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sm Mistletoe (viscum album). According to William Cameron of Poolewe sf. [Said by some to be the badge of the Hays, but it does not grow wild in Scotland]. The druids gathered the mistletoe on 10^th March says Pliny in the 16^th book of his Nat. Hist. “The druids hold nothing in such sacred respect as the mistletoe and the tree on which it grows, provided it be an oak. They select certain woods of oak and they do not perform any sacred rite without the leaf of that tree so that hence it is likely they have been called druids, explaining the name from the Greek drus, an oak; druids, oakites. What ever grows on that tree, more than its natural growth, they think has been sent from heaven and is a proof that the tree has been chosen by God himself. However that [species mistletoe] is very rarely found and when found it is sought after with great devotion and especially at the sixth moon, which is the beginning of their months and year, and when the tree has passed its thirtieth year, because it has already abundant vigour, though not half-grown. They call it by a word signifying in their own language, “all-heal”; and having prepared sacrifices and feasts under the tree, they bring up two white bulls, whose horns are then first bound; the priest in a white robe ascends the tree and cuts it off with a golden knife; it is received in a white sheet. Then, and not till then, they sacrifice the victims, praying that God would render his gift prosperous to those on whom he had bestowed it. When mistletoe is given as a potion, they are of opinion that it can remove animal barrenness and that it is a remedy against all poisons.

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