Mistletoe. The word conjures winter holidays, office parties, stolen kisses, romance. But appreciation of the plant is no modern thing. Kissing under the mistletoe has been happening for at least 200 years. And some 2,000 years ago, the druids in which is now Britain venerated the plant when it grew on an oak. When they found it, they dressed in white, harvested it with a golden sickle, and sacrificed two white bulls. Or so says that great Roman, Pliny the Elder, in his Natural History.

It may be wondered, at first sight, that the innumerable texts left by Buddhism give us no positive information with regard to the meaning and origin of the trisula.

Whereof at present we have endeavoured a long and serious adviso.

The grapevine was so fast that sometimes news was circulated before it happened.