Auto Insurance in the UK and How to Find Good Providers

In Britain, car insurance is mandatory, as it is in many other countries. That means you cannot drive or operate a car on any public road before you are fully covered by car insurance. The type of insurance that you must have operating a vehicle in public is essentially cover for your liability to other people and cover for damage to the property of others while you are operating the vehicle on a public road.

The legalities on car insurance in the country were made in the 30s. Since then, all car drivers had to at least have third party personal injury insurance. Today, the law regarding car use in public places is defined by the Road Traffic Act 1988. Indeed, you can also have a specified payment made with a Supreme Court to the tune of of £500,000 and can act as sufficient cover instead of insurance. This sounds great, though in actual fact it is far simpler and more secure to buy a normal car insurance policy. Not only can you get excellent offers at varying prices from different insurers|can you get great deals at good prices from many insurance providers|may you purchase good value policies from a range of qualified insurers}, but you might choose additional insurance cover. This could include fire damage or burglary, an accident to yourself, personal belongings inside the vehicle and many more options.

Well, where can you get a good car insurance offer? Are all car insurers just out to take money from innocent consumers? In truth, there are lots of good value car insurers in Britain, who offer competitive prices and aren’t only be after your last cash! Discovering a great deal is actually pretty easy. All you need is a good internet connection and a bit of time.

Most insurance companies offer their services online, which means that consumers can look for the right car insurance policy online without any pressure from salespersons. In addition, there are masses of consumer forums and comparison services that could help you to narrow down your search. This make the search a lot easier, though you should take care that you check all the terms and charges and cost factors before you choose a specific insurer.

It is crucial to double check that you are receiving a suitable amount of cover. as well as the obligatory cover you may wish to tailor your policy to your personal situation. For instance, you might live in a part of town where vandalism is a frequent occurrence. For this reason, the risk that you might be targeted is more serious, so for this reason a policy with added vandalism cover might be worthwhile.

Many car insurance (Kfz versicherung)firms, just like other insurers, will offer you a price on your cover depending on the amount of risk you pose. As such, if you are a young driver you are immediately in the higher risk insurance group and will therefore have to pay a higher amount for auto insurance. If you are a senior driver you will immediately be in the lower risk category.

Tourists prefer renting privately owned Reykjavik apartments in Iceland

At a time when finding genuinely odd places to go on holiday is becoming ever more of a challenge, it’s reassuring to know that one of the world’s most unusual and frankly peculiar destinations lies only an hour’s flying time from Britain’s northernmost tip. It has Europe’s largest waterfalls, glaciers and, yes, deserts, and a population the size of Ealing’s who grow taller, read more and shop harder than any other. And who, in 53 per cent of cases, believe in elves.

You have come to Iceland.

The road to Reykjavik from the airport traverses a moonscape of spiky black lava, reminding me why Nasa sent the Apollo astronauts here to acclimatise, and is distantly flanked by the steaming chromed towers of the Blue Lagoon, where bathers wallow in the outflow pools of a geothermal power station.

While the outskirts of Reykjavik are uninspiring, the view improves as you approach the city centre. Just past the main bus station the road narrows into an attractive thoroughfare lined with cafes, restaurants and boutiques. There are neat rows of brightly painted terraced houses and wide footpaths. Everything is clean, fresh and modern and there’s that unmistakable air of Scandinavian prosperity. Despite being home to 40 per cent of the population, Reykjavik feels more like a small town. Its compact size makes it easy to explore on foot and an almost non-existent crime rate means you don’t have to worry about wandering into a dodgy suburb.

Solveig Karlsson is the owner of Lighthouse Apartments. She says that visitors to Iceland get great value for their money when they stay in their Reykjavik apartments in Iceland. “Vacation rentals provide an exclusive and inexpensive accommodation alternative for families or small groups opposed to hotel rooms, which often are unsuitable for family vacations and can be prohibitively expensive,” says Karlsson.

Usual options for accommodation such as hotels and guesthouses can prove too costly for families and small groups. Foreign tourists looking for less expensive options for accommodation while on holiday in Iceland get great value for money when staying in vacation rentals. Lighthouse Apartments is a vacation rental agency that provides an exclusive but inexpensive booking service on behalf of privately owned apratments in central Reykjavik.

Most of the Iceland vacation rentals in Iceland are privately owned. However, companies specializing in renting apartments own some of the vacation rentals on the market.

The Japanese are especially keen on seeing the Northern Lights. The Northern Lights attract thousands of people to Iceland each winter, mostly from Asia, America and Europe. Two things make Iceland the ideal place for viewing the Northern Lights. The country is located in a place geographically well suited to see the Northern lights, and it is accessible in winter.

“Most of our customers spend their time here in Iceland during the summer season, which coincides with the traditional school holidays in Europe and North America,” says Karlsson. In winter visitors can expect different experiences than in summer, such as sitting in a hot-tub heated with geothermal water while gazing at the Northern Lights.

Although each apartment is furnished and decorated differently, they all include a fully equipped kitchens with all necessary appliances together with one or more bedrooms. The apartments also include a shower or a bath, TV and a wireless computer connection.

Information about apartments in Iceland is available on Lighthouse’s website: www.lighthouseapartments.is, in English.

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Great places to visit in Bristol

Bristol is an interesting city to visit because it has a rich history but much more besides. The Bristol of today is a mix of the old and the new. Extensively bombed in World War II, many of the old buildings were lost. Some of the surviving aspects of the old town are the narrow cobbled streets and some beautiful old architecture such as the Llandoger Trow and the Corn Exchange.

There are occasionaly some landmark properties for sale in Bristol and when the Llandoger Trow came up for sale, Whitbread snapped it up. The Llandoger Trow was built in 1664 and is one of the last timber-built buildings in Bristol. Rumour has it that Daniel Defoe met Alexander Selkirk (the inspiration for Robinson Crusoe) there, and there are tales of pirates, ghosts and secret tunnels too.Relax and have a few drinks in this famous pub.

The clock over the Corn Exchange (a grade I listed building) is interesting because it has two minute hands. The black minute hand shows Greenwich Mean Time and the red minute hand shows Bristol time. The exchange was finished in 1743 and the clock was installed, at that time with only one minute hand, in 1822. The second minute hand was added later to show the time in London as well as the local time in Bristol. The arrival of the railways was the reason for the extra minute hand. The railways required a standardised time across the country for timetabling and on 22nd September 1847, the Railway Clearing House recommended that every railway company in Britain adopt Greenwich Mean Time at their stations, as soon as possible.This standard time became known as ‘railway time’, which Bristol officially adopted on 14 September 1852. Bristol is 2º 35′ west of Greenwich, which makes the black hand just over 10 minutes ahead of the red.

Bristol has plenty of religious buildings of architectural note. Bristol Cathedral is one of the UK’s finest hall churches and a prime example of late Norman architecture. It was built as an Augustinian abbey in the 12th century and converted in 1542 into the Cathedral Church of the Holy and Undivided Trinity. St John the Baptist’s Church is the only surviving church out of five built on the 12th century Saxon walls of Bristol’s old town. The church would have acted as part of the city’s defences as well as a place to offer prayers. Also worth visiting is the parish church of St Mary Redcliffe where you can admire the gothic arches and beautiful stained glass windows.

If castles and stately homes are your thing, don’t miss Berkeley Castle which has over 900 years of history. 24 generations of Berkeley’s have influenced the character of the stately home that now contains the bedspread of Queen Elizabeth I and Sir Francis Drake’s cabin chest.

If you visit Bristol at the right time of the year you will see the spectacular that is the Balloon Festival. Bristolians love to see the hot air balloons and there are many beautiful balloons gathered for the fiesta from all over the world. The fiesta started in 1979 and now boasts around 150 balloons and half a million visitors. If you miss it, you can still get in on some of the action by taking a hot air balloon flight over the city between April and October, weather permitting. The fiesta will be held between 12th and 15th August this year.

Bristol is a fantastic city, the delights of which I have only touched on. The docks have been refurbished since the days of urban decay, the streets are packed with cutting-edge restaurants and designer bars, the museums are world class and the nightlife and artistic talent are up there with the best.

For places to stay in Bristol or a guide to Bristol restaurants and shops, you may be interested in the Activ Bristol website which is a good place to start your internet research if you need to know more about what the city has to offer.

Jet Powered Flight

The invention of jet propulsion was ideal for fighter aircraft. Although at first it reduced range and endurance and often increased the take-off run. The German Messerschmitt Me 262 and the British Gloster Meteor twin jets saw action in 1944, together with the tailless Me 163 rocket interceptor which sacrificed range and endurance for astounding climb and speed in defending local areas against heavy bombers.

Germany was far in front of other countries in another factor too: armament. A range of 30 mm (1 inch) cannon, radically new high-speed cannon with multiple-revolver chambers, very large recoilless guns, spin-stabilised air-to-air rockets fired in salvoes, and wire-guided air-to-air missiles were all under test before the Luftwaffe s defeat. They gradually inspired similar developments in other countries: one German gun, the Mauser MG 213, led to the American Pontiac M-39, the French DEFA, the Russian NR-30, the Swiss Oerlikon KCA, and the British Aden, all of which are still in use.

Many early jet fighters were fitted into more or less conventional airframes. The fighter often considered the ultimate achievement of the piston era, the long-range North American P-51 Mustang appeared both in a twinned double-fuselage form and, with few changes, as a US Navy jet.

But the US Air Force decided to wait a year until its makers could sweep back the wings and tail at 35 degrees, which German research had shown could lead to higher speed. The result was the F-86 Sabre, which in 1948 set a speed record at 1,080 km/h (671 mph) and outflew all other fighters. Later versions carried radar and rockets and reached 1,150 km/h (715 mph).

During the Korean War (1950-3) the F-86 met a previously unknown machine built in the Soviet Union, the somewhat lighter and simpler MiG-15, and although the MiG could climb higher and had heavy cannon, the Sabre’s skilled pilots and better equipment gave it the edge in combat.

North American’s next fighter was the F-100 Super Sabre, which exceeded the speed of sound in level flight. The MiG bureau built the twin jet MiG-19, which was even faster, and is still in wide use. The US Air Force ordered various all-weather interceptors with largely automatic radar and flight control systems so that, with guided missiles, they could intercept and destroy enemy aircraft without the pilot ever seeing them.

The British ordered a jet-fighter flying-boat, but discovered that this way of doing business without airfields resulted in~yielded~produced an inferior fighter. The Americans suffered similar problems with a ‘hydroski’ fighter, which could dive faster than sound, but took off and landed on retractable water skis.

Two even stranger fighters were designed around powerful turboprop engines and, standing on their tails, screwed themselves vertically into the air (they were intended to operate from the confined decks of warships or merchant vessels). Britain built high-altitude supersonic fighters with ‘mixed power’ from a turbojet and a rocket. In 1957 the British Minister of Defence suggested there would soon be no more manned fighters at all, only missiles. The Americans stuck to fighters, but made them very large and armed them with missiles, but no gun.

Today the wheel has turned full circle. In the past 10 to 20 years there has been a powerful trend~wish to get back to the ‘eyeball-to-eyeball’ type of confrontation of the man in the Sopwith Camel. The pre-eminent Western fighter, the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom, was rebuilt with an internal gun, a rapid-fire 20 mm (0.79 in) cannon with six barrels firing up to 6,000 rds/ min, and a slatted wing to pull tighter turns in combat.

New small fighters appeared, such as the General Dynamics F-16, which, although bigger and heavier than any single-engined fighters of World War II, are nevertheless small and light by comparison with such impressive machines as the Grumman F-14 Tomcat, McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle, and MiG-25 Foxbat, The RAF’s next interceptor, the ADV (Air-Defence Version) of the Panavia Tornado, is a careful midway compromise, smaller than the three monsters just listed, but with two engines, long range, powerful radar, and extremely effective Skyflash missiles.

Modern interceptors defend vast blocks of airspace up to 160 km (100 miles) in radius, with powerful radar able to look down at the surrounding land and water and spot low-flying intruders trying to slip through the defences unnoticed. Their task is eased by the presence of special surveillance, early-warning, and AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System) aircraft, with enormous radars and sophisticated command and control systems to manage all a nation’s defences in the most efficient way.

There is no better feeling than being in the cockpit during your jet fighter flight. Jet fighter flights and jet fighter joy flights are the ultimate gift giving and receiving experience that will be remembered forever. Your jet fighter pilot experience is available in Melbourne, Cairns and Townsville. Visit flyingwarbirds.com.au for more details.

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Unemployed In Debt

Current research has shown that being made unemployed can bring about large and lasting debt issues and these too can have an outcome on future work possibilities.

Unemployment, whether it be a temporary or prolonged can cause a household to enter into serious debt issues which could take years to address. So most Debt Advisers are well experienced in the area of unemployment and should be able to assist.

In economic terms there are four primary causes of employment loss. A brief summary of these and the issues that relate to them is as follows:
1. Structural
The people does have the abilities needed by employers but they live in the wrong region and are not able to move.
2. Technological
The persons seeking employment do not have the abilities desired by potential employers. This becomes a retraining problem.
3. Frictional
That’s usually temporary unemployment – people who are between jobs.
4. The economy in recession
In a economic depression, people reduce spending to conserve their income and increasing levels of unemployment serves to reduce consumer spending even more. This results in fewer and fewer job vacancies.

So what can people do to reduce the effects of debt when they’re unemployed One positive move is to buy insurance cover which will continue to pay your mortgage or rent if you are out of work due to sickness, injury or redundancy. This cover will not necessarily tackle the whole issue, but it definitely becomes far more manageable. You can also buy insurance that will partially increase your income if you’re off work. Often these plans will continue to pay out for 12 months (some will run for 2 years) giving you breathing space and time to find alternative income. The cost is usually in the area of £41 to £71 per month for each £1,000 of monthly income to be provided.

It’s a fact that almost 8% of all adults in Britain, over 4.5M individuals, have seen the scale of their debt increase over the last six months according current research. While most of those individuals were comfortable with the increase, 58% had planned their rise in borrowings into their outgoings. But 39% of those questioned, nearly two million people, were totally ill-equipped for slipping deeper into debt .

If you are getting anxious about the level of your debts, get in touch with your lenders as expediently as possible, because the sooner debts are handled, the easier they will be to handle. If, despite the negotiations with your creditors, you are still under financial pressure, you should enquire into independent financial management.

It’s a certainty that many people are now volunteering into Individual Voluntary Arrangements (IVA) but this must be done by a licensed insolvency practitioner.

An IVA’s is a legally binding contract. It is a proposal to creditors to pay a percentage of the debt in monthly instalments over a fixed period of time, usually 5yrs. So long as most of of your unsecured creditors agree to the IVA, it becomes binding to all your creditors. An IVA is but one of several alternatives that will help those excessively hampered by debt. Our advice is to allways seek professional assistance.

Marlborough Town, Wiltshire

Marlborough Town

Marlborough is a market town in the English county of Wiltshire on the Old Bath Road, the old main road from London to Bath. It is well known for having the widest high-street in Britain.

The first sign of human habitation is the pre-historic mound (tumulus), in the grounds of Marlborough College. It is possibly of similar age to the larger Silbury Hill five miles to the west. Legend has it that the Mound is the burial site of Merlin[1] and that the name of the town, Marlborough comes from Merlin’s Barrow. The town’s motto is Ubi nunc sapientis ossa Merlini – Where now are the bones of wise Merlin[2].

Further evidence of human occupation comes from the discovery of the Marlborough Bucket an Iron Age burial bucket, with decorations of human heads and animals on sheet bronze.

Roman remains and coins have been found two miles to the East of Marlborough, at Mildenhall (Cunetio).

A later Saxon settlement grew up around The Green and two early river crossings were made at Isbury Lane and Stonebridge Lane.

The first written record of Marlborough dates from 1087 when the Domesday Book was finished. The borough received its charter to hold a market in 1204.[3]

    * In 1067, William the Conqueror assumed control of the Marlborough area and set about building a wooden motte and bailey castle, sited on the pre-historic mound. This was completed in around 1100 and stone was used to strengthen the castle, in around 1175.

    * William also established a mint in Marlborough, which coined the William I and the early William II silver pennies. The coins display the name of the town as Maerlebi or Maerleber.

    * William I established the neighbouring Savernake Forest as a favourite Royal hunting ground [4] and Marlborough Castle became a Royal residence. Henry I observed Easter here, in 1110. Richard I (Coeur de Lion) gave the castle to his brother John, in 1186. Henry II stayed at Marlborough Castle, in talks with the King of Scotland. King John was married here and spent time in Marlborough. He even established a Treasury. Later, Henry III was also married here.[5]

    * Henry III held Parliament here, in 1267, when the Statute of Marlborough was passed (this gave rights and privileges to small land owners and limited the right of the King to take possession of land). This seven-hundred-year-old law states that no one shall seize his neighbour’s goods for alleged wrong, without permission of the Court. It is the oldest piece of English law which has not yet been repealed.

    * The castle fell into disrepair by the end of the 14th century but remained Crown property. Edward VI then passed it to the Seymour family, his mother’s relatives.

    * The 1204 Charter granted the Borough an annual eight-day fair, commencing on 14 August, the vigil of the Feast of the Assumption of Our Lady (15 August), in which “all might enjoy the liberties and quittances customary in the fair at Winchester”. He also established that weekly markets may be held on Wednesdays and Saturdays. These continue to this day.[6]

    * In 1498 Thomas Wolsey was ordained priest in (the now redundant) St Peter’s church. He later rose to become a cardinal and Lord Chancellor.

    * In 1642, Marlborough’s peace was shattered by the English Civil War. The Seymours held the Castle for the King but the Town was for Parliament. With his headquarters in nearby Oxford, King Charles had to deal with Marlborough. “A Town the most notoriously disaffected of all that Country, otherwise, saving the obstinacy and malice of the inhabitants, in the situation of it very unfit for a garrison… this place the King saw would prove quickly an ill neighbour to him, not only as it was in the heart of a rich County, and so would straighten him, and even infest his quarters.” The King sent Lord Digby to take the town of Marlborough. He left Oxford at the head of four hundred horses, on the 24th November. When he arrived, he chose to parley first, thus giving the inhabitants a chance to prepare defences and to recruit troops. They mustered about seven hundred poorly-armed men. At this point, the Town issued a reply to Digby. “The King’s Majesty” he declared, “providing he were attended in Royal and not in war like wise, should be as welcome to that Town as ever was Prince to People; but as to delivering up the good Town of Marlborough to such a traitor as Lord Digby … they would sooner die”. After some early skirmishes, Royalist troops infiltrated the Town down its small alleyways. The Town was captured and looted and many buildings were set ablaze. One hundred and twenty prisoners were marched in chains to Oxford. The Town was later abandoned by the King and took no further part in the war.

    * On 28 April 1653, the Great Fire of Marlborough burnt two hundred and fifty houses to the ground.[citation needed] Fire swept through the Town again in 1679 and again in 1690. This time, an Act of Parliament was passed “to prohibit the covering of houses and other buildings with thatch in the Town of Marlborough”.[7]

    * In 1689, William III created Sir John Churchill, the distinguished Army general, Earl of Marlborough. In 1702, William’s successor, Queen Anne created Churchill Duke of Marlborough.

    * Nobel Prize winning author William Golding, author of Lord of the Flies, grew up in the town. Golding lived on a house in the Green. Golding was educated at the former Marlborough Grammar School, where his father was a science master.

In 2004, Marlborough Live celebrated 800 years of its Town Charter, among the celebrations was a street play by the Marlborough Players entitled “Wheels of Time” and a visit from HRH Prince Charles. During the rebuilding of the town after the Great Fire of Marlborough in 1653 which destroyed almost the entire town, the high street became what is claimed to be the widest in England. This allows ample space for a local market which is held twice a week, on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Every summer the town holds a jazz festival with local pubs, clubs, hotels and various other venues playing host to live jazz music over the course of a weekend. Every October the high street is closed for the two Saturdays either side of 11 October for the Marlborough Mop Fair. This was originally a hiring fair for agricultural workers seeking employment but now has become a funfair. The right of the town to close the road to hold the fair is set down in the Charter.

On the north side of the high street is the Merchant’s House, which is currently under restoration but part of which is open to the public on Fridays and Saturdays in summer. The house was built following the Great Fire of 1653. It was the property of a silk merchant and, rarely for a house of this type in a town centre, still retains its original room pattern. Of great interest are the wall paintings recently uncovered, which are undergoing careful conservation. One room painted in a striped pattern, copying silk hangings, is perhaps unique in Great Britain.

Dubai City Profile – UAE

According to official figures, 99 per cent of the residents of the small, once insular United Arab Emirates (UAE) reside in Dubai City. This makes the distinction between city and Emirate very small indeed.

Dubai is growing faster than any other city in the Persian Gulf region. New and luxurious hotel complexes, shopping centres and high-rise apartment buildings are being built daily. The face of this highly modern city with over a million inhabitants is constantly changing, yet always a bit eccentric.

In addition to countless corporate headquarters, ultra-luxurious hotels and resorts, and high-end shopping malls, Dubai is also home to the largest indoor snow park in the world, fittingly called Ski Dubai, itself located inside a gargantuan shopping mall. Opened in December 2005, the temperature inside the facility at the edge of the Arabian Desert is a constant minus 1 degrees, while the temperature outside soars to 40 degrees under the merciless desert sun. It would seem that in the city of Dubai, anything is possible.

Oil, black gold of the Emirs.

Dubai has been governed for over 170 years by the Al-Maktoum clan. Under their leadership, and with substantial investment from Britain, the harbour of Dubai has become the most important commerical port in the Persian Gulf. The local inhabitants used to earn their living by diving for pearls. Their lifestyles changed drastically with the discovery of oil in 1966 and the economic boom that followed.

Persian Gulf tourist destination.

In addition to the oil industry, Dubai’s economy relies on tourism, banking and trade. Great efforts have been made to promote Dubai as a tourist destination. The most exclusive residential quarter of the Emirate now boasts a number of world-class luxury hotels, including the famous Burj At Arab, the “Arab Tower”.

Designed to resemble the sail of a traditional Persian Gulf ship, the 54-storey hotel is 321 metres tall. It is the tallest, most expensive and most luxurious hotel in the world. Visitors can play tennis at a dizzying height on top of the “helipad” overlooking the Arabian Gulf 311 metres below. The Wild Wadi Water Park and Madinat Jumeirah shopping mall are located nearby in the suburb of Jumeirah. Then there are the Palm Islands, tear-shaped artificial landmasses built in the shallow gulf waters. They provide additional land for vacation homes, villas and hotels. Several nearby Gulf islands await similar development.

The river that is not a river.

The wetlands known as Ras Al-Khor divide Dubai into northern and southern sections. Ras Al-Khor is not a river but a shallow inland bay. Small passenger ferries called abras carry people from one side to the other for a small fee, or traditional lateen sailboats can be rented for a more extensive tour. A protected national wildlife area, the Ras al-Khor is home to over 100 species of birds, including a resident population of 500 greater flamingos.

Tourism promotes restoration.

Most of the places of greatest interest to visitors in Dubai’s Old City are found along the Ras Al-Khor. Naturally, there are also many mosques in Islamic Dubai. The Great Mosque, built in 1998, is between the al-Fahidi Fort and Ras al-Khor. Al-Fahidi Fort was once the seat of the emirs of Dubai. Restored in 1970, it is now the National Museum.

The Bastakia Quarter is one of the oldest parts of the city, making up the larger part of its historic centre. Having survived the twentieth-century building boom without sacrificing its ancient charm, the government now plans a complete restoration, including a museum, cultural centre, restaurants and art galleries. Houses in Bastakia are notable for their “wind towers”, a traditional means of air conditioning. Cool air currents are pulled into the centre of the house through vents and windows. The system is so cleverly designed that that even the smallest breeze circulates through the rooms below.

For unbeatable packages with Qantas, Virgin Blue and Singapore Airlines contact Flight Centre today.

History of Mistletoe

History of Mistletoe

 

The mistletoe, native to the forests of Northern Europe, is a parasite implant on deciduous and evergreen trees which produces yellowish flowers and waxy white berries. Its closest relative in North America has yellowish flowers and waxy white berries, and is also commonly known as mistletoe. Notably, it is the official floral emblem of the State of Oklahoma.

The name mistletoe came about from two Anglo – Saxon words: mistel which means dung and tan which means twig. And so, mistletoe quite literally means dung on a twig. Mistletoe infers that life can spring up from dung. This leeching plant grows and thrives on the dung of birds on the branches of trees. As a result, mistletoe became the symbol of vivacity and fertility.

The Christmas and New Year tradition of embracing for the bashful and kissing for the brazen under a sprig of mistletoe dates back to olden Britain. Also, it was prevalent among the Druids who were the learned class of the Celts.

The Druids celebrated the beginning of winter ( winter solstice ) by collecting mistletoe and burning it as a sacrifice to their pagan gods. To ensure a year of good faith, peace, and familial harmony, they hung sprigs of mistletoe around their homes. Twigs of the evergreen displayed visibly outside their homes welcomed relatives, friends, neighbors and weary travelers and the mistletoe within encouraged them to embrace shamelessly. Feuding parties or foes who happened to meet under trees that contained mistletoe were required to lay aside their weapons and settle their differences.

The Druids believed that the mistletoe had healing properties. It was often prescribed for female infertility and as an antidote for poisons of all kinds. The gathering of mistletoe was a ceremony by the highest priests using gold knives. Such a carefree rite of harvesting mistletoe is dramatically portrayed in Bellinis opera Norma.

The Celtic Druids were not the only people who ascribed so many marvelous attributes to the mistletoe, the Scandinavians, who called it mistilteinn; also believed that it was the plant of peace, the plant of hope and the plant of harmony. The Scandinavian lore claims that the mistletoe belonged to Frigga, the Scandinavian star of inclination, and the embracing and kissing custom is thought to have come from this notion.

Mistletoe was also used for a decorative green in the Roman Empire during their feasts of Natalis Solis Invicti and Saturnalia. Due to its ties to idolatrous festivities, the Church banned the use of mistletoe when Christmas on December 25 was officially recognized as the birth of Christ in the the fourth century.

As an alternative to the mistletoe, the holly was ironically proposed even thought it too had strong associations with atheist rituals. Nevertheless, the hollys white flowers were to signify the purity of Christ, the acerbic leaves were to symbolize the thorns in Christs crown and the red berries as drops of His blood. Thus, the Holly became a Nativity tradition, but, surprisingly enough, the churchs ban on mistletoe which was in effect throughout the Middle Ages still persists today.

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