From its role in kissing to mythological healing powers, mistletoe's roots run deep. This novella was the earliest and most popular of Dickens' Christmas stories. The kissing under mistletoe (left) and evergreen decoration hanging from the ceiling are vestiges of pre-Christian winter rites. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. It's hard to imagine a holiday season without Bing Crosby's Christmas standard Originally written from the perspective of a soldier stationed overseas during World War II, his longing for the simple comforts of home and reconnecting with his loved ones at Christmas is almost palpable: " Mistletoe just inexplicably feels familiar. Every December, the evergreen sprig s that spent the offseason hidden in our subconscious are suddenly all around us. Mistletoe is the long-lost acquaintance that we instantly recognize and embrace, yet whose backstory has been lost to us. "When I talk to people about parasitic plants, I know mistletoe is the one that they'll immediately recognize even if they don't really know it's a parasite," Virginia Tech plant biologist Jim Westwood tells . Author Washington Irving, best known for The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and is often credited with helping popularize the parasitic evergreen shrub in the United States. He wrote about the plant in an 1820 collection of short stories, but the roots of mistletoe go much deeper elsewhere in the world. Dating back to Ancient Greece and Rome, leafy mistletoe has long excited the imagination. Mistletoe served as a centerpiece of Celtic Rituals and Norse myths, where it bestowed life and fertility and served as an aphrodisiac, a plant of parley, an antidote for poisons, and a means of safe passage to and from Hades. According to The Living Lore, since the plant can thrive in the high branches of its host without soil, "many cultures saw mistletoe as a sacred plant, existing in liminal spaces between life and death, earth and sky, and human and divine." In Old Norse mythology, Baldr, the son of the god Odin and the goddess Frigg, was slain with a mistletoe spear. Some interpretations suggest that, "kissing under the mistletoe symbolizes forgiveness, echoing Frigg's grief and eventual reconciliation with the plant." Many early physicians and scientists saw mistletoe as a cure-all for the woes of the world. It was used to treat various diseases and conditions including epilepsy, infertility, and ulcers. In Pliny's, the writer and physician describes the Celtic ritual of oak and mistletoe. High priests dressed in white harvested mistletoe with golden sickles from the branches of sacred oak trees to make an elixir that could counteract any poison and render any barren animal fertile. "It's easy to imagine how people become fixated on mistletoe plants," says Westwood. "It stays green all winter growing in its host tree.

A snow-white eagle'neath the mistletoe, A golden breast all covered with silver, The air- of-a-Woman, My heart- of-the-Virgin. Thus I rise on wings in the morning, And float out upon the lake- Of-the-Desert, My feet are cool beneath the mistletoe, My hair flows like water-flowers, My eyes are like stars in the water, As all-white as the eyes of a star. Lilting high on the High Altar, An old man singing a new man's song, Singing his old songs in his new name, Call it accursed if you will, I am still Oaken-Stanes my wife is dead and gone, And the children grow o'er my head like mist upon the window-pane. How like a saint I wonder most In this wintry time! I feel my heart to thee ever fond And never can forget.