THE OAK TREE AND MISTLETOE

There are stories of the supernatural power of trees from many countries and throughout history worldwide.  We will look at mysteries surrounding the oak tree and its association with the semi-parasitic plant mistletoe and try to distinguish fact from fiction.

In all the major European cultures the oak tree is held in high esteem. It is a venerated tree and associated with the supreme god in the pantheons sacred to Zeus(Greek), Jupiter(Roman), Dagda(Celtic), Perun(Slavic) and Thor(Norse).  These gods also had domain over rain and thunder and lightening.

The oak’s connection with rainfall survives to this day in the rhyme:

If the oak before the ash

        Then we’ll only have a splash

If the ash before the oak

       Then we’ll surely have a soak

This old folk rhyme has scientific basis relating to the moisture content of the soil.  In a wet period the ash with its shallow root system can readily absorb moisture to develop budding and so come into leaf before the oak, whilst in a dry season the oak with its deep root system can tap into moisture deep in the soil and so bud before the ash. 

Oak trees appear to be more prone to lightening strikes than other trees.  This could be because of their low electrical resistance or because they are the largest and tallest living things in the landscape or because a god is sending an important message, maybe warning of a significant event to come. The old Gaelic word for oak is duire or dair.  Those who worshipped in oak groves, were Druids, men of the oaks,   Mistletoe, a plant magical to the Druids, sometimes grows on oaks and they  believed it to have been placed there by the hand of god during a lightening strike.  Alternatively the lightening could have caused a wound in the bark allowing the parasitic plant to enter.  

Pliny the elder, writing in his “Natural History” in the first century AD, tells of the magicians from Gaul, called Druids, and their veneration of mistletoe and the oak tree.  They held nothing more sacred than the mistletoe and the hard timbered oak on which it grows.  The mistletoe was gathered with great ceremony on the sixth day of the moon.  A ritual sacrifice and banquet beneath an oak tree was prepared and two white bulls with bound horns brought to the ceremony.  A Druid dressed in white robes and carrying a golden sickle climbed the tree and cut down the mistletoe, which was caught in a white cloak, the mistletoe and the bulls were sacrificed and prayers offered to the god of the oak tree.  The juice of the mistletoe, when drunk, was believed to cure barrenness in all animals and to act as an antidote to poison.  

Some twenty centuries later, Nicholas Culpepper, writing in his “Complete Herbal” of 1649 says that mistletoe is useful for treating convulsive fits, palsy and vertigo.  By his time it had been in use for hundreds of years as treatment for epilepsy, menopausal symptoms, infertility, arthritis and rheumatism.  Today research shows that mistletoe extracts may stimulate the immune system to fight cancer.  Studies show that mistletoe treatment may improve symptoms and reduce side effects of cancer treatments.  A few studies also show that it may have some effect on survival.

Here we see mythology  becoming folklore, and both being shown to have an underlying truth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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