But if at these solemn rites the fire was regularly made of oakwood,
it follows that any man who was burned in it as a personification of
the tree-spirit could have represented no tree but the oak. The
sacred oak was thus burned in duplicate; the wood of the tree was
consumed in the fire, and along with it was consumed a living man as
a personification of the oak-spirit. The conclusion thus drawn for
the European Aryans in general is confirmed in its special
application to the Scandinavians by the relation in which amongst
them the mistletoe appears to have stood to the burning of the
victim in the midsummer fire. We have seen that among Scandinavians
it has been customary to gather the mistletoe at midsummer. But so
far as appears on the face of this custom, there is nothing to
connect it with the midsummer fires in which human victims or
effigies of them were burned. Even if the fire, as seems probable,
was originally always made with oak-wood, why should it have been
necessary to pull the mistletoe? The last link between the midsummer
customs of gathering the mistletoe and lighting the bonfires is
supplied by Balder's myth, which can hardly be disjoined from the
customs in question.
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