Chapter 66 Balder and the Mistletoe

Readers may remember that the previous narrative about the European folk bonfire festival was caused by the Norse mythology of the god Baldr.Balder is said to have been killed by a sprig of mistletoe and burned in a blazing fire.Let us now see how much the customs we have examined before contribute to the account of this myth.Perhaps it is more convenient for our research to start with the mistletoe, the tool that killed Balder. Mistletoe has been an object of superstitious worship in Europe since ancient times.We know from the famous text of Pliny that it was worshiped by the Druid priests of the ancient Celts.After enumerating the various types of mistletoe, Pliny went on to write: "The worship of mistletoe throughout Gaul cannot be neglected in the study of this subject. They call the wizards druids. Those druids called mistletoe and the tree it lives on (must be an oak tree) are regarded as extremely sacred. They also regard the oak forest as a sacred forest, and oak leaves must be used in any sacred ceremony. The name 'Druid' can be regarded as due to their worship The Greek name for the oak tree. They believe that everything that grows on the oak tree is given by the gods. It marks that the oak tree has been chosen by the gods. Mistletoe is very rare. Once found, a grand ceremony will be held. Then collect. They always perform the ceremony on the sixth day of each month, because they count the cycle of years, months, and thirty years from the sixth day of the new moon. In their view, the sixth day of the new moon Days, when the moon was not halfway through the journey, it was the time when they were full of energy. They first made a series of preparations for sacrifices and feasts under the tree, cheered the tree as a medicine for all spirits, and brought two white bulls with horns from Untied, a priest in a white robe climbed to the tree and cut the mistletoe with a golden sickle, and people used white cloth to connect it under the tree. Then they offered sacrifices and prayed for the blessings of the gods. They deeply believed in mistletoe A potion made by parasites to give birth to barren animals, and mistletoe is believed to be a cure for all poisons."

Pliny wrote in another article: Among the medicines, the mistletoe that grows on the oak tree is considered the most effective.Some superstitious people also believe that the mistletoe picked on the first day of the new moon (without metal and without falling to the ground) is a special medicine for epilepsy; Take two small pieces of mistletoe in your mouth, and stick one on the affected area, and you will be cured.Pliny also said: People also regard mistletoe as the best medicine for clearing fire like vinegar and eggs. If the beliefs which Pliny expressly expresses in this latter essay were common among his Italian contemporaries, it follows that the ancient Celts and Italians had no respect for the mistletoe on the parasitic oak. Views of the value of the valuables are largely unanimous.They all believe that it is an effective medicine for many diseases, and at the same time it has the property of promoting fertility. For example, the Celts believed that a dose of mistletoe medicine could make sterile animals reproduce, and the Italians believed that a little mistletoe on women would help them. For conception and childbirth.The people of both nations believed that in order for mistletoe to exert its medicinal properties, it must be collected at a certain time and in a certain way.They stipulated that no iron tools should be used to cut it, so the Celtic wizards cut it with a golden blade; the cut mistletoe must not fall to the ground, so the Celtic wizards wrapped it in a white cloth.As for the picking time, the two peoples are determined according to the lunar calendar. The slight difference is that the Italians set it on the first day of each month, and the Celts choose it on the sixth day of each month.

We may compare the belief of the ancient Gauls and Italians in the wonderful medicinal properties of mistletoe with the similar belief of the Ainu of modern Japan.We read that they, like many peoples in the north, have a special respect for mistletoe, and they regard it as an almost curable medicine, sometimes taking it with their meals, and sometimes decocting it into a decoction.They prefer the leaves of mistletoe to the berries.The latter is a little too sticky to use...but many people think that this plant makes a good harvest of fruit in the garden.When used for this purpose, the leaves of mistletoe are always cut into pieces, blessed, and sown with millet and other grains, with a small portion reserved for eating with them in the diet.Infertile women also ate mistletoe in order to have children.Mistletoe, which grows on willow trees, is believed to have the greatest healing properties, as willow trees are considered sacred.

From this, the Ainu, like the Celts, regarded mistletoe as a cure for almost all diseases, and, like the ancient Italians, mistletoe was believed to enable women to raise children.The Celtic notion of mistletoe as a "cure-all" for all diseases is comparable to that held by the Waro of Senegambia.The Valo "respect a species of mistletoe, called the tob, and wear the leaves of the mistletoe when they go out in battle to prevent injury, as if the leaves were really magical talismans."The German author who described this custom also added: "Isn't it strange that the people in this part of Africa have the same idea of ​​mistletoe as the superstition of the Gauls? The common prejudice of these two countries may have arisen from The same root: No matter those black people or these white people, they have undoubtedly seen this miraculous plant that grows luxuriantly without taking root in the soil. They probably all think that it is the gift of God, the sacred tree that came down from the sky .”

The beliefs of the Druid wizards of the Celts strongly support this reference to the root of the superstition.The belief of the Druids, as reported by Pliny, was that whatever grew on the oak was a gift from heaven, a sign that God himself had chosen the tree.This belief explains why the Druid wizards cut the mistletoe with a golden sickle and keep it from falling to the ground, instead of an ordinary knife and axe. Perhaps they thought that this divine tree would be desecrated as soon as it touched the ground. Lost magic.The druid ritual of picking mistletoe may be compared to a similar situation in Cambodia.They said that when they saw an orchid growing on a tamarind tree, they had to put on white clothes, take a new clay pot, climb up the tree at noon, pluck it, put it in the pot, and let the pot fall. Put it on the ground, and then use this can to decoct it and take it, which can make people invulnerable to all evils.Just as Africans believe that wearing the leaves of parasitic plants will keep people safe from disasters and diseases, Cambodians also believe that decoction of parasitic plants, or taking them internally or washing them outside, can also achieve the same effect.We infer that the formation of the same concept in these two places is due to the fact that this parasitic plant grows in a higher and safer place from the ground, which seems to provide the lucky winner with a sense of security that can transcend various disasters in the world.There are many examples of the consideration of such favorable situations in the thinking of primitive people, and we have already talked about many of them.Whatever the roots of mistletoe beliefs and practices, it is certain that some of them resemble the legends of modern European peasants.For example, in many parts of Europe it is forbidden to collect mistletoe in the usual way, but must be thrown or dropped from the parasitic tree with stones.For example, farmers in the Swiss canton of Aargau consider all parasitic plants, especially mistletoe on oak trees, to be sacred in a certain sense.They think it has great power, but if it is used in ordinary ways, its power must be reduced.Therefore, they adopted the following method: when the sun entered Sagittarius, the moon reached the new moon, and on the first, third, and fourth days before the new moon, shot down the mistletoe on the oak tree with an arrow, and caught it with the left hand.The mistletoe picked in this way can cure all diseases in children.The Swiss peasants, like the Druid wizards of old, spoke of the special properties of the mistletoe on the oak tree: it must not be picked in the usual way, it must be caught when it falls from the tree, and it is a cure for all diseases. The panacea for disease, at least it can cure all diseases of children.So, too, is the Swedish folk superstition: for the mistletoe to do its magic, it must be shot or stoned from the oak.Likewise, until the first half of the 19th century, people in Wales believed that to preserve mistletoe's magic, it had to be shot from the tree where it grew.

Concerning the medicinal properties of mistletoe, modern farmers, and even scholars, agree to a considerable extent with those of the ancients.The Druid wizards of the Celts called it, and perhaps the oak on which it infested, "the panacea."People in Celtic-speaking Brittany, Wales, Ireland, and Scotland still refer to mistletoe as a "cure medicine."On the morning of John the Baptist (Midsummer), farmers in Piedmont and Lombardy went out to find oak leaves to use as "John the Baptist oil", which was said to heal all gold wounds.Perhaps the original "oil of John the Baptist" referred to this mistletoe or a decoction made from it.The people of Holstein [a region of Germany] still use mistletoe, especially mistletoe on oak trees, as a cure for fresh wounds, and as a sure talisman to ensure good hunting.Among the peasants of Lacaune in the south of France there is still the belief of ancient Celtic shamans that mistletoe can cure all poisons. They put it on the belly of the patient or decoct it for the patient to drink.The ancients believed that mistletoe was a good medicine for treating epilepsy. This belief has been passed down to modern times. Not only the ignorant, but also the educated people still believe it.In Sweden, for example, epileptics believed that as long as they carried around a pocketknife with a handle of oak mistletoe, they would be safe from seizures.In Germany, children often hang bits of mistletoe around their necks for the same purpose.In the Bourbonnay region of France, there is a folk remedy for epilepsy that uses mistletoe to make a soup. The method is to cook mistletoe from the oak tree and rye flour on the day of John the Baptist.In Bottesford, Lincolnshire, preparations of mistletoe were used as a remedy for this dreadful disease, and until the eighteenth century the high medical authorities of England and Holland recommended mistletoe for the treatment of epilepsy.

Opinion in the medical world has also undergone a fundamental shift in regard to the medicinal value of mistletoe.The druids of the ancient Celts believed that mistletoe was a cure for all diseases; modern physicians believe that it can cure all diseases.If they are right, we should conclude that the widespread ancient belief in the medicinal value of mistletoe was purely superstitious, born of an ignorant fancy that this plant lives high on the branches of great trees, out of reach. The ground can be protected from the dangerous disasters suffered by the animals and plants living on the ground, so the belief that it can cure all diseases has arisen.From this point of view we may perhaps understand why mistletoe has long been insisted on as an effective remedy for epilepsy.In view of the fact that mistletoe is rooted in a large tree whose branches are very high above the ground and will not fall to the ground, it is deduced that epileptic patients will not lie down even if they have an attack as long as they put a piece of mistletoe in their pockets or take a dose of mistletoe decoction in their stomachs. on the ground.Such logical reasoning, even now, is considered convincing among a considerable portion of the human race.

Ancient Italians believed that mistletoe could extinguish fires, as did Swedish farmers.They hung whole bundles of oak mistletoe on the ceiling of the house to protect against disasters, especially fires.People in the Swiss canton of Aargau nicknamed mistletoe "thunder broom".The reason why mistletoe is considered to have the function of extinguishing fire can be seen from its nickname.Because the thunder broom is a rough bush-like growth on the branch, the folks think it is produced after the lightning flashes, and the people of Bohemia believe that the thunder broom burned in the fire can protect Houses are protected from lightning strikes.Since it is itself a product of thunder and lightning, according to the principle of homeopathic witchcraft, it can naturally prevent lightning and actually act as a lightning rod.Therefore, the Swedes use mistletoe to prevent fires, mainly to prevent lightning from setting houses on fire. Of course, it is also considered to be very effective in preventing general fires.

In addition, mistletoe is both a lightning conductor and a master key, which is said to be able to open all kinds of locks.But perhaps the most valuable of all its functions is that of protection against witchcraft and witchcraft.This is no doubt the reason for putting a sprig of mistletoe on the door of the house in Austria as a means of warding off nightmares, and in the north of England it is said that if the dairy farms are to prosper a sheaf of mistletoe must be given to the first cow to calve after the New Year, for Everyone knows that witches are the greatest danger to milk and butter.Likewise, in Wales, a sprig of mistletoe is always given to the first cow to calve after the first hour of New Year's Day to guarantee luck on the dairy farm.The Welsh countryside is rich in mistletoe, and the farm houses are always piled with mistletoe.When mistletoe was scarce, the farmers said, "Without mistletoe, there is no luck."If the mistletoe was plentiful, they counted on a plentiful crop of corn.In Sweden, people try to find mistletoe on the eve of John the Baptist's Day. They believe that it has great magical properties. Do not harm humans or animals.

Opinions vary as to when mistletoe should be collected.The ancient Celts were mostly on the sixth day of the new moon, and the ancient Italians apparently on the first day of the new moon.In modern times, some people prefer to see the moon in March, while others prefer to see the moon when the sun enters Sagittarius and the moon wanes after the winter solstice.But everyone's favorite time is probably Midsummer Eve or Midsummer's Day.We found that in both France and Sweden the mistletoe gathered at Midsummer was considered to have a special function.The Swedish rule is that "the mistletoe must be harvested on the night before the Midsummer Festival, when the sun and the moon each enter their respective palaces."Welsh people also believe that putting a sprig of mistletoe gathered under their pillow on Midsummer Eve, or any time before the berries appear, will prevent any dreams of good and bad omens while sleeping.Mistletoe, it seems, is one of those plants whose magical or medicinal properties accumulate in coincidence with the day of the sun's yearly course in which its daily growth reaches its longest.It seems reasonable, therefore, to speculate that, in the minds of the ancient Celtic Druid wizards who venerated mistletoe, the sacred mistletoe may have double its magical properties by the summer solstice in June, and so they customarily Gather them with great ceremony on Midsummer Eve.

Nevertheless, there is no doubt that in Scandinavia, the native land of Balder, the mistletoe, which killed Balder, was gathered on Midsummer Eve because of its magical properties. reason.Mistletoe generally grows on pear, oak or other trees in the dense, moist forests of Sweden's warmer regions.So the great Scandinavian Midsummer Festival always features one of the two main events of the Balder myth.And another major event, that is, the story of burning Baldr on a large pile of firewood, is still performed to this day, or until recently, in the raging bonfires lit by the people of Denmark, Norway and Sweden on the eve of Midsummer every year. .However, this does not mean that any idol was burned in those bonfires.Burning idols is just an appearance, and once its inner meaning is forgotten, this appearance will easily disappear.Balder's bonfire (Balder's Balar, the name of the bonfires that were burned during the Swedish midsummer festival in the past), this name shows the relationship between the bonfire and Balder very clearly, there is no doubt, and it is very likely that in ancient times it was burned in the bonfire every year. A living person representing Baldr or an idol representing Baldr.Midsummer is the season dedicated to Baldr. The reason why the Swedish poet Tegner believed that it was Baldr who was burned on Midsummer Festival is probably based on the ancient legend that this kind god was unlucky on the day of the summer solstice. die young. This suggests that the main event in the Balder myth had its equivalent in the European peasant bonfires, which undoubtedly flourished long before the spread of Christianity in Europe.The custom of choosing a victim by casting lots during the Bertin bonfire festival and pretending to throw him into the bonfire to be burned to death, and the same treatment of the green werewolf in the bonfire of the Midsummer Festival in Normandy, can be naturally understood as a true sacrifice in such a festival. A vestige of an older custom of burning the living.And the green werewolf in green clothes, and the young man in Mosham who was wearing leaves all over his body and stepping on the midsummer bonfire seem to imply that the people who died on these festivals were indeed tree spirits or plant gods. dead.From all of this, we can reasonably infer that the myth of Balder on the one hand, and the bonfire festival and the custom of collecting mistletoe on the other, were originally two halves of a whole split.In other words, we can assume with some degree of certainty that the myth of Baldr's death was not merely a myth (i.e., a description of an imagined physical phenomenon borrowed from human life), but was also used to explain why one A living person representing a god and a solemn ritual to gather mistletoe.If I am right, it is the tragic end of Balder's story that forms the content of the sacred drama that is enacted yearly.This kind of oracle is actually a witchcraft ritual, its intention is to make the sun shine, trees grow, crops are plentiful, and protect people and animals from the intrusion of elves and liches.In short, this mythical story belongs to the category of natural mythology and needs certain rituals to supplement it.Here, as we are used to, myth is to magic what theory is to practice. If the victim of the fire—the living Baldr—was put to death either in spring or midsummer, as a dryad or plant god, then Baldr himself must have been a dryad or plant god.It is therefore necessary to determine (if we can do it) which tree or trees the Dryads are represented by those who are burned alive at the bonfire.We are sure that he by no means signifies plants in general.It is impossible for primitive people to be too abstract about the general concept of plants.It is very likely that the initial sacrifice represented a special kind of sacred tree.Of all the trees of Europe no tree was so prominently regarded as the sacred tree of the Aryans than the oak.We find that all the branches of the Aryans in Europe do not fail to worship the oak tree, so we can be sure that the Aryans generally worshiped the oak tree before being dispersed throughout Europe, and the original home of the Aryans must also be densely covered with oak trees. Jungle place.Considering that the various branches of the Aryans in Europe practiced bonfire festivals and the original features of these bonfire festivals and their remarkable similarities, we can infer that these festivals constitute the basis of the common religious rituals brought out by these people when they dispersed from their hometowns. part of the population.If I'm not mistaken, one of the basic features of those bonfire festivals was the burning of a living person representing a dryad.Given the importance of the oak tree in Aryan religion, it may be indisputable that the dryad it represents must have originally been an oak tree, at least as far as the Celts and Lithuanians were concerned.This remarkable feature of religious conservatism testifies to them as well as to the Germans.The most primitive method of starting a fire, known to those who started it, was to rub two pieces of wood against each other until sparks were emitted.We have found that sacred fires are lit in Europe, such as special fires, and this method is still used today. It is likely that all bonfire festivals in ancient times were lit in this way, like special fires or other sacred fires, sometimes requiring a special kind of wood to be rubbed to make fire , and the kind of wood mentioned, whether it is said by the Celts, the Germans or the Slavs, seems to be the oak tree. If the holy fire is lit by friction with oak wood, we can infer It turned out that the sacred fires were the trees that were burned.The Eternal Fire at Vesta in Rome was in fact probably an oak log; the Eternal Fire that burns under the sacred oak in the Great Basilica of Romov in Lithuania was also an oak log.The Midsummer bonfires used to be made of oak wood, probably taken from the custom that has persisted among many mountain farmers in Germany, of lighting a farm fire with a large, heavy oak log on Midsummer's Day. , and smolder it till the end of the year before it burns to ashes.At the next Midsummer, remove the charcoal, light another new one, and mix the old charcoal with ashes and grain or scatter it in the garden.They believed this would protect food cooked on the hearth from liches, keep houses from flourishing, and keep crops from growing and wilting from pests.It can be seen that this custom is almost identical to the custom of burning wood in the fire on Christmas Eve.The latter are oaks used in Germany, France, England, Serbia, and other areas inhabited by Slavic peoples.Therefore, our general conclusion is that in those regular and irregular ceremonies, the ancient Aryans used firewood made of sacred oak to light bonfires and used it as fuel for bonfires. If the fires in these solemn ceremonies were all burnt with oak trees, then the dryads represented by those who died in the fire as dryad incarnations could only be oak trees and nothing else.The two different forms of things thus burned--the oak-wood burning for fuel, and the living personification of the oak-spirit burnt in the fire--are really one thing, the sacred oak.This conclusion can be applied especially to the Scandinavians.The relationship between the Scandinavian custom of burning victims alive in the midsummer bonfire and the mistletoe just confirms our conclusions about the relationship between the oak tree and the bonfire among the European Aryans.We have already said that the Scandinavian custom is to gather mistletoe at Midsummer.On the surface this custom seems to have little to do with the Midsummer bonfires of victims or their idols, and even if those bonfires may have been originally lit with oak wood, it was not necessarily necessary to gather mistletoe.The myth of Balder provides the authoritative link between gathering mistletoe and lighting bonfires at Midsummer.The myth of Balder is almost inseparable from the customs we study.This myth shows that mistletoe indeed had an extremely important relationship to the personal representation of the oak tree that burned in the Midsummer bonfire.According to the myth, nothing in heaven or earth could kill Baldr but the mistletoe; and as long as the mistletoe continued to grow on the oak, Baldr would not only be immortal, but he would never be harmed.The origin of the myth becomes clear if we assume that Balder was originally the oak tree.The mistletoe is regarded as the center of life of the oak, and nothing can kill or even harm the oak so long as it is not injured.Primitive people observed that the oak tree shed its leaves every year, while the mistletoe growing on it was always green all the year round, and they naturally came up with an idea that the mistletoe was the center of the life of the oak tree.In winter, the mistletoe is still green on the bare oak branches, which must make the people who worship the oak rejoice, thinking that although the oak has withered its branches and leaves, its sacred life still lives on in the mistletoe, as if a person is asleep. , Although the body is still, the heart is still beating.Therefore, when the god must be killed, that is, the sacred tree must be burned, the mistletoe must first be cut down.For so long as the mistletoe stands intact, the oak is (so it will be thought) invulnerable, invulnerable, and no knife or ax can scratch a shred of its surface.But just peel off its sacred heart, and the oak will fall.In later generations, if a living person is used to represent a dryad, it is logical to think that he is the same as the oak tree he represents. If the mistletoe does not go away, he will not die or be injured.The removal of the mistletoe, then, was the signal and cause of his death. According to this view, the invulnerable Balder is nothing less than the embodiment of the mistletoe oak.The ancient Italians believed that mistletoe was invulnerable to fire and water, and this belief confirms our interpretation.For, if the mistletoe is indeed invulnerable, then, so long as it does not leave the oak on which it lives, it may transmit its invulnerability to the oak on which it lives.Or, putting the concept in mythic form, we could state it this way: the benevolent god of the oak tree kept his life safe in the immortal mistletoe that grew among its branches, as long as the mistletoe Safe in his place, the god himself was invulnerable, until a cunning enemy learned of the god's secret, and cut the mistletoe from the oak, thereby killing the oak god and burning it in the fire (if the fire could not If the infested parasites are still on the branches, then any fire will not be able to burn the sacred tree). To many readers, the notion that the fetish's life is in some sense residing outside itself is strange indeed.The great influence of this concept on primitive superstition is also not fully appreciated.It is therefore also worth illustrating with examples from stories and customs.This will show that the conception of principles which I use to explain the relation between Balder and the mistletoe is precisely the conception of principles deeply engraved in the mind of primitive man.