The Monthly Read Cover to Cover - Front Porch Fredericksburg On-Line Magazine

Back to Previous Page

Mistletoe
Not All Romance	Rebekah Price
Preparing for the holidays gave me great delight as a child. We would set out to find natural things to use as decorations, bringing the myriad colors and textures of fall and winter into our home. We wandered through chilled woods in search of running pine to wrap around the banister and frame the doorways. We padded across pine needle beds and rivers of dried leaves looking for the ever-elusive running cedar, which my father used to create the full and fragrant green wreaths our friends and neighbors greatly admired. Holly trees were a bit easier to find, but one had to be particular about the number of berries on each chosen bough. The most challenging and cherished search had to be for mistletoe. That event was a hunt, complete with a rifle, for the mistletoe grew so high in the old growth oak trees that one could not climb up to gather the white-berried sprigs. I learned quickly that one must aim for the base stem and not shoot wildly or the boughs would lose their prized berries on the way down. Once gathered into a soft sack, our little hard-won sprays, garnished with bright ribbon, adorned the light in our entrance hall, expressing love and good will for the season. Mistletoe has long been a romantic sign of the holidays, garnering a quick kiss for those caught beneath its boughs. But legend and lore describe the use of mistletoe year round, and offer a more colorful history to the ethereal little shrub. Ancient Druids and Norsemen revered the mistletoe plant as sacred, perceiving it to burst forth magically upon the limbs of trees. The Druids marked the 5th day after the new moon, following the winter solstice, with the gathering of the golden bough, or mistletoe, in a sacred ceremony. A Druid priest would climb the holy oak tree, cutting the mistletoe with a golden sickle. The priests below caught the cut sprays on a sheet before they touched the ground. After the ceremony of blessing, the priests divided the mistletoe into sprigs, giving them to people to place above their doorways to ward off evils. In Norse lore, the Norse god, Baldur, god of light and spring, experienced a disturbing dream of his impending death. His mother the Norse goddess, Frigga, was so disturbed by this, she went to the four elements- - wind, earth, fire and water -- and every plant and animal requesting no one harm her son. She extracted promises from all, but overlooked the inconspicuous mistletoe. Loki, the mischievous god, took note of this and fashioned an arrow made from the mistletoe’s wood. He encouraged Baldur’s blind brother to throw it and directed his hand at Baldur. The arrow killed Baldur instantly and his demise brought winter upon the world. Understandably distraught, Frigga pleaded to the gods to give life back to her son. The gods kindly granted her request. It is said his mother’s tears turned the once red mistletoe berries to white and, upon Baldur’s resurrection by the gods, Frigga proclaimed mistletoe brings love and happiness into the world. Thus, all who passed under a bough kissed in celebration of Baldur’s return. The mistletoe has earned places in lore and literature, perhaps most well known in Virgil’s Aeneid. Called the “golden bough” in many early literary works, when the little shrub died, its leaves would change to a golden hue. Many believed it to be a direct result of golden lightning striking a tree, adding another ethereal dimension to its reputation. Not all mistletoe lore is lofty, romantic and sublime. Around the 1600s, the mistle thrush was noted to light where the mistletoe flourished, eventually leading to the discovery that the thrush preferred the berries and the seeds, subsequently passed through its digestive tract or wiped off its beak onto a branch, ensuring future growth of a new plant. ‘Mistle’ meaning dung and ‘tan’ meaning twig together ultimately evolved into our modern botanical name of mistletoe: meaning ‘dung-on-a-twig’. So much for romance, eh? This season my children and I will search for mistletoe and I’ll regale them with the stories of Baldur, Frigga and the Druid priests as we tramp through the cold, damp woods. They will be my captives, tortured by literature, botany and folklore; and they will not be shy with their eye-rolling and bored looks. But I shall have my ace up my sleeve and save the best for last: the story of the little mistle thrush and how mistletoe got its name. They will snicker and joke and tell all their friends that story. What they won’t know until later is that we made a great memory they will savor in years to come. Isn’t that what family is all about? Rebekah Price has been published in the American Chronicle, the Chicago Tribune, the Palm Beach Post, and the Niagara Falls Reporter, to name a few. Read some of her work on line at http://www.americanchronicle.com/viewByAuthor?authorID=2619.
Back to Previous Page Back to the Top