Speaker 1: While on this subject we also must not omit the
Speaker 1: respect shown to this plant by the Gaelic provinces. The Druids,
Speaker 1: that is what they call their magicians, hold nothing more
Speaker 1: sacred than mistletoe and a tree on which it is growing,
Speaker 1: provided it is a hard oak. Groves of hard oaks
Speaker 1: are chosen even for their own sake, and the magicians
Speaker 1: perform no rites without using the foliage of those trees,
Speaker 1: so that it may be supposed that it is from
Speaker 1: this custom that they get their name of Druids, from
Speaker 1: the Greek word meaning oak. But further, anything growing on
Speaker 1: oak trees they think to have been sent down from Heaven,
Speaker 1: and to be a sign that the particular tree has
Speaker 1: been chosen by God himself. Mistletoe is, however, rather seldom
Speaker 1: found on a hard oak, and when it is discovered,
Speaker 1: it is gathered with great ceremony, and particularly on the
Speaker 1: sixth day of the moon, which for these tribes constitutes
Speaker 1: the beginning of the months in the years, and after
Speaker 1: every thirty years of a new generation, because it is
Speaker 1: then rising in strength and not one half of its
Speaker 1: full size. Hailing the moon in a native word that
Speaker 1: means healing all things, they prepare a ritual sacrifice and
Speaker 1: banquet beneath the tree, and bring up two white bulls,
Speaker 1: whose horns are bound. For the first time on this occasion,
Speaker 1: a priest, arrayed in white vestments, climbs the tree with
Speaker 1: a golden sickle and cuts down the mistletoe, which is
Speaker 1: caught in a white cloak. Then finally they kill the victims,
Speaker 1: praying to God to render his gift propitious to those
Speaker 1: on whom he has bestowed it. They believe that mistletoe
Speaker 1: given in drink will impart fertility to any animal that
Speaker 1: is barren, and that it is an antidote for all poisons.
Speaker 1: So powerful is the superstition in regard to trifling matters
Speaker 1: that frequently prevails among the races of mankind. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow your mind from how Stuff Works dot Com.
Speaker 1: Hey you, welcome to stuff to blow your mind. My
Speaker 1: name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And that
Speaker 1: reading was from our old friend Plenty of the Elder.
Speaker 1: Obviously it was concerning the Druid rituals about missiletoe. Robert,
Speaker 1: you are leaning into Christmas topics this year. I'm I'm
Speaker 1: a little disturbed by this, do you want to explain yourself? Oh,
Speaker 1: I just I finally decided, you know, it was it
Speaker 1: was foolish to resist. I should just I should just
Speaker 1: lean into Christmas. I should give into Christmas. And uh.
Speaker 1: And it's paying off, you know, because missiletoe is a
Speaker 1: fine example. It's easy to just assume it's just the
Speaker 1: silly tradition that it results in, you know, smooching underneath
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. But it's actually like moon worship,
Speaker 1: sacrifice and uh and parasitism. Yeah, it's it's actually really crazy.
Speaker 1: Um again, this quote was from plenty of the Elder
Speaker 1: Roman historian. Uh. This particular translation was the Rockham jones
Speaker 1: Icles translation, which you can find online. Uh. And it
Speaker 1: does sound like one crazy Christmas party, doesn't No matter
Speaker 1: how how out of control your office Christmas party gets,
Speaker 1: there probably not gonna be white bulls marched in and
Speaker 1: human sacrifice is made to some sort of druid god.
Speaker 1: But that's how you know a party is good. Like
Speaker 1: if you're there for the first time some year and
Speaker 1: they bring in the two white bulls, like, you know
Speaker 1: it's going to be wrong when the golden sickle comes out. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's time to to really commit to staying,
Speaker 1: or to go ahead and head out and go home,
Speaker 1: called to call it an early evening. Um, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: this uh, I think this will be an interesting episode.
Speaker 1: And I was tempted to to even write a long
Speaker 1: form form poem, something like twads the night before Christmas
Speaker 1: and deep in the woods a sacrifice was planned by
Speaker 1: the Galls and their druids, but alas I, I didn't
Speaker 1: have the poetic energy to keep going. Well, there's always
Speaker 1: next year. But anyway, so if you know us, you
Speaker 1: know that we can never resist consulting Plenty of the
Speaker 1: Elder on any topic of of the natural world, or
Speaker 1: of monsters, or of history. He's got the best and
Speaker 1: often funniest takes on stuff from ancient Rome, right, and
Speaker 1: and certainly we don't do not depend on first century
Speaker 1: historians like Plenty for our for our data, but it
Speaker 1: adds a lot of flavor to what we're talking about.
Speaker 1: And you usually we are talking about the things that
Speaker 1: he's quite wrong about, or or the thing that he's
Speaker 1: reporting is like purely mythological mistletoe, which he talks about
Speaker 1: quite a bit in the natural history. However, he does
Speaker 1: manage to get some thing's right. There's there. There are
Speaker 1: a lot of things that that are that are less fantastic.
Speaker 1: Nobody's speaking out of their bellies so much when discussing missiletoe. Well,
Speaker 1: let's consult plenty on mistletoe, and then we can talk
Speaker 1: a little bit more about what modern science says about
Speaker 1: this plant vampire. So first of all, he says, uh quote,
Speaker 1: there are three kinds of mistletoe. One that grows as
Speaker 1: a parasite on the fur and the larch is called
Speaker 1: stellis in Euboia and hiphi are and arcadia. And the
Speaker 1: name of mistletoe is used for one growing on the oak,
Speaker 1: hard oak, home oak, wild pear, turpentine tree, and indeed
Speaker 1: most other trees, and growing in great abundance on the oak,
Speaker 1: is one which they call dryos hypha are. There is
Speaker 1: a difference in the case of every tree except the
Speaker 1: home olk and the oak, in the smell and poison
Speaker 1: of the berry and the disagreeably scented leaf, both the
Speaker 1: berry and the leaf of the mistletoe being bitter and sticky.
Speaker 1: The hiphi are is more useful than vetch for fattening cattle.
Speaker 1: At first, it only acts as a purge, but it
Speaker 1: subsequently fattens the beasts that have stood the purging process,
Speaker 1: although they say that those with some internal malady cannot
Speaker 1: stand it. I like the idea there that you would
Speaker 1: essentially just use the mistletoe to poison your flocks, and
Speaker 1: then the ones that survive get more food to eat,
Speaker 1: and so they get bitter, bigger. Uh Okay, so picking
Speaker 1: up with plenty, he says. Quote. The method of treatment
Speaker 1: is employed for forty days in the summer. An additional
Speaker 1: variety is said to be found in mistletoe in that
Speaker 1: when it grows on deciduous trees, it also sheds its
Speaker 1: leaves itself, but when growing on an evergreen tree it
Speaker 1: retains its leaves. But universally, when missiletoe seed is sown,
Speaker 1: it never sprouts at all, and only when passed in
Speaker 1: the excrement of birds, particularly the pigeon and the thrush.
Speaker 1: Its nature is such that it will not shoot unless
Speaker 1: it has been ripened in the stomach of birds. Its
Speaker 1: height does not exceed eighteen inches, and it is evergreen
Speaker 1: and always in leaf. The male plant is fertile in
Speaker 1: the female baron, except that even a fertile plant sometimes
Speaker 1: does not bear, and he continues later on discussing mistletoe quote.
Speaker 1: Missiletoe berries can be used for making bird lime if
Speaker 1: gathered at harvest time while unripe, for if the rainy
Speaker 1: season has begun. Although they get bigger in size, they
Speaker 1: lose in viscosity. They are then dried and when quite dry,
Speaker 1: pounded and stored in water, and in about twelve days
Speaker 1: they turn rotten. And this is the sole case of
Speaker 1: a thing that becomes attractive by rotting the soul case. Wow. Then,
Speaker 1: after having been again pounded up, they are put in
Speaker 1: running water and there lose their skins and become viscous
Speaker 1: in their inner flesh. This substance, after being needed with oil,
Speaker 1: is birdlime, used for entangling bird's wings by contact with
Speaker 1: it when one wants to snare them. Now, I wanted
Speaker 1: to note that I looked this up and found that
Speaker 1: bird lime is real. This is not like one of
Speaker 1: these legendary magic potions that Plenty just credulously reports. It
Speaker 1: is this sticky substance that's used for catching birds and branches.
Speaker 1: Like he describes, it's sort of an artificial spider web
Speaker 1: that we maintain like a glue trap. Yes, it's like
Speaker 1: a tree based glue trap for birds. It has long
Speaker 1: been used in human history for bird trapping. THO it's
Speaker 1: not quite clear like how off and it actually was
Speaker 1: mistiletoe based. But I've also read that birdline was used
Speaker 1: in World War Two to create anti tank weapons known
Speaker 1: as sticky bombs. The idea there would have been um
Speaker 1: like a soldier on foot could potentially stop a tank
Speaker 1: if they've got a bunch of high explosives, and then
Speaker 1: put it in some kind of sticky package and they
Speaker 1: can stick to the tank and run away. Oh wow,
Speaker 1: I'm not kidding when I when I said that I
Speaker 1: would I would love to do a whole episode just
Speaker 1: an anti tank weapons. There's some fascinating science there, especially
Speaker 1: from World War two. A different things like shaped charges
Speaker 1: and things that the Germans would do to their tanks
Speaker 1: to prevent shaped targets from being shaped charges from being
Speaker 1: a fixed to the side of the tank, essentially like
Speaker 1: covering it in a plaster or mud like substance and
Speaker 1: then adding these ridges so that it wouldn't stick. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's interesting. We we we can definitely come back to that.
Speaker 1: Now I have to revisit again, what is plenty talking
Speaker 1: about when he says it is the only thing that
Speaker 1: becomes more useful when rotten. Does he not know about
Speaker 1: out pickling or like beer or I don't know, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean just just yesterday having meal with with my
Speaker 1: family and we were commenting on all the things on
Speaker 1: the table that that we're in some way pickled or
Speaker 1: or made use of vinegar, etcetera. Well, yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess there's like there are multiple ways of pickling,
Speaker 1: so you could just like brine something, but anything involving
Speaker 1: actual fermentation. He's got to be able to appreciate that.
Speaker 1: Maybe Plenty just hates fermented foods. I don't know, maybe so.
Speaker 1: So it's tempting to keep reading Plenty for our facts
Speaker 1: on mistletoe, but of course that would be ridiculous. Our
Speaker 1: understanding of the plant has has come along ways over
Speaker 1: the last two thousand years or so, and botanists are
Speaker 1: still figuring out things about this baleful plant turned holiday
Speaker 1: smooch inducer mistletoe, which is generally referred to UH by
Speaker 1: the species UH for Adendron flavicens or viscom album being
Speaker 1: just two examples of the species. But it's a parasitic
Speaker 1: plant that grows in or on trees, especially hardwood trees
Speaker 1: such as apple and oak. There are some even though
Speaker 1: a plenty tootles. There are three types. There are some
Speaker 1: known species of mistletoe around the world. It invades the
Speaker 1: tree with its roots which seep into the bark of
Speaker 1: the host tree and suck water and nutrients out. So
Speaker 1: it is a plant vampire and this can certainly harm
Speaker 1: the host tree and cause branch deformities. But like with
Speaker 1: a lot of parasites, the goal here isn't to kill
Speaker 1: the host. That usually works out bad for the parasite. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean the parasite needs to live in or on
Speaker 1: the host, so usually it doesn't You don't want to
Speaker 1: kill it, right, However, mistletoe camproof fatal to the host
Speaker 1: during times of drought, I've read because because one of
Speaker 1: the host plant will have certain reactions in place to converserve,
Speaker 1: to conserve moisture during times of drought, the paras the
Speaker 1: parasitic mistletoe just continues to live it up with reckless
Speaker 1: abandoned you know. So it would be you know, like
Speaker 1: something somebody's stealing food out of your fridge and in
Speaker 1: a time of famine and like they don't care. They're
Speaker 1: just gonna keep eating the same portions. Right, You might
Speaker 1: tighten your belt, but they're not gonna Yeah, mistletoe is
Speaker 1: not going to tighten its belt. Now, Parasitic plants in
Speaker 1: general are are fascinating. Oh. I was looking at a
Speaker 1: book called How Plants Work, Form, Diversity and Survival from
Speaker 1: Princeton University Press by the British botanist Stephen Blackmore, and
Speaker 1: Blackmore writes that it's roughly about one percent of flowering
Speaker 1: plants that are parasitic. Mistletoe is a flowering plant, and
Speaker 1: of these, about two thirds or parasitic on the roots
Speaker 1: of the host plants, so they'll be down in the roots,
Speaker 1: underground or on the ground, and only about one third
Speaker 1: or parasitic on the host stem. So mistletoe plants are
Speaker 1: the weird of the weird. Not many plants are parasitic,
Speaker 1: and not many of the parasitic plants operate up on
Speaker 1: the stem or the trunk of the tree the way
Speaker 1: mistletoe does. And so I think it's worth taking a
Speaker 1: look at what kind of equipment this plant vampire uses
Speaker 1: to drain the lifeblood of its host. Because uh, also, okay,
Speaker 1: first of all, This struck sure that it uses to
Speaker 1: pierce the tree is called a house story um. It's
Speaker 1: a modified stem or root like structure that gives the
Speaker 1: parasite access to the inside of the host plant. And
Speaker 1: I get a strong feeling that if we were plants
Speaker 1: looking at how story a growing into a tree, it
Speaker 1: would be like a vomit inducing image, like like when
Speaker 1: we actually look at a botfly burrowing into human flesh.
Speaker 1: This is a fascinating parasitic penetration, and there are multiple
Speaker 1: ways that can happen, so you've got these different kinds
Speaker 1: of how storia. Sometimes parasitic plants just produce a single
Speaker 1: large house story um which forms a kind of bulbous
Speaker 1: tumor sinking into the surface of the host plant, with
Speaker 1: multiple parasitic stems branching off. Sometimes they produce multiple house
Speaker 1: storia which take over from the parasites traditional soil root
Speaker 1: once the host has been acquired. And these how storia
Speaker 1: are part of a general class called epic cortical roots.
Speaker 1: Bark penetrating roots in the same way in normal plant
Speaker 1: would put roots into the soil, this one has root
Speaker 1: like structures that pierce the bark of the host plant
Speaker 1: and stab and go down inside, so they puncture the
Speaker 1: host plant, They grow inside, they breach the vascular tissue
Speaker 1: of the host plant so they can steal nutrients and water,
Speaker 1: and they sometimes even form networks of epicortical roots inside
Speaker 1: the host plant. So to go with the vampire analogy,
Speaker 1: it doesn't quite capture the full extent of the parasitism here.
Speaker 1: You have to imagine a vampire. Okay, so vampire bites
Speaker 1: your neck, Robert, but it doesn't just bite your neck
Speaker 1: and suck your blood. Instead, it bites your neck and
Speaker 1: then it's fangs begin to grow deep inside your body
Speaker 1: and penetrate your veins and arteries and grow into maybe
Speaker 1: networks or fang tunnels under your skin. And then maybe
Speaker 1: the vampire also grows new fangs out of its chin
Speaker 1: and out of its eyes, and his nipples and stuff
Speaker 1: that keep piercing you again and again. That's a rough image, yes,
Speaker 1: for for plant audiences, this is an R rated feature,
Speaker 1: maybe excerated, yeah, I mean essentially growing root like tendrils
Speaker 1: into your body and cause, of course, into the plant.
Speaker 1: So one of the things that Blackmore points out in
Speaker 1: his book is that many parasitic plants lack chlorophyll because
Speaker 1: they're stealing energy from the host, so they don't need
Speaker 1: to make their own food via photosynthesis, And this is
Speaker 1: one reason parasitic plants are often in many beautiful colors.
Speaker 1: They don't need the green pigment chlorophyll to absorb light
Speaker 1: energy and kick off the chemical process of photosynthesis because
Speaker 1: unlike most plants, they're not making all or any of
Speaker 1: their own food. I've included a couple of pictures here
Speaker 1: of other parasitic plants growing off of the stems of hosts,
Speaker 1: like a parasitic climber known as daughter that is this
Speaker 1: beautiful orange and blue and yellow. It looks it almost
Speaker 1: looks not like a plant. But anyway, mistletoe is usually
Speaker 1: an exception to this, right, Yeah, technically it's a Hinni
Speaker 1: parasite parasite parasitic plant that is capable of some photosintse
Speaker 1: at this like you said, so it's not as destructive
Speaker 1: as other forms of plant parasites that simply drain the
Speaker 1: host dry. There are plant parasites that are more in
Speaker 1: the destroyer vein, but missiletoe tends to at least make
Speaker 1: some of its own food via photosynthesis, though it very
Speaker 1: species to species, and some species of missiletoe produce relatively
Speaker 1: little food autotrophically, It just depends on which one you're
Speaker 1: talking about. Now, we mentioned earlier that botanists are still
Speaker 1: figuring out things about missiletoe and how it works, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, two thousand years after plenty and interestingly enough,
Speaker 1: according to two separate studies that were published in two
Speaker 1: thousand eighteen in the journal Current Biology, the plant lacks
Speaker 1: key cellular components that other organisms depend upon to convert
Speaker 1: glucose into the energy carrying molecule a TP. It uses
Speaker 1: alternative energy pathway which generate energy in a different part
Speaker 1: of the cell. In other words, it lost respiratory capacity
Speaker 1: in its evolution, something previously only observed in unicellular organism
Speaker 1: in in single cell organisms. So, at least for now,
Speaker 1: unless other discoveries are made, it is seemingly unique among
Speaker 1: multicellular organisms. Basically, over the course of millions of years,
Speaker 1: it remodeled the way that it generates energy at the
Speaker 1: molecular level. Now, I think maybe it is time to
Speaker 1: take a quick break, and when we come back we
Speaker 1: will discuss some more interesting features of the missiletoe parasite
Speaker 1: than alright, we're back. So here's another strange feature of
Speaker 1: missiletoe that Blackmore writes about in his book that I
Speaker 1: mentioned a little bit ago. So Blackmore says that some
Speaker 1: species of missiletoe exhibit a weird form of mimicry where
Speaker 1: their leaves become similar in appearance to the leaves of
Speaker 1: the host plant. So why would this be, right, It's
Speaker 1: not like now you you can imagine uses of physical
Speaker 1: mimicry in the animal world, right, like you've got ant
Speaker 1: mimics that want to be able to blend in with
Speaker 1: a bunch of ants, or b mimics that want to
Speaker 1: blend in, you know, you want to look like some
Speaker 1: other animal. But the host plant in this relationship between
Speaker 1: the parasitic plant and the host plant, like an oak,
Speaker 1: doesn't have eyes to deceive, right, So one possi. So
Speaker 1: people are wondering why would this happen. One possible explanation
Speaker 1: here that Blackmore mentions seems to be the missiletoe is
Speaker 1: trying to survive by blending in with a host plant
Speaker 1: that has foul tasting leaves that herbivores don't like to eat,
Speaker 1: when in fact, a grazing herbivore like maybe a deer
Speaker 1: or a giraffe or something. It might try missiletoe and
Speaker 1: find that the parasitic plant is in fact delicious. So
Speaker 1: instead the parasite tends to try to blend in with
Speaker 1: nasty or unpalatable host leaves by having leaves that look
Speaker 1: the same. And that's that's just one possible explanation. And
Speaker 1: this is interesting because I feel like when I see
Speaker 1: missiletoe and actually identify missiletoe, it is because it is
Speaker 1: painfully obvious in its location, such as it is the
Speaker 1: one green thing growing uh in an a tree that
Speaker 1: has lost its leaves for the winter, Yes, or its
Speaker 1: stem structure is so obviously different, like the tree might
Speaker 1: have thicker, sparser branches, and then the mistletoe is suddenly
Speaker 1: this puff it looks like a tumble weed or something
Speaker 1: many many smaller branches uh and uh. And so sometimes
Speaker 1: trees can have natural structures that look like that, that
Speaker 1: is the tree itself, like the witches broom phenomenon, where
Speaker 1: a tree will produce what looks kind of like a
Speaker 1: tumbleweed or some crazy tangle of of stems and branches
Speaker 1: on part of it. And I think this is just
Speaker 1: usually an indication that something is wrong with the tree,
Speaker 1: but it is the tree itself doing it. But yeah,
Speaker 1: this is interesting anyway because I feel the same way
Speaker 1: you do. Usually, I feel like you can notice mistletoe
Speaker 1: on a tree or parasitic plants on a tree in general,
Speaker 1: because they look so different. Now, I feel like by
Speaker 1: this point most people have seen some depiction of mistletoe.
Speaker 1: There's probably one accompanying this episode at our landing page
Speaker 1: on Stuff to your mind dot com. But if you
Speaker 1: haven't seen it, you've probably seen it in art, holiday decorations,
Speaker 1: or again just hanging in your neighborhood. Mistletoe has pointy, green,
Speaker 1: leatherly leaves, usually with with waxy berries that are either
Speaker 1: red or white, and these berries are eaten by birds,
Speaker 1: who then defecate in other trees, thus spreading the seeds.
Speaker 1: But the seeds are also sticky, so they spread as
Speaker 1: well when birds have to wipe their beaks on branches
Speaker 1: to clean them off for their feet. Also. Yes, and
Speaker 1: this connection with birds is interesting because in olden times
Speaker 1: people actually thought the plant emerged from bird poop itself.
Speaker 1: Plenty was saying that way, yeah, and then the name
Speaker 1: only ripen in the stomachs of birds. Right, and this
Speaker 1: is also reflected in the name of the planet itself.
Speaker 1: The word mistletoe is derived from the Anglo Saxon word mistel,
Speaker 1: which means dung in ton, which means twig. So missileton
Speaker 1: is the Old English version of mistletoe. Oh that's interesting.
Speaker 1: So you so you do have a tradition of essentially
Speaker 1: kissing under the sticky dung berries. Yeah, throughout the whole
Speaker 1: episode like that. That's the thing I keep coming back to,
Speaker 1: is that, uh, all these these ideas about the plant
Speaker 1: and then the the identity of the planet itself, the
Speaker 1: way the plant functions seems so at odd with this
Speaker 1: quirky you just romantic tidbit that has just become not
Speaker 1: a central detail of our holiday traditions, but you know,
Speaker 1: at least, um, you know, an identifiable part of it. Now,
Speaker 1: as much as we want to associate missiletoe through our
Speaker 1: traditions with with positivity and kissing and all that kind
Speaker 1: of fun stuff, you shouldn't be eating missiletoe. Don't put
Speaker 1: it inside you, that's right. Humans should not hate the berries,
Speaker 1: as they can make you ill, and we're talking severe
Speaker 1: stomach cramps and diarrhea or even death. In some cases. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was looking up some stats on missiletoe toxicity, and
Speaker 1: so I looked at a an article called Holiday Plants
Speaker 1: with Toxic Misconceptions in the Western Journal of Emergency Medicine
Speaker 1: by Zabrina Evans and Samuel Stealth flug Uh. So they
Speaker 1: looked at two different common missiletoe plants that people use
Speaker 1: as decorations. One is American missiletoe, which is for a
Speaker 1: dendron seratonin um, and then European missiletoe, which is viscom
Speaker 1: album and both are potentially toxic and slightly different ways.
Speaker 1: American missiletoe produces for a toxin, a tox album in,
Speaker 1: and this is toxic to humans, but most small ingestions
Speaker 1: don't produce much of a reaction. European missiletoe is relatively
Speaker 1: more toxic. It contains visco toxins, which quote inhibits cellular synthesis,
Speaker 1: thereby affecting cells with rapid turnover like gastro intestinal mucosa.
Speaker 1: So the mucus in your gut, in your digestive system,
Speaker 1: needs to rapidly produce new cells. This inhibits that, and
Speaker 1: there's probably one reason you get reports of gastro intestinal
Speaker 1: distress after people eat it quote after a latent period
Speaker 1: of several hours. Clinical effects from visco toxins can develop
Speaker 1: and are primarily gastro intestinal upset, with potential necrotic lesions
Speaker 1: resulting in slough thing of the gastro intestinal tract, brady cardia, delirium,
Speaker 1: as well as toxicity the liver, central nervous system, kidney,
Speaker 1: and adrenals can also occur, although the incidence is not known. Uh. Fortunately,
Speaker 1: most cases of ingestion of missiletoe in the literature do
Speaker 1: not result in death. But you still should probably avoid
Speaker 1: consuming it, and you really do not want to make
Speaker 1: missiletoe tease because it seems like that's where the danger
Speaker 1: gets super gets gets real, right, and and so obviously
Speaker 1: one of the problems here too would be if you
Speaker 1: keep missiletoe in your home, you would potentially have to
Speaker 1: worry about children or pets getting ahold of the berries.
Speaker 1: So um, it's interesting what you said earlier about about
Speaker 1: how to effects cells, because it's interesting that some experiments
Speaker 1: have revealed potential medicinal uses for the plant, including work
Speaker 1: from the University of Adelaide and that explored the use
Speaker 1: of the plants extract in battling colon cancer. Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: In particular, they found that the ash tree missiletoe plant
Speaker 1: fraccini was more effective in battling colon cancer cells than chemotherapy.
Speaker 1: Scientists are still looking into it, of course, but mistletoe
Speaker 1: extract remains a popular alternative treatment for cancer in many areas,
Speaker 1: and it's it's been widely studied, and it is apparently
Speaker 1: prescribed in Europe with reportedly few side effects. But there
Speaker 1: is currently no FDA approved missiletoe cancer treatment in the
Speaker 1: United States. But of course, on the other hand, missiletoe
Speaker 1: has been a part of human magic uh and and
Speaker 1: magical thinking and magical potions and traditional healing regiments for
Speaker 1: quite some time. For instance, it does show up in
Speaker 1: traditional Chinese medicine as huji shun uh where, and this
Speaker 1: is a basically dried leaves and stems of a variety
Speaker 1: of missiletoe, and it's used to treat a variety of ailments. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it comes up with all kinds of stuff. In fact,
Speaker 1: I think maybe it's time to play our favorite game show.
Speaker 1: Weird Old letters to Medical Journal. Do you want to
Speaker 1: go down this road with me? Yea? How far back
Speaker 1: are we going? Nineteen o four. So February nineteen o
Speaker 1: four there's a British officer station in Calcutta named Lieutenant
Speaker 1: Colonel George Ranking, and he wrote a letter to the
Speaker 1: Lancet about missiletoe. And in this letter he quoted from
Speaker 1: a translation of a Persian medical text he had encountered
Speaker 1: called the and I might not be pronouncing this right,
Speaker 1: the Makazanu lad Mia, which means the storehouse of medicines.
Speaker 1: And this text discussed the medical uses of missiletoe, saying
Speaker 1: things like quote, it is effectual in purging away the
Speaker 1: black bile and mucus humors. A few ways you would
Speaker 1: use it include quote with turpentine and wax, it is
Speaker 1: used for the ripening of boils, pustular eruptions of mucus origin,
Speaker 1: and phligmatic tumors. Also for softening the joints. Do you
Speaker 1: want them softened? I'm not quite sure what that means. Well,
Speaker 1: I don't want to hardened. I guess that's true. Yeah. Uh.
Speaker 1: Quote with arsenic and pitch it is used to extract
Speaker 1: the nails. And with quicklime and grape juice and honey
Speaker 1: it is used to make the nails grow again. I'm
Speaker 1: not quite sure that it's extracting the nails. Um, I'm
Speaker 1: just having had some of my nails extracted before. I
Speaker 1: would assume it might have to do with say, ingrown
Speaker 1: nails and grown toe nails and whatnot. That might be
Speaker 1: a case we would need to extract something and then
Speaker 1: afterwards like hope for some level of appropriate regrowth. Okay,
Speaker 1: here's one. A decoction of it in lime water is
Speaker 1: useful for removing swellings of the spleen, while a paste
Speaker 1: of it made with lime is a means of removing
Speaker 1: induration of the spleen, and is also useful in drawing
Speaker 1: out gross humors from the depths of the body. But
Speaker 1: the authors also say it is injurious to the heart.
Speaker 1: And then finally quote when mistletoe berries are cooked with
Speaker 1: honey syrup of dates and sapistan and made into long,
Speaker 1: fine threads. It is put on the surface of trees
Speaker 1: when any bird that settles sticks to the tree and
Speaker 1: is caught. It's birdlime. Again, glue traps for birds. That
Speaker 1: that's that's pretty sick, right, And it does, of course
Speaker 1: tie in with the sticky property of of the berries
Speaker 1: that we discussed earlier. Now, all of this is very
Speaker 1: fascinating because, on one hand, we do see medical professionals
Speaker 1: identifying potential applications here, essentially saying that there is an
Speaker 1: effect on cells, and in particular on cancer cells. It
Speaker 1: seems that may prove useful in the long run. On
Speaker 1: the other hand, we don't seem to fully understand Yeah,
Speaker 1: we don't seem to fully understand it. It's again, there's
Speaker 1: no FDA approved medication uh as of this publication that
Speaker 1: derives from mistletoe. But on the other hand, we also
Speaker 1: have all of these traditional uses of it. And with
Speaker 1: the traditional uses, I feel like it may come back
Speaker 1: to something we've discussed in the past that the the
Speaker 1: some thing is happening uh situation, where As we've discussed
Speaker 1: consuming these can make you feel ill, can make you
Speaker 1: feel a little weird, like something is happening inside you
Speaker 1: and it is Yeah, yeah, it gave me diarrhea. Something's happening, right,
Speaker 1: And in doing that it it certainly purged you of
Speaker 1: well something that it purge you of what was actually
Speaker 1: ailing you. Did it or did it just give you
Speaker 1: this incentive to to lean into the magical thinking of
Speaker 1: the potion or elixir or tea or whatever was prepared
Speaker 1: for you by the magician or druid or so whothsayer.
Speaker 1: All right, well, on that note, we're gonna take one
Speaker 1: more break. When we come back. We're going to dive
Speaker 1: into some of the mythology of missiletoe and indeed get
Speaker 1: back to that question of why is it hanging around
Speaker 1: at Christmas time? Than all right, we're back, So I
Speaker 1: think it's time to refresh on that passage from Old
Speaker 1: Plenty and talk about the ritual of oakan oak and missiletoe. Okay,
Speaker 1: so Old Plenty of the Elder says about the ritual
Speaker 1: of oak and mistletoe. He says, the druids are the
Speaker 1: priests or the magicians of the galls. He says, the
Speaker 1: druids hold sacred both mistletoe and the hard oak trees
Speaker 1: that it grows on. Heart oak leaves are necessary for
Speaker 1: druid rites and spells. Uh. The Druids think that anything
Speaker 1: growing on a hard oak is sent down from heaven.
Speaker 1: When the Druids fine mistletoe growing on a hard oak,
Speaker 1: which he says is pretty rare, I don't know how
Speaker 1: rare it actually is, they hold a ceremony which is
Speaker 1: also timed with cycles of the moon and thirty year
Speaker 1: in intervals. So they hold a banquet beneath the trees.
Speaker 1: They show up with two white bulls and bind their horns.
Speaker 1: A priest dressed in white climbs the tree cuts the
Speaker 1: mistletoe with a golden sickle. And I should note I
Speaker 1: looked up viscoum album the native European stuff, uh species
Speaker 1: of mistletoe, and it does often seem to have a
Speaker 1: kind of green, gold or golden color. So I wonder
Speaker 1: if that there's any association with a golden sickle. Uh.
Speaker 1: Then so he cuts it. The mistletoe falls into a
Speaker 1: white cloak. Below. They kill the bowls while praying to
Speaker 1: their god, and then quote they believe that mistletoe given
Speaker 1: in drink will impart fertility to any animal that is barren,
Speaker 1: and that it is an antidote for all poisons. So
Speaker 1: powerful is the superstition in regard to trifling matters that
Speaker 1: frequently prevails among the races of mankind. He's just kind
Speaker 1: of like insulting them at the end there does he
Speaker 1: say that about Roman rituals, Well, I mean Roman rituals.
Speaker 1: I guess at the time where the it was the
Speaker 1: bleeding edge of cultural advancement. Yeah, those are the rational rituals,
Speaker 1: or at least that's what the entrails of the bird
Speaker 1: told him. I'm sure, yeah, okay, But so they believe
Speaker 1: that it will give fertility when you're infertile, and that
Speaker 1: it will cure all poisons. Now the association here with
Speaker 1: the idea of fertility does give you some kind of lake.
Speaker 1: You know. I wonder if the the idea that it
Speaker 1: would make animals and presumably humans also fertile, could be
Speaker 1: a could be a link to the kissing, could be right,
Speaker 1: you know, something going on there that does seem to
Speaker 1: because because the fertility, and then also some ideas that
Speaker 1: it's an aphrodisiac. Uh. These these are recurring themes and
Speaker 1: some of these older traditions that I believe have been
Speaker 1: like the main the only thing that's really remained after
Speaker 1: they've been boiled down by popular culture. Uh. Here, here's
Speaker 1: another example of sort of the mythic meat that has
Speaker 1: been boiled away from the bones of the tradition, and
Speaker 1: that has to do with the role of mistletoe in
Speaker 1: the death of the Norse god balder So. I was
Speaker 1: reading in Dictionary of Nature Myths Legends of the Earth, Sea,
Speaker 1: and Sky by Tamara Andrews, and she talks a bit
Speaker 1: about the death of the Norse god Balder, the god
Speaker 1: of light, son of Odin and Frigate. And he was
Speaker 1: he was a being of just beauty and light, white hair,
Speaker 1: born on the winter solstice uh, and the winter solstice
Speaker 1: here being the beginning of the Sun's journey towards maximum brightness.
Speaker 1: But then he dies on the summer solstice, the day
Speaker 1: of the sun's peak brightness, but the beginning of its
Speaker 1: fade toward winter. So his uh, his birth is the
Speaker 1: thing that brings us out of the cold, and then
Speaker 1: his death is the thing that that that dooms us
Speaker 1: to descent back into winter. And you know, this is
Speaker 1: the kind of seasonal UH motif that we've seen a
Speaker 1: lot of old myths and a huge number of ancient
Speaker 1: religions have strong connections to the idea that the passing
Speaker 1: of the seasons UH. And then you know, there's always
Speaker 1: been this interpretive idea that the UH that like a
Speaker 1: god who dies and is reborn or descends into the
Speaker 1: underworld and comes back up, has something to do with
Speaker 1: like the winter, spring summer cycle. Right. And then of
Speaker 1: course our holiday traditions, Christmas traditions, what have you. These
Speaker 1: are all intrinsically tied to these ideas as well, the
Speaker 1: things we must do, the traditions and rights that will
Speaker 1: sustain us through the time of cold death. Uh, through
Speaker 1: the darkness and back into light on the other side.
Speaker 1: So but but let's get back to Balder here. So
Speaker 1: Balder dreamt of his own death and yeah, of plots
Speaker 1: against him. But luckily his his mother is a powerful god.
Speaker 1: I mean, she's the god of love. And so of
Speaker 1: what Frigate did is she she sent out a message
Speaker 1: to all the plants, the animals, even the diseases of
Speaker 1: the world, and she said, look, my son's off limits, right,
Speaker 1: He's having dreams about people trying to kill him and
Speaker 1: plots against him. So I'm just stay away, stay away,
Speaker 1: off limits. Uh. And then all the plants, animals and
Speaker 1: diseases are right right on. What are the other plants
Speaker 1: that would be threatening him? Or is there where there
Speaker 1: like killer trees at the time. I mean, I guess
Speaker 1: the tree can fall on you and stuff too. Okay,
Speaker 1: they're thorns. I mean she's probably covering a lot of
Speaker 1: ground here. There are a lot of animals that were
Speaker 1: probably not going to kill a god either. But but
Speaker 1: as but then again, as we'll see here, um this
Speaker 1: this might this might seem like a ridiculous level of protection,
Speaker 1: even for a mother god, but but perhaps not considering
Speaker 1: somebody that was working against him. Yeah, yeah, none other
Speaker 1: than Loki. Oh, it would be just like Loki to
Speaker 1: like six some rabbits or daffodils to kill you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so Loki does get involved. But but at any rate,
Speaker 1: this is what happens. Depending on the version that you're reading.
Speaker 1: She either forgets to tell Mistletoe that her son is
Speaker 1: off limits and then he shouldn't die, or in some versions,
Speaker 1: since mistletoe is a plant without roots in the earth,
Speaker 1: it could not hear her command, and I like that
Speaker 1: version better. And so what happens is the god Loki
Speaker 1: tricks the blind god Holder into hurling a fistful of
Speaker 1: mistletoe at Balder's heart, killing him dead. And I was
Speaker 1: looking this up. I found some artistic depictions of this
Speaker 1: that look less like a bundle like, because when I
Speaker 1: read that, I'm imagining like a big wad of mistletoe
Speaker 1: hurled like a baseball into Balder's heart. And I've seen
Speaker 1: some interesting depictions of this where where Loki is whispering
Speaker 1: to hold her and then Holder just drives the how story, um,
Speaker 1: this like two pronged death root straight through Balder's heart
Speaker 1: and out the other side. So like breaks off the
Speaker 1: fang of the plant vampire and uses it to kill
Speaker 1: the god of light Balder in this painting or drawing,
Speaker 1: I don't know what this this this image you've got here.
Speaker 1: What it looks to me is like Loki is like
Speaker 1: making out with Holder and they've both got their hand
Speaker 1: on this little two forked thing that's going straight through Balder,
Speaker 1: and Balder is like, no, he's got a real death
Speaker 1: face going on in this image. I'll try to remember
Speaker 1: to put this on the landing page for this episode
Speaker 1: is stuff to blow your mind dot Com, hopefully with
Speaker 1: a little extra information about where it came from. But so, yeah,
Speaker 1: what happens here is that Balder dies and the sun declines,
Speaker 1: and while the Sun eventually comes back, Balder does not,
Speaker 1: for the lords of the Underworld only agreed to his
Speaker 1: resurrection if everyone on Earth wept for him, and the
Speaker 1: thing is everyone did except for Loki. So Balder will
Speaker 1: not return to the Earth until Ragnarok Loki, the original troll. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so here we see, you know, more of the
Speaker 1: symbolic role of mistletoe here in the mythic understanding of
Speaker 1: winter in Norse traditions. And by the way, this is
Speaker 1: also a reason that some Norse traditions held mistletoe had
Speaker 1: the power to resurrect the dead. Now wait a minute,
Speaker 1: we so I love that legend, but what does that
Speaker 1: have to do with kissing? Are we getting any closer
Speaker 1: to figuring out why there's kissing under the mistletoe underneath
Speaker 1: the god slaying parasitic tree route. Well, you know, there
Speaker 1: are other traditions that we should probably touch on, such
Speaker 1: as the old French tradition that the plant is is
Speaker 1: now cursed to never find purchase on earth soil because
Speaker 1: it was once a variety of tree, and that tree
Speaker 1: was used to construct the cross upon which Jesus was crucified,
Speaker 1: which you know, it seems a bit a bit cruel
Speaker 1: to blame the tree for that. Jesus himself sometimes blame tree.
Speaker 1: You're the cursing of the fig tree. I have forgotten
Speaker 1: what what was Jesus beef with figs? Well, he goes
Speaker 1: by a fig tree and it doesn't have figs because
Speaker 1: figs weren't in season, and he gets mad at the
Speaker 1: tree and he curses it and withers it. Oh, man,
Speaker 1: I think it's it's like an allegory. I think for
Speaker 1: about like people who I don't know. It's been a
Speaker 1: while since I read the story. I think it's about people,
Speaker 1: not you know, bearing good fruit in the spiritual sense. Okay,
Speaker 1: I should I should read that because I'm I have
Speaker 1: a fig tree, and sometimes I curse it for the
Speaker 1: way it behaves really, but generally it gives me. It
Speaker 1: gives me figs in the end, so uh, to refresh.
Speaker 1: We've talked about some of these traditions that place mistletoe
Speaker 1: firmly in winter and is a part of winter traditions,
Speaker 1: and and again we also come back to the idea
Speaker 1: that missiletoe is often seen thriving in lifeless winter trees. Uh.
Speaker 1: And there's one in my neighborhood that does this. It's
Speaker 1: it's over a road, so I hope there aren't too
Speaker 1: many people trying to just smooth under it. But but
Speaker 1: I see it pretty frequently. And then we have these
Speaker 1: other traditions that push it more toward the area of
Speaker 1: sex in life. Africa again was the goddess of love,
Speaker 1: and some traditions claim that the berries were aphrodisiacs that
Speaker 1: they would enhance uh, you know, sexual activity and desire. Uh.
Speaker 1: That's kind of weird given the symptoms we looked at. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe just a small dose with a splash
Speaker 1: of magical thinking would do the trick. But but hopefully
Speaker 1: you don't want full on diarrhea um before you, you know,
Speaker 1: seek out your love. When I get that feeling, I
Speaker 1: need intestinal slough. And now when we come to our
Speaker 1: modern traditions with missiletoe, generally the version we hear is
Speaker 1: that like two people who are dating or married or whatever,
Speaker 1: that they kiss under the missiletoe. Uh. And that's about it, right,
Speaker 1: It's just this cute thing that you do. Um. But
Speaker 1: some traditions require the male kisser to remove a berry
Speaker 1: with each kiss. So these are kind of just thinking
Speaker 1: dungeons and dragons terms. I'm thinking these each berry is
Speaker 1: like a magical charge on the plant, and once they're gone,
Speaker 1: there's no more kissing. Other traditions frame it is more
Speaker 1: of a bit of relationship good luck. I see. Well, wait,
Speaker 1: what do you do with the berries. When you remove them,
Speaker 1: do you have to eat them with each kiss or
Speaker 1: you just throw them on the ground. They didn't specify.
Speaker 1: I guess you just chunk them and and hope nobody
Speaker 1: picking up children pick it up and eat it. Oh,
Speaker 1: I know. Maybe it's a way of combining the process
Speaker 1: of kissing and making bird lime. Maybe so. Now, other
Speaker 1: traditions say that you can put it under your pillow
Speaker 1: if you're a maiden, and then you will dream of
Speaker 1: your true love. And meanwhile, in other traditions it was
Speaker 1: seen as a sort of designator of holy ground. So
Speaker 1: in other words, the leaders of say two warring forces
Speaker 1: might meet beneath the mistletoe and parlay or just just talk,
Speaker 1: though the kissing is optional. I mean, if things go
Speaker 1: really well, then yes, maybe they could be kissing. But
Speaker 1: otherwise this would be the kind of place where you
Speaker 1: would just discuss in safety, some manner of truce. So
Speaker 1: what have you exchange of captives? I can't help, of course,
Speaker 1: but think to the scenes in in Highlander where where
Speaker 1: Connor McLeod meets the Kurgan and they can meet in
Speaker 1: holy ground, they can meet in a church and it's
Speaker 1: totally cool. All the Kurgan can do is just you know,
Speaker 1: be awful to everybody. We can't actually try and cut
Speaker 1: Connor's head off, but we know there's a quickening soon
Speaker 1: to be had, right, But they could have met under
Speaker 1: the missiletoe. It sounds like maybe that's something that's explored
Speaker 1: in the television series, and we'll hear about it from
Speaker 1: Highlander TV fans out there. You know, I've also seen
Speaker 1: that suggested that this tradition of kissing under the missiletoe
Speaker 1: somehow comes from the missiletoe's association with Saturnalia, the sort
Speaker 1: of winter Roman festival of wild revelry and you know,
Speaker 1: no rules kind of stuff. Oh yeah, okay, so it's
Speaker 1: kind of like a chaos plant as well. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean Saturnalia involved a lot of reversals of things. One
Speaker 1: of these many festivals where like the master would serve
Speaker 1: his slaves, there would be uh, you know, gambling was
Speaker 1: legal and that kind of thing. So beneath the missiletoe,
Speaker 1: the fool made kiss the princess and it is okay, yes, okay, alright,
Speaker 1: So that that that's the weird thing with it. With
Speaker 1: the modern tradition, we just see all of these various
Speaker 1: ideas about missiletoe kind of just smashing into each other
Speaker 1: and there's very little left at the end of it,
Speaker 1: but it's it's still something that sticks with us. Well,
Speaker 1: it's frustrating because I feel like we don't really have
Speaker 1: a firm answer to the question of where does the
Speaker 1: kissing under the missiletoe come from? Right, There's just a
Speaker 1: lot of kind of ideas, but we don't really know, right.
Speaker 1: But I do feel like the nature of the examples
Speaker 1: we looked at it kind of allows us to triangulate,
Speaker 1: you know, where where where this tradition comes from. You know,
Speaker 1: a dash of of of of of the the god
Speaker 1: ordained here, a dash of of reversal here, and a
Speaker 1: dash of magical afrodisiac and uh uh, you know reproductive
Speaker 1: elixir here, right, ritual sexual sloughing, yes, And then we're
Speaker 1: left with what the left of our modern missiletoe tradition.
Speaker 1: But one thing for sure is we've certainly gotten away
Speaker 1: from the darker aspects of missiletoe, not all the time,
Speaker 1: like sometimes I think it's still used as a as
Speaker 1: a good indicator of evil and ruin. Yeah. Well, and
Speaker 1: we can find a great example of that in the
Speaker 1: works of William Shakespeare. Oh yeah, who's gonna read this
Speaker 1: quote from ty to Sandronicus? Is it me or you? Oh?
Speaker 1: We could split it up. Okay, I'll go first. Have
Speaker 1: I not reason, thank you to look pale? These two
Speaker 1: have ticed me hither to this place, a barren, detested veil.
Speaker 1: You see, it is the trees, though summer yet forlorn
Speaker 1: and lean or come with moss and baleful missiletoe. Here
Speaker 1: never shines the sun. Here nothing breeds unless the nightly
Speaker 1: owl or fatal raven. And when they'd showed me this
Speaker 1: abhorred pit, they told me here at dead time of
Speaker 1: the night, a thousand fiends, a thousand hissing snakes, ten
Speaker 1: thousands swelling toads, as many urchins would make such fearful
Speaker 1: and confused cries, as any mortal body hearing it should
Speaker 1: straight fall mad or else die suddenly. Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas, everybody.
Speaker 1: There's shure, there's sure your your mistletoe. Folks, Well, you know,
Speaker 1: I think part of truly appreciating Western American holiday traditions
Speaker 1: is again to to to realize all of the deeper
Speaker 1: and really often darker mythological undertones that we've mostly swept
Speaker 1: under the red and white rug. Why is that rug
Speaker 1: so red and white to begin with? I mean, it's
Speaker 1: the color of snowy, death and blood. Um, But you know,
Speaker 1: it brings me back to that. There's a line from
Speaker 1: Terry Pratchett's The hog Father, which is an hilarious book
Speaker 1: Christmas book. They made a fun TV version of it
Speaker 1: years back, and it's one of these where the hog Father,
Speaker 1: the Discworld's version of Santa Claus h is taken away,
Speaker 1: something happens to him and death himself. The grim Reaper
Speaker 1: voice Ian Richardson has to jump in and play the
Speaker 1: role of the hog Father for like cosmic purposes, because
Speaker 1: the hog Father must do his job so that spring
Speaker 1: may return again, so that the world can continue. But
Speaker 1: in the intro of the narrator points out that that
Speaker 1: all of our our stories, all of our traditions are
Speaker 1: sooner or later about blood. All right. So there you
Speaker 1: have it, Mistletoe Holiday episode. If you want to check
Speaker 1: out more episodes of Stuff to Blow your Mind, head
Speaker 1: on over to our mothership Stuff to Blow your Mind
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