mistletoe magic of all lies in a lover’s kiss!
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