Mistletoe

December 2020

"Hanging the Mistletoe" (Also "The Farmer's Daughter"/"Girl Tying Up Mistletoe"), 1860, by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

When I pick my young grandson up twice a week, I stand in the playground and study the towering poplars that surround his little in village school; at this time of year, their bare branches are festooned with globes of mistletoe. There seems to be a lot of it about, and the unusual lacy silhouettes add to the mystery of its form and mythology.

This parasitic plant, European Mistletoe, Viscum album, grows on a wide range of trees but is especially common on poplars, apple and hawthorn, and it is supposed that warmer times are contributing to its spread. Also of paramount importance to its proliferation are birds which are drawn to mistletoe by its sweet and sticky white fruits containing a seed.

"The Mistletoe Seller" by Adrien Barrère

Traditionally, mistletoe is the province of the mistle-thrush who guards his territory vigorously, seeing off any other birds anxious to strip the succulent berries. They sadly are in decline, so it falls to others to ensure the establishment of new plants. Blackcaps especially love to feast on the berries and have a habit of neatly wiping their beaks after dining, thus anchoring the seeds to branches where they take root, whereas with other species the end result is more hit and miss as they excrete the seeds after snacking!

Aside from the traditions of kissing under the mistletoe at Christmastime which is a relatively modern 'take' on love and fertility symbolism, there are many much older beliefs associated with this unusual-looking plant.

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Should you happen across mistletoe growing on an oak tree, and should you be a druid you would rejoice to find this very special omen. You would climb into the branches of the tree to ritually harvest the plant by moonlight and with a golden sickle, taking care your prize did not lose its healing powers by contacting the ground. I guess you would not nowadays slaughter two white bulls, nor make an elixir from the plant to cure infertility or the effects of poison, rather just take time out to study its unusual form which all too soon disappears from sight beneath the emerging foliage of the trees it suckles on.

Berries of the European Mistletoe

Druids believe Mistletoe represents longevity since it is one of only a few plants to thrive through the winter. It is actually still in use today and, particularly on the continent, is taken as a tea bought loose or ready-packaged. It is reputed to help relieve blood pressure and circulatory problems, epilepsy, hypertension, headaches, menopausal symptoms, infertility, arthritis and rheumatism and is one of the most widely studied complementary and alternative medicine therapies for cancer.

I have myself seen mistletoe in apple trees, poplars and hawthorn and am on the look-out for my first bunch adorning an oak tree - though sadly I don’t possess a golden knife…

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Soldiers carrying mistletoe during the 1914 Armistice

Big Cat Tales...

I just happened to mention to Hubby last week that we have not had any 'big cat sightings' lately when, what would you know, a spate of reports and reminiscences appeared on our local e-news!

One story from the 1990's was from a very reliable lady I know, who had herself seen a big cat near here and had tracked it for the whole winter, even retrieving hair samples which she sent off to a local zoological centre and the result she got back was positive. Puma! This was also about the time when a man from this village kept one as a pet which she says attracted others to its pen when it came into season.

This possibly ties in with my own experience of around that time which was the first I had heard tell of such a local beast. Mountain Lions are not of course native to this country though I suppose there is no reason they shouldn't survive here given that they can take extremes of temperature and live anywhere from forests to plains. I guess it is within the bounds of possibility that they could secret themselves away in pockets of vegetation and woods, living off deer, rabbits and anything else they can hunt.

Technically Pumas or Cougars are one of the largest of the ‘small cats’ even though some can match the size of a leopard and are fourth heaviest of the New World cats after the lion, leopard, jaguar and tiger. Adult Pumas are slender and agile animals, measuring about eight feet in length from nose to tail and are about two feet tall at the shoulder. They have plain-coloured fur ranging from tawny to silver grey or reddish brown with lighter underparts, jaws, chin and throat. They have round heads, upright ears and with their acute hearing and excellent vision are formidable hunters.

So, back to my story... It must have been in the late 1990's that hubby, daughter and myself were walking through a low pasture near to the river when we noticed a cow lying down in a corner. On investigation, we discovered she was in the process of giving birth but seemed to be in some difficulty with the calf decidedly stuck. Between us we grabbed the calf's legs and aided by her contractions, hauled it from her alive and well.

I dashed off to find the farmer who was very grateful to us for helping out and for letting him know there was a new-born outside in the open. He said this had happened before but on that occasion, they had only found the stripped bones of the calf. Butchery had been ruled out by the very particular claw and bite marks that could only have been made by a Big Cat. He also confirmed that a Puma had been sighted several times in the area by an old man in the habit of walking out around dusk and dawn.

These following comments were from our local e-letter last week:

'At approximately 7 a.m. this morning my husband saw a tawny coloured big cat with a long tail looking remarkably like a mountain lion in the field next to our house. Could this be possible?' -Tibenham

'I saw something that looked like a wild cat while out running in Forncett End last year. I did a good fast run home that day!'

So, what are the chances of secretive Pumas still living in fields and forests hereabouts? Given that they would usually give us humans a wide berth and are capable of springing high into trees and leaping brooks and rivers, it could be entirely possible or probable..?

Hawthorn: Truth & Legend

September, 2020 ​

My garden is surrounded on two sides by a dense hawthorn hedge about eight feet high. It's virtually impenetrable and its vicious thorns further deter intrusion and are an aid to garden security. A member of the rose family, hawthorn or crataegus, if planted alone, can grow into a small tree with many-fissured, twisty dark-grey trunks sometimes found in parks or pavements, especially in its more unusual deep pink form. My hedge, bare and black in winter but quickening to green early in spring, smothers itself in foamy white 'may' blossoms that since pagan times have been used in marriage ceremonies and associated with the spring-goddess Blodeuwedd. It is she who is represented by the blossom-bearing May-Queen at Mayday festivities while the May King also wears leaves and flowers on his costume. On Old Midsummer’s Day, 5th July, trees were blessed and adorned with flowers and red ribbons before children danced around them in a ceremony called ‘bawming the tree’.

In the 1500s, three hawthorn trees grew on Glastonbury Hill in Somerset, unusual in that they flowered twice, once at Easter and again at Christmas. This gave rise to their association with Christianity. There is a descendent of those trees in St. John’s churchyard from which, each Christmas, a spray of buds is sent to the Queen, in a tradition going back to the 1700s. I guess she’s not overly worried by superstition, but when I was a child, we were forbidden to bring may-blossom into the house as it would ‘bring bad luck’. Personally I think it is to do with the unpleasant scent (that research shows contains trimethylamine) which is formed when flesh decays, and is perhaps reminiscent of long-gone days when corpses were laid out for a week in the front parlour! However, in my garden all is well, for Hawthorn is also considered to be a faerie tree known as a psychic shield that can lift the spirits. No wonder then that I love being outside at all times of the year, though methinks those little faerie folk try to get their own back when I trim their magical tree by stabbing at me with their sharp black thorns!

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Used for centuries in folk healing for ailments associated with blood pressure, modern science shows that Hawthorn contains several chemical components which contribute to it being known as ‘Valerian of the heart’.

Also known as the 'bread and cheese' plant, young leaves can be eaten and jelly and wine can be made from its lovely red haws.