OCR Text |
Show TRAGEDY OF THE MISTLETOE SONG No, Thomas Haynes Bayley, simply localized in England the incidents of a tragedy which occurred in Florence, Italy, in the fourteenth century. A young nobleman, of the House of Brundesi, fell in love with and married the daughter of Cosimo de Medici, one of the Medician Grand Dukes of Florence. Flor-ence. While celebrating the marriage festivities, and a select few, including the bride and groom, were playing at "hide-and-go-seek," the fair young bride disappeared and for one hundred years the mystery of her flight remained unsolved. Then, a century after her weird disappearance, andother beautiful young woman entered the Brundesi Palace Pal-ace as a bride. For her coming the Palace was renovated and redecorated. Roaming with her maid one morning through the magnificent building, build-ing, she ascended to the third story, a part of which served for a lumber room. Moved by curiosity, she entered the room, and among the multitudinous articles ar-ticles stored there she noticed an old iron-bound chest. This, she asked her maid to open, but the maid after repeatedly trying could not lift the cover. Then a locksmith wa3 called in, opened the box, and to the horror of the young bride, uncovered uncov-ered a human skeleton, on whose fleshless wrists were bracelets of gold set with diamonds. Then was solved the mystery of the lost bride of a hundred hun-dred years before." In 1831 this iron-bound chest was purchased by the Earl of Derby and presented to the British Museum, London, where it now rest3 in the second hall of the right wing of that wonderful won-derful institution. To the second question of our corerspondent as to the "origin of the Kiss under the Mistletoe," we are pleased to inform her that it is a survival from Pagan times. Long, long ago, when the countries now known as France and England were inhabited by Pagan Celts, two great festivals were celebrated and presided over by their druids or priests. In both of these feasts a part of the rites was the cutting of the mistletoe. The oak tree, which in early times was much more common than now, was an object of worship with the Celts and in oak groves their religious rites were celebrated. The oak was sacred to the sun and the fixes of the druid festival were started by the fire produced by rubbing rub-bing two oak sticks together, just as our Indians obtained it before the coming of the white man. Even to this day in some of the nooks and corners of England and Wales where annual fires are lighted, such as on Hallowe'en, the fire to start the pile is procured by rubbing oakwood. Our primitive primi-tive ancestors then thought fire to be inherent to the oak, as a miraculous entity, and as a result they believed there wa3 some mystical connection between be-tween the oak, the sun-god and fire. Therefore, when they beheld this strange parasite, the mistle toe, growing apparently out of the oak, they deemed it to be in some mysterious manner a part of the essence and life of the tree. It was regarded as something sacred and under the special protection protec-tion of the sun-god. The feast of the "cutting of the Mistletoe," was celebrated at night by the light of the fires taken from oak sticks. These festivals fes-tivals degenerated into a saturnalia of shameful impurities which went down and disappeared soon after the lands became Christian. The kissing privilege under the mistletoe is a relic of these early times and is al lthat remains to remind us of the licentious liberties of the druid festival. Here is the poem asked for by our correspondent cor-respondent : THE MISTLETOE BOUGH. (By Thomas Haynes Bayly, 1797-1839.) The mistletoe hung in the castle hall, The holly branch shone on the old oak wall ; And the baron's retainers were blithe and gay, And keeping their Christmas holiday. Then the baron beheld, with a father's pride, His beautiful daughter, young Lovell's bride ; While she, with her bright eyes, Beemed to be The star of the goodly company. "I'm weary of dancing now," she cried; "Here tarry a moment IH hide I'll hide ! And, Lovell, be sure thou'rt first to trace The clue to my secret hiding place." Away she ran and her friends began Each tower to search, and each nook to scan; And young Lovell cried, "Oh I where dost thou hide ? I'm lonely without thee, my own dear bride." They sought her that night and they sought her next day; And they sought her in vain, when a week passed away! In the highest the lowest the loneliest spot Young Lovell sought wildly but found her not. And years flew by, and their grief at last Was told as a sorrowful tale of the past; And when Lovell appeared, the children cried, "See ! the old man weeps for his fairy bride." At length an oak chest, that had long lain hid, Was found in the castle; they raised the lid; And a skeleton form lay moldering there In the bridal wreath of a lady fair! Oh, sad was her fate ! In sportive jest She hid from her lord in the old oak chest; It closed with a spring ! and, dreadful doom, The bride lay clasped in her living tomb ! |