Kiss and tell: How ancient custom grew from Norse mythology
ARE you decorating your house with mistletoe this Christmas? If so you are following a very ancient custom preceding Christianity.
In Norse mythology a weapon made from mistletoe was used to kill Odin’s son Baldur, and his mother Frigga’s tears became the white berries. She decreed that mistletoe should never again cause harm, and so it came to symbolise love rather than death.
Two people passing beneath it were to exchange a kiss in memory of Baldur.
In this country the custom of kissing under the mistletoe dates from at least the 18th century, and is illustrated in the first edition of Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol published in 1843. Originally a berry was plucked each time a kiss was exchanged and when the last berry was plucked the kissing had to stop. (The berries are, by the way, poisonous.)
The superstitions associated with mistletoe arise from its somewhat mysterious way of life.
It does not grow in soil but as a partial parasite on various trees, typically apple, lime, poplar, hawthorn and oak.
It’s roots are embedded in the tissues of its host, but whilst those trees are leafless in the winter mistletoe is evergreen.
As the tradition of decorating homes with evergreen plants developed it was included with such as holly, ivy, rosemary and box for that purpose.
The name mistletoe derives from old words meaning the less than romantic ‘dung’ and ‘branch’.
Enter the mistle thrush, a large thrush which subsists on winter berries including holly, yew and mistletoe.
The berries of course contain the seeds of the plant, and are both excreted and left on the branch when the bird cleans its bill, where they may germinate and give rise to new plants.
Mistle thrushes, also known as stormcocks because they will sing throughout winter’s wet and windy weather, will defend berry-laden bunches of mistletoe from other birds. Mistletoe is quite fussy about where it grows; although found all over the country its main stronghold is the south and west midlands, particularly in Worcestershire and the southern marches of Herefordshire, Gloucestershire and Gwent between the Cotswolds and the rivers Wye and
Usk, and south into Somerset. Plenty can be seen if you travel south down the M5.
In recent years it has been extending its range, partly perhaps because blackcaps, another bird partial to its berries, now winter here in increasing numbers.
Merry Christmas everyone.
Peter Shirley, is a West Midlands
conservationist