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Show How the Mistletoe Came to Mean k- Kissing We decorate our homes with spraya of mistletoe at Christmas time, but few of us know the history of It as a Yuletlde symbol. Pretty girls are kissed under It and a great deal of f uq and nonsense are carried on apropos of It, but no one stops to think of how ancient a decoration it Is or how sacred it was once thought to be. The ancient Celts In their Druidical religion had two great festivals, one in June and the other in December, the latter being equivalent to our Christmas. In both of these great festivals the gathering of the mistletoe was a sacred rite. I The Druids believed that a potion prepared from mistletoe would increase in-crease their flocks and that the plant was a remedy against all poison. It was believed to be a curative for many ills, and this belief is still to be found in many remote places in Europe. In Lacaune, France, for example, it is ; always administered by the native dwellers as an antidote for poison. In the northeast of Scotland people ised to cut withes of mistletoe at the March full moon ; these they bent in circles and kept for a year to cure j hectic fevers and other troubles. In Sweden on midsummer eve mistletoe Is diligently sought after, the people believing, it to be possessed of many mystic qualities, and that if a sprig of It Is attached to the ceiling of the dwelling house, the horse's stall or the cow's crib, the trols will then be powerless pow-erless to injure either man or beast. Many German peasants also consider the mistletoe a powerful charm against evil spirits. A similar belief seems to have lingered among the Romans. When Aeneas descended into Hades he gathered, to protect himself from the Infernal powers, a branch of mistletoe, mis-tletoe, which Vergil calls the golden bough. The custom of kissing under the mistletoe mis-tletoe goes back to the days when Thor and Odin and all the other gods of the Northland walked and talked with men. Baldur, the son of Oiliu and Frlgga, the Apollo of Scandinavian Scandina-vian mythology, the flaxen-haired god of sunshine and its attendant blessings, bless-ings, was loved by all earthly and heavenly beings save one Loki, the god of earthly fire and Its attendant evils. How of all the things animate and inanimate in the world, except the surly mistletoe, swore never to harm the sun god and how Lolu slew Baldur with a branch of It, has been told with beautiful poetic power by Matthew Arnold. In conciliation, hoping to soothe the passionate sorrow of the mother. Frlgga, Frlg-ga, they dedicated the mistletoe to her. And now sin and sorrow had hallo ived it; for henceforth it was to grow, not as a symbol of bitterness and hatred, but as a sign of tenderness and love. But the gods decreed that It was to stand for these things only so long as it touched not Loki's kingdom, the soil ; and for this reason it is never seen growing on the ground and we ourselves our-selves always hang it high on the rafters raft-ers or chandeliers. And now that it was the plant of love, the custom arose for enemies m become friends under the mistletoe; for lovers to pledgo their troth beneath it; and for those who met there to kiss as a sign of affectionate af-fectionate fellowship, - - - : |