2.54 The Mistletoe Bough

A tragic game of hide and seek

The Mistletoe Bough - painting by William Oliver - Great Grandfather of Alex, Graham and Jamie (1823-1901)

Freed from my labours as a special education teacher this year, my run up to Christmas has felt very different indeed. At school, despite my best attempts to keep it to the month of December, Christmas usually started as soon as we returned after the Autumn half term holiday, if not before. From that point on we spent an increasing proportion of every day practicing carols, rehearsing pantomimes, cutting snowflakes out of sheets of printer paper, glueing cotton wool onto cards to make snowmen, and various similarly themed activities all done to a predictable soundtrack of YouTube compilations, with the kids, (and staff) getting ever more excited and difficult to manage. It’s not that I disliked Christmas, (although I did once write a song called Christmas is Shit). It’s just that it seemed the source of a lot of stress and difficulty. The demands of management to continue to hit targets and produce evidence in addition to all the premature festivities going on frequently made my head spin, and then when the break did come, it was so filled with the organisation and execution of a family Christmas, that it never seemed to be a proper rest at all and before I knew it I was back in the classroom, with the weight of fresh demands for more targets and evidence weighing down on me.

This year, December arrived calmly and sedately. By avoiding television adverts and shopping trips as much as possible, I have managed to keep a sense of proportion and am actually starting to experience some enjoyment of this festive season¹.

So much so that I sit here preparing to write a Christmas themed Sixty Odd Poems a whole week before I had intended to. I have enough ideas and goodwill in me to write two, so why not start a week earlier than I might normally?

And what could gladden the Christmas heart more than a Nineteenth century ballad? The Mistletoe Bough is a piece written in 1834 by poet/songwriter Thomas Haynes Bayly and set to music by Sir Henry Bishop, the composer who is perhaps best remembered these days as providing the music for the Song Home Sweet Home.

It isn’t a Victorian Christmas song. 1834 fell before the Victorian period. Victoria was only 15 years old in that year and didn’t became queen until 1837. Christmas as we know it didn’t really take off until the 1840s with the first Christmas card being sent in 1843 (the year in which Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol was first published), and Prince Albert’s introduction of the German tradition of the Christmas tree in 1848.

The Americans were a little ahead us, with ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas with Father Christmas and his individually named reindeers having been written by a New York poet² in 1823.

Kissing under the mistletoe dates back to Norse mythology, (more German influence.) For Baldur the Beautiful, son of Odin, mistletoe was Kryptonite. He was killed by a mistletoe tipped arrow fired by his brother Hodr. Their mother, the delightfully named Frigg, wept tears onto the plant, these became its white berries, and she decreed that from that day forth it would be used as a symbol love rather than of violence.

In the light of that story, Mistletoe, amongst other plants, was used to decorate kissing boughs in Tudor times, under which much flirtation would occur, and a berry would be plucked every time a kiss was granted. Over the years this became a Christmas tradition.

Haynes Bayly’s poem The Mistletoe Bough³ is set at a Christmas wedding. that of Constance Seymour to Harry Lovell perhaps in Marsden Castle which once stood in West Yorkshire. The truth is that many of the stately homes of England now claim to be the original site of the story, many of them containing large oaken boxes said to be the one featured in the legend. There is no mention of a mistletoe bough in the poem, other than as a title and a refrain. I like it because it is a part of the long tradition of Christmas tales involving horror and ghosts, which still just about survives today, amongst all the turkey, tinsel, Marks and Spencers adverts and drunkenness.

The Mistletoe Bough - Thomas Haynes Bayly

The mistletoe hung in the castle hall,
The holly branch shone on the old oak wall;
And the baron’s retainers were blithe and gay,
And keeping their Christmas holiday.
The baron beheld with a father’s pride
His beautiful child, young Lovell’s bride;
While she with her bright eyes seemed to be
The star of the goodly company.
Oh, the mistletoe bough. Oh, the mistletoe bough.

“I’m weary of dancing now,” she cried;
“Here, tarry a moment — I’ll hide, I’ll hide!
And, Lovell, be sure thou art first to trace
The clew to my secret lurking-place.”
Away she ran — and her friends began
Each tower to search, and each nook to scan;
And young Lovell cried, “O, where dost thou hide?
I’m lonesome without thee, my own dear bride.”
Oh, the mistletoe bough. Oh, the mistletoe bough.

They sought her that night, and they sought her next day,
And they sought her in vain while a week passed away;
In the highest, the lowest, the loneliest spot,
Young Lovell sought wildly — but found her not.
And years flew by, and their grief at last
Was told as a sorrowful tale long past;
And when Lovell appeared the children cried,
“See! the old man weeps for his fairy bride.”
Oh, the mistletoe bough. Oh, the mistletoe bough.

At length an oak chest, that had long lain hid,
Was found in the castle — they raised the lid,
And a skeleton form lay mouldering there
In the bridal wreath of that lady fair!
O, sad was her fate! — in sportive jest
She hid from her lord in the old oak chest.
It closed with a spring! — and, dreadful doom,
The bride lay clasped in her living tomb!
Oh, the mistletoe bough. Oh, the mistletoe bough.

1. With apologies to Tim Fellows, who has recently taken against the word festive.

2. Most people attribute The Night before Christmas to Clement Clarke Moore, but there is a rival claim that it was the work of Henry Livingstone Junior. Both were from New York. I’m not sure which one has the stronger case. Not Livingstone, I presume.

3. I enjoyed writing this piece so much that I decided to sing The Mistletoe Bough rather than read a poem at the Read To Write gathering in Mexborough Library on the afternoon that I completed it. Afterwards in the bar at the local Wetherspoons I got into deep conversation about the song with folk music expert, poet, and all round good egg Mick Jenkinson. He began googling facts out about it on his smartphone. I felt awkward, as I had just googled all the same facts at home in the morning. For some reason, I felt unable to tell him this. I didn’t want to sound like a clever clogs, or to dampen his enthusiasm. However, I feel I have to confess now. Sorry Mick. But I did enjoy the conversation.

That evening Our mutual friend Ian Parks then sent me a video of the bloke who used to be the lead singer of Bellowhead singing the song. There is a Kate Rusby version too. But if you are really keen and want to follow me further down the rabbit hole, have a look at this short silent film from 1904.