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nNay, Ivy, nay; it shall not be i-wys ;nnn
nLet Holly hafe the maystery, as the manner is.nnn
nHolly stond in the Halle fayre to behold;nnn
nIvy stond without the dore; she is full sore acold.nnn
nHolly and his merry men they dancyn and they sing.nnn
nIvy and hur maidens they wepyn and they wryng.n
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nBallad from the time of Henry VI
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n If the early Christians found the holly easy tonassimilate into their iconography, ivy was an all-together different matter.nThe old pagans had seen holly and ivy as representative of the male and femalenprinciples, as they did with the robin and the wren; they were a pairing thatnnaturally went together. Holly had sufficient attributes that matched thenChristian story – the spiny leaves were reminiscent of the crown of thorns, thenscarlet berries were obviously the drops of blood shed during the Passion, thenwhite flowers symbolised purity, and being evergreen echoed everlasting life.
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| Ivy |
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nIvy was different. The early church fathers were not too enthusiastic aboutnwomen to begin with, so the feminine aspects of ivy didn’t sit too well withnthem, but ivy had other connotations too. In Classical times, ivy was sacred tonthe gods of wine, the Greek Dionysus and the Roman Bacchus (Kissos, the Greeknfor ivy, was the original name of the infant Bacchus), and that is where thentrouble started. Wine was central to the Christian rites but was also centralnto the rites of Dionysus, and the parallels didn’t stop there.
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| Dionysus and Ivy |
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nThe legends ofnDionysus tell of a young god of epiphanies who arrives from another world, bornnof a divine father and a mortal mother, who is killed but returns to life, whondescends into Hades but also returns, who is celebrated in a ritual meal ofnbread and wine.
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| Maenad |
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nHowever, Dionysus was also the god of revels, of madness andnchaos; his followers, the maenads, are dangerous women who tear men and animalsninto pieces with their bare hands in their uncontrolled, ecstatic, possessednstate, they sing and dance wildly, and engage in unrestrained sexual activity.nOn their heads, they wear wreathes of ivy and Dionysus himself carries a staffnof ivy-wood, the thyrsus, wrapped with ivy leaves and tipped by a pine cone,nwhich drips honey and is a beneficent wand although it can also be used as anweapon.
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| Dionysus with thyrsus and Maenad |
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nNot really the sort of things that the bishops sought to be associatednwith. And, in classical times, ivy was used as the sign of the tavern; a largenbush was hung above the door of alehouses, although, as Rosalind says in AsnYou Like It, ‘Good wine needs no bush’. The antiquary John Aubreynrefers to this in the line, “The Tavern-bush is dress’t with Ivy, which isnderived from that of Bacchus”; again not the sort of places that good,nsober Christians might frequent.
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| Ivy Bush |
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nThe early church councils, particularly thosenheld at Braga, forbade Christians to decorate their homes and churches withnevergreen foliage, and the Elizabethan Puritan William Prynne disapproved ofnthe practice,
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n“At Christmas men do always Ivy get,nnn
nAnd in each corner of the house it set;nnn
nBut why do they then use that Bacchus-weed?nnn
nBecause they mean, then, Bacchus-like to feed.”n
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n There was a common beliefnthat drinking wine from a cup made from the wood of the ivy would keep thendrinker sober, or ivy berries added to wine would do the same and some believednthat an ivy goblet had the ability to separate a mixture of wine and water.nWater drunk from an ivy-cup was a sure cure for hooping-cough in children. Itnhas to be said that ivy, like holly, is poisonous and should never be takenninternally.
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| Owl with Ivy |
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nIn the ballad quoted at the beginning of this post are also thesenlines,
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n“Good Ivy what byrdys hast thou ?n
nNon but the owlet that kreye how!nhow!”n
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nThe cry of the owlet was taken to be an omen of approaching death,nand ivy was a funeral plant. The weeping ivy on the Yule log, like the weepingnmothers of Modranicht, mourn the death of the year, and in the languagenof flowers ivy represented steadfastness, seen again in the mourning mothersnlamenting the passing of their loved, lost children. Ivy was placed in thenwreath that adorned the boar’s head at the Yule feast and a sprig of anothernfunereal herb, rosemary, was stuck into the apple in the boar’s mouth.
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