In urban myth Tequila is flavoured by a worm in each bottle. This is, of course, untrue. Only certain types of Mezcal (similar to Tequila) bottles have worms – and even those aren’t worms, they’re moth larvae from the Agave plants that are fermented to make the drink. Not worms, and not in Tequila. Popular belief will also tell you that mistletoe is toxic, dangerously so. So you might think it’s a myth that there’s […]
Current Affairs , druids , Mistletoe , social history
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Hanging the Mistletoe, by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
By the mid-nineteenth century hanging mistletoe at Christmas was all the rage, featuring regularly in accounts of celebrations, particularly newspapers and magazine, often with pictures. And of course there were paintings too, some by very famous painters – a favourite of mine is Bringing in the Mistletoe, a druid-themed painting by Edward Atkinson Hornel. But that’s not the one I’m featuring today! Most were of a much more domestic scenario than Hornel’s picture, and one […]
berries , Current Affairs , druids , Food and Drink , Gardening , Media , Mistletoe , Orchard , social history
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Mistletoe and Orchards on ITV today
Plenty of mistletoe mentions on ITV this morning – all within the 2 hour show Love Your Weekend with Alan Titchmarsh (on ITV Hub here). Helped along a bit by Sir Cliff ‘Mistletoe and Wine‘ Richard being the main guest. Christmas swag-making featured about 30 minutes in – with plenty of mistletoe incorporated into a very long decoration. Some good mentions of how sticky the berries are, and their need for light when germinating, but […]
berries , Blogroll , Current Affairs , Mistletoe , Orchard , social history
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The Mistletoe Boats
Going through old trading accounts of mistletoe ( as I am today, compiling some figures for a research paper) I’m often surprised at the attention given to mistletoe imports, once acknowledged to be the main source of Christmas mistletoe in Britain. Yes we do grow our own, and do still cut and sell our own, but there was once and probably still is a flourishing trade in imports, mainly from France. Newspaper coverage of these […]