Why Do We Bring Holly, Ivy and Mistletoe Indoors at Christmas?
The folklore of four British hedgerow plants, and the wildlife that depends on them
Every December, a sprig of flowering hawthorn is traditionally cut from a tree in Glastonbury and sent to the King. According to local tradition, it is intended for his Christmas breakfast table. The Glastonbury Thorn can flower in winter as well as spring, and legend says it grew from the staff of Joseph of Arimathea. I don't suppose anyone can prove that, but I rather like that people have kept telling the story for hundreds of years.
I've been thinking about it this autumn because, despite the unusually warm weather here in Somerset, the hedges round me are just starting to turn, and the haws are shining dark red among the rosehips. Hawthorn has never really been a Christmas plant, but it set me wondering about the plants that are, and it turns out every one of them comes with a story, often several, some of them much older than Christmas itself.
Why do we bring greenery indoors in winter?
The simple answer, I think, is that in the darkest weeks of the year these were some of the few plants still green, and some of them still had berries. Bringing them inside must have felt like bringing a little life indoors when everything outside seemed to have stopped.
The habit is old. The Romans exchanged wreaths and greenery during their New Year celebrations, and by the Middle Ages English churches and homes were being decorated with holly and ivy.
And then there's a tradition most of us in Britain will recognise: taking the Christmas decorations down by Twelfth Night, around 5 or 6 January, because leaving them up any longer is supposed to bring bad luck.
But here's something I didn't know. In medieval England, Christmas greenery could stay up until Candlemas on 2 February, a full forty days after Christmas. There was even a seventeenth-century poem warning that any holly, ivy or mistletoe left hanging around after Candlemas might attract goblins!
So our familiar January deadline isn't quite as ancient as we might imagine. I rather like the idea that generations of families have followed their own versions of these little Christmas traditions.
Why is holly a Christmas plant?
Holly was once hung up to keep witches and troublesome spirits out of the house, and in some parts of England there was a belief that the type of holly brought in first at Christmas decided who would rule the household for the coming year. Prickly holly meant the husband, smooth holly meant the wife. I must admit I'd be tempted to go out looking for the smooth sort.
There really are both kinds, as it happens, but the prickly and smooth leaves don't tell us whether a tree is male or female. You can find both on the same holly, with the smoother leaves often growing higher up, beyond the reach of hungry animals.
Holly trees do generally have separate sexes, though. It's the female trees that produce berries, usually with a male nearby to pollinate them. So a holly without berries could be male, or simply a female without a suitable neighbour. And just to confuse matters, there's even a holly called 'Golden King' that's female, while 'Silver Queen' is male!
What does ivy have to do with Christmas?
Ivy was associated with Bacchus, the god of wine, and the Romans believed an ivy wreath would stop you getting drunk (I'm not sure it was ever tested very carefully). The connection with wine lasted a long time. Taverns in England once hung a bush of ivy outside to show there was wine to be had, which is where the old saying 'good wine needs no bush' comes from.
In medieval carols holly and ivy were often set against each other in a sort of playful contest, holly standing for the men and ivy for the women, which is perhaps why the two are still paired so readily.
Ivy also has two quite different kinds of leaf, which is easy to walk past for years without noticing. The familiar pointed, lobed leaves grow on the climbing stems, while the older shoots that flower have plain oval leaves, so different you could take them for another plant.
Why do we kiss under the mistletoe?
Mistletoe has been surrounded by stories for a very long time. The Roman writer Pliny described Druids cutting it from oak trees with a golden sickle, and in Norse myth the god Baldur was killed by a dart made of mistletoe, the one plant that had not promised never to harm him.
Kissing under it is much more recent, first recorded in England in the eighteenth century. The old custom was to pick one berry for each kiss, and when the berries ran out, so did the kissing, which seems a sensible arrangement.
It's an odd plant in its own right, growing high in the branches of other trees and taking water and nutrients from its host while making some of its own food. Here in Somerset it grows in great untidy balls in the old apple orchards, its sticky seeds spread by birds.
What is the Glastonbury Thorn?
Hawthorn is the odd one out of the four. Its name comes from the Old English word for a hedge, so it is quite literally the hedge thorn, and a great deal of it was planted as living fences when the fields were enclosed. Its May blossom was thought unlucky to bring indoors, and a lone hawthorn standing in the middle of a field was often left well alone.
And yet there is one hawthorn that has always belonged to Christmas. The Glastonbury Thorn is a variety that can flower in winter as well as spring, and the legend says Joseph of Arimathea pushed his staff into the ground on Wearyall Hill and it took root and flowered. The famous tree on the hill was cut down after repeated vandalism, but descendants of the Glastonbury Thorn still grow in the town, and each December a sprig is traditionally cut for the monarch.
I suppose it's the perfect plant for a story like that, ordinary enough to grow in every hedge, and yet with one tree that blooms when so little else will.
Why are these plants so important to wildlife?
Their best story, though, is probably the quietest one. Long after the summer flowers have faded, these four are still feeding and sheltering the wildlife around us.
Ivy flowers from late September into November, later than most plants, so it's one of the last big sources of nectar for bees, hoverflies, wasps and the red admirals still about in autumn. Its berries ripen later in winter, when food for birds may be scarce.
The haws on the hawthorn feed thrushes, and the redwings and fieldfares that arrive from northern Europe every autumn, and hawthorn supports hundreds of kinds of insect through the year. Holly gives dense, prickly shelter for roosting and nesting birds as well as its berries, and mistletoe owes its whole existence to the birds that carry its seeds from tree to tree.
So a hedge with all four in it is a fairly busy place, even in December.
Four little pieces of the winter hedgerow
I drew all four for my Folk Foliage Christmas cards, wanting to celebrate their shapes and character in simple, graphic illustrations, in teal greens and warm berry reds. Created in my studio here in Somerset, they're printed in the UK on a lovely textured paper, and each A6 card comes with a deep green envelope.
You can choose a single design for £3.25, or a mixed pack of four, one of each plant, for £10.50, or a pack of eight, two of each, for £19.95.
Explore the Folk Foliage cards
I hope these little stories give you something to look out for on your next walk, and perhaps something to tell whoever is walking with you.
