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Updated: June 21, 2025
"Yes, yes, you shall come up-stairs with us, and you shall hear the Christmas thrush sing under the misletoe." Sky-High's heart fluttered, not at what he hoped to see, but at the thought of the presents that he hoped to make. Shortly before Christmas Mrs. Van Buren went to her little servant to pay him his wages, for he had accepted no payment as yet.
One of these ceremonies was to go in search of the mistletoe, which sometimes grows on the oak and was considered as sacred as the tree itself, being much used in their worship. One priest would climb to the branch on which the misletoe was growing and cut it with a golden knife, while another priest stood below and held out his white robe to receive it.
From the animal, the Druids passed to the vegetable world; and these also displayed their powers, whilst by the charms of the misletoe, the selago, and the samopis, they prevented or repelled diseases. From the undulation or bubbling of water stirred by an oak branch, or magic wand, they foretold events that were to come. The superstition of the Druids is even now retained in the western counties.
She had a mistle-thrush among her caged birds, that always sang very sweetly when she hung it under the newly-gathered waxy misletoe. From that time on, the little Chinaman dreamed of Christmas. One day he said to Mrs. Van Buren, "You will surely let Sky-High come up-stairs on the night of the Christmas-tree?"
The Tillandsia, or wild pine, grows on other trees, like the Misletoe, but takes little or no nourishment from them, having large buckets in its leaves to collect and retain the rain water. See note on Dypsacus. The mosses, which grow on the bark of trees, take much nourishment from them; hence it is observed that trees, which are annually cleared from moss by a brush, grow nearly twice as fast.
The misletoe was what they found but seldom: whenever, therefore, they met with it, they fetched it with great ceremony, and did it on the sixth day of the moon, with which day they began both their months and their years. They gave a name to this shrub, denoting that it had the virtue of curing all diseases.
There might be seen the fragrant mimosa the abundant acacia the swamp oak, which would have been styled a fir, had not the first exiles to Australia found twined round its boughs, the misletoe, with its many home associations the elegant cedar the close-growing mangrove and strange parasitical plants, pushing through huge fungi, and clasping with the remorseless strength of the wrestler, and with the round crunching folds of the boa, the trees they were gradually to supplant and destroy.
Of all the ingenious inventions of their friend the painter, this of the misletoe was certainly the most transcendent.
Nevertheless, with all its faults, I thought the book a novelty, and liked it not the less for its off-hand fashion; it had something of the free, fresh, frank air of an old-school squire at Christmas-tide, suggestive as his misletoe, cheerful as his face, and careless as his hospitality.
I hate a new house, a new field, a wood that looks new; to me there must be the impress of fond association, and here I found it, the spring-house with moss on its roof, the path, a great oak upon which death had placed its beautiful mark a bough of misletoe. "You hop right out and go in and make yourself at home, while I take care of the horses," said the old man.
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