It’s unlucky not to kiss under the mistletoe!
FLOWERS AND TREES
Lilies
Lilies are mentioned in the Bible. They were thought to have sprung from Eve’s tears when she and Adam were banished from the Garden of Eden. They were also said to have grown in the Garden of Gethsemane from drops of sweat fallen from the body of Christ the night before the crucifixion. Their growth out of Christ’s sweat is clearly a symbol of the Resurrection, which is why lilies are often used in churches at Easter. Traditionally lilies are also associated with the Virgin Mary and with motherhood. In most pictorial depictions of the Annunciation, the moment when the archangel Gabriel appears in front of Mary to tell her that she is expecting the son of God, lilies appear, either carried by the angel or growing close to the Virgin Mary as symbols of her purity and chastity. At the time of Mary’s death, when her body was said to have ascended to heaven, St Thomas found lilies in place of Mary’s body in her coffin.
Due to their association with the body of the Virgin Mary and with the Resurrection, lilies were thought to be particularly powerful flowers for warding off evil spirits and fighting witchcraft. Lilies of the valley were considered unlucky, especially when brought indoors, since they were thought to represent the tears of the Virgin.
Elder
Since at least the fifth century, the elder plant was often associated with death and it was thought that to smell it – and especially to sleep under it – could cause death or disease. Dead bodies were sometimes buried with it as a precaution against evil spirits, and because of this association it was considered unlucky to make cribs out of elder wood. During the Stone Age, arrows were carved into the shape of elder leaves and it is possible that an association between death and the elder plant existed even then. It was thought that to burn the elder plant would bring the Devil into the house, and that witches would sometimes disguise themselves as elder plants if they were being chased, especially at night. In Denmark it was believed that to sit under the elder tree on Midsummer Night would allow a person to see the king of the fairies riding by. In Serbia, branches of elder plant were traditionally used during weddings to bring the couple good luck. There are several superstitions about the dangers of breaking elder trees, and in England it was common practice to ask the tree for permission before pruning it so as to avoid misfortune.
Roses
Roses have traditionally been assigned several superstitious meanings. If they were seen to grow out of season, it was thought to be an omen of bad luck for a year. To be carrying, and especially wearing, a rose and to see it shed its petals was an omen of death, as was dreaming of roses. The German word Rosengarten means rose garden, but is sometimes used to refer to a cemetery, probably because roses represented death, and roses were often the preferred flowers in cemeteries in Germany and Austria. Even today, if a person was thought to be particularly benevolent, philanthropic and generous during their life, it is common to place a bouquet of red roses on their grave; and roses are also the flower of choice for the graves of lovers. Roses, like lilies, are associated with the Virgin Mary, and thus the rosary – a series of repeated prayers addressed to the Virgin – derives its name from the idea that the verses are offered to her like bunches of roses.
Roses have also been associated with silence since antiquity. A myth concerning Eros, the god of love, recounts that he gave Harpocrates, the god of silence, a rose to cloak the weaknesses of the gods in silence so that humans would not know of them, and the Latin expression sub rosa – ‘in secret’ – derived from this. It is based on this myth that the ceilings of council halls and confessionals were traditionally decorated with roses: everything said under the rose was to be confidential.
Mistletoe
Mistletoe is best known for its role in allowing stolen kisses to take place under it during Christmas. Although it does seem that mistletoe was worshipped in Europe in ancient times and is said to have been used in medicine, the practice of kissing under it is a modern invention, dating back only as far as the nineteenth century. There are records of mistletoe being used as a protection against witchcraft in the seventeenth century, and it may have become a common Christmas decoration precisely to protect the household from witches during the dangerous transitional time of Christmas. The kissing superstition probably originated in a Victorian game in which a young man was allowed to give a woman only as many kisses under the mistletoe as there were berries on the bushel. The berries the young man would then present the woman with were thought to bring her good luck, fertility and prosperity for the coming year. Another superstition probably stemmed from this game, suggesting that not kissing under the mistletoe would mean not marrying that year, something rather logical since if a woman did not have a sweetheart to kiss at Christmas it was unlikely that she would be getting married that year, especially given the long engagement practices common in Victorian times. Today the superstition suggests simply that it is lucky to kiss under the mistletoe and that two people finding themselves below it must kiss to avoid misfortune stemming from breaking the Christmas rules.
Four-leaf clover
The four-leaf clover is probably the most famous of all good-luck symbols, depicted over and over on lottery tickets, greeting cards and lucky-charm amulets and jewels. Superstition has it that it is particularly lucky to find a four-leaf clover when walking through a field, and each leaf on the clover is meant to represent one of the four different spheres in which the clover is thought to have a beneficial effect: wealth, fame, love and health. This superstition has been documented to have existed as far back as the seventeenth century, but may be even older, and it clearly stems from the relative rarity of finding such a clover in a field of ordinarily three-leafed clovers. In the past, the four-leaf clover was thought to provide protection against witches and to allow those who wore it to see through and expose any tricks played by witches and fairies. In Britain, to find a four-leaf clover was thought to be a sign that one was about to encounter one’s soulmate, and in some accounts a four-leaf clover worn on the jacket was thought to provide young men with protection against military draft. Today the four-leaf clover is simply considered lucky in a more general way.
Daisies
According to superstition, plucking a daisy’s petals and counting them off to the rhyme ‘He loves me, he loves me not’ until the last petal is meant to provide an answer about a person’s object of desire or about the faithfulness of a sweetheart. This superstition is relatively recent, probably stemming from late Victorian children’s games, sometimes combined with the rhyme ‘Rich man, poor man, farmer, ploughman, thief’ – meant to determine the profession of a little girl’s future husband. In the past it was thought that to put a daisy root under one’s pillow would produce dreams about one’s future partner. It was also common practice to eat the first daisy one saw in the spring in order to have good luck for the rest of the year. In some accounts, daisies were thought to be given to the earth by the spirits of stillborn babies in order to provide their parents with some consolation for their untimely deaths.
Myrtle
Because in ancient times myrtle was associated with the goddess Venus, it is a symbol of love and fertility. In Roman times brides would carry bouquets of myrtle at their wedding and Queen Victoria apparently had myrtle in her bridal bouquet. It is considered particularly lucky for a newlywed couple to plant bushes of myrtle on each side of their front door to ensure that love and peace do not leave their household. In the past, the happiness of a marriage was apparently gauged by the health of the myrtle plant outside the front door. It was considered unlucky to destroy such plants, as that would be equivalent to destroying the peace and happiness of a marriage. It was also considered an omen of death if such plants withered and died of their own accord, and myrtle was sometimes planted on the gravestones of loved ones by grieving widows or widowers.
Dandelions
Children love blowing away the seeds of dandelions once they have turned into ‘clocks’ or, as the writer Vladimir Nabokov once wrote, ‘turned from suns to moons’. In a British superstition dating back to the nineteenth century, it was thought that people could predict the number of years separating them from their wedding day based on the number of breaths they would have to take in order to blow off all the seeds of the dandelion. Another version of the superstition saw the number of breaths as denoting the number of children one would have. Dandelions were traditionally used in herbal infusions aimed at curing urinary tract infections. This may explain why it was once thought that picking a dandelion would cause one to wet the bed.