Monday, Dec. 11, 2006

Mistletoe Origins


After my last entry, in which I admit my ignorance as to the origins of the use of mistletoe as a winter holiday tradition, I decided that there was really no need for ignorance, what with this little thing known as the Internet. I don't know if you've ever heard of it, but it's kind of cool, as far as indulging spontaneous researching tendencies go.

So, I tuned in to a couple of search engines and clicked around for a while. And the conclusion? Is that I think I'm more disturbed now that I know where it came from.

Now, remember to take this all with a grain of salt, will you, since I cobbled together information from various sites, but there were a few consistent stories that emerged. Apparently, mistletoe was used by the Celtic Druids as an herbal cure for a lot of different ailments, from heart attacks to cancer. Of course, as it's rather toxic, the administrator of the herb had to be knowledgeable in the preparation, so to avoid killing patients. But, the gist of it is that the mistletoe was harvested in a special way and then passed out as sprigs to the townsfolk so that they could hang them in their doorways, from above so as to mimic how the stuff naturally hangs from the oak trees that it feeds off of, to ward off evil spirits.

That part's all fine and good, but what about the kissing? Well, that seems to come from a couple of different legends, Norse and Celtic mostly. The part that squicked me out was when I read that it was the mistletoe's ability to sink roots into an oak tree and vampirically suck out water and nutrients in order to sustain its own self that made these various cultures look at the mistletoe as... get this... a symbol of long life and fertility. And also? This fertility image was reinforced when someone noted that the drippy white sap from the berries looked like, ahem, some other white, ah, fluid. Seriously.

Okay, say it with me now -- ewwww.

So, kissing under this plant and its, uh, berries was supposed to promote fertility.

However, I couldn't find anything really that covered the leap from promoting fertility to businessmen getting smashed at their office holiday potluck and trying to trick that cute woman from the satellite office into standing in the doorway a smidge too long so that they could stagger up and bust a sloppy, open-mouthed move. So, I repeat from my last entry, what's up with that?

The only real memory I have that includes mistletoe involves my college dorm, right after Fall Quarter finals. One of the guys on my floor had been throwing back a few too many shots of cheap tequila, put on a Santa hat, some boxer shorts, and hung a sprig of mistletoe on the end of an old yardstick. Then, he just went around to every girl on the floor, held the yardstick up so that the mistletoe was directly over her head, and wanted a kiss. Some girls obliged because either 1) college is the time to go around kissing drunk weirdos or 2) they pitied him. Some girls, like me, ducked him and thought about pushing him down the stairs but then decided that it would take too much energy, and I'd have to put down my coffee to do it.

So, that's the beginning and end of my mistletoe story. But now, I don't think I'm going to be able to look at mistletoe again without thinking about the berries.

Ewwww.

saturncat at 9:09 p.m.

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