Where did the practice of kissing under the mistletoe arise? Mistletoe is a fungus, for God’s sake.
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Even worse is the legend that supposedly accounts for our custom of kissing under the mistletoe at Christmas. In the version recounted by Edgar Nash in the Saturday Evening Post in 1898, the Scandinavian god Baldur told his mother Frigga that he had a premonition that he was going to die, whereupon Frigga extracted promises from every animal, vegetable, and mineral that it would not harm her son. She overlooked only the inconsequential mistletoe, a fact that came to the unfortunate attention of Loki, the god of destruction. Loki promptly hustled over to where the other gods, obviously in desperate need of entertainment, were hurling spears and whatnot at Baldur for the fun of seeing them swerve aside without harming him. The pitiless Loki, however, shot an arrow of mistletoe, which fatally pierced Baldur’s heart. Rather than punish Loki, the gods decided the answer was mistletoe control, and turned the plant over to Frigga to do with as she would, provided it did not touch the ground. (Why this was important I don’t know, although since it grows on trees mistletoe generally does not touch the ground.) Frigga hung up the mistletoe and, to show she did not bear a grudge, declared that all who passed beneath it should receive a kiss of love and forgiveness rather than, say, a severed aorta. So when somebody smooches a fellow hominid who has strayed beneath the mistletoe, he or she is implicitly saying: Be grateful it’s only a kiss, babe. I could have killed you. Maybe not such an inappropriate custom for the 90s after all.
LOVE AMONG THE ANNELIDS
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): illustration/Slug Signorino.
