The beginning of a pacifier tree

.

Meitar now has a pacifier tree!
Maybe there are more in town, but this is the first one I've discovered.
Apparently the custom began in Scandinavia where children at age three give up their pacifier and hang it on a tree, sometimes with an attached good-bye letter.
This "rite of passage" spread to America and now to Israel.
Have you seen it in your country?

(The tree is a silk floss tree and it stands in a pretty roundabout.
See more about this strange spiky tree in previous posts.)
.

Mistletoe, fresh off the tree

.

Since National Geographic published a nice article about mistletoe today on their News site, I figure it's time to blog about my mistletoe experience.
No, mine had nothing to do with kissing under the plant ... in fact I had no idea about these Christmas-time customs or even what mistletoe looked like.
The very last day that I was at the farm community in Austria last month, several of the men went off to the forest to cut some mistletoe off the trees.

Bruder Fritz, who founded the lay Franciscan commune in 1984, was kind enough to show me a cluster and explain about it.
Especially that the white berries are poisonous!

 

It is a parasite and  "it keeps that lively green color by stealing water and soil minerals from its host tree," as the National Geographic says. 

The article has nice photos of clusters in a tree and of various species and of birds eating the berries.  

And the surprising news is

There’s also evidence to suggest that some species of mistletoe can be used in treating cancer—something that people have actually used it for since the 1920s. Doctors today can prescribe mistletoe in Europe. And at Johns Hopkins’ School of Medicine, doctors are performing the first rigorous, I.V. study of mistletoe’s effects on cancer patients in the U.S.

 Here is a funny tidbit from the Oxford Dictionaries blog:

The custom [of Christmas kisses] seems to be restricted to England and the USA. I’ve asked friends from Germany, Austria, France, Belgium, Bulgaria, Spain, and even from Scotland and Ireland. Bavarians bring mistletoe into their homes and put it in vases but none of my fellow Europeans came across kissing under the mistletoe as children. Their countries know of the custom now, but from Hollywood, and they think of it as an English or American eccentricity. 

UPDATE: Make sure to read readers' input in the comments.  All kinds of interesting things coming in from USA, Canada, and Europe!

UPDATE Dec. 24: 

BBC earth just published about mistletoe, including this interesting info about a good plant-animal symbiosis: 

Pairs of mistle thrushes will often set up a territory around individual trees and defend their stock of berries. But mistle thrushes are not actually very efficient at distributing mistletoe seeds. They eat the berries whole, defecating a sticky mix of pulp and seed half an hour later, when the birds are likely to have moved on.

Much more efficient are blackcaps. These little birds eat the skin and pulp of the berry, but discard the sticky seed first, wiping it off their beaks against the bark of the tree. This is perfect for the mistletoe, as the seed is placed firmly against the branch ready for germination.
Interestingly, in recent years we’ve seen many more blackcaps migrating to Britain over winter, and this could be beneficial for mistletoe.
There is evidence that mistletoe is increasing in some areas and some of this could be down to blackcap activity, although this is likely to be a combination of factors, including better protection of the ancient apple orchards that are the most important habitat for mistletoe.

.

Beware of devilish Krampus tonight!

.

You surely recognize good St. Nicholas.
But do you recognize his opposite, the evil devil Krampus?
Every child in Austria knows about this demon, but I first learned of him only a few weeks ago when my hosts in Vienna gave me these chocolate figures and told me to eat Krampus -- the one with horns, chains, and claws -- only on December 6.
Dec. 6 is St. Nicholas Day but the night before is Krampusnacht, which looks to me to be a scary night to be out on the streets of Austria and some of the surrounding countries.
.
I can't begin to explain it well, having never experienced it, so I ask you to read some of these really interesting articles (with great photos!).
BTW, apparently this year there is a spurt of interest in all this in America too!

An explanation from the Archdiocese of Vienna, in German:  Der Krampus hat mit dem Hl. Nikolaus eigentlich nichts zu tun

In German:   Von altem Brauchtum bis Alpenerotik


From National Geographic:
 Krampus the Christmas Devil Is Coming to More Towns. So Where's He From?

Another from National Geographic:   How Krampus, the Christmas ‘Devil,’ Became Cool

Official trailer for the new American horror-comedy movie "Krampus"
("Legendary Pictures’ Krampus, a darkly festive tale of a yuletide ghoul, reveals an irreverently twisted side to the holiday.
When his dysfunctional family clashes over the holidays, young Max (Emjay Anthony) is disillusioned and turns his back on Christmas. Little does he know, this lack of festive spirit has unleashed the wrath of Krampus: a demonic force of ancient evil intent on punishing non-believers.
All hell breaks loose as beloved holiday icons take on a monstrous life of their own, laying siege to the fractured family’s home and forcing them to fight for each other if they hope to survive")

Merisi Vienna's blog post: Saint Nicholas and Krampus: Were you naughty or nice?

Bolzano Daily Photo, South Tyrol / Italy offers a short video (narrated in Ladin language!) of the actual festivities on Krampusnacht in the village of Urtijëi / St. Ulrich / Ortise.
.
Good luck. Be good.  Watch out tonight!
And tomorrow, a happy St. Nicholas Day! 
.

Good luck pigs, Glücksschweinchen

.

Runner-up for City Daily Photo shop window theme day:
these strange Glücksschweinchen! 
Good luck pig pillows in a Vienna store window.
For only 24 Euros you can take one home. 
. 
UPDATE: Thanks to Merisi of Vienna  for explaining the pig mystery in the comments.

Here is some more on the subject of lucky things in German-speaking lands:
Pigs as Glücksbringer – Schwein as Austrian Good Luck Charm
Other luck bringers
Goethe Institute on Superstition
.

X-ing out your enemy

.

My word of the week for ABC Wednesday is . . . XENOPHOBIA.

(zěn'ə-fō'bē-ə, zē'nə-) Fear and contempt of strangers or foreign peoples

( This photo needs to be clicked on, for sure! )

.

In ancient Egypt the custom was to inscribe on a figurine the name of your enemy and appropriate curses. Then in an ancient ritual the figurine was smashed and the curses were activated, in the belief that this would break the enemy's power.

.

One such clay figurine bears on its chest the name Rusulimum (Jerusalem) and names of other enemy Canaanite cities.

.

I myself almost fainted when I first saw this display at Jerusalem's Tower of David Museum!!

What an idea! Talk about the power of words . . . Talk about hatred of foreign peoples . . . !

Can you imagine doing such a thing? (BTW, "thing" and "word" are both expressed in Hebrew by the word davar. In the old days, a word was not just a sound you heard. No. A word was a thing in itself, having its own existence, carrying power. And if you know a person's name, you have power over him; you call out his name and he stops and turns around.)

.

The clay figurine is a copy of the original, courtesy of the Royal Museum of Art and History, Brussels.

The execration (!) text is from Egypt, 19th to 18th century BCE.

.

execration
1382, from Latin execrationem, noun of action from execrari "to hate, curse," from ex- "out" + sacrare "to devote to holiness or to destruction, consecrate," from sacer "sacred"

.
1. the act of execrating
2. a curse or imprecation: "The execrations of the prophet terrified the sinful multitude."
3. the object execrated; a thing held in abomination

.
See also "execration" in Jeremiah's strong words: Jer. 42:18.

.

Shalom, dear blog readers, and blessings be upon you.

.