Semi=weekly graphic., 1896-12-19
GOLDEN MISTLETOE.
THE WONDERFUL TREE IN A BEAU
 TlFUL GROVE.

Legends oG the Gloomy Vale and Death of BaIder the Beautiful-Ancients Be- lieved That Trees Could Feel Pain-Eo- man and Greek Mythology.
 Und grun des L.ebens goidner Baum.
 Faust.
 The sacred books of the Buddhists prove that in the early days of their religion "a question which deeply agi- l tated the minds of the learned was whether or not the trees had souls. says 1 a writer in the Philadelphia Ledger. The controversy ragged strongly, for the belief was widespread that ill injuring or mutilating a tree proportionate pain was inflicted on its spirits nature.
 The same idea creeps out again and again in Greek and Roman mythology, and the folklore of every country and people in Europe is full of it, and at such seasons as Christmas these prirni- tive customs are actually practiced.
 The numerous German and English songs and offerings to the apple trees are still heard and seen on every Christ mas. Ovid in his Metamorphoses' tells the beautiful story of Eriaiethon's i'm pious attack on tho grove of Ceres and how the Greek dryads and hamadryads had their lives linked to tree, and as "thia withers and dies they themselves fall aMay aud cease to ba. Any injury to bough or twig is felt as wound, and @ wholesale hewing down puts an end to them at once. A cry of anguish es- oapes them when the cruel ax comes near. y
 It was this established belief that produced such lines as:
 Loud through the ai1. resounds the woodman's stroke
 When, ioi voice breaks from tho grooming.
 oak,
 Spare, spare my life, Q trembling virgin sparel Oh, listen to the hamadryad's prayerl No longer let that fearful ax resound. Preserve the tree to which my life is bound. See, from the bark my blood in torrents flows. faint sink, perish from your blows.
 Accepting, then, this prevalent faith in the actual life and soul of the trees, we must pass on to the subjects on hand --the golden bough or mistletoe-the classic gloomy vale and it's locality, wherein the legend of Balder the Beau tiful and his death by the mistletoe shaft are in touch with the ancient doc trines of tree worship.
 It is often stated that Virgil gave this name of the golden bough to the mistle- toe, whereas he only compares it with the mistletoe.
 In the sixth book of the .Eneid" he tells us how two doves, guiding H1neas to the gloomy vale, in whose depth grew tho golden bough, alighted upon tree whence shone fickering gleam of gold As in the woods ill winter cold, the mistletoe-a plant not native to it's tree-is green with fresh leaves and twines its yellow berries about the boles. Such seemed upon the shady oak the leafy gold, so rustled in the gentle breeze tho golden leaf ; Virgil does not say it is the mistletoe, and yet what else? Its identification is perfect. Tho poet locates the gloomy vale in the neighborhood of Lake Avernus, but Italian tradition, as recorded by Servi- us, points to the grove of Nemi, Aricia. Now the story of this Arician grove is embodied in Maeaulay's 8 lines:
 The still glassy lake that sleeps
 Beneath Arlcla's trees
 Those trees i'll whose dim shadow
 The ghastly priest doth reign
 
 Ard shall himself be slain.
 In days of antiquity in this beautiful grove grew wonderful tree, round which prowling figure, sword in hand l seemed to be constantly expectant of an attack from some enemy. Yet he was the priest of the grove, and, by the or der of his office, he would some day be | killed by the claimant who wished to succeed him. To gain his position he had slain his predecessor, and, in course of time, must himself be slain. Such is Q brief context of Strabo's version. The branches of the tree might not be bro | ken, except by runaway slave. This bough gave him the right to challenge the priest, and, if successful, to assume the title of liking of the wood. Ira dition tells that this was the bough | which AEneas plucked before he jour neyed to the lower world. In the familiar story from Morse 1 mythology of Balder the Beautiful we recall the facts that he first dreamed and had great foreboding of evil. yet he belonged neither to earth nor heaven. His fellow gods, anxious to protect him, took an oath from fire, air, earth and water, stones, trees and plants, sick nesses and poison, birds, creeping things and four footed beasts that they should not injure Balder
 Being thus invulnerable, the gods amused themselves by throwing stones and logs at him. Then Loki, the mis- chief maker, discovered that east of Walhalla grew the mistletoe that seemed too young and innocent to swear. Pulling it, he placed branch in blind Hodur's hands, who threw and struck Balder dead Then his body was placed on his great ship Rmghor, the funeral pyre was lit, his faithful wife, Nanna-whose tears had fallen on the fatal branch and been turned into pearly berries--and his warhorse were burned with him as the ship drifted 1 away toward the northern sky edge.
 Now, when we recall that the sacred sacri6cial fires were kindled periOdical- |