Explaining Mistletoe

Native to the forests of Northern Europe, the mistletoe (Viscum album) is a parasitical plant on deciduous and evergreen trees, and it produces yellowish flowers and waxy white berries. Its closest relative in Northern America which has very similar yellowish flowers and waxy white berries is also commonly known as mistletoe (Phoradendron serotinum) and it is the official floral emblem of the State of Oklahoma.

The name mistletoe came about from two Anglo-Saxon words: mistel which means “dung” and tan which means “twig.” And so, mistletoe quite literally means “dung on a twig.” Mistletoe infers that life can spring up from dung as this leeching plant grows and thrives on the dung of birds on the branches of trees. As a result, mistletoe became the symbol of life and fertility.

The Christmas and New Year tradition of embracing for the bashful and kissing for the more brazen under a branch of mistletoe dates back to ancient Britain at around the second century B.C. And it was most prevalent among the Druids who were the elite learned class of the Celts.

The Druids celebrated the beginning of winter (winter solstice) by collecting mistletoe and burning it as a sacrifice to their pagan gods. And to ensure a year of good fortune, peace, prosperity and familial harmony, they hung sprigs of mistletoe around their homes. Twigs of the evergreen displayed visibly outside their homes welcomed relatives, friends, neighbors and weary travelers and the mistletoe within encouraged them to embrace shamelessly. Feuding parties or foes which happened to meet under trees that bore mistletoe were required to lay down their weapons and set their differences aside for the duration of that day.

The Druids believed that the mistletoe had healing properties and named it appropriately omnia sanitatem, meaning “all heal.” It was often prescribed for female infertility and as an antidote for poisons of all kinds. The gathering of mistletoe was a ceremonial ritual and sprigs that grew on their sacred oak trees were collected by their highest priests using gold knives. Such a festive rite of harvesting mistletoe is, by the way, dramatically portrayed in Bellini’s opera Norma.

The Celtic Druids were not the only people who ascribed so many wonderful attributes to the mistletoe, the Scandinavians, who called it mistilteinn; also believe that it was the plant of peace, the plant of hope and the plant of harmony. The Scandinavian lore claims that the mistletoe belonged to Frigga, the Scandinavian goddess of love, and the embracing and kissing custom is thought to have been drawn from this romantic notion.

Mistletoe was also used as a decorative green in the ancient world of the Roman Empire and their feasts of Natalis Solis Invicti and Saturnalia. Due to its original ties to idolatrous festivities, the Church banned the use of mistletoe when Christmas on December 25 was officially recognized as the birth of Christ in the beginning years of the fourth century. As a viable alternative to the mistletoe, the holly was ironically proposed in spite of the fact that it too had strong associations with pagan rituals. Nevertheless, the holly’s white flowers were to signify the purity of Christ, the sharp leaves were to symbolize the thorns in Christ’s crown and the red berries embodied drops of His blood. Thus the Holly became a Nativity tradition, but, surprisingly enough, the church’s ban on mistletoe which was in effect throughout the Middle Ages still persists today in some churches in England.