Mistletoe
“the Yule clog and Christmas candle were regularly burnt, and the mistletoe, with its white berries, hung up, to the imminent peril of all the pretty housemaids.”
One of the strangest Christmas traditions I recall learning as I grew up was both ubiquitous and absent. The notion of kissing under the mistletoe seemed to inhabit holiday media at every turn. I distinctly remember seeing the trope in cartoons and films, while reading about it in stories. Yet, I cannot recall an instance of seeing anyone osculate under mistletoe or even seeing a single sprig in anyone’s dwelling!
Illustrating my memory’s point, as a youth, I conflated images of holly with those of mistletoe. In my head, if people were to smooch under the mistletoe, they were really doing so under a piece of holly. Doing a quick internet search, it seems I wasn’t alone in this confusion. Mistletoe seems to be so underused physically these days that many people believe holly’s jagged leaves represent the kissing flora, not mistletoe.
The “mistletoe” in the comic above is holly.
Mistletoe looks like this:
Scientifically, mistletoe is an umbrella term for thousands of species in the order Santalales, which also includes sandalwoods.
These plants are bizarre. The mistletoes are parasites! Technically obligate hemiparasitic plants, they require a host tree to survive, though they produce some of their own energy from photosynthesizing sunlight.
As plant life, specifically trees, evolved to become bigger and bigger over millions of years (the taller a plant is, the more sunlight it can monopolize), a subgroup slowly morphed into leeches. If you can’t get to the Sun, get to the trees that can! These parasites tap into the root systems of trees, siphoning a percentage of the water and nutrition the host generates. A smaller subgroup somehow managed to evolve past the root system and took this vampiric system to the skies.
In the wild, mistletoe looks something like this:
How does a plant that lives in the air, tapped into the conductive materials of a tree, manage to reproduce?
The mistletoe’s seeds and berries are extremely sticky, covered in a coating called viscin (the same root as “viscous”). When birds eat the seeds, they transport them to other trees. One of the potential etymologies of “mistletoe” comes from the mistle thrush, sometimes spelled missel thrush. Though the origins are murky, an old Anglo-Saxon word – mistel – might have meant “dung.” Combine it with tan, which means “twig,” add a few centuries of degradation, and we could end up with “mistletoe,” which might have translated to “dung twig” since birds defecate seeds on new host trees.
So, how in Santa’s North Pole world do we end up kissing underneath the sprig of a parasite whose name might mean “dung twig?”
For this circuitous answer, we must travel backward several thousand years to Pagan times.
To many early cultures, plants and animals could symbolize or embody specific qualities or even deities. To the Celts, Ancient Greeks, and others, mistletoe represented fertility. According to Pliny the Elder, the celebrated Roman historian, the Druids performed the “Ritual of Oak and Mistletoe.” In this ceremony, white-clad druids climbed an oak that had mistletoe, cut it down, and then sacrificed two white bulls, before taking the berries from the mistletoe to make a potion that would cure infertility and reverse the effects of poison. To the Celts, the mistletoe’s berries literally represented the semen of Taranis, their god of thunder, while the Greeks called it “oak sperm.”
In the Norse realm, a similar meaning emerged for mistletoe. One of their myths involves the nearly impervious Baldur dreaming that every plant and animal on the planet wanted to kill him. His mother, Frigga, went to every species and asked them to spare her son. They all agreed, but the trickster god Loki realized Frigga had forgotten to speak to mistletoe. So, he made an arrow out of the plant and slew Baldur. Frigga, however, realized that mistletoe could also restore life, so she used its berries to revive Baldur, cementing its status as a plant related to love and vitality.
I suppose the moral is that love can both kill and rejuvenate.
Either way, all these ancient peoples associated mistletoe with fertility and life. Why?
Though we now know the plants suck the life out of host trees, to these cultures the plants would have seemed miraculous. They appeared out of nowhere, high in trees (things higher were related more closely to Sun gods). While the trees went to sleep for the winter, mistletoes were able to remain green throughout sparse periods; their evergreen look would imply immortality. They produced berries that could be crushed into a white, viscous material that just happened to resemble a fluid involved in the reproduction process. Certainly this plant was the incarnation of fertility itself!
Through the Middle Ages, mistletoe continued to signify productiveness and vibrancy. Sometimes the plant was hung in houses to protect people from witches and demons.
How we jump from this interpretation to a couple kissing underneath a sprig at Christmas is hazy, but historians believe the trend originated in 18th-century England, particularly in the servant class. If a man noticed a woman chilling under the mistletoe, he was permitted to plant a smooch on the woman. In this era, to deny this kiss was considered bad luck, while good fortune prevailed upon the duo who partook. In some stories, a woman who refused would be doomed not to marry until at least the next Christmas. This superstition acted in some ways as a catalyst; if one wanted to advance romance, standing under the mistletoe was a way to play the system. Another wrinkle applied to a consenting pair: a kiss was allowed for each berry on the sprig. Lots of berries, lots of pecks!
By 1820, the custom had spread to the middle classes and above, and Washington Irving chronicled its acceptance across the pond. Through the 19th and early 20th centuries, this practice remained relatively popular. Kissing under the mistletoe became a Christmas trope, a notion that remained after the physical practice of even placing mistletoe faded.
Of course, today, we also realize that standing under a particular plant is not a license to kiss someone without consent. Perhaps this enlightened viewpoint has led to the lessening of the tradition’s foothold.
Still, the practice remains a part of modern Christmas lore. If you do find yourself with a willing partner under a piece of mistletoe, feel free to get festive, but perhaps remind yourself that you’re kissing under the parasitic “dung twig” AKA “oak sperm.”
Further Reading and Exploration
Mistletoe: The Evolution of a Christmas Tradition – Smithsonian Magazine
The Enduring Romance of Mistletoe, a Parasite Named After Bird Poop – Smithsonian Magazine
Why Do We Kiss Under the Mistletoe? – History
What’s the Deal With Mistletoe? – Slate
Pucker Up! Why Do People Kiss Under the Mistletoe? – Live Science
The Golden Bough: Mistletoe History and Lore – Symbol Dictionary
