In some parts of Italy, as
we saw, peasants still go out on Midsummer morning to search the
oak-trees for the "oil of St. John," which, like the mistletoe,
heals all wounds, and is, perhaps, the mistletoe itself in its
glorified aspect. Thus it is easy to understand how a title like the
Golden Bough, so little descriptive of its usual appearance on the
tree, should have been applied to the seemingly insignificant
parasite. Further, we can perhaps see why in antiquity mistletoe was
believed to possess the remarkable property of extinguishing fire,
and why in Sweden it is still kept in houses as a safeguard against
conflagration. Its fiery nature marks it out, on homoeopathic
principles, as the best possible cure or preventive of injury by
fire.
These considerations may partially explain why Virgil makes Aeneas
carry a glorified bough of mistletoe with him on his descent into
the gloomy subterranean world. The poet describes how at the very
gates of hell there stretched a vast and gloomy wood, and how the
hero, following the flight of two doves that lured him on, wandered
into the depths of the immemorial forest till he saw afar off
through the shadows of the trees the flickering light of the Golden
Bough illuminating the matted boughs overhead.
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