If the mistletoe, as
a yellow withered bough in the sad autumn woods, was conceived to
contain the seed of fire, what better companion could a forlorn
wanderer in the nether shades take with him than a bough that would
be a lamp to his feet as well as a rod and staff to his hands? Armed
with it he might boldly confront the dreadful spectres that would
cross his path on his adventurous journey. Hence when Aeneas,
emerging from the forest, comes to the banks of Styx, winding slow
with sluggish stream through the infernal marsh, and the surly
ferryman refuses him passage in his boat, he has but to draw the
Golden Bough from his bosom and hold it up, and straightway the
blusterer quails at the sight and meekly receives the hero into his
crazy bark, which sinks deep in the water under the unusual weight
of the living man. Even in recent times, as we have seen, mistletoe
has been deemed a protection against witches and trolls, and the
ancients may well have credited it with the same magical virtue. And
if the parasite can, as some of our peasants believe, open all
locks, why should it not have served as an "open Sesame" in the
hands of Aeneas to unlock the gates of death?
Now, too, we can conjecture why Virbius at Nemi came to be
confounded with the sun.
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