mother. Therefore, they asserted that this slaughter was introduced at the feast for Ares."
It is evident that the pious here fight their way to a share
in the mystery of the raping of the mother.[106] This is the
part which belongs to them,[107] while the heroic deed belongs
to the god.[108] By Ares is meant the Egyptian Typhon,
as we have good reasons to suppose. Thus Typhon represents
the evil longing for the mother with which other
myth forms reproach the mother, according to the well-known
example. The death of Balder, quite analogous
to the death of Osiris (attack of sickness of Rê), because
of the wounding by the branch of the mistletoe, seems to
need a similar explanation. It is recounted in the myth
how all creatures were pledged not to hurt Balder, save
only the mistletoe, which was forgotten, presumably because
it was too young. This killed Balder. Mistletoe
is a parasite. The female piece of wood in the fire-boring
ritual was obtained[109] from the wood of a parasitical or
creeping plant, the fire mother. The "mare" rests upon
"Marentak," in which Grimm suspects the mistletoe.
The mistletoe was a remedy against barrenness. In Gaul
the Druid alone was allowed to climb the holy oak amid
solemn ceremonies after the completed sacrifice, in order
to cut off the ritual mistletoe.[110] This act is a religiously
limited and organized incest. That which grows on the
tree is the child,[111] which man might have by the mother;
then man himself would be in a renewed and rejuvenated
form; and precisely this is what man cannot have, because
the incest prohibition forbids it. As the Celtic custom
shows, the act is performed by the priest only, with the
