Irish Druids And Old Irish Religions

Its connection with health, as the All-heal, is noted by the poet Callimachus, under the appellation of panakea, sacred to Apollo:--

"Where'er the genial panakea falls,
Health crowns the State, and safety guards the walls."

As the seat of the life of the Oak, as then believed, it had special virtues as a healer. The Coel-Creni, or omen sticks, were made of it, and also divining-rods. It had the merit of revealing treasure, and repelling the unwelcome visits of evil spirits When cut upon St. John's Eve, its, power for good was greatest "While the shamrock emblematic of the equinox, the mistletoe is associated with the solstice," says St. Clair.

The ancient Persians knew it as the healer. It told of the sun's return to earth. Farmers in Britain used to give a sprig of mistletoe to the first cow calving in the year. Forlong points out the recovery of old heathen ideas; saying, "Christian priests forbade the mistletoe to enter their churches, but yet it not only got in, but found a place over the altars, and was held to betoken good will to all mankind." It was mysteriously associated with the dove. The Irish called it the uil-iceach: the Welsh uchelwydd. The County Magazine for 1792 remarked "A custom of kissing the women under the mistletoe-bush still prevails in many places, and without doubt the sure way to prove prolific." Pliny considered it good for sterility. It was the only thing that could slay the gentle Baldur. In England there are some twenty trees on which the mistletoe may grow.

Certain plants have at different times been objects special consideration, and worshipped as having divine qualities, or being possessed by a soul. Some were thought, to manifest sympathetic feeling with the nation by which they were cherished. The fetish tree of Coomassie fell

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