The Mistletoe Bough

 As 'tis the season to be reading, I have a new read to suggest you. It is a recent discovery for me: I found it yesterday in A Literary Christmas. It is a poem/song by Thomas Haynes Bayly, music by Henry Bishop, based on the Legend of the Mistletoe Bough. I blogged yesterday about the dark side of Christmas. Well, Yuletide cannot get any darker than this. It is more a horror tale than anything else. You can read the poem/song here. I have also put a performance of the song below. In the story, there is no spirit, no ghost, no devil, not even an evil man, only tragic irony. And there is also the presence of the mistletoe bough, which, like in the old lore (see here), is an omen of tragedy.

A Literary Christmas

As my readership knows, I read seasonal. And that means during the Advent and Christmastime, I read books about Christmas, or set during Christmastime, or linked to the season in an apparently tenuous way. But I do also read books that talk of Christmas at length. Last year in Waterstone's, I bought A Literary Christmas, which I am reading at the moment (among many other things. It is an anthology, which means it has a flaw: I can find the same stories somewhere else. And this one has, apart from the usual poems, quite a lot of abstract of novels or short stories rather than full stories. And the cover is rather lame. But let's not judge a book by its cover. Even if this one is lame, the book is a rather fun read so far, full of Yuletide atmosphere. And with many classic authors, the book certainly has soul. Or should I say souls? In any case, it is proper literature, although sometimes truncated.