You can call it the old king’s emasculator, a sex symbol, latent with fertility, or a good luck charm for a dairy herd. It has been used as an antidote to poison, a fire suppressant, a protection against evil spirits, a pain reliever for rheumatoid arthritis, and as a gift of peace between warring neighbors. This parasitic shrub with sticky white berries has somehow ignored its gloomy past to become our Christmas tradition. But this is, after all, a season of myths, legends, and fantasies.
Today, mistletoe, while not exactly gracing our hallways, hangs over doors to entice a couple to exchange a kiss. And we have even forgotten the meaning of his name.
The name may be derived from the ancient belief that mistletoe was propagated from bird droppings, a belief related to the then accepted principle that life could arise spontaneously from manure. In ancient times it was observed that mistletoe often appeared on a branch or twig where the birds had left droppings. “Mistel” is one of the Anglo-Saxon words for “manure” and “tan” is “twig”. So mistletoe means “manure on a twig”. It is not a name that would normally encourage thoughts of romance.
Kissing under mistletoe was practiced in the Greek festival of Saturnalia to bestow fertility, and the manure from which mistletoe was thought to spring was honored for its life-giving power. From the earliest times, mistletoe has been one of the most magical, mysterious and sacred plants in European folklore.
Scandinavians like to kiss under mistletoe. In earlier days they associated mistletoe with their goddess Freya and the role it played in the death of their son, Baldur the Fair. Once Baldur had a dream of his own death and, frantic in her anxiety, Freya asked all things, living and dead, not to harm her. Everything in the elements gave him this promise, but the mistletoe, a parasite, was not part of the air or the earth. Poor me! It was overlooked! Loki the Trickster soon discovered this and made an arrow out of the little bush. He tricked poor blind Bod into shooting the arrow at Baldur, with the inevitable result. The mistletoe lamented its part in the tragedy, crying until its red berries paled, and Freya forgave the plant with a kiss. The Vikings used a branch to herald peace.
Mistletoe is especially interesting from a botanical point of view because it is a partial parasite. French tradition tells us that mistletoe is poisonous because it grew on a tree that was used to make the cross of Jesus. Because of this, he was cursed and denied a place to live and grow on earth, forever condemned to be a parasite.
The sacred oak mistletoe was especially sacred to the ancient Celtic Druids. The ritual of cutting the mistletoe symbolized the castration of the old king by his successor. The mistletoe was long considered a sex symbol and the “soul” of the oak. It was collected on both the mid-summer and winter solstices, and the custom of using mistletoe to decorate houses at Christmas is a survival of this tradition.
In medieval times, mistletoe branches were hung from ceilings to scare away evil spirits and placed over the doors of houses and stables to prevent the entry of witches. Farmers gave the Christmas mistletoe cluster to the first cow that gave birth on the New Year, bringing good luck to the entire herd.
Mistletoe is also believed to lower blood pressure, improve circulation, and ease the pain of rheumatoid arthritis, although these effects have not been scientifically validated. In some alternative medicine therapies, mistletoe is used as a long-term therapy to prevent hardening of the arteries.
If you are hanging mistletoe this Christmas, follow the correct etiquette: a man should pluck a berry when he kisses a woman under the mistletoe, and when the last berry is gone, there should be no more kisses! Remember that a single woman who does not kiss under the branch will remain single another year, and will always burn the Christmas mistletoe on the twelfth night so that not all the couples who kissed under it get married.
Come kiss me under the manure on a twig and raise your glass to mistletoe and Merry Christmas!