Ritual of Oak and Mistletoe

the Greek word meaning oak. But further, anything growing on oak trees they think to have been sent down from Heaven, and to be a sign that the particular tree has

been chosen by God himself. Mistletoe is, however, rather seldom found on a hard oak, and when it is discovered, it is gathered with great ceremony, and particularly on the sixth day of the moon, which for these tribes constitutes the beginning of the months in the years, and after every thirty years of a new generation, because it is then rising in strength and not one half of its

full size. Hailing the moon in a native word that means healing all things, they prepare a ritual sacrifice and banquet beneath the tree, and bring up two white bulls, whose horns are bound. For the first time on this occasion, a priest, arrayed in white vestments, climbs the tree with a golden sickle and cuts down the mistletoe, which is caught in a white cloak. Then finally they kill the victims, praying to God to render his gift propitious to those

on whom he has bestowed it. They believe that mistletoe given in drink will impart fertility to any animal that is barren, and that it is an antidote for all poisons. So powerful is the superstition in regard to trifling matters that frequently prevails among the races of mankind. Welcome to Stuff to Blow your mind from how Stuff Works dot Com. Hey you, welcome to stuff to blow your mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And that reading was from our old friend Plenty of the Elder.

Obviously it was concerning the Druid rituals about missiletoe. Robert, you are leaning into Christmas topics this year. I'm I'm a little disturbed by this, do you want to explain yourself? Oh, I just I finally decided, you know, it was it was foolish to resist. I should just I should just lean into Christmas. I should give into Christmas. And uh. And it's paying off, you know, because missiletoe is a

fine example. It's easy to just assume it's just the silly tradition that it results in, you know, smooching underneath that sort of thing. But it's actually like moon worship, sacrifice and uh and parasitism. Yeah, it's it's actually really crazy. Um again, this quote was from plenty of the Elder Roman historian. Uh. This particular translation was the Rockham jones

Icles translation, which you can find online. Uh. And it does sound like one crazy Christmas party, doesn't No matter how how out of control your office Christmas party gets, there probably not gonna be white bulls marched in and human sacrifice is made to some sort of druid god. But that's how you know a party is good. Like if you're there for the first time some year and they bring in the two white bulls, like, you know

it's going to be wrong when the golden sickle comes out. Um, yeah, it's it's it's time to to really commit to staying, or to go ahead and head out and go home, called to call it an early evening. Um, yeah, yeah, this uh, I think this will be an interesting episode. And I was tempted to to even write a long form form poem, something like twads the night before Christmas and deep in the woods a sacrifice was planned by the Galls and their druids, but alas I, I didn't

have the poetic energy to keep going. Well, there's always next year. But anyway, so if you know us, you know that we can never resist consulting Plenty of the Elder on any topic of of the natural world, or of monsters, or of history. He's got the best and often funniest takes on stuff from ancient Rome, right, and and certainly we don't do not depend on first century historians like Plenty for our for our data, but it adds a lot of flavor to what we're talking about.

And you usually we are talking about the things that he's quite wrong about, or or the thing that he's reporting is like purely mythological mistletoe, which he talks about quite a bit in the natural history. However, he does manage to get some thing's right. There's there. There are a lot of things that that are that are less fantastic.

Nobody's speaking out of their bellies so much when discussing missiletoe. Well, let's consult plenty on mistletoe, and then we can talk a little bit more about what modern science says about this plant vampire. So first of all, he says, uh quote, there are three kinds of mistletoe. One that grows as a parasite on the fur and the larch is called

stellis in Euboia and hiphi are and arcadia. And the name of mistletoe is used for one growing on the oak, hard oak, home oak, wild pear, turpentine tree, and indeed most other trees, and growing in great abundance on the oak, is one which they call dryos hypha are. There is a difference in the case of every tree except the home olk and the oak, in the smell and poison of the berry and the disagreeably scented leaf, both the berry and the leaf of the mistletoe being bitter and sticky.

The hiphi are is more useful than vetch for fattening cattle. At first, it only acts as a purge, but it subsequently fattens the beasts that have stood the purging process, although they say that those with some internal malady cannot stand it. I like the idea there that you would essentially just use the mistletoe to poison your flocks, and then the ones that survive get more food to eat, and so they get bitter, bigger. Uh Okay, so picking up with plenty, he says. Quote. The method of treatment

is employed for forty days in the summer. An additional variety is said to be found in mistletoe in that when it grows on deciduous trees, it also sheds its leaves itself, but when growing on an evergreen tree it retains its leaves. But universally, when missiletoe seed is sown, it never sprouts at all, and only when passed in the excrement of birds, particularly the pigeon and the thrush. Its nature is such that it will not shoot unless

it has been ripened in the stomach of birds. Its height does not exceed eighteen inches, and it is evergreen and always in leaf. The male plant is fertile in the female baron, except that even a fertile plant sometimes does not bear, and he continues later on discussing mistletoe quote. Missiletoe berries can be used for making bird lime if gathered at harvest time while unripe, for if the rainy season has begun. Although they get bigger in size, they

lose in viscosity. They are then dried and when quite dry, pounded and stored in water, and in about twelve days they turn rotten. And this is the sole case of a thing that becomes attractive by rotting the soul case. Wow. Then, after having been again pounded up, they are put in running water and there lose their skins and become viscous in their inner flesh. This substance, after being needed with oil, is birdlime, used for entangling bird's wings by contact with

it when one wants to snare them. Now, I wanted to note that I looked this up and found that bird lime is real. This is not like one of these legendary magic potions that Plenty just credulously reports. It is this sticky substance that's used for catching birds and branches. Like he describes, it's sort of an artificial spider web that we maintain like a glue trap. Yes, it's like a tree based glue trap for birds. It has long

been used in human history for bird trapping. THO it's not quite clear like how off and it actually was mistiletoe based. But I've also read that birdline was used in World War Two to create anti tank weapons known as sticky bombs. The idea there would have been um like a soldier on foot could potentially stop a tank if they've got a bunch of high explosives, and then put it in some kind of sticky package and they

can stick to the tank and run away. Oh wow, I'm not kidding when I when I said that I would I would love to do a whole episode just an anti tank weapons. There's some fascinating science there, especially from World War two. A different things like shaped charges and things that the Germans would do to their tanks to prevent shaped targets from being shaped charges from being a fixed to the side of the tank, essentially like covering it in a plaster or mud like substance and

then adding these ridges so that it wouldn't stick. Yeah, that's interesting. We we we can definitely come back to that. Now I have to revisit again, what is plenty talking about when he says it is the only thing that becomes more useful when rotten. Does he not know about out pickling or like beer or I don't know, right, Yeah, I mean just just yesterday having meal with with my family and we were commenting on all the things on the table that that we're in some way pickled or

or made use of vinegar, etcetera. Well, yeah, I mean, I guess there's like there are multiple ways of pickling, so you could just like brine something, but anything involving actual fermentation. He's got to be able to appreciate that. Maybe Plenty just hates fermented foods. I don't know, maybe so. So it's tempting to keep reading Plenty for our facts

on mistletoe, but of course that would be ridiculous. Our understanding of the plant has has come along ways over the last two thousand years or so, and botanists are still figuring out things about this baleful plant turned holiday smooch inducer mistletoe, which is generally referred to UH by the species UH for Adendron flavicens or viscom album being just two examples of the species. But it's a parasitic plant that grows in or on trees, especially hardwood trees

such as apple and oak. There are some even though a plenty tootles. There are three types. There are some known species of mistletoe around the world. It invades the tree with its roots which seep into the bark of the host tree and suck water and nutrients out. So it is a plant vampire and this can certainly harm the host tree and cause branch deformities. But like with a lot of parasites, the goal here isn't to kill

the host. That usually works out bad for the parasite. Yeah, yeah, I mean the parasite needs to live in or on the host, so usually it doesn't You don't want to kill it, right, However, mistletoe camproof fatal to the host during times of drought, I've read because because one of the host plant will have certain reactions in place to converserve, to conserve moisture during times of drought, the paras the parasitic mistletoe just continues to live it up with reckless

abandoned you know. So it would be you know, like something somebody's stealing food out of your fridge and in a time of famine and like they don't care. They're just gonna keep eating the same portions. Right, You might tighten your belt, but they're not gonna Yeah, mistletoe is not going to tighten its belt. Now, Parasitic plants in

general are are fascinating. Oh. I was looking at a book called How Plants Work, Form, Diversity and Survival from Princeton University Press by the British botanist Stephen Blackmore, and Blackmore writes that it's roughly about one percent of flowering plants that are parasitic. Mistletoe is a flowering plant, and of these, about two thirds or parasitic on the roots of the host plants, so they'll be down in the roots, underground or on the ground, and only about one third

or parasitic on the host stem. So mistletoe plants are the weird of the weird. Not many plants are parasitic, and not many of the parasitic plants operate up on the stem or the trunk of the tree the way mistletoe does. And so I think it's worth taking a look at what kind of equipment this plant vampire uses to drain the lifeblood of its host. Because uh, also, okay, first of all, This struck sure that it uses to

pierce the tree is called a house story um. It's a modified stem or root like structure that gives the parasite access to the inside of the host plant. And I get a strong feeling that if we were plants looking at how story a growing into a tree, it would be like a vomit inducing image, like like when we actually look at a botfly burrowing into human flesh. This is a fascinating parasitic penetration, and there are multiple ways that can happen, so you've got these different kinds

of how storia. Sometimes parasitic plants just produce a single large house story um which forms a kind of bulbous tumor sinking into the surface of the host plant, with multiple parasitic stems branching off. Sometimes they produce multiple house storia which take over from the parasites traditional soil root once the host has been acquired. And these how storia are part of a general class called epic cortical roots.

Bark penetrating roots in the same way in normal plant would put roots into the soil, this one has root like structures that pierce the bark of the host plant and stab and go down inside, so they puncture the host plant, They grow inside, they breach the vascular tissue of the host plant so they can steal nutrients and water, and they sometimes even form networks of epicortical roots inside

the host plant. So to go with the vampire analogy, it doesn't quite capture the full extent of the parasitism here. You have to imagine a vampire. Okay, so vampire bites your neck, Robert, but it doesn't just bite your neck and suck your blood. Instead, it bites your neck and then it's fangs begin to grow deep inside your body and penetrate your veins and arteries and grow into maybe

networks or fang tunnels under your skin. And then maybe the vampire also grows new fangs out of its chin and out of its eyes, and his nipples and stuff that keep piercing you again and again. That's a rough image, yes, for for plant audiences, this is an R rated feature, maybe excerated, yeah, I mean essentially growing root like tendrils into your body and cause, of course, into the plant.

So one of the things that Blackmore points out in his book is that many parasitic plants lack chlorophyll because they're stealing energy from the host, so they don't need to make their own food via photosynthesis, And this is one reason parasitic plants are often in many beautiful colors. They don't need the green pigment chlorophyll to absorb light energy and kick off the chemical process of photosynthesis because unlike most plants, they're not making all or any of

their own food. I've included a couple of pictures here of other parasitic plants growing off of the stems of hosts, like a parasitic climber known as daughter that is this beautiful orange and blue and yellow. It looks it almost

looks not like a plant. But anyway, mistletoe is usually an exception to this, right, Yeah, technically it's a Hinni parasite parasite parasitic plant that is capable of some photosintse at this like you said, so it's not as destructive as other forms of plant parasites that simply drain the

host dry. There are plant parasites that are more in the destroyer vein, but missiletoe tends to at least make some of its own food via photosynthesis, though it very species to species, and some species of missiletoe produce relatively little food autotrophically, It just depends on which one you're

talking about. Now, we mentioned earlier that botanists are still figuring out things about missiletoe and how it works, uh, you know, two thousand years after plenty and interestingly enough, according to two separate studies that were published in two thousand eighteen in the journal Current Biology, the plant lacks key cellular components that other organisms depend upon to convert

glucose into the energy carrying molecule a TP. It uses alternative energy pathway which generate energy in a different part of the cell. In other words, it lost respiratory capacity in its evolution, something previously only observed in unicellular organism in in single cell organisms. So, at least for now, unless other discoveries are made, it is seemingly unique among

multicellular organisms. Basically, over the course of millions of years, it remodeled the way that it generates energy at the molecular level. Now, I think maybe it is time to take a quick break, and when we come back we will discuss some more interesting features of the missiletoe parasite than alright, we're back. So here's another strange feature of missiletoe that Blackmore writes about in his book that I

mentioned a little bit ago. So Blackmore says that some species of missiletoe exhibit a weird form of mimicry where their leaves become similar in appearance to the leaves of the host plant. So why would this be, right, It's not like now you you can imagine uses of physical mimicry in the animal world, right, like you've got ant mimics that want to be able to blend in with a bunch of ants, or b mimics that want to blend in, you know, you want to look like some

other animal. But the host plant in this relationship between the parasitic plant and the host plant, like an oak, doesn't have eyes to deceive, right, So one possi. So people are wondering why would this happen. One possible explanation here that Blackmore mentions seems to be the missiletoe is trying to survive by blending in with a host plant that has foul tasting leaves that herbivores don't like to eat, when in fact, a grazing herbivore like maybe a deer

or a giraffe or something. It might try missiletoe and find that the parasitic plant is in fact delicious. So instead the parasite tends to try to blend in with nasty or unpalatable host leaves by having leaves that look

the same. And that's that's just one possible explanation. And this is interesting because I feel like when I see missiletoe and actually identify missiletoe, it is because it is painfully obvious in its location, such as it is the one green thing growing uh in an a tree that has lost its leaves for the winter, Yes, or its stem structure is so obviously different, like the tree might have thicker, sparser branches, and then the mistletoe is suddenly

this puff it looks like a tumble weed or something many many smaller branches uh and uh. And so sometimes trees can have natural structures that look like that, that is the tree itself, like the witches broom phenomenon, where a tree will produce what looks kind of like a tumbleweed or some crazy tangle of of stems and branches on part of it. And I think this is just usually an indication that something is wrong with the tree,

but it is the tree itself doing it. But yeah, this is interesting anyway because I feel the same way you do. Usually, I feel like you can notice mistletoe on a tree or parasitic plants on a tree in general, because they look so different. Now, I feel like by this point most people have seen some depiction of mistletoe. There's probably one accompanying this episode at our landing page on Stuff to your mind dot com. But if you haven't seen it, you've probably seen it in art, holiday decorations,

or again just hanging in your neighborhood. Mistletoe has pointy, green, leatherly leaves, usually with with waxy berries that are either red or white, and these berries are eaten by birds, who then defecate in other trees, thus spreading the seeds. But the seeds are also sticky, so they spread as well when birds have to wipe their beaks on branches

to clean them off for their feet. Also. Yes, and this connection with birds is interesting because in olden times people actually thought the plant emerged from bird poop itself. Plenty was saying that way, yeah, and then the name only ripen in the stomachs of birds. Right, and this is also reflected in the name of the planet itself. The word mistletoe is derived from the Anglo Saxon word mistel, which means dung in ton, which means twig. So missileton

is the Old English version of mistletoe. Oh that's interesting. So you so you do have a tradition of essentially kissing under the sticky dung berries. Yeah, throughout the whole

episode like that. That's the thing I keep coming back to, is that, uh, all these these ideas about the plant and then the the identity of the planet itself, the way the plant functions seems so at odd with this quirky you just romantic tidbit that has just become not a central detail of our holiday traditions, but you know, at least, um, you know, an identifiable part of it. Now, as much as we want to associate missiletoe through our traditions with with positivity and kissing and all that kind

of fun stuff, you shouldn't be eating missiletoe. Don't put it inside you, that's right. Humans should not hate the berries, as they can make you ill, and we're talking severe stomach cramps and diarrhea or even death. In some cases. Yeah, I was looking up some stats on missiletoe toxicity, and so I looked at a an article called Holiday Plants with Toxic Misconceptions in the Western Journal of Emergency Medicine

by Zabrina Evans and Samuel Stealth flug Uh. So they looked at two different common missiletoe plants that people use as decorations. One is American missiletoe, which is for a dendron seratonin um, and then European missiletoe, which is viscom album and both are potentially toxic and slightly different ways. American missiletoe produces for a toxin, a tox album in, and this is toxic to humans, but most small ingestions don't produce much of a reaction. European missiletoe is relatively

more toxic. It contains visco toxins, which quote inhibits cellular synthesis, thereby affecting cells with rapid turnover like gastro intestinal mucosa. So the mucus in your gut, in your digestive system, needs to rapidly produce new cells. This inhibits that, and there's probably one reason you get reports of gastro intestinal distress after people eat it quote after a latent period

of several hours. Clinical effects from visco toxins can develop and are primarily gastro intestinal upset, with potential necrotic lesions resulting in slough thing of the gastro intestinal tract, brady cardia, delirium, as well as toxicity the liver, central nervous system, kidney, and adrenals can also occur, although the incidence is not known. Uh. Fortunately, most cases of ingestion of missiletoe in the literature do

not result in death. But you still should probably avoid consuming it, and you really do not want to make missiletoe tease because it seems like that's where the danger gets super gets gets real, right, and and so obviously one of the problems here too would be if you keep missiletoe in your home, you would potentially have to worry about children or pets getting ahold of the berries.

So um, it's interesting what you said earlier about about how to effects cells, because it's interesting that some experiments have revealed potential medicinal uses for the plant, including work from the University of Adelaide and that explored the use of the plants extract in battling colon cancer. Oh yeah, yeah. In particular, they found that the ash tree missiletoe plant fraccini was more effective in battling colon cancer cells than chemotherapy.

Scientists are still looking into it, of course, but mistletoe extract remains a popular alternative treatment for cancer in many areas, and it's it's been widely studied, and it is apparently prescribed in Europe with reportedly few side effects. But there is currently no FDA approved missiletoe cancer treatment in the United States. But of course, on the other hand, missiletoe has been a part of human magic uh and and magical thinking and magical potions and traditional healing regiments for

quite some time. For instance, it does show up in traditional Chinese medicine as huji shun uh where, and this is a basically dried leaves and stems of a variety of missiletoe, and it's used to treat a variety of ailments. Yeah, it comes up with all kinds of stuff. In fact, I think maybe it's time to play our favorite game show. Weird Old letters to Medical Journal. Do you want to go down this road with me? Yea? How far back

are we going? Nineteen o four. So February nineteen o four there's a British officer station in Calcutta named Lieutenant Colonel George Ranking, and he wrote a letter to the Lancet about missiletoe. And in this letter he quoted from a translation of a Persian medical text he had encountered called the and I might not be pronouncing this right, the Makazanu lad Mia, which means the storehouse of medicines.

And this text discussed the medical uses of missiletoe, saying things like quote, it is effectual in purging away the black bile and mucus humors. A few ways you would use it include quote with turpentine and wax, it is used for the ripening of boils, pustular eruptions of mucus origin, and phligmatic tumors. Also for softening the joints. Do you want them softened? I'm not quite sure what that means. Well,

I don't want to hardened. I guess that's true. Yeah. Uh. Quote with arsenic and pitch it is used to extract the nails. And with quicklime and grape juice and honey it is used to make the nails grow again. I'm not quite sure that it's extracting the nails. Um, I'm just having had some of my nails extracted before. I would assume it might have to do with say, ingrown nails and grown toe nails and whatnot. That might be a case we would need to extract something and then

afterwards like hope for some level of appropriate regrowth. Okay, here's one. A decoction of it in lime water is useful for removing swellings of the spleen, while a paste of it made with lime is a means of removing induration of the spleen, and is also useful in drawing out gross humors from the depths of the body. But the authors also say it is injurious to the heart. And then finally quote when mistletoe berries are cooked with honey syrup of dates and sapistan and made into long,

fine threads. It is put on the surface of trees when any bird that settles sticks to the tree and is caught. It's birdlime. Again, glue traps for birds. That that's that's pretty sick, right, And it does, of course tie in with the sticky property of of the berries that we discussed earlier. Now, all of this is very fascinating because, on one hand, we do see medical professionals identifying potential applications here, essentially saying that there is an

effect on cells, and in particular on cancer cells. It seems that may prove useful in the long run. On the other hand, we don't seem to fully understand Yeah, we don't seem to fully understand it. It's again, there's no FDA approved medication uh as of this publication that derives from mistletoe. But on the other hand, we also

have all of these traditional uses of it. And with the traditional uses, I feel like it may come back to something we've discussed in the past that the the some thing is happening uh situation, where As we've discussed consuming these can make you feel ill, can make you feel a little weird, like something is happening inside you

and it is Yeah, yeah, it gave me diarrhea. Something's happening, right, And in doing that it it certainly purged you of well something that it purge you of what was actually ailing you. Did it or did it just give you this incentive to to lean into the magical thinking of the potion or elixir or tea or whatever was prepared for you by the magician or druid or so whothsayer. All right, well, on that note, we're gonna take one

more break. When we come back. We're going to dive into some of the mythology of missiletoe and indeed get back to that question of why is it hanging around at Christmas time? Than all right, we're back, So I think it's time to refresh on that passage from Old Plenty and talk about the ritual of oakan oak and missiletoe. Okay, so Old Plenty of the Elder says about the ritual of oak and mistletoe. He says, the druids are the

priests or the magicians of the galls. He says, the druids hold sacred both mistletoe and the hard oak trees that it grows on. Heart oak leaves are necessary for druid rites and spells. Uh. The Druids think that anything growing on a hard oak is sent down from heaven. When the Druids fine mistletoe growing on a hard oak, which he says is pretty rare, I don't know how rare it actually is, they hold a ceremony which is also timed with cycles of the moon and thirty year

in intervals. So they hold a banquet beneath the trees. They show up with two white bulls and bind their horns. A priest dressed in white climbs the tree cuts the mistletoe with a golden sickle. And I should note I looked up viscoum album the native European stuff, uh species of mistletoe, and it does often seem to have a kind of green, gold or golden color. So I wonder if that there's any association with a golden sickle. Uh. Then so he cuts it. The mistletoe falls into a

white cloak. Below. They kill the bowls while praying to their god, and then quote they believe that mistletoe given in drink will impart fertility to any animal that is barren, and that it is an antidote for all poisons. So powerful is the superstition in regard to trifling matters that frequently prevails among the races of mankind. He's just kind of like insulting them at the end there does he say that about Roman rituals, Well, I mean Roman rituals. I guess at the time where the it was the

bleeding edge of cultural advancement. Yeah, those are the rational rituals, or at least that's what the entrails of the bird told him. I'm sure, yeah, okay, But so they believe that it will give fertility when you're infertile, and that it will cure all poisons. Now the association here with the idea of fertility does give you some kind of lake.

You know. I wonder if the the idea that it would make animals and presumably humans also fertile, could be a could be a link to the kissing, could be right, you know, something going on there that does seem to because because the fertility, and then also some ideas that it's an aphrodisiac. Uh. These these are recurring themes and some of these older traditions that I believe have been like the main the only thing that's really remained after

they've been boiled down by popular culture. Uh. Here, here's another example of sort of the mythic meat that has been boiled away from the bones of the tradition, and that has to do with the role of mistletoe in the death of the Norse god balder So. I was reading in Dictionary of Nature Myths Legends of the Earth, Sea, and Sky by Tamara Andrews, and she talks a bit about the death of the Norse god Balder, the god

of light, son of Odin and Frigate. And he was he was a being of just beauty and light, white hair, born on the winter solstice uh, and the winter solstice here being the beginning of the Sun's journey towards maximum brightness. But then he dies on the summer solstice, the day of the sun's peak brightness, but the beginning of its fade toward winter. So his uh, his birth is the thing that brings us out of the cold, and then his death is the thing that that that dooms us

to descent back into winter. And you know, this is the kind of seasonal UH motif that we've seen a lot of old myths and a huge number of ancient religions have strong connections to the idea that the passing of the seasons UH. And then you know, there's always been this interpretive idea that the UH that like a god who dies and is reborn or descends into the underworld and comes back up, has something to do with like the winter, spring summer cycle. Right. And then of

course our holiday traditions, Christmas traditions, what have you. These are all intrinsically tied to these ideas as well, the things we must do, the traditions and rights that will sustain us through the time of cold death. Uh, through the darkness and back into light on the other side. So but but let's get back to Balder here. So Balder dreamt of his own death and yeah, of plots against him. But luckily his his mother is a powerful god.

I mean, she's the god of love. And so of what Frigate did is she she sent out a message to all the plants, the animals, even the diseases of the world, and she said, look, my son's off limits, right, He's having dreams about people trying to kill him and plots against him. So I'm just stay away, stay away, off limits. Uh. And then all the plants, animals and diseases are right right on. What are the other plants that would be threatening him? Or is there where there

like killer trees at the time. I mean, I guess the tree can fall on you and stuff too. Okay, they're thorns. I mean she's probably covering a lot of ground here. There are a lot of animals that were probably not going to kill a god either. But but as but then again, as we'll see here, um this this might this might seem like a ridiculous level of protection, even for a mother god, but but perhaps not considering somebody that was working against him. Yeah, yeah, none other

than Loki. Oh, it would be just like Loki to like six some rabbits or daffodils to kill you. Yeah, so Loki does get involved. But but at any rate, this is what happens. Depending on the version that you're reading. She either forgets to tell Mistletoe that her son is off limits and then he shouldn't die, or in some versions, since mistletoe is a plant without roots in the earth, it could not hear her command, and I like that

version better. And so what happens is the god Loki tricks the blind god Holder into hurling a fistful of mistletoe at Balder's heart, killing him dead. And I was looking this up. I found some artistic depictions of this that look less like a bundle like, because when I read that, I'm imagining like a big wad of mistletoe

hurled like a baseball into Balder's heart. And I've seen some interesting depictions of this where where Loki is whispering to hold her and then Holder just drives the how story, um, this like two pronged death root straight through Balder's heart and out the other side. So like breaks off the fang of the plant vampire and uses it to kill the god of light Balder in this painting or drawing, I don't know what this this this image you've got here.

What it looks to me is like Loki is like making out with Holder and they've both got their hand on this little two forked thing that's going straight through Balder, and Balder is like, no, he's got a real death face going on in this image. I'll try to remember to put this on the landing page for this episode is stuff to blow your mind dot Com, hopefully with

a little extra information about where it came from. But so, yeah, what happens here is that Balder dies and the sun declines, and while the Sun eventually comes back, Balder does not, for the lords of the Underworld only agreed to his resurrection if everyone on Earth wept for him, and the thing is everyone did except for Loki. So Balder will

not return to the Earth until Ragnarok Loki, the original troll. Yeah, and so here we see, you know, more of the symbolic role of mistletoe here in the mythic understanding of winter in Norse traditions. And by the way, this is also a reason that some Norse traditions held mistletoe had the power to resurrect the dead. Now wait a minute, we so I love that legend, but what does that

have to do with kissing? Are we getting any closer to figuring out why there's kissing under the mistletoe underneath the god slaying parasitic tree route. Well, you know, there are other traditions that we should probably touch on, such as the old French tradition that the plant is is now cursed to never find purchase on earth soil because it was once a variety of tree, and that tree was used to construct the cross upon which Jesus was crucified, which you know, it seems a bit a bit cruel

to blame the tree for that. Jesus himself sometimes blame tree. You're the cursing of the fig tree. I have forgotten what what was Jesus beef with figs? Well, he goes by a fig tree and it doesn't have figs because figs weren't in season, and he gets mad at the tree and he curses it and withers it. Oh, man, I think it's it's like an allegory. I think for about like people who I don't know. It's been a while since I read the story. I think it's about people,

not you know, bearing good fruit in the spiritual sense. Okay, I should I should read that because I'm I have a fig tree, and sometimes I curse it for the way it behaves really, but generally it gives me. It gives me figs in the end, so uh, to refresh. We've talked about some of these traditions that place mistletoe firmly in winter and is a part of winter traditions, and and again we also come back to the idea that missiletoe is often seen thriving in lifeless winter trees. Uh.

And there's one in my neighborhood that does this. It's it's over a road, so I hope there aren't too many people trying to just smooth under it. But but I see it pretty frequently. And then we have these other traditions that push it more toward the area of sex in life. Africa again was the goddess of love, and some traditions claim that the berries were aphrodisiacs that they would enhance uh, you know, sexual activity and desire. Uh.

That's kind of weird given the symptoms we looked at. Well, you know, maybe just a small dose with a splash of magical thinking would do the trick. But but hopefully you don't want full on diarrhea um before you, you know, seek out your love. When I get that feeling, I need intestinal slough. And now when we come to our modern traditions with missiletoe, generally the version we hear is that like two people who are dating or married or whatever,

that they kiss under the missiletoe. Uh. And that's about it, right, It's just this cute thing that you do. Um. But some traditions require the male kisser to remove a berry with each kiss. So these are kind of just thinking dungeons and dragons terms. I'm thinking these each berry is like a magical charge on the plant, and once they're gone, there's no more kissing. Other traditions frame it is more of a bit of relationship good luck. I see. Well, wait,

what do you do with the berries. When you remove them, do you have to eat them with each kiss or you just throw them on the ground. They didn't specify. I guess you just chunk them and and hope nobody picking up children pick it up and eat it. Oh, I know. Maybe it's a way of combining the process of kissing and making bird lime. Maybe so. Now, other traditions say that you can put it under your pillow if you're a maiden, and then you will dream of

your true love. And meanwhile, in other traditions it was seen as a sort of designator of holy ground. So in other words, the leaders of say two warring forces might meet beneath the mistletoe and parlay or just just talk, though the kissing is optional. I mean, if things go really well, then yes, maybe they could be kissing. But otherwise this would be the kind of place where you would just discuss in safety, some manner of truce. So

what have you exchange of captives? I can't help, of course, but think to the scenes in in Highlander where where Connor McLeod meets the Kurgan and they can meet in holy ground, they can meet in a church and it's totally cool. All the Kurgan can do is just you know, be awful to everybody. We can't actually try and cut Connor's head off, but we know there's a quickening soon to be had, right, But they could have met under

the missiletoe. It sounds like maybe that's something that's explored in the television series, and we'll hear about it from Highlander TV fans out there. You know, I've also seen that suggested that this tradition of kissing under the missiletoe somehow comes from the missiletoe's association with Saturnalia, the sort of winter Roman festival of wild revelry and you know, no rules kind of stuff. Oh yeah, okay, so it's kind of like a chaos plant as well. Yeah, I

mean Saturnalia involved a lot of reversals of things. One of these many festivals where like the master would serve his slaves, there would be uh, you know, gambling was legal and that kind of thing. So beneath the missiletoe, the fool made kiss the princess and it is okay, yes, okay, alright,

So that that that's the weird thing with it. With the modern tradition, we just see all of these various ideas about missiletoe kind of just smashing into each other and there's very little left at the end of it, but it's it's still something that sticks with us. Well, it's frustrating because I feel like we don't really have a firm answer to the question of where does the kissing under the missiletoe come from? Right, There's just a lot of kind of ideas, but we don't really know, right.

But I do feel like the nature of the examples we looked at it kind of allows us to triangulate, you know, where where where this tradition comes from. You know, a dash of of of of of the the god ordained here, a dash of of reversal here, and a dash of magical afrodisiac and uh uh, you know reproductive elixir here, right, ritual sexual sloughing, yes, And then we're left with what the left of our modern missiletoe tradition.

But one thing for sure is we've certainly gotten away from the darker aspects of missiletoe, not all the time, like sometimes I think it's still used as a as a good indicator of evil and ruin. Yeah. Well, and we can find a great example of that in the works of William Shakespeare. Oh yeah, who's gonna read this quote from ty to Sandronicus? Is it me or you? Oh? We could split it up. Okay, I'll go first. Have

I not reason, thank you to look pale? These two have ticed me hither to this place, a barren, detested veil. You see, it is the trees, though summer yet forlorn and lean or come with moss and baleful missiletoe. Here never shines the sun. Here nothing breeds unless the nightly

owl or fatal raven. And when they'd showed me this abhorred pit, they told me here at dead time of the night, a thousand fiends, a thousand hissing snakes, ten thousands swelling toads, as many urchins would make such fearful and confused cries, as any mortal body hearing it should straight fall mad or else die suddenly. Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas, everybody.

There's shure, there's sure your your mistletoe. Folks, Well, you know, I think part of truly appreciating Western American holiday traditions is again to to to realize all of the deeper and really often darker mythological undertones that we've mostly swept under the red and white rug. Why is that rug so red and white to begin with? I mean, it's the color of snowy, death and blood. Um, But you know,

it brings me back to that. There's a line from Terry Pratchett's The hog Father, which is an hilarious book Christmas book. They made a fun TV version of it years back, and it's one of these where the hog Father, the Discworld's version of Santa Claus h is taken away, something happens to him and death himself. The grim Reaper voice Ian Richardson has to jump in and play the role of the hog Father for like cosmic purposes, because the hog Father must do his job so that spring

may return again, so that the world can continue. But in the intro of the narrator points out that that all of our our stories, all of our traditions are sooner or later about blood. All right. So there you have it, Mistletoe Holiday episode. If you want to check out more episodes of Stuff to Blow your Mind, head on over to our mothership Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. That's where you will find all of the episodes. You'll find links out to our various social media accounts.

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