 When icicles hang by the wall part one from the flowers of Shakespeare This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Nima The Flowers of Shakespeare by Esther Singleton Holly and Ivy Holly Ilex Aquifolium Holly with its beautiful red berries and unique leaf stiff and prickly but highly decorative is the chief emblem of Christmas We are continuing very ancient traditions when we hang up our Christmas threes and garlands The earliest records of the human race Contain references to the custom of decorating houses and temples and evergreens on occasions of re-choicing Holly comes to us from pagan usage 500 years before the birth of Christ the Romans had been celebrating their mid-winter festival the Saturnalia commemorating the equality supposed to have existed on earth in the golden reign of Saturn The Saturnalia was a period of general merry-making and relaxation People gave each other presents wished each other. I owe Saturnalia Just as we wish each other Merry Christmas and decorated their houses and temples with evergreens Among which Holly was conspicuous The early Christians who celebrated the birth of Christ during the Saturnalia Adorned their homes with Holly for the purpose of safety They would have been Unpleasantly noticed had they left their homes undecorated After a time Holly became associated with a Christian festival itself As the Christmas celebration spread throughout Europe and into Great Britain local observances naturally became added to the original rights and gradually to certain features taken over from the Saturnalia were added customs which the Germanic tribes The Scandinavians the Gauls the Celts and the early Britons practiced for the mid-winter festival Thus says a modern writer all the pagan winter festivals were Transmuted and sanctified by the Christian church into the beautiful Christmas festival that keeps the world's heart young and human The church also brought from ancient observances a number of lovable customs Such as the giving of presents the lighting of candles the burning of the you log The boar's head the Christmas tree the mistletoe the Holly Laurel and other greens and the mince pies At a season when everything was chosen to commemorate or invoke the spirit of growth or fertility The Holly mistletoe and ivy all of which bear fruit in the winter became particularly precious Beautiful cherry Holly with its glossy prickly leaves and its coral bells Was a sacred plant in the childhood of the world and will continue to be a sacred plant as long as the world last We may make garlands of laurel or bay leaves We may bind together ropes of crow's foot or Smillix and we may bring into our rooms pots of poinsettia But nothing takes or will ever take the place the Holly occupies in our affections In our literature Holly is honored. It now symbolizes the spirit of Christmas as nothing else does One of the earliest Christmas carols dating from the 15th century Describes a contest of Holly and ivy for the chief place in the hall Holly is the man in ivy the woman they have an argument which is a kind of duet Each setting forth his or her claim to superiority Finally it is decided that Holly with his beautiful red berries shall reign in the hall instead of ivy whose berries are black Moreover many sweet birds are attracted to Holly, but only the owl loves ivy Holly is of course the subject of many carols a typical one of the 15th century is as follows Here comes Holly that is so gent Alleluia to please all men is his intent alleluia But Lord and Lady of the hall alleluia whosoever against Holly call alleluia whosoever against Holly do cry alleluia and a leap shall be hang full high alleluia whosoever against Holly do sing Alleluia he may weep in his hand he's ring alleluia From the above you'll be seen that it was a crime to say a derogatory word about Holly Holly was not only loved for its beauty, but it was a holy plant Witches detested it and it was a charm against their evil machinations The name comes from the angle of sex and Holland the Norse word is Hulfe or Holver and Is Chaucer calls it Hulfery We may conclude that Holly was familiar to the people of Chaucer's time under that name It is somewhat singular that Shakespeare has written a song of wintery wind in Holly berries to be sung in the Forest of Arden It affords however a delightful contrast to the sunlit summer woodland While in it Holly's not actually described Amiens song will always remain the song of songs to Holly Blow blow thou winter wind thou art not so unkind as man's ingratitude Thy tooth is not so keen because thou art not seen Although thy breath be rude Hi ho sing hi ho unto the green Holly Most friendship is feigning most loving mere folly Then hi ho the Holly this life is most jolly Freeze freeze thou bitter sky thou dost not bite so nigh as benefits forgot Though thou the water's warp thy sting is not so sharp as friend remembered not Hi ho sing hi ho unto the green Holly Most friendship is feigning most loving mere folly then hi ho the Holly this life is most jolly Ivy Hadira helix Shakespeare mentions Ivy twice in a Midsummer's night dream where Titania bidding bottom sleep says Sleep thou and I will wind thee in my arms the female Ivy so in rings the barkie fingers of the Elm and In the Tempest when Prospero compares his false brother with the Ivy The Ivy which had hid my princely trunk and sucked my verger out on it In the old carols and plays Ivy is always represented as a woman and yet although beloved Was used for the outside decorations and doorways Ivy never had the place within that Holly occupied As Ivy clings and embraces the object near it the plant was chosen as an emblem of confiding love and friendship Tussers commands are as follows Get Ivy and Holly women deck up thy house Ivy was also used in the church decorations a Christmas tide in the Middle Ages Ivy was a favored and most auspicious plant an old carol says Ivy is soft and meek of speech against all bail. She is bliss Well is he that her may reach? Venet Corona Barris Ivy is green of color bright of all trees best she is and that I prove will now be right Venet Corona Barris Ivy Barith berries black. God grant us all his bliss for there we shall nothing lack Venet Corona Barris Ivy was the crown of the Greek and Roman poets whose myths proclaimed the plant sacred to Bacchus Indeed the plant took its name from Bacchus Kisos For it was said that the child was hidden under Ivy when abandoned by his mother semily The Ivy was mingled with the grape and the crown of Bacchus and it and wreath his theorists Ivy berries eaten before wine was swallowed prevented intoxication. So plenty says Perhaps because of its association with Bacchus Ivy was hung at the Vintner's doors in England as well as on the continent and a reference to this custom is contained in Nash's summer's last will and testament 1600 In Shakespeare's time Ivy was considered a remedy against plague which gave another reason for veneration England would almost cease to be England without the Ivy that so Luxuriently covers the walls of old buildings and adds its soft beauty to the crumbling ruins Everybody loves it strangers as well as natives and everyone loves the poem that dickens inserted into the Pickwick papers Oh a dainty plant is the Ivy green that creepeth or runes old Unright choice food are his meals I wean in his cell so lone and cold The wall must be crumbled the stone decayed to pleasure his dainty whim and The moldering dust that years have made is a merry meal for him Creeping where no life is seen our rare old plant is the Ivy green First he steal a thong though he wears no wings and a staunch old heart has he How closely he turneth how close he clings to his friend the huge oak tree In slyly he traileth along the ground and his leaves he gently waves as he joyously hugs and Crawl a throne the rich mold of men's graves Creeping where grim death hath been a rare old plant is the Ivy green Whole ages have fled in their works decayed and nations have scattered bean But the stout old ivy shall never fade from its hail and hearty green The brave old plant and its lonely days shall fatten on the past For the stateliest building man can raise is the ivy's food at last Creeping on where time has been our rare old plant is the ivy green end of Holly and ivy When icicles hang by the wall part two from the flowers of Shakespeare This is a LibriWalks recording All LibriWalks recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriWalks.org Recording by Aparna Bhatt The flowers of Shakespeare by Esther Singleton Missaltoe and Box The Missaltoe Viscous Album The Missaltoe the All-Healer is a mysterious and mystical plant The Greeks venerated it Virgil gave it to Ines for the golden bow to guide him to the underworld The Scandinavians dedicated it to their goddess of love Freya or Freya Missaltoe is however more closely associated with the druids than with any other race The plant was so sacred to these strange people that it was never allowed to touch the ground At the New Year the druids marched in solemn procession into the forest and the high priest climbed the oak tree And with a golden sickle cut the Missaltoe from the branches The precise reason for hanging up the Missaltoe bow is lost in antiquity But it is possible that the particular reasons were because it has posed miraculous powers of healing sickness and averting misfortune and Great potency in promoting fertility and bestowing prosperity For hundreds of years the Missaltoe has been reverenced alike in Castle Baroneal Hall Mainer House and Farmhouse in Shakespeare's country and in the homes of rich and poor in our own country Undoubtedly the idea of kissing under the Missaltoe bow was derived from the fact that the plant was dedicated to the northern goddess of love The old saying is that the maiden was not kissed under the Missaltoe Will not be married within the coming year The ceremony of kissing is not properly performed unless the berries plucked off and given with each kiss to the maiden When the berries are all gone the privilege of kissing ceases That Missaltoe grows on the oak tree solely is a popular error. In fact the plant prefers the apple Most of the English Missaltoe now comes from the apple orchards of Hartfordshire Normandy sends a great deal of Missaltoe to England and to our country The strange parasite is also found on the Linden poplar and white thorn When once the seed is lodged it derives its roots deep into the branch and draws sap and nourishment from the tree The European variety is known as Wescomalba and is much forked and The United States the ordinary Missaltoe is known as forrandon drawn and grows on various hardware trees in many of the southern states There is something curiously interesting about the Missaltoe. It is not beautiful The leaves are irregular and often stained and broken the berries fall almost when looked at and the plant is stiff and woody Yet for all that there is a peculiar quality in the greenish white and Waxy berries and the shape of the fork twig that makes us think of the vining rods and magical words It has a mystic fascination for us Shakespeare's only reference speaks of it as baleful Tamora says in Titus and Dronicus The trees through summer yet forlorn and lean or come with moss and baleful Missaltoe box Buxus Zimper virans Shakespeare mentions the box once when Sir Toby Belch and Sir Andrew Agucic and the clown are an Olivia's garden and Maria Running out to tell them that Malvolio is coming excitedly cries Catch you all three in the box tree Everyone knows how important a feature the box bush is in English gardens and in the old American gardens that were planted after English models So fine in color so deep and luxuriant and foliage So dignified and aristocratic in his atmosphere and the name box is almost synonymous with old gardens It's a credit yet aromatic scent most delicious after rain is one of its characteristics Greek myth consecrated the box to Pluto and the plant was set to be Symbolical of the life in the underworld which continues all the year The ancients used it to water their flower beds and probably the great use of box in England comes from the Roman times The wood was used for delicate and lay in the days of the renaissance and also for making musical instruments Boxes thought to be the a sewer wood of the Bible There is authority for using greenery and church decoration for an assayah. We read The glory of Lebanon shall come on to thee the fir tree the pine tree and the box together to beautify the place of my Sanctuary and I will make the places of my feet glorious To dream of box according to the astrologers of Shakespeare's time Signify the happy marriage long life and prosperity box was used for decoration in the Tudor and Stuart days and succeeded the Christmas garlands as headache sings in the time of Charles first at Candlemas February 2nd Down with the rosemary and bays down with the mistletoe instead of holy now upgrades greener box for show The holy he tattooed its way let box now dominier until the dancing Easter day on Easter Eve appear The youthful box which now hath grace your house is to renew grown old surrender must his place unto the crisp at you When you is out then barge comes in and many flowers beside Both of a fresh and fragrant kin to honor with soon tide Green rushes then in sweetest bents With cooler open bows come in for combly ornaments to redorn the house That's a constant succession of decorative flowers and evergreens appear in the house of old England Every season had its appropriate flowers each and all emblematic It was also the same in the church an English writer remarks Mindful of the festival which our church prescribes I have sought to make these objects of floral nature the time pieces of my religious calendar and The momentals of the hastening period of my morality Thus I can light my taper to our virgin mother in the blossoming of white snow drop Which opens its flowers at the time of candle mass The ladies smoke and the fiddle remind me of the annunciation The blue hair-bell for the festival of St. George the renunculus of the invention of the cross The scarlet lichens of St. John the Baptist's day the white lily of the visitation of our lady Virgin's bower of the assumption in the Michael mass Martin mass Holyrood and Christmas have all their appropriate decorations End of mistletoe and box End of the flowers of Shakespeare by Esther singleton