We have already met with examples of
the store which the primitive mind sets on such vantage grounds.
Whatever may be the origin of these beliefs and practices concerning
the mistletoe, certain it is that some of them have their analogies
in the folk-lore of modern European peasants. For example, it is
laid down as a rule in various parts of Europe that mistletoe may
not be cut in the ordinary way but must be shot or knocked down with
stones from the tree on which it is growing. Thus, in the Swiss
canton of Aargau "all parasitic plants are esteemed in a certain
sense holy by the country folk, but most particularly so the
mistletoe growing on an oak. They ascribe great powers to it, but
shrink from cutting it off in the usual manner. Instead of that they
procure it in the following manner. When the sun is in Sagittarius
and the moon is on the wane, on the first, third, or fourth day
before the new moon, one ought to shoot down with an arrow the
mistletoe of an oak and to catch it with the left hand as it falls.
Such mistletoe is a remedy for every ailment of children.
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