Picking apples a few weeks ago I noticed that an old cider apple tree, which invariably puts the other trees in my garden to shame by the size of the crop it bears, was sprouting growths of mistletoe on some of its branches.
When I was young having a sprig of mistletoe hanging up in your house at Christmas was as essential a part of the yuletide decorations as the tree itself, and although people don't really need a sprig of it hanging from the ceiling to give them the excuse to kiss friends, neighbours, colleagues, and anyone else they might not get away with kissing under any other circumstances anymore, it's still a big enough part of a lot of people's yuletide celebrations for there to be a market held in Worcestershire every year where they sell nothing but mistletoe.
The ancient Celts called mistletoe All-heal,and believed that the leafy green growths and viscous white berries of clumps of mistletoe were potent symbols of fertility and everlasting life when seen in winter, growing on the naked branches of deciduous trees which had lost their own leaves in autumn. Especially if that tree was an oak tree.
To the Celts mistletoe was symbolically related to male sperm by its colour and by the consistency of the juice of its berries. Being airborne for its entire life cycle - the seeds are lodged in cracks and crevices of the branches of potential hosts by birds cleaning their beaks of the tacky pulp after eating berries - the plant also symbolised a god not yet incarnate on earth. The harvesting of it representing the union between male and female principles as well as those of the sun and moon.
They were not beliefs shared by the Germanic people the Celts were frequently at war with. They regarded mistletoe in a much less favourable light. According to norse mythology Frigg, wife of Odin, chief of the gods, had been so fearful for the safety of her son, Balder, that she rendered him impervious to wounds by taking pledges from all the plants, trees and metals he might come into contact with that they wouldn't harm him if turned into weapons of war.
One plant she had overlooked, however. Something which didn't go unnoticed by another god, Loki, who was always out to make trouble whenever he could. He fashioned a dart from a sprig of mistletoe, then suggested to Balder's brother, the blind god Holder, that he threw it at Balder in sport.
The gods enjoyed throwing weapons at Balder because they knew he couldn't be harmed by them, but the mistletoe pieced Balder like a spear and he fell down dead.
So if the person who's trying to kiss you under the mistletoe at the office party looks more as if their ancestors might have beenVikings than Celts, perhaps it would be best to give it a miss.
(Photograph - mistletoe in silver birch, taken by Andrew Dunn. Published by Wikipedia)
