By Katla HreiðarsdóttirDecember 11, 2015

The story about the mistletoe!

The Mistletoe is a remarkable plant that attaches itself to stems of trees and it gets nutrition from it like a parasite.

The Mistletoe that many use as a Christmas decoration is descended from North America but there also exists a European version that has white berries.

This mystical plant has been used for all sorts of Celtic, Germanic, and European ceremonies. Greece believed it had supernatural powers (so if you feel any, be sure to inform us! ;))

There are many stories that involve the mistletoe and one of them includes the Nordic love goddess Frigg but she considered the plant holy. Baldur, her son, had a dream about his own death and Frigg looked to all the natural forces; air, earth, water and fire and made them promise her that nothing in the world could ever hurt her son.

She failed to include this mystical plant that didn’t live in or on the ground but on the trunk of the apple tree.

“Loki”, Baldur’s arch enemy found out about this and got a cruel idea. He made an arrow from the plant and shot Baldur which lead to his very sad death. To his mother, Frigg, this was understandably a traumatising event and for three days she got all the natural forces to try to bring him back to life, without success.

Frigg supposedly cried every day of incurable grief and those tears turned to the white berries that can be found on the Mistletoe. The story says that in the end, her endless love finally brought her son back to life.

For the rest of time Frigg kissed everybody that walked under the apple tree where the Mistletoe was hanging, and it is believed that by doing so nothing evil will ever happen to either of them, love will always prevail!