Observations placeholder

Sir James Fraser – The Golden Bough

In the Swiss canton of Aargau

" all parasitic plants are esteemed in a certain sense holy by the country folk, but most particularly so the mistletoe growing on an oak. They ascribe great powers to it, but shrink from cutting it off in the usual manner. Instead of that they procure it in the following manner. When the sun is in Sagittarius and the moon is on the wane, on the first, third, or fourth day before the new moon, one ought to shoot down with an arrow the mistletoe of an oak and to catch it with the left hand as it falls. Such mistletoe is a remedy for every ailment of children."

The Druids appear to have called the plant, or perhaps the oak on which it grew, the " all-healer "; and "all-healer " is said to be still a name of the mistletoe in the modern Celtic speech of Brittany, Wales, Ireland, and Scotland.