Midwinter Musings

As we approach Midwinter, the winter Solstice and Christmas tide, botanical symbolism is prominent in our holiday decorations and in traditional carols of the season. We place evergreens in our homes, bedecked with shining ornaments, we hang wreaths of evergreens, and perhaps holly on our doors. We hang kissing balls of mistletoe over doors where they are sure to catch the unwary....

Holly red and mistletoe white.... this is the carol sung by the little animals in an English children’s book about Little Grey Rabbit and her friends, and includes the two most iconic plants of an English Christmas.

One of my favourite carols when I was growing up is “The Holly and the Ivy” which first made me aware of the botanical symbolism in our traditional Christmas celebrations. I read in my songbook that the holly is the male, and the ivy female, and they both indicate fertility and continuation of life in the middle of winter through their evergreen foliage. The carol begins:

The holly and the ivy,
when they are both full grown
of all the trees that are in the wood,
the holly is the crown

In a fascinating analysis of the symbolism of the Unicorn Tapestry series entitled “The Holly King, the Oak King and the Unicorn” (1986, Harper & Row), John Williamson says that the holly was associated with Midwinter or Yuletide, and that Yule was symbolic of death and rebirth. He connects the symbolism to the worship of the sun in pre-Christian times, and comments that the Christians took the time of Saturnalia and the date of Sol Invictus [the death and rebirth of the sun at the winter solstice] as a time to symbolize the death and birth of Christ (1986:178). And the green boughs with bright berries also were part of the decoration for Saturnalia. Apparently the oak and the oak king symbolized the waxing of the year, and the holly the waning half. Holly itself was considered a magical and potent plant in Roman times, as recorded by Pliny (Williamson 1986:62). Once Christianity arose, holly also took on the symbolism of Christ, whose death leads to rebirth in a state of divinity, and which offers humankind victory over death through everlasting life. A later verse of the carol says-

The holly bears a berry,
as red as any blood
And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ
to do poor sinners good.

The redness of the berries evoking the blood of sacrifice is one obvious connection. The thorniness of their leaves also evokes the crown of thorns, and the pure white of the blossoms the purity and chastity of Mary, mother of Jesus, as we see in the following verse:

The holly bears a blossom
As white as lily flower
And Mary bore sweet Jesus Christ
For to be our sweet Saviour.

What of the evergreen tree and its green aromatic boughs? The association of evergreens like fir and spruce trees with midwinter, Yuletide or Christmas is a Germanic connection. [There are no fir or spruce trees in England; the only evergreen conifers there are yew trees, Scotch pine, and spindly junipers]. The nineteenth century German carol lauds the evergreen:

O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum,
wie treu sind deine Blätter!
Du grünst nicht nur
zur Sommerzeit,
Nein auch im Winter, wenn es schneit.
O Tannenbaum, o Tannenbaum,
wie treu sind deine Blätter!

a literal translation reads:
O Christmas [fir] tree, o Christmas [fir] tree
How loyal are your leaves/needles!
You're green not only
in the summertime,
No, also in winter when it snows.
O Christmas tree, o Christmas tree
How loyal are your leaves/needles!
[words and translation from http://german.about.com/library/blotannenb.htm]

This modern song is derived from an older traditional German song ”Oh Fir Tree”, versions of which can be dated to the 16th century :

O Dannebom, o Dannebom,
du drägst 'ne grönen Twig,
den Winter, den Sommer,
dat doert de leve Tid.

(http://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Hymns_and_Carols/Notes_On_Carols/o_christmas_tree-notes.htm)
It has several more verses, but as I don’t read German I won’t include them here.

The evergreen tree didn’t join English Midwinter festivities until German Prince Albert brought a tree for his bride Queen Victoria in 1841.

And what of mistletoe? Mistletoe is evergreen, yellowish green, and forms masses in the (deciduous) oak trees which remain leafy when the oak’s own leaves fall. It’s parasitic, sending strands into the wood of its host. The berries are small and whitish. Apparently these masses of yellowish green are the “golden boughs” which gave Frazer’s famous 19th century tome on world religions its name (Williamson 1986: 59). Mistletoe was associated with the sacred oaks of the druids....and a great deal of 18th century fantasy about Druids shows white robed silver bearded holy men with golden sickles cutting mistletoe for mysterious rites. Apparently Pliny is the source of the white robed druids with golden sickles cutting mistletoe, recently amusingly cartooned by Hergé in Asterix and Obelix.

“Mistletoe and Druids From Pliny - Natural History:

XVI/95: The druids -- that is what the Gauls call their magicians -- hold nothing more sacred than mistletoe and the tree on which it is growing, provided that it is an oak. Groves of oaks are chosen even for their own sake, and the magicians perform no rites without using the foliage of these trees... Anything growing on oak trees they think to have been sent down from heaven, and to be a signal that that particular tree has been chosen by a god. Mistletoe is, however, rather seldom found on an oak, and when it is discovered it is gathered with great ceremony, particularly on the ninth day of the moon... because it is then rising in strength and not yet half its full size. Hailing the moon in a native word that means "healing all things", they prepare a ritual sacrifice and banquet beneath a 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 and with a golden sickle cuts down the mistletoe, which is caught in a white cloak. Then finally they kill the victims, praying to the god to render his gift propitious to those on whom he has bestowed it.
[URL = Natural History]”

(retrieved from http://ancienthistory.about.com/cs/norsegodspictures/p/mistletoe.htm)

Mistletoe also figures in the Norse legend about the death of the god Baldur, second son of Odin....After a disturbing foreboding dream of Baldur’s death, Odin’s wife Frigga had sought to protect the bright twin from all harm by gaining the oath of all things not to harm him....and celebrated his immunity by inviting all to try to hurt him. Weapons fell aside powerless...but Loki, the cunning evil one, took mistletoe....which had escaped Frigga’s notice because of its weakness and insignificance.....and turned it into a dart, which he placed in the hand of Baldur’s blind twin Hodur ....who threw the dart at Loki’s urging, and slew Baldur believing nothing could harm him. Thus Baldur died. (from the Prose Edda, Icelandic Saga in the Wikipedia article on Baldr and the retelling in Thomas Bullfinch’s Mythology http://www.usefultrivia.com/mythology/death_of_baldur.html).

And how did it come to be the plant in the Kissing Bundle? This I don’t actually know. A website on mistletoe lore http://ancienthistory.about.com/cs/norsegodspictures/p/mistletoe.htm suggests that the mistletoe berries were Frigga’s tears, and that after Baldur’s restoration to life, the plant then became symbolic of love... but the pathway to English folk use is not obvious. The same website contains other snippets about mistletoe:

“Mistletoe in Dickens Pickwick Papers:

"From the centre of the ceiling of this kitchen, old Wardle had just suspended with his own hands a huge branch of mistletoe, and this same branch of mistletoe instantaneously gave rise to a scene of general and most delightful struggling and confusion; in the midst of which, Mr. Pickwick, with a gallantry that would have done honour to a descendant of Lady Tollimglower herself, took the old lady by the hand, led her beneath the mystic branch, and saluted her in all courtesy and decorum."

Mistletoe in Washington Irving Christmas Eve:

"Here were kept up the old games of hoodman blind, shoe the wild mare, hot cockles, steal the white loaf, bob apple, and snap dragon; 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."’

So- I wish you all the merriest of Midwinter Holidays. Merry Christmas, Good Yuletide, Best Wishes for New Years, and happy Chanukkah, festival of lights [tonight is day 6 of the miracle]. A light in the darkness of midwinter as we approach the Solstice, and green evergreen boughs as a token of rebirth and new growth in the springtime.