Think of a romantic Christmas movie. Any one will do. What do they all have in common besides cheesy plot lines and fake snow? Almost every one of them contains a kissing scene involving mistletoe. How did a poisonous parasite come to be the icon of holiday romance?
What is mistletoe anyway? It is a hemiparasitic shrub, performing photosynthesis like other plants, but getting its water and nutrients by attaching to a woody host and stealing them. There are over a thousand varieties of mistletoe, but only about 30 native to North America. Mistletoe are evergreens, which makes them easy to spot in the winter on deciduous trees that have lost their leaves.
The berries of mistletoe are white, not red as they are sometimes depicted in Christmas decor. They are also toxic to humans. Despite the berries toxicity, the plant has been prized for its medicinal properties for thousands of years. The Greeks and Romans used it to treat a wide variety of ailments from cramps to epilepsy. More recently, an extract from mistletoe has been studied for its effectiveness in treating certain cancers.
Mistletoe’s romantic origins are not completely clear. One theory connects it with Norse mythology. Frigga overlooked the mistletoe when asking all the plants not to harm her son, Baldur. Loki then used the plant to make an arrow and kill Baldur. Frigga was so distraught that her tears turned the berries from red to white, and she declared from then on mistletoe should be a symbol of love and peace.
The Celtic Druids considered it a sacred plant that could ward off evil and grant fertility. It featured heavily in their rituals around the winter solstice. Mistletoe’s associations with fertility and as a good luck charm held on through the Middle Ages with it being hung in homes and barns.
It is not clear when the kissing started. It may have only been a prank to insist that a man could steal a kiss from any woman caught standing under the mistletoe. However, it started it is now a well-established holiday tradition. The amorous power of the mistletoe is limited however. With each kiss one of the white berries must be picked from the bough. When all the berries are gone, no more kisses.
So, if you are hoping for a mistletoe kiss this holiday season, make sure you find a sprig with plenty of berries and don’t delay.
Crystal Kelly is a feature writer for Bizarre Bytes with those unusual facts that you only need to know for Trivial Pursuit or Jeopardy or to stump your in-laws.
