State

Christmas May Be Snowless, But Never Mistletoeless tty NELL JOSIIN STYKON In North Carolina we often have a snowless Christmas but please, never a mistletoeless Christmas. Kissing under the mistletoe is a custom that’s come down the ages from Norse mythology, where the mistletoe shrub was dedicated to the Goddess of Love. So they believed that if two people embraced beneath a tree where it was growing they would be blessed with good luck and good health. The correct procedure for kissing was set out by Washington Irving in the "Sketch Book:" "One berry, one kiss." When all the berries have been picked from the hanging sprig, no more kisses. The ancient Druids believed that mistletoe was too sacred to be col¬ lected by just anyone. It was allowed to be harvested only on the sixth day of a new moon and only by a white robed priest armed with a golden sickle. Since the Druids were known to exact human sacrifices, mistletoe's reputa¬ tion was somewhat tarnished and the Christian churches forbade its use in decorating the churches for Christmas. Nowadays, anyone with expert markmanship can shoot it out of the high branches of oaks, maples, elms and other leaf-losing trees, but the ber¬ ries may be brushed off in the fall to the ground. It takes a lot of nerve to climb that far into the sky. and few have the tree-trimmers' pruning hooks. Com¬ mercially. we find it in little clear plas¬ tic packets sold in the supermarkets, unless we are lucky enough to find a healthy bunch at an open air farmers’ market. (’.row Your Own If you seriously want to try to grow your own mistletoe, save some berries this Christmas and store them in the refrigerator until early April. Then lift up a small section of bar к with a knife and slip a few seeds in the twig of last season’s wood on the underside, where there will be less drying. Mis¬ tletoe grows best on black gum. maple, elm and oak. though it has been found on apple tiees. It will lake three years 01 more before the mistletoe will pro¬ duce berries, hut there is always the chance that you will have berries of a strain of mistletoe that will grow only on the tree it came oft . which might be impossible to ascertain. Birds are responsible for the spread of mistletoe, normally. I'hey eat the pale green currantlike berries which have a sticky coating and sometimes in order to get this oil their beaks they scrape the seed onto the bark of the tree, where it sticks until it sprouts. Officially mistletoe is a parasite, al¬ though it does have green leaves to manufacture its own plant food, but it has to fasten on to a host-tree for its water and minerals. Mistletoe is long- lived, often surviving after the tree it is living on is dead. Trees, heavily in¬ fested with mistletoe are weakened by it and may die prematurely as a result. Supernatural Powers There has always been a mystery about it. Since it grew high in trees without any roots, ancient civilizations gave it supernatural powers. Peasants in both England and Japan believed it wasacurefor infertility I he Walosof Africa attached the leaves to their bodies before going into battle, be¬ lieving it would protect them from harm. In France it was widely used as an antidote for all poisons. One 17th century Btitish doctor stated that the shrub is "good for the grief of itch, sores, toothache and the biting of mad dogs and venomous beasts." As late as the middle of the 1700s. many European physicians be¬ lieved that it was a cure foi epilepsy — the hilling sickness because since mistletoe is so firmly attached to a tree that it cannot be blown down, an epileptic could not tall dow n if he con¬ sumed the plant regularly. It may have been medicine for men but it has proved fatal for cattle, since it proves toxic when consumed in large quantities. The berries are listed in “Stock Poisoning Plants of North Car¬ olina" by James W Hardin, but there is no explanation as to how cows could climb within nibbling distance. Knife And Fork VEGETABLE HUNT A continuous quest for people who travel around North Carolina a lot is the hunt for vegetables. Many restau¬ rants will serve tasty meats, or almost so. but the only accompaniment will be the ubiquitous "french fries" and perhaps a salad bar — w hich is better than no vegetables. One stock answer to the vegetable hunt is the cafeteria, and so wc seek out BaJcntinc's. K&W.S&W and others. Recently in Winston-Salem it was lunchtime, and I commented: "I’d rather have one spoonful of black-eyed peas than all the french fries in town." A friend suggested that if we wanted vegetables, a place called Mom's Kitchen at the Knollwood exit to 1-40 would be worth a visit. When we got there, the sign underneath Mom's Kitchen added "Home Cooking." (She probably was: we never saw Mom.) Inside, the bullet advertised that for S2.95 (tax and drink extra) you could have "all you can eat." This expres- I Continued on рак? 25) THE STATE. OtC 19