A parasitic shrub, Viscum album, mistletoe has a long history in folklore and legend. The Druids supposedly solemnly collected it around midwinter and it was deemed to have magical healing powers and be a token of peace. It is perhaps from this origin that the Christian use of it at Christmas proceeded. Like many evergreens it was used a church decoration (despite prejudice against it in some parts). At York Minster during the Middle Ages a branch of mistletoe was laid on the altar during the Twelve Days of Christmas and a public peace proclaimed in the city for as long as it remained there.
The custom of kissing under the mistletoe was long in developing. Some medieval English homes hung an effigy of the Holy Family inside a wooden hoop decorated with winter greenery under which it was customary to exchange an embrace or kiss. After the Reformation when the image of the Holy Family disappeared, the kissing bunch or bough, a collection of greenery which often included mistletoe, remained as a Christmas custom. Kissing beneath it, or just a sprig of mistletoe, seems to have been a custom confined to the servant class until the nineteenth century when it was more generally adopted. In the Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens describes its use in the early nineteenth century:
From the centre of the ceiling of this kitchen, old Wardle had just suspended with his own hands a huge branch of mistletoe, and this same branch of mistletoe instantaneously gave rise to a scene of general and most delightful struggling and confusion; in the midst of which, Mr. Pickwick, with a gallantry that would have done honour to a descendant of Lady Tollimglower herself, took the old lady by the hand, led her beneath the mystic branch, and saluted her in all courtesy and decorum.
Each kiss necessitated the removal of a berry from the sprig and when all berries were gone the merriment ceased. The custom was for a long time confined to the English-speaking world though it has spread abroad in recent years. The only European tradition that appears similar is the Austrian New Year’s custom when the Sylvester figure is permitted a kiss under any sort of greenery.