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Paperback Audio Download Features Find your next read Sign up for our newsletter Events Podcasts Apps. Children's Children's 0 - 18 months 18 months - 3 years 3 - 5 years 5 - 7 years 7 - 9 years 9 - 12 years View all children's. Puffin Ladybird. Authors A-Z. Featured Authors. Gifts for bibliophiles. Book Bundles. But what happened between and that made kissing under the mistletoe a holiday phenomenon remains unknown.
Literature and art from the 18th and 19th centuries expanded upon this idea. Charles Dickens in The Pickwick Papers, published in , portrays the holiday frenzy associated with this particular type of kiss. The women in both scenes were depicted as resisting the kisses but having to give in after being caught passing under the mistletoe. Historians have said that they would have believed they had to accept kisses from men or risk bad fortune. The American writer had returned from England, and recorded the yuletide traditions he had observed abroad.
When the berries are all plucked the privilege ceases. Contact us at letters time. William Small. By Kat Moon. Get our History Newsletter. Put today's news in context and see highlights from the archives. Please enter a valid email address. In the 18th and 19th centuries, references to kissing under the mistletoe increase. Despite its romantic connotations, mistletoe is a parasitic plant with poisonous berries, that relies on other plants for its survival. It survives by birds carrying its seeds to other trees.
This typically happens when the seed inside the berry is discarded by the bird, as it is covered in a sticky coating, called viscin.
As the viscin hardens, the seed becomes attached to the host tree, taking nutrients and water from it and allowing more mistletoe to grow. Skip to header Skip to main content Skip to footer. Home Christmas. In Depth. The mistletoe kiss will endure in the long-term, though.
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