a sprig is worn about the neck to keep the mortal safe from witches. But to cut it then, the mortal must circle the oak three times and cut the sprig with a new dagger, never before used.
Some call its twin berries the testicles of Uranus, which were severed and fell into the sea, becoming the blood and white foam from which Aphrodite was born. Thereafter men have kissed maids under the mistletoe, removing one berry for each kiss they have stolen, till no berries remain and kissing must cease.
But beware: if a mistletoe-bearing oak tree is cut down, the family who owns the land on which it stands will wither and die out, and their house shall fall and crumble into ruins.
The Mandrake's Herbal
The Fetch
The tiny room is dark after the bright sunshine, and crowded with pots, baskets and dyed linen strips hanging from the rafters. She can scarcely take a step without tripping over a box or tangling her head in the cloth. Just a store room, she thinks, no time to bother with it now. She turns, and is ducking through the low doorway when she hears a cry, the thin, muffled wail of an infant. It is coming from the far side of the room.
She impatiently tears down the cloth and kicks the boxes aside. She is looking for a cradle, but there isn't one. The wail grows louder. The source is only inches away, but still she can't see it, nothing but a stack of baskets covered with cloths like those hanging all around. As she stares, one of the baskets trembles. She rips back the cloth.
The baby is lying on a heap of rags inside the basket. Its face is scarlet and its eyes are screwed up tightly as it bawls. The toothless red mouth opens wide as if it would devour the whole world. Its tiny fists clench, beating the sides of the basket in frustration that no one is answering its insistent summons. It is ugly, a naked little rat. Now exposed to the light and cold of the room, its screams redouble, violent, arrogant, demanding to be served.
'Be quiet,' she orders, but the baby takes no more notice of her than if she was a fly on the midden heap. Her hand darts out and she grabs the threshing legs by the ankles, jerking the infant upwards, so that it dangles upside down, but even this does not make it stop screaming.
'Shut up! Shut—'
Elena jerked awake. Hilda was propped up on one elbow beside her in the truckle bed, shaking her hard.
'Quiet! Do you want to wake the mistress again?'
Elena could hear the irritation in her voice and small wonder — three nights in a row she'd wakened Hilda by calling out in her sleep. Elena glanced anxiously over at the great bed where Lady Anne now slept. It was still dark. But by the glowing embers of the fire, she could just make out the heavy drapes pulled round her mistress's bed. She heard the whimpering snores of Lady Anne, solidly asleep. Elena crossed herself in a silent prayer of gratitude.
Hilda turned over with a groan, yanking the covers from Elena and pulling them tighter around herself. Elena didn't protest; her body was drenched in sweat, despite the icy draught whistling across her from the shaft of the privy chamber. She shrank as far away from Hilda as she could in the bed, trying desperately not to fall asleep. She couldn't afford to wake her again.
The old widow had bitterly resented Elena from the beginning, grumbling to all, except of course Lady Anne, that she 'didn't know what had possessed her mistress to employ a field hand as a tiring maid. Next they'd be dressing up a pig in robes and sitting it at the high table.'
Ever since that first morning, when she'd been compelled to show Elena her duties, the sour-faced Hilda had watched her as keenly as a hunting hawk, waiting for some fault that she could swoop down upon. Only that evening, as Elena had undressed to her shift, she'd been aware of Hilda staring suspiciously at her belly as if she knew what was concealed beneath the folds of linen.
Elena had fallen pregnant that very first night they'd made love. Indeed, it had been the only night they had made love. Elena could have slipped away when Lady Anne was resting in the afternoon and Hilda was snoring over her stitch-work, but what was the use