“Upon the corner of the moon,
  There hangs a vap’rous drop profound,
  I’ll catch it ere it come to ground.”

In a very excellent note to Dr. Giles’ translation of Richard of Cirencester, p. 432., he adduces the opinion of Dr. Daubeny, of Oxford, that as the mistletoe is now so rarely found in Europe on oaks, it had been exterminated with the other druidical rites on the introduction of Christianity.  I am not sufficiently botanist to determine how far it is possible to destroy the natural habitat of a plant propagated by extrinsic means, and should be more inclined to account for the difference then and now by supposing that the Druids may have known the secret of inoculating a desirable oak with the seeds where birds had not done so, and practised it when necessary.

P.S.  Since writing the above, I recollect that the Latin verse,

  “Ad viscum Druidae:  Druidae clamare solebant,”

is frequently quoted from Ovid, sometimes, and that recently, specifying the Fasti.  I need not tell you that it is not to be found there, and I wish to inquire if any of the numerous readers of your valuable publication can say where I can meet with it; if classical, it is another remarkable evidence of the endurance of popular customs to the present day.  In the following quotation from Keyssler’s Treatise de Visco, the Anklopferleinstag would be also a noisy demonstration dating from druidical times, at a period of the year not far removed from the beginning of November.

“In superiori Germaniae parte, Marchionatu Onolsbacensi comprehensa, cujus inolae plurimas Gentilismi reliquias retinent, regio ipsa multis Druidum vestigiis abundat, tempore adventus Christi, sive media Hyeme (am Anklopferleinstag), vulgus per vias et pagos currit malleisque pulsat fores et fenestras indesinenter clamans Gutheyl!  Gutheyl! Quod quidem non salutem per Christi adventum partam indicat, quasi diceres:  Gut Heyl; bona salus; multo minus fictitam Sanctam Guenthildem, quam rustici illius tractus miris fabulis ac nugis celebrant, sed nomen ipsum visci est.” {164}

The present popular and only German name of the mistletoe, the parent of our English denomination, is Mistel, which is evidently only Meist-heyl (most heal, or healing), the superlative of the above Gut-heyl, and both wonderfully agreeing with the name which Pliny says it bore in his time, Omnia sanans.

William Bell, Ph.D.

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FOLK LORE.

Folk Lore of South Northamptonshire.—­No. 2.