Can they have thought that the
mistletoe dropped on the oak in a flash of lightning? The conjecture
is confirmed by the name thunder-besom which is applied to mistletoe
in the Swiss canton of Aargau, for the epithet clearly implies a
close connexion between the parasite and the thunder; indeed
"thunder-besom" is a popular name in Germany for any bushy nest-like
excrescence growing on a branch, because such a parasitic growth is
actually believed by the ignorant to be a product of lightning. If
there is any truth in this conjecture, the real reason why the
Druids worshipped a mistletoe-bearing oak above all other trees of
the forest was a belief that every such oak had not only been struck
by lightning but bore among its branches a visible emanation of the
celestial fire; so that in cutting the mistletoe with mystic rites
they were securing for themselves all the magical properties of a
thunder-bolt. If that was so, we must apparently conclude that the
mistletoe was deemed an emanation of the lightning rather than, as I
have thus far argued, of the midsummer sun.
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