At
Pulverbatch, in Shropshire, it was believed within living memory
that the oak-tree blooms on Midsummer Eve and the blossom withers
before daylight. A maiden who wishes to know her lot in marriage
should spread a white cloth under the tree at night, and in the
morning she will find a little dust, which is all that remains of
the flower. She should place the pinch of dust under her pillow, and
then her future husband will appear to her in her dreams. This
fleeting bloom of the oak, if I am right, was probably the mistletoe
in its character of the Golden Bough. The conjecture is confirmed by
the observation that in Wales a real sprig of mistletoe gathered on
Midsummer Eve is similarly placed under the pillow to induce
prophetic dreams; and further the mode of catching the imaginary
bloom of the oak in a white cloth is exactly that which was employed
by the Druids to catch the real mistletoe when it dropped from the
bough of the oak, severed by the golden sickle. As Shropshire
borders on Wales, the belief that the oak blooms on Midsummer Eve
may be Welsh in its immediate origin, though probably the belief is
a fragment of the primitive Aryan creed.
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