it in the winter-time.{39}

In spite of ecclesiastical condemnations of Kalends decorations--as late
as the sixth century the _capitula_ of Bishop Martin of Braga forbid the
adorning of houses with laurels and green trees{40}--the custom has
found its way even into churches, and nowhere more than in England. At
least as far back as the fifteenth century, according to Stow's "Survay
of London," it was the custom at Christmas for "every man's house, as
also the parish churches," to be "decked with holm, ivy, bays, and
whatsoever the season of the year afforded to be green. The conduits and
|273| standards in the streets were likewise garnished."{41} Many
people of the last generation will remember the old English mode of
decoration--how sprigs of holly and yew, stuck into holes in the high
pews, used to make the churches into miniature forests. Only upon the
mistletoe does a trace of the ecclesiastical taboo remain, and even that
is not universal, for at York Minster, for instance, some was laid upon
the altar.{42}

English popular custom has connected particular plants with the winter
festival in a peculiarly delightful way; at the mere mention of holly or
mistletoe the picture of Christmas with its country charm rises to the
mind--we think of snowy fields and distant bells, of warm hearths and
kindly merrymaking.

It is no wonder that the mistletoe has a special place in Christmas
decorations, for it is associated with both Teutonic myth and Celtic
ritual. It was with mistletoe that the beloved Balder was shot, and the
plant played an important part in a Druidic ceremony described by Pliny.
A white-robed Druid climbed a sacred oak and cut the mistletoe with a
golden sickle. As it fell it was caught in a white cloth, and two white
bulls were then sacrificed, with prayer. The mistletoe was called
"all-healer" and was believed to be a remedy against poison and to make
barren animals fruitful.{43} The significance of the ritual is not easy
to find. Pliny's account, Dr. MacCulloch has suggested, may be
incomplete, and the cutting of the mistletoe may have been a preliminary
to some other ceremony--perhaps the felling of the tree on which it grew,
whose soul was supposed to be in it, or perhaps the slaying of a
representative of the tree-spirit; while the white oxen of Pliny's time
may have replaced a human victim.{44}

It is interesting to find that the name "all-healer" is still given to
the mistletoe in Celtic speech,[