The view that the mistletoe was not merely the instrument of
Balder's death, but that it contained his life, is countenanced by
the analogy of a Scottish superstition. Tradition ran that the fate
of the Hays of Errol, an estate in Perthshire, near the Firth of
Tay, was bound up with the mistletoe that grew on a certain great
oak. A member of the Hay family has recorded the old belief as
follows: "Among the low country families the badges are now almost
generally forgotten; but it appears by an ancient MS., and the
tradition of a few old people in Perthshire, that the badge of the
Hays was the mistletoe. There was formerly in the neighbourhood of
Errol, and not far from the Falcon stone, a vast oak of an unknown
age, and upon which grew a profusion of the plant: many charms and
legends were considered to be connected with the tree, and the
duration of the family of Hay was said to be united with its
existence. It was believed that a sprig of the mistletoe cut by a
Hay on Allhallowmas eve, with a new dirk, and after surrounding the
tree three times sunwise, and pronouncing a certain spell, was a
sure charm against all glamour or witchery, and an infallible guard
in the day of battle.
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