The myth suggests that a vital connexion may
once have been believed to subsist between the mistletoe and the
human representative of the oak who was burned in the fire.
According to the myth, Balder could be killed by nothing in heaven
or earth except the mistletoe; and so long as the mistletoe remained
on the oak, he was not only immortal but invulnerable. Now, if we
suppose that Balder was the oak, the origin of the myth becomes
intelligible. The mistletoe was viewed as the seat of life of the
oak, and so long as it was uninjured nothing could kill or even
wound the oak. The conception of the mistletoe as the seat of life
of the oak would naturally be suggested to primitive people by the
observation that while the oak is deciduous, the mistletoe which
grows on it is evergreen. In winter the sight of its fresh foliage
among the bare branches must have been hailed by the worshippers of
the tree as a sign that the divine life which had ceased to animate
the branches yet survived in the mistletoe, as the heart of a
sleeper still beats when his body is motionless.
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