Following my last entry, about the wildly inaccurate account of mistletoe in Ideal Homes magazine this month, I now offer some light relief, as my second example of recent mistletoe inaccuracy is more humorous, and much less annoying!. It is the 2023 Christmas Special of TV’s Sister Boniface Mysteries broadcast a few days ago (and viewable on demand on UK TV Play in the UK). The plot, a light-hearted and undemanding whodunnit based, very very […]
Blogroll , Current Affairs , druids , Food and Drink , Gardening , Mistletoe , Religion , Science , social history , toxicity
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Locating Lindow Man
Whilst in Cheshire last weekend, on non-mistletoe business in Wilmslow, we took the opportunity to visit Lindow Moss, the peatbog where the bog body known as Lindow Man (and also, sometimes, as plain Pete Marsh) was discovered in 1984. The discovery of some mistletoe material in his gut, and some of the over-fanciful interpretations of that, has been discussed by me in the diary before – see 2009 and 2011 – and I thought it […]
Blogroll , Current Affairs , Mistletoe , social history
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Are there Nargles in your mistletoe?
If you’re worried about Nargles in your mistletoe then you’ve probably been reading too much Harry Potter, for that’s the only world where they occur. If indeed they occur at all. Even in the Potter world the only evidence of their existence is from Luna Lovegood, a fellow Hogwarts student, who suggests they are mischievous beings who steal things. And often live in mistletoe. Her mistletoe remarks are made in Chapter 21 of Harry Potter […]
berries , Blogroll , social history
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Mistletoe Mysteries
There are dozens, possibly hundreds, of novels with mistletoe in the title, though they are, mostly, romantic fiction and I tend to ignore those. But I was reminded, recently, of P.D.James’ The Mistletoe Murder (published in The Spectator in 1991 and in anthology The Mistletoe Murder and Other Stories in 2016) and realised I couldn’t remember the plot, particularly the mistletoe bit, assuming there is one. So I re-read it yesterday and re-found, to my […]