The Mistletoe Bride

A Christmas Tale and Ballad

Mark Norman, in his Folklore Podcast, explores the ‘gruesome’ tale of the unfortunate bride (and groom) and the game of hide-and-seek on Christmas Eve, the night of their wedding. It is a tale I have told for years and first wrote about it in my first book on Urban Legends, Tales, Rumors, and Gossip, published in 1996. There I mentioned the various ways students in my storytelling workshops had adapted the story: “Young adult workshop attendees have enjoyed “locking their nemesis in lockers, car trunks, and old freezers in their “active” retellings of this ballad (85).”

I revisited it again in a brief exploration of contemporary reworkings in Stories from Songs: Ballads as Literary Fictions for Young Adults, published in 2009. I was not aware, however, of the earliest written record of this tale which Mark Norman had found and included in the ballad. I highly recommend listening to the podcast which can be found on YouTube. The entry concludes: “ The episode is rounded off with a performance of the song which popularised the legend, 'The Mistletoe Bough' given exclusively for the audience of the podcast by critically acclaimed English folk singer Jackie Oates.”