A few days ago, I was mesmerized by watching the moon rise behind the branches of an oak tree (Quercus robur) I have in the backyard. August’s full moon was a few days away, but she was already magnificent and seductive. I couldn’t help but think about Pliny’s description of the collection of mistletoe from oaks, at moon, by the Celtic druids: “The Druids” “held nothing more sacred than the mistletoe and the tree that bears it, supposing always that tree to be the robur” (oak). “The mistletoe” “when found, is gathered with rites replete with religious awe. This is done more particularly on the fifth day of the moon”. “This day they select because the moon, although not yet in the middle of its course, has already considerable power and influence; and they call her by a name which means, in their language, the all-healing”. “Having made all due preparation for the sacrifice and a banquet beneath the trees, they bring thither two white bulls, the horns of which are bound then for the first time. Clad in a white robe, the priest ascends the tree. He cuts the mistletoe with a golden sickle, which is received by others in a white cloak.” “They then immolate the victims, offering up their prayers that God will render this gift of his propitious to those to whom he has so granted it.

It is the belief with them that the mistletoe, taken in drink, will impart fecundity to all barren animals and that it is an antidote for all poisons.” (Pliny, Natural History, XVI, 95). Religious officials, astronomers, teachers, thinkers, healers, magicians, guardians and interpreters of customary laws (Julius Caesar, The Gallic Wars, VI, 13-18), the druids were also the educators of the Celtic aristocracy and performers of sacrifices and prophecies. Pliny’s extraordinary description inspired S. F. Ravenet in the engraving “The druids; or the conversion of the Britons to Christianity” (1752) and Henri-Paul Motte (1900) in the drawing “Druid cutting mistletoe on the sixth day of the moon”. Although Pliny, in his Natural History, incorporates many fantastic elements and descriptions, which is nothing unusual for a writer from Antiquity, his account of the collection of Viscum plants in oak trees is considered reasonably credible by modern academics (Miranda J. Green).

I used a long focal lens (300 mm). Even with a very small aperture (f/32), it was not possible to have the plant and the moon both in focus, so I got two separate images, one focusing on the leaves and the other on the moon, which were then blended.