| By Author | [ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | Other Symbols ] |
| By Title | [ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | Other Symbols ] |
| By Language |
|
Download this book: [ ASCII | HTML | PDF ] Look for this book on Amazon Tweet |
Title: Plant Lore, Legends, and Lyrics - Embracing the Myths, Traditions, Superstitions, and - Folk-Lore of the Plant Kingdom
Author: Folkard, Richard
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.
*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Plant Lore, Legends, and Lyrics - Embracing the Myths, Traditions, Superstitions, and - Folk-Lore of the Plant Kingdom" ***
(This file was produced from images generously made
[Illustration: The Garden of Eden
_from John Parkinson’s “Paradisi in Sole Paradisus Terrestris.”
1656_]
PLANT LORE,
LEGENDS, and LYRICS.
_EMBRACING THE_
Myths, Traditions, Superstitions, and
Folk-Lore of the Plant Kingdom.
_BY_
RICHARD FOLKARD, JUN.
LONDON:
Sampson Low, Marston, Searle, and Rivington,
Crown Buildings, 188, Fleet Street.
1884.
[_All Rights Reserved._]
PRINTED BY R. FOLKARD AND SON,
22, DEVONSHIRE STREET, QUEEN SQUARE, BLOOMSBURY,
LONDON, W.C.
PREFACE.
Having, some few years ago, been associated in the conduct of a
journal devoted to horticulture, I amassed for literary purposes
much of the material made use of in the present volume. Upon the
discontinuance of the journal, I resolved to classify and arrange the
plant lore thus accumulated, with a view to its subsequent publication,
and I have since been enabled to enrich the collection with much
Continental and Indian lore (which I believe is quite unknown to the
great majority of English readers) from the vast store to be found in
Signor De Gubernatis’ volumes on plant tradition, a French edition of
which appeared two years ago, under the title of _La Mythologie des
Plantes_. To render the present work comprehensive and at the same
time easy of reference, I have divided the volume into two sections,
the first of which is, in point of fact, a digest of the second; and
I have endeavoured to enhance its interest by introducing some few
reproductions of curious illustrations pertaining to the subjects
treated of. Whilst preferring no claim for anything beyond the exercise
of considerable industry, I would state that great care and attention
has been paid to the revision of the work, and that as I am both author
and printer of my book, I am debarred in that dual capacity from even
palliating my mistakes by describing them as “errors of the press.” In
tendering my acknowledgments to Prof. De Gubernatis and other authors
I have consulted on the various branches of my subject, I would draw
attention to the annexed list of the principal works to which reference
is made in these pages.
RICHARD FOLKARD, Jun.
Cricklewood, _August, 1884_.
Principal Works Referred to.
_Adams, H. C._ ‘Flowers; their Moral, Language, and Poetry.’
_Albertus Magnus._ _De Mirabilibus Mundi._
_Aldrovandus._ _Ornithologia._
_Bacon, Lord._ ‘_Sylva Sylvarum_,’ and ‘Essay on Gardens.’
_Bauhin, C._ _De plantis a divis sanctisve nomen habentibus_ (1591).
_Brand, J._ ‘Popular Antiquities.’
_Bright, H. A._ ‘A Year in a Lancashire Garden.’
_Campbell, J. F._ ‘Tales of the Western Highlands.’
‘Choice Notes from _Notes and Queries_.’
_Coles, W._ ‘Adam in Eden’ (1657); and ‘The Art of Simpling’ (1656).
‘The Compleat English Gardener’ (1683).
‘The Countryman’s Recreation’ (1640).
_Croker, T. C._ ‘Fairy Legends of the South of Ireland.’
_Culpeper, N._ ‘British Herbal.’
_Cutts, Rev. E._ ‘Decoration of Churches.’
_Darwin, E._ ‘The Botanic Garden’: a Poem.
_Dasent, Sir G. W._ ‘Popular Tales from the Norse.’
_Daubeny, C._ ‘Trees and Shrubs of the Ancients.’
_Day, Rev. Lal Behari._ ‘Folk-Tales of Bengal.’
_De Gubernatis, A._ _La Mythologie des Plantes; ou les Légendes du
Règne Végétal._
_Dixon, W. G._ ‘The Land of the Morning: Japan.’
‘The Dutch Gardener’ (1703).
_Dyer, Rev. T. F._ ‘English Folk-lore.’
_Ennemoser, J._ ‘History of Magic.’
_Evelyn, J._ ‘_Sylva_: a Discourse of Forest Trees’ (1662); ‘The French
Gardener’ (1658); and ‘_Kalendarium Hortense_’ (1664).
‘The Expert Gardener’ (1640).
‘The Fairy Family.’
_Farrer, J. A._ ‘The Names of Flowers’ (In ‘Cornhill Magazine,’ Vol.
XLV.).
_Fitzherbarde, Sir Anthony._ ‘Boke of Husbandry’ (1523).
_Fleetwood, Bishop._ ‘Curiosities of Nature and Art in Husbandry and
Gardening’ (1707).
‘Flower Lore’ (M’Caw & Co., Belfast).
_Gerarde, J._ ‘The Herbal; or, General Historie of Plantes.’ Edited by
Johnson (1633).
_Grimm, J._ ‘Teutonic Mythology’ (Translated by Stallybrass.)
_Henderson, W._ ‘Folk-lore of the Northern Counties.’
_Hunt, R._ ‘Popular Romances of the West of England.’
_Ingram, J._ ‘_Flora Symbolica_.’
_Jameson, Mrs._ ‘Sacred and Legendary Art’; ‘Legends of the Monastic
Orders’; and ‘Legends of the Madonna.’
_Karr, Alphonse._ ‘A Tour Round my Garden.’
_Kelly, W. K._ ‘Curiosities of Indo-European Tradition and Folk-lore.’
_Kent, Miss._ ‘_Flora Domestica_,’ and ‘Sylvan Sketches.’
_King, R. J._ ‘Sketches and Studies.’
_Kircherus._ _De Luce et Umbra, Ars Magnetica, &c._
‘The Language of Flowers’ (Saunders and Otley).
_Liger, Louis._ ‘The Retired Gardener’ (1717).
_Loudon, J. C._ ‘Encyclopædia of Gardening.’
_Loudon, Mrs._ ‘Companion to the Flower Garden.’
_Macer Floridus._ _De Viribus Herbarum_ (1527).
_Mallet, M._ ‘Northern Antiquities.’
_Mannhardt, Prof._ _Baumkultus der Germanen_; _Germanische Mythen_; and
_Wald- und Feld-Kulte_.
_Marmier, X._ _Légendes des Plantes._
_Marshall, S._ ‘Plant Symbolism’ (In ‘Natural History Notes,’ Vol. II.).
_Martyn, Thos._ ‘Miller’s Gardener’s and Botanist’s Dictionary.’
_Matthiolus._ _De Plantis_ (1585).
_Maundevile, Sir John._ ‘Voiage and Travaile’ (Edit. 1725).
_Mentzelius, C._ _Index Nominum Plantarum Multilinguis_ (1682).
_Moore, T._ ‘Lalla Rookh.’
_Müller, Max._ ‘Selected Essays.’
_Murray, E. C. G._ ‘Songs and Legends of Roumania.’
_Newton, W._ ‘Display of Heraldry.’
_Nork._ _Mythologie der Volkssagen._
_Oldenburg, Dr. H._ ‘Buddha: his Life, Doctrine, and Order.’
_Parkinson, J._ ‘_Paradisi in Sole: Paradisus Terrestris_’ (1656).
_Paxton, Sir Joseph._ ‘Botanical Dictionary.’
_Percival, Rev. P._ ‘The Land of the Veda.’
_Phillips, J._ ‘_Flora Historical._’
_Pirie, M._ ‘Flowers, Grasses, and Shrubs.’
_Plat, Sir Hugh, Knt._ ‘The Garden of Eden’ (1600).
_Pliny._ ‘Natural History.’
_Porta, J. B._ _Phytognomica_ (1588).
_Pratt, A._ ‘Flowering Plants and Ferns of Great Britain.’
_Prior, Dr._ ‘Popular Names of British Plants.’
_Ralston, W. R._ ‘Forest and Field Myths’ (In ‘Contemporary Review,’
Vol. XXXI.).
_Rapin, R._ _De Hortorum Cultura_ (Gardiner’s trans., 1665).
_Rawlinson, Rev. G._ ‘The Religions of the Ancient World.’
_Reade, W. W._ ‘The Veil of Isis; or, the Mysteries of the Druids.’
_Rea, J._ ‘Flora, Ceres, and Pomona’ (1665).
_Rimmel, E._ ‘The Book of Perfumes.’
The ‘Royal and Imperial Dream Book.’
_Sawyer, F. E._ ‘Sussex Folk-lore and Customs.’
_Shway Yoe._ ‘The Burman: his Life and Notions.’
_Thorpe, B._ ‘Yule-tide Stories.’
_Tighe, W._ ‘The Plants’: a Poem.
_Timbs, J._ ‘Popular Errors;’ ‘Curiosities of History;’ and ‘Things Not
Generally Known.’
_Turner, Robert._ ‘_Botanologia_: The Brittish Physician; or, the
Nature and Vertues of English Plants’ (1687).
_Turner, W._ ‘The Herball.’
_Tusser, Thomas._ ‘Five Hundred Points of Husbandry’ (1562).
_White, Rev. Gilbert._ ‘Natural History of Selborne.’
_Wilkinson, Sir G._ ‘The Ancient Egyptians.’
_Zahn, J._ _Speculæ Physico-Mathematico-Historicæ_ (1696).
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
_PART THE FIRST._
INTRODUCTION xiii.
CHAPTER I.
THE WORLD-TREES OF THE ANCIENTS. -- The Scandinavian Ash --
The Hindu World-Tree -- The World-Tree of the Buddhists -- The
Iranian World-Tree -- The Assyrian Sacred Tree -- The Mother Tree
of the Greeks, Romans, and Teutons 1
CHAPTER II.
THE TREES OF PARADISE AND THE TREE OF ADAM. -- The Terrestrial
Paradise -- The Paradise of the Persians, Arabians, Hindus,
Scandinavians, and Celts -- The Mosaic Paradise -- Eden and the
Walls of its Garden -- The Tree of Life -- The Tree of Knowledge
-- The Forbidden Fruit -- Adam’s Departure from Paradise --
Seth’s Journey to the Garden of Eden -- The Death of Adam -- The
Seeds of the Tree of Life -- Moses and his Rods -- King David and
the Rods -- Solomon and the Cedars of Lebanon -- The Tree of Adam
and the Tree of the Cross 9
CHAPTER III.
SACRED PLANTS OF THE ANCIENTS. -- The Parsis and the Cypress --
The Oak -- Sacred Plants and Trees of the Brahmans and Buddhists
-- Plants Revered by the Burmans -- The Cedar, Elm, Ash, Rowan,
Baobab, Nipa, Dragon Tree, Zamang, and Moriche Palm -- The
Nelumbo or Sacred Bean -- Plants Worshipped by Egyptians -- The
Lotus, Henna, and Pomegranate -- Sacred Plants of the Græco-Roman
Divinities -- Plants of the Norse Gods 21
CHAPTER IV.
FLORAL CEREMONIES, GARLANDS, AND WREATHS. -- The Altars of the
Gods -- Flowers, Fragrant Woods, and Aromatics -- Incense --
Perfumes -- Ceremonies of the Assyrians, Egyptians, Greeks, and
Romans -- The Roman Triumphs -- Festivals of the Terminalia
and Floralia -- May-day Customs -- Well-flowering -- Harvest
Festivals -- Flowers and Weddings -- Floral Games of Toulouse and
Salency -- The Rosière -- Rose Pelting -- Battle of Flowers --
Japanese New Year’s Festival -- Wreaths, Chaplets, and Garlands 26
CHAPTER V.
PLANTS OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. -- The Virgin Mary and her
Flowers -- Joseph’s Plants -- The Plants of Bethlehem -- Flora
of the Flight into Egypt -- The Herb of the Madonna -- Plants of
the Virgin -- The Annunciation, Visitation, and Assumption -- The
Rosary -- The Plants of Christmas -- The Garden of Gethsemane
-- Plants of the Passion -- The Crown of Thorns -- The Wood of
the Cross -- Veronica -- The Plants of Calvary -- The Trees and
the Crucifixion -- The Tree of Judas -- Plants of St. John the
Baptist -- Plant Divination on St. John’s Eve -- Flowers of
the Saints -- The Floral Calendar -- Flowers of the Church’s
Festivals -- Decoration of Churches -- Gospel Oaks -- Memorial
Trees -- The Glastonbury Thorn -- St. Joseph’s Walnut Tree -- St.
Martin’s Yew 40
CHAPTER VI.
PLANTS OF THE FAIRIES AND NAIADES. -- The Elves and the Oak --
Elves of the Forest -- The Elf of the Fir-tree -- The Rose Elf
-- Moss or Wood Folk -- The Black Dwarfs -- The Still Folk --
The Procca -- English Fairies -- The Fairy Steed -- Fairy Revels
-- Elf Grass -- Fairy Plants -- The Cowslip, or Fairy Cup --
The Foxglove, or Lusmore -- The Four-leaved Clover -- The Fairy
Unguent -- The Russalkis -- Naiades and Water Nymphs -- The
Fontinalia -- Fays of the Well 64
CHAPTER VII.
SYLVANS, WOOD NYMPHS, AND TREE SPIRITS. -- Fauns, Satyrs, Dryads,
and Hamadryads -- The Laurel Maiden -- The Willow Nymph -- The
Sister of the Flowers -- Sacred Groves and their Denizens -- The
Spirits of the Forest -- The Indian Tree Ghosts -- The Burmese
Nats -- The African Wood Spirits -- The Waldgeister of the
Germans -- The Elder-mother -- German Tree and Field Spirits 74
CHAPTER VIII.
PLANTS OF THE DEVIL. -- Puck’s Plant -- Pixie-stools -- Loki’s
Plants -- The Trolls and the Globe-flower -- Accursed and Unlucky
Plants -- Plants connected with the Black Art -- Plant-haunting
Demons -- The Devil and Fruit Trees -- Tree Demons on St. John’s
Eve -- Demons of the Woods and Fields -- The Herb of the Devil --
Poisonous and Noxious Plants -- Ill-omened Plants -- The Devil’s
Key -- Plants Inimical to the Devil -- The Devil-Chaser -- The
Deadly Upas -- The Manchineel -- The Oleander -- The Jatropha
Urens -- The Lotos -- The Elder -- The Phallus Impudicus -- The
Carrion Flower -- The Antchar -- The Loco or Rattle Weed -- The
Aquapura -- Deadly Trees of Hispaniola and New Andalusia --
Poisonous Plants 82
CHAPTER IX.
PLANTS OF THE WITCHES. -- The Herbs of Hecate, Circe, and
Medea -- Witch Powder -- Witches and Elders -- Sylvan Haunts
of Witches -- Witches’ Plant-steeds -- Witches’ Soporifics
-- The Nightmare Flower -- Plants used in Spells -- Potions,
Philtres, and Hell-broths -- The Hag Taper -- Witch Ointment --
The Witches’ Bath -- Foreign Witches and their Plants -- Plants
used for Charms and Spells -- Witches’ Prescriptions -- Herbs of
Witchcraft -- Plants Antagonistic to Witches 91
CHAPTER X.
MAGICAL PLANTS. -- Plants producing Ecstasies and Visions --
Soma -- Laurel -- The Druids and Mistletoe -- Prophetic Oaks
-- Dream Plants -- Plants producing Love and Sympathy -- The
Sorcerer’s Violet -- Plants used for Love Divination -- Concordia
-- Discordia -- The Calumny Destroyer -- The Grief Charmer --
The Sallow, Sacred Basil, Eugenia, Onion, Bay, Juniper, Peony,
Hypericum, Rowan, Elder, Thorn, Hazel, Holly -- The Mystic
Fern-seed -- Four-leaved Clover -- The Mandrake, or Sorcerer’s
Root -- The Metal Melter -- The Misleading Plant -- Herb of
Oblivion -- Lotos Tree -- King Solomon’s Magical Herb Baharas --
The Nyctilopa and Springwort -- Plants influencing Thunder and
Lightning -- The Selago, or Druid’s Golden Herb -- Gold-producing
Plants -- Plants which disclose Treasures -- The Luck Flower --
The Key-Flower -- Sesame -- The Herb that Opens -- The Moonwort,
or Lunary -- The Sferracavallo -- Magic Wands and Divining Rods
-- Moses’ Rod 105
CHAPTER XI.
FABULOUS, WONDROUS, AND MIRACULOUS PLANTS. -- Human Trees --
Man-bearing Trees -- The Wak-Wak, or Tree bearing Human Heads
-- Chinese and Indian Bird-bearing Tree -- Duck-bearing Tree
-- The Barnacle, or Goose Tree -- The Serpent-bearing Tree
-- The Oyster-bearing Tree -- The Animal-bearing Tree -- The
Butterfly-bearing Tree -- The Vegetable Lamb -- The Lamb-bearing
Tree -- Marvellous Trees and Plants -- Vegetable Monstrosities
-- Plants bearing Inscriptions and Figures -- Miraculous Plants
-- The Tree of St. Thomas -- The Withered Tree of the Sun -- The
Tree of Tiberias -- Father Garnet’s Straw 116
CHAPTER XII.
PLANTS CONNECTED WITH BIRDS AND ANIMALS. -- Seed-sowing Birds --
Birds as Almanacks -- The Cuckoo and the Cherry Tree -- Augury
by Cock and Barley -- The Nightingale and the Rose -- The Robin
and the Thorn -- The Missel-Thrush and Mistletoe -- The Swallow
and Celandine -- The Hawk and Hawkweed -- Life-giving Herb --
The Woodpecker and the Peony -- The Spring-wort and the Birds
-- Choughs and Olives -- Herb of the Blessed Virgin Mary -- The
Eyebright and Birds -- Plants named after Birds and Animals 136
CHAPTER XIII.
THE DOCTRINE OF PLANT SIGNATURES. -- Illustrations and Examples
of the Signatures and Characterisms of Plants -- The Diseases
Cured by Herbs -- General Rules of the System of Plant Signatures
supposed to Reveal the Occult Powers and Virtues of Vegetables
-- Plants Identified with the Various Portions of the Human Body
-- The Old Herbals and Herbalists -- Extraordinary Properties
attributed to Herbs 154
CHAPTER XIV.
PLANTS AND THE PLANETS. -- When to Pluck Herbs -- The Plants of
Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, Mercury, the Sun, and the Moon --
Sun Flowers -- The Influence of the Moon on Plants -- Times and
Seasons to Sow and Plant -- The Moon and Gardening Operations --
The Moon-Tree -- Plants of the Moon-Goddesses -- The Man in the
Moon 164
CHAPTER XV.
PLANT SYMBOLISM AND LANGUAGE. -- Plant Emblems of the Ancients
-- The Science of Plant Symbolism -- Floral Symbols of the
Scriptures -- The Passion Flower, or Flower of the Five Wounds --
Mediæval Plant Symbolism -- Floral Emblems of Shakspeare -- The
Language of Flowers -- Floral Vocabulary of the Greeks and Romans
-- A Dictionary of Flowers -- Floral Divination 176
CHAPTER XVI.
FUNERAL PLANTS. -- The Ancient Death-Gods -- The Elysian Fields
-- Death Trees -- Funereal Trees -- Aloe, Yew, Cypress, Bay,
Arbor-Vitæ, Walnut, Mountain Ash, Tamarisk -- The Decorations of
Tombs -- Flowers at Funerals -- Old English Burial Customs --
Funeral Pyres -- Embalming -- Mummies -- Plants as Death Portents 189
_PART THE SECOND._
AN ENCYCLOPÆDIA OF SIX HUNDRED PLANTS, ENGLISH AND FOREIGN,
giving their Myths, Legends, Traditions, Folk-Lore, Symbolism,
and History 205
List of Illustrations.
GATHERING THE SELAGO (_drawn by Louis Absolon_) Cover.
THE GARDEN OF EDEN (_Parkinson’s Paradisus_) Frontispiece.
YGGDRASILL, THE MUNDANE ASH (_Finn Magnusen_) 2
RELICS OF THE CRUCIFIXION (_Maundevile’s Travels_) 45
THE TREE OF JUDAS ISCARIOT (_Maundevile’s Travels_) 49
THE BARNACLE TREE (_Aldrovandi Ornithologia_) 118
THE GOOSE TREE (_Gerarde’s Herbal_) 119
THE BAROMETZ, OR VEGETABLE LAMB (_Zahn_) 121
THE LAMB TREE (_Maundevile’s Travels_) 122
DEAD SEA FRUIT (_Maundevile’s Travels_) 125
THE STONE TREE (_Gerarde’s Herbal_) 126
ARBOR SECCO, OR THE WITHERED TREE (_Maundevile’s Travels_) 131
THE MIRACULOUS TREE OF TIBERIAS (_Maundevile’s Travels_) 132
FATHER GARNET’S STRAW (_Apology of Eudæmon Joannes_) 135
PIOUS BIRDS AND OLIVES (_Maundevile’s Travels_) 143
THE PASSION FLOWER OF THE JESUITS (_Parkinson’s Paradisus_) 182
THE TREE OF DEATH (_Maundevile’s Travels_) 190
THE GRANADILLA, OR PASSION FLOWER (_Zahn_) 487
The head and tail pieces on pp. xiii., xxiv., 1, 8, 20, 21, 26, 40,
64, 74, 116, 136, 164, 175, 200, 592, and 610, are reproductions from
originals in old herbals, &c.
Part the First.
[Headpiece]
INTRODUCTION.
The analogy existing between the vegetable and animal worlds, and
the resemblances between human and tree life, have been observed
by man from the most remote periods of which we have any records.
Primitive man, watching the marvellous changes in trees and plants,
which accurately marked not only the seasons of the year, but even the
periods of time in a day, could not fail to be struck with a feeling
of awe at the mysterious invisible power which silently guided such
wondrous and incomprehensible operations. Hence it is not astonishing
that the early inhabitants of the earth should have invested with
supernatural attributes the tree, which in the gloom and chill of
Winter stood gaunt, bare, and sterile, but in the early Spring hastened
to greet the welcome warmth-giving Sun by investing itself with a
brilliant canopy of verdure, and in the scorching heat of Summer
afforded a refreshing shade beneath its leafy boughs. So we find these
men of old, who had learnt to reverence the mysteries of vegetation,
forming conceptions of vast cosmogonic world- or cloud-trees
overshadowing the universe; mystically typifying creation and
regeneration, and yielding the divine ambrosia or food of immortality,
the refreshing and life-inspiring rain, and the mystic fruit which
imparted knowledge and wisdom to those who partook of it. So, again,
we find these nebulous overspreading world-trees connected with the
mysteries of death, and giving shelter to the souls of the departed in
the solemn shade of their dense foliage.
Looking upon vegetation as symbolical of life and generation, man,
in course of time, connected the origin of his species with these
shadowy cloud-trees, and hence arose the belief that humankind first
sprang from Ash and Oak-trees, or derived their being from Holda, the
cloud-goddess who combined in her person the form of a lovely woman
and the trunk of a mighty tree. In after years trees were almost
universally regarded either as sentient beings or as constituting the
abiding places of spirits whose existence was bound up in the lives of
the trees they inhabited. Hence arose the conceptions of Hamadryads,
Dryads, Sylvans, Tree-nymphs, Elves, Fairies, and other beneficent
spirits who peopled forests and dwelt in individual trees--not only
in the Old World, but in the dense woods of North America, where the
Mik-amwes, like Puck, has from time immemorial frolicked by moonlight
in the forest openings. Hence, also, sprang up the morbid notion of
trees being haunted by demons, mischievous imps, ghosts, nats, and
evil spirits, whom it was deemed by the ignorant and superstitious
necessary to propitiate by sacrifices, offerings, and mysterious rites
and dances. Remnants of this superstitious tree-worship are still
extant in some European countries. The _Irminsul_ of the Germans and
the Central Oak of the Druids were of the same family as the _Asherah_
of the Semitic nations. In England, this primeval superstition has its
descendants in the village maypole bedizened with ribbons and flowers,
and the Jack-in-the-Green with its attendant devotees and whirling
dancers. The modern Christmas-tree, too, although but slightly known in
Germany at the beginning of the present century, is evidently a remnant
of the pagan tree-worship; and it is somewhat remarkable that a similar
tree is common among the Burmese, who call it the _Padaytha-bin_. This
Turanian Christmas-tree is made by the inhabitants of towns, who deck
its Bamboo twigs with all sorts of presents, and pile its roots with
blankets, cloth, earthenware, and other useful articles. The wealthier
classes contribute sometimes a _Ngway Padaytha_, or silver Padaytha,
the branches of which are hung with rupees and smaller silver coins
wrapped in tinsel or coloured paper. These trees are first carried in
procession, and afterwards given to monasteries on the occasion of
certain festivals or the funerals of Buddhist monks. They represent
the wishing-tree, which, according to Burmese mythology, grows in the
Northern Island and heaven of the nats or spirits, where it bears on
its fairy branches whatever may be wished for.
The ancient conception of human trees can be traced in the
superstitious endeavours of ignorant peasants to get rid of diseases
by transferring them to vicarious trees, or rather to the spirits who
are supposed to dwell in them; and it is the same idea that impels
simple rustics to bury Elder-sticks and Peach-leaves to which they have
imparted warts, &c. The recognised analogy between the life of plants
and that of man, and the cherished superstition that trees were the
homes of living and sentient spirits, undoubtedly influenced the poets
of the ancients in forming their conceptions of heroes and heroines
metamorphosed into trees and flowers; and traces of the old belief
are to be found in the custom of planting a tree on the birth of an
infant; the tree being thought to symbolise human life in its destiny
of growth, production of fruit, and multiplication of its species;
and, when fully grown, giving shade, shelter, and protection. This
pleasant rite is still extant in our country as well as in Germany,
France, Italy, and Russia; and from it has probably arisen a custom now
becoming very general of planting a tree to commemorate any special
occasion. Nor is the belief confined to the Old World, for Mr. Leland
has quite recently told us that he observed near the tent of a North
American Indian two small evergreens, which were most carefully tended.
On enquiry he found the reason to be that when a child is born, or
is yet young, its parent chooses a shrub, which growing as the child
grows, will, during the child’s absence, or even in after years,
indicate by its appearance whether the human counterpart be ill or
well, alive or dead. In one of the Quādi Indian stories it is by means
of the sympathetic tree that the hero learns his brother’s death.
In the middle ages, the old belief in trees possessing intelligence
was utilised by the monks, who have embodied the conception in many
mediæval legends, wherein trees are represented as bending their
boughs and offering their fruits to the Virgin and her Divine Infant.
So, again, during the flight of the Holy Family into Egypt, trees are
said to have opened and concealed the fugitives from Herod’s brutal
soldiery. Certain trees (notably the Aspen) are reputed to have been
accursed and to have shuddered and trembled ever after on account of
their connexion with the tragedy of Calvary; while others are said
to have undergone a similar doom because they were attainted by the
suicide of the traitor Judas Iscariot.
Seeing that the reverence and worship paid to trees by the ignorant
and superstitious people was an institution impossible to uproot, the
early Christian Church sought to turn it to account, and therefore
consecrated old and venerated trees, built shrines beneath their
shade, or placed on their trunks crucifixes and images of the Blessed
Virgin. Legends connecting trees with holy personages, miracles, and
sacred subjects were, in after years, freely disseminated; one of the
most remarkable being the marvellous history of the Tree of Adam,
in which it is sought to connect the Tree of Paradise with the Tree
of Calvary. Evelyn summarises this misty tradition in the following
sentence:--“Trees and woods have twice saved the whole world: first, by
the Ark, then by the Cross; making full amends for the evil fruit of
the tree in Paradise by that which was borne on the tree in Golgotha.”
In course of time the flowers and plants which the ancients had
dedicated to their pagan deities were transferred by the Christian
Church to the shrines of the Virgin and sainted personages; this is
especially noticeable in the plants formerly dedicated to Venus and
Freyja, which, as being the choicest as well as the most popular,
became, in honour of the Virgin Mary, Our Lady’s plants. Vast numbers
of flowers were in course of time appropriated by the Church, and
consecrated to her saints and martyrs--the selection being governed
generally by the fact that the flower bloomed on or about the day on
which the Church celebrated the saint’s feast. These appropriations
enabled the Roman Catholics to compile a complete calendar of flowers
for every day in the year, in which each flower is dedicated to a
particular saint.
But if the most beautiful flowers and plants were taken under the
protection of the Church, and dedicated to the memory of her holiest
and most venerated members, so, also, certain trees, plants, and
flowers--which, either on account of their noxious properties, or
because of some legendary associations, were under a ban--became
relegated to the service of the Devil and his minions. Hence we find a
large group of plants associated with enchanters, sorcerers, wizards
and witches, many of which betray in their nomenclature their Satanic
association, and are, even at the present day, regarded suspiciously as
ill-omened and unlucky. These are the plants which, in the dark days of
witchcraft and superstition, were invested with mysterious and magical
properties,--the herbs which were employed by hags and witches in their
heathenish incantations, and from which they brewed their potions and
hell-broths. Thus Ben Jonson, in his fragment, ‘The Sad Shepherd,’
makes one of his characters say, when speaking of a witch:--
“He knows her shifts and haunts,
And all her wiles and turns. The venom’d plants
Wherewith she kills! where the sad Mandrake grows,
Whose groans are dreadful! the dead-numming Nightshade!
The stupefying Hemlock! Adder’s-tongue!
And Martagan!”
The association of plants with magic, sorcery, and the black art dates
from remote times. The blind Norse god Hödr slew Baldr with a twig
of Mistletoe. In the battles recorded in the Vedas as being fought
by the gods and the demons, the latter employ poisonous and magical
herbs which the gods counteract with counter-poisons and health-giving
plants. Hermes presented to Ulysses the magical Moly wherewith to
nullify the effects of the potions and spells of the enchantress
Circe, who was well acquainted with all sorts of magical herbs. The
Druids professed to know the secrets of many magical plants which
they gathered with mysterious and occult rites. The Vervain, Selago,
Mistletoe, Oak, and Rowan were all said by these ancient priests and
lawgivers to be possessed of supernatural properties; and remnants of
the old belief in their magical powers are still extant.
In works on the subject of plant lore hitherto published in England,
scarcely any reference has been made to the labours in the field
of comparative mythology of Max Müller, Grimm, Kuhn, Mannhardt, De
Gubernatis, and other eminent scholars, whose erudite and patient
investigations have resulted in the accumulation of a vast amount
of valuable information respecting the traditions and superstitions
connected with the plant kingdom. Mr. Kelly’s interesting work on
Indo-European Tradition, published some years ago, dealt, among
other subjects, with that of plant lore, and drew attention to
the analogy existing between the myths and folk-lore of India and
Europe relating more especially to plants which were reputed to
possess magical properties. Among such plants, peculiar interest
attaches to a group which, according to Aryan tradition, sprang from
lightning--the embodiment of fire, the great quickening agent: this
group embraces the Hazel, the Thorn, the Hindu _Sami_, the Hindu
_Palasa_, with its European congener the Rowan, and the Mistletoe:
the two last-named plants were, as we have seen, employed in Druidic
rites. These trees are considered of good omen and as protectives
against sorcery and witchcraft: from all of them wishing-rods (called
in German _Wünschelruthen_) and divining-rods have been wont to be
fashioned--magical wands with which, in some countries, cattle are
still struck to render them prolific, hidden springs are indicated,
and mineral wealth is discovered. Such a rod was thought to be the
caduceus of the god Hermes, or Mercury, described by Homer as being
a rod of prosperity and wealth. All these rods are cut with a forked
end, a shape held to be symbolic of lightning and a rude effigy of the
human form. It is interesting to note that in the _Rigveda_ the human
form is expressly attributed to the pieces of Asvattha wood used for
kindling the sacred fire--a purpose fulfilled by the Thorn in the chark
or instrument employed for producing fire by the Greeks. Another group
of plants also connected with fire and lightning comprises the Mandrake
(the root of which is forked like the human form), the Fern _Polypodium
Filix mas_ (which has large pinnate leaves), the Sesame (called in
India Thunderbolt-flower), the Spring-wort, and the Luck-flower. The
Mandrake and Fern, like King Solomon’s _Baharas_, are said to shine at
night, and to leap about like a Will-o’the-wisp: indeed, in Thuringia,
the Fern is known as _Irrkraut_, or Misleading Herb, and in Franche
Comté this herb is spoken of as causing belated travellers to become
light-headed or thunder-struck. The Mandrake-root and the Fern-seed
have the magical property of granting the desires of their possessors,
and in this respect resemble the Sesame and Luck-flower, which at
their owners’ request will disclose treasure-caves, open the sides
of mountains, clefts of rocks, or strong doors, and in fact render
useless all locks, bolts, and bars, at will. The Spring-wort, through
the agency of a bird, removes obstacles by means of an explosion caused
by the electricity or lightning of which this plant is an embodiment.
Akin to these are plants known in our country as Lunary or Moonwort and
Unshoe-the-Horse, and called by the Italians _Sferracavallo_--plants
which possess the property of unshoeing horses and opening locks. A
Russian herb, the _Rasrivtrava_, belongs to the same group: this plant
fractures chains and breaks open locks--virtues also claimed for the
Vervain (_Eisenkraut_), the Primrose (_Schlüsselblume_), the Fern,
and the Hazel. It should be noted of the Mistletoe (which is endowed
by nature with branches regularly forked, and has been classified
with the lightning-plants), that the Swedes call it “Thunder-besom,”
and attribute to it the same powers as to the Spring-wort. Like the
Fly-Rowan (_Flög-rönn_) and the Asvattha, it is a parasite, and is
thought to spring from seeds dropped by birds upon trees. Just as the
Druids ascribed peculiar virtues to a Mistletoe produced by this means
on an Oak, so do the Hindus especially esteem an Asvattha which has
grown in like manner upon a Sami (_Acacia Suma_).
It is satisfactory to find that, although the Devil has had certain
plants allotted to him wherewith to work mischief and destruction
through the agency of demons, sorcerers, and witches, there are
yet a great number of plants whose special mission it is to thwart
Satanic machinations, to protect their owners from the dire effects
of witchcraft or the Evil Eye, and to guard them from the perils of
thunder and lightning. In our own country, Houseleek and Stonecrop
are thought to fulfil this latter function; in Westphalia, the
_Donnerkraut_ (Orpine) is a thunder protective; in the Tyrol,
the Alpine Rose guards the house-roof from lightning; and in the
Netherlands, the St. John’s Wort, gathered before sunrise, is deemed
a protection against thunderstorms. This last plant is especially
hateful to evil spirits, and in days gone by was called _Fuga dæmonum_,
dispeller of demons. In Russia, a plant, called the _Certagon_, or
Devil-chaser, is used to exorcise Satan or his fiends if they torment
an afflicted mourner; and in the same country the _Prikrit_ is a
herb whose peculiar province it is to destroy calumnies with which
mischief-makers may seek to interfere with the consummation of lovers’
bliss. Other plants induce concord, love, and sympathy, and others
again enable the owner to forget sorrow.
Plants connected with dreams and visions have not hitherto received
much notice; but, nevertheless, popular belief has attributed to some
few--and notably the Elm, the Four-leaved Clover, and the Russian
_Son-trava_--the subtle power of procuring dreams of a prophetic
nature. Numerous plants have been thought by the superstitious to
portend certain results to the sleeper when forming the subject of his
or her dreams. Many examples of this belief will be found scattered
through these pages.
The legends attached to flowers may be divided into four classes--the
mythological, the ecclesiastical, the historical, and the poetical. For
the first-named we are chiefly indebted to Ovid, and to the Jesuit René
Rapin, whose Latin poem _De Hortorum Cultura_ contains much curious
plant lore current in his time. His legends, like those of Ovid, nearly
all relate to the transformation by the gods of luckless nymphs and
youths into flowers and trees, which have since borne their names. Most
of them refer to the blossoms of bulbous plants, which appear in the
early Spring; and, as a rule, white flowers are represented as having
originated from tears, and pink or red flowers from blushes or blood.
The ecclesiastical legends are principally due to the old Catholic
monks, who, while tending their flowers in the quietude and seclusion
of monastery gardens, doubtless came to associate them with the memory
of some favourite saint or martyr, and so allowed their gentle fancy to
weave a pious fiction wherewith to perpetuate the memory of the saint
in the name of the flower. For many of the historical legends we are
also indebted to monastic writers, and they mostly pertain to favourite
sons and daughters of the Church. Amongst what we have designated
poetical legends must be included the numerous fairy tales in which
flowers and plants play a not unimportant part, as well as the stories
which connect plants with the doings of Trolls, Elves, Witches, and
Demons. Many such legends, both English and foreign, will be found
introduced in the following pages.
It has recently become the fashion to explain the origin of myths and
legends by a theory which makes of them mere symbols of the phenomena
appertaining to the solar system, or metaphors of the four seasons and
the different periods in a day’s span. Thus we are told that, in the
well-known story of the transformation of Daphne into a Laurel-bush,
to enable her to escape the importunities of Apollo (see p. 404), we
ought not to conceive the idea of the handsome passionate god pursuing
a coy nymph until in despair she calls on the water-gods to change her
form, but that, on the contrary, we should regard the whole story as
simply an allegory implying that “the dawn rushes and trembles through
the sky, and fades away at the sudden appearance of the bright sun.”
So, again, in the myth of Pan and Syrinx (p. 559), in which the Satyr
pursues the maiden who is transformed into the Reed from which Pan
fashioned his pipes, the meaning intended to be conveyed is, we are
told, that the blustering wind bends and breaks the swaying Rushes,
through which it rustles and whistles. Prof. De Gubernatis, in his
valuable work _La Mythologie des Plantes_, gives a number of clever
explanations of old legends and myths, in accordance with the “Solar”
theory, which are certainly ingenious, if somewhat monotonous. Let us
take, as an example, the German story of the Watcher of the Road, which
appears at page 326. In this tale a lovely princess, abandoned for a
rival by her attractive husband, pines away, and at last desiring to
die if only she can be sure of going somewhere where she may always
watch for him, is transformed into the wayside Endive or Succory. Here
is the Professor’s explanation:--“Does not the fatal rival of the
young princess, who cries herself to death on account of her dazzling
husband’s desertion, and who even in death desires still to gaze on
him, symbolise the humid night, which every evening allures the sun to
her arms, and thus keeps him from the love of his bride, who awakens
every day with the sun, just as does the flower of the Succory?” These
scientific elucidations of myths, however dexterous and poetical they
may be, do not appear to us applicable to plant legends, whose chief
charm lies in their simplicity and appositeness; nor can we imagine
why Aryan or other story-tellers should be deemed so destitute of
inventive powers as to be obliged to limit all their tales to the
description of celestial phenomena. In the Vedas, trees, flowers, and
herbs are invoked to cause love, avert evil and danger, and neutralise
spells and curses. The ancients must, therefore, have had an exalted
idea of their nature and properties, and hence it is not surprising
that they should have dedicated them to their deities, and that these
deities should have employed them for supernatural purposes. Thus Indra
conquered Vritra and slew demons by means of the Soma; Hermes presented
the all-potent Moly to Ulysses; and Medea taught Jason how to use
certain enchanted herbs; just as, later in the world’s history, Druids
exorcised evil spirits with Mistletoe and Vervain, and sorcerers and
wise women used St. John’s Wort and other plants to ward off demons and
thunderbolts. The ancients evidently regarded their gods and goddesses
as very human, and therefore it would seem unnecessary and unjust so to
alter their tales about them as to explain away their obvious meaning.
Flowers are the companions of man throughout his life--his attendants
to his last resting place. They are, as Mr. Ruskin says, precious
always “to the child and the girl, the peasant and the manufacturing
operative, to the grisette and the nun, the lover and the monk.”
Nature, in scattering them over the earth’s surface, would seem to
have designed to cheer and refresh its inhabitants by their varied
colouring and fragrance, and to elevate them by their wondrous beauty
and delicacy; from them, as old Parkinson truly wrote, “we may draw
matter at all times, not onely to magnifie the Creator that hath given
them such diversities of forms, sents, and colours, that the most
cunning workman cannot imitate, ... but many good instructions also to
our selves; that as many herbs and flowers, with their fragrant sweet
smels do comfort and as it were revive the spirits, and perfume a whole
house, even so such men as live vertuously, labouring to do good, and
profit the Church, God, and the common wealth by their pains or pen,
do as it were send forth a pleasing savour of sweet instructions.” The
poet Wordsworth reminds us that
“God made the flowers to beautify
The earth, and cheer man’s careful mood;
And he is happiest who hath power
To gather wisdom from a flower,
And wake his heart in every hour
To pleasant gratitude.”
In these pages will be found many details as to the use of these
beauteous gems of Nature, both by the ancient races of the world and
by the people of our own generation; their adaptation to the Church’s
ceremonial and to popular festivals; their use as portents, symbols,
and emblems; and their employment as an adornment of the graves of
loved ones. Much more could have been written, had space permitted,
regarding their value to the architect and the herald. The Acanthus,
Lotus, Trefoil, Lily, Vine, Ivy, Pomegranate, Oak, Palm, Acacia, and
many other plants have been reproduced as ornaments by the sculptor,
and it is a matter of tradition that to the majestic aspect of an
avenue of trees we owe the lengthy aisle and fretted vault of the
Gothic order of architecture. In the field of heraldry it is noticeable
that many nations, families, and individuals have, in addition to their
heraldic badges, adopted plants as special symbols, the circumstances
of their adoption forming the groundwork of a vast number of legends: a
glance at the index will show that some of these are to be discovered
in the present work. Many towns and villages owe their names to trees
or plants; and not a few English families have taken their surnames
from members of the vegetable kingdom. In Scotland, the name of Frazer
is derived from the Strawberry-leaves (_fraises_) borne on the family
shield of arms, and the Gowans and Primroses also owe their names to
plants. The Highland clans are all distinguished by the floral badge
or _Suieachantas_ which is worn in the bonnet. For the most part the
plants adopted for these badges are evergreens; and it is said that the
deciduous Oak which was selected by the Stuarts was looked upon as a
portent of evil to the royal house.
The love of human kind for flowers would seem to be shared by many
members of the feathered tribe. Poets have sung of the passion of the
Nightingale for the Rose and of the fondness of the Bird of Paradise
for the dazzling blooms of the Tropics: the especial liking, however,
of one of this race--the _Amblyornis inornata_--for flowers is worthy
of record, inasmuch as this bird-gardener not only erects for itself
a bower, but surrounds it with a mossy sward, on which it continually
deposits fresh flowers and fruit of brilliant hue, so arranged as to
form an elegant _parterre_.
We have reached our limit, and can only just notice the old traditions
relating to the sympathies and antipathies of plants. The Jesuit
Kircher describes the hatred existing between Hemlock and Rue, Reeds
and Fern, and Cyclamen and Cabbages as so intense, that one of them
cannot live on the same ground with the other. The Walnut, it is
believed, dislikes the Oak, the Rowan the Juniper, the White-thorn
the Black-thorn; and there is said to be a mutual aversion between
Rosemary, Lavender, the Bay-tree, Thyme, and Marjoram. On the other
hand, the Rose is reported to love the Onion and Garlic, and to put
forth its sweetest blooms when in propinquity to those plants; and a
bond of fellowship is fabled to exist between a Fig-tree and Rue. Lord
Bacon, noticing these traditionary sympathies and antipathies, explains
them as simply the outcome of the nature of the plants, and his
philosophy is not difficult to be understood by intelligent observers,
for, as St. Anthony truly said, the great book of Nature, which
contains but three leaves--the Heavens, the Earth, and the Sea--is open
for all men alike.
[Tailpiece]
[Headpiece]
PLANT LORE, LEGENDS, AND LYRICS.
CHAPTER I.
The World-Trees of the Ancients.
It is a proof of the solemnity with which, from the very earliest
times, man has invested trees, and of the reverence with which he
has ever regarded them, that they are found figuring prominently in
the mythology of almost every nation; and despite the fact that in
some instances these ancient myths reach us, after the lapse of ages,
in distorted and grotesque forms, they would seem to be worthy of
preservation, if only as curiosities in plant lore. In some cases
the myth relates to a mystic cloud-tree which supplies the gods with
immortal fruit; in others to a tree which imparts to mankind wisdom
and knowledge; in others to a tree which is the source and fountain
of all life; and in others, again, to the actual descent of mankind
from anthropological or parent trees. In one cosmogony--that of the
Iranians--the first human pair are represented as having grown up as
a single tree, the fingers or twigs of each one being folded over the
other’s ears, till the time came when, ripe for separation, they became
two sentient beings, and were infused by Ormuzd with distinct human
souls.
But besides these trees, which in some form or other benefit and
populate the earth, there are to be found in ancient myths records of
illimitable trees that existed in space whilst yet the elements of
creation were chaotic, and whose branches overshadowed the universe.
One of the mythical accounts of the creation of the world represents
a vast cosmogonic tree rearing its enormous bulk from the midst of
an ocean before the formation of the earth had taken place; and
this conception, it may be remarked, is in consonance with a Vedic
tradition that plants were created three ages before the gods. In India
the idea of a primordial cosmogonic tree, vast as the world itself,
and the generator thereof, is very prevalent; and in the Scandinavian
prose Edda we find the Skalds shadowing forth an all-pervading mundane
Ash, called Yggdrasill, beneath whose shade the gods assemble every day
in council, and whose branches spread over the whole world, and even
reach above heaven, whilst its roots penetrate to the infernal regions.
This cloud-tree of the Norsemen is thought to be a symbol of universal
nature.
The accompanying illustration is taken from Finn Magnusen’s pictorial
representation of the Yggdrasill myth, and depicts his conception of
The Norse World-Tree.
According to the Eddaic accounts, the Ash Yggdrasill is the greatest
and best of all trees. One of its stems springs from the central
primordial abyss--from the subterranean source of matter--runs up
through the earth, which it supports, and issuing out of the celestial
mountain in the world’s centre, called Asgard, spreads its branches
over the entire universe. These wide-spread branches are the æthereal
or celestial regions; their leaves, the clouds; their buds or fruits,
the stars. Four harts run across the branches of the tree, and bite the
buds: these are the four cardinal winds. Perched upon the top branches
is an eagle, and between his eyes sits a hawk: the eagle symbolises
the air, the hawk the wind-still æther. A squirrel runs up and down
the Ash, and seeks to cause strife between the eagle and Nidhögg, a
monster, which is constantly gnawing the roots: the squirrel signifies
hail and other atmospherical phenomena; Nidhögg and the serpents that
gnaw the roots of the mundane tree are the volcanic agencies which
are constantly seeking to destroy earth’s foundations. Another stem
springs in the warm south over the æthereal Urdar fountain, where the
gods sit in judgment. In this fountain swim two swans, the progenitors
of all that species: these swans are, by Finn Magnusen, supposed to
typify the sun and moon. Near this fountain dwell three maidens, who
fix the lifetime of all men, and are called Norns: every day they draw
water from the spring, and with it sprinkle the Ash in order that its
branches may not rot and wither away. This water is so holy, that
everything placed in the spring becomes as white as the film within
an egg-shell. The dew that falls from the tree on the earth men call
honey-dew, and it is the food of the bees. The third stem of Yggdrasill
takes its rise in the cold and cheerless regions of the north (the
land of the Frost Giants), over the source of the ocean, typified by a
spring called Mimir’s Well, in which wisdom and wit lie hidden. Mimir,
the owner of this spring, is full of wisdom because he drinks of its
waters. One day Odin came and begged a draught of water from the well,
which he obtained, but was obliged to leave one of his eyes as a pledge
for it. This myth Finn Magnusen thinks signifies the descent of the
sun every evening into the sea (to learn wisdom from Mimir during the
night); the mead quaffed by Mimir every morning being the ruddy dawn,
that, spreading over the sky, exhilarates all nature.
[Illustration: [TO FACE PAGE 2.
Yggdrasill, the Mundane Tree.
_From Finn Magnusen’s ‘Eddalæren.’_]
The Hindu World-Tree.
The Indian cosmogonic tree is the symbol of vegetation, of universal
life, and of immortality. In the sacred Vedic writings it receives
the special names of _Ilpa_, _Kalpadruma_, _Kalpaka-taru_, and
_Kalpavriksha_, on the fruits of which latter tree the first men
sustained and nourished life. In its quality of Tree of Paradise, it
is called _Pârijâta_; and as the ambrosial tree--the tree yielding
immortal food--it is known as _Amrita_ and _Soma_. This mystic
world-tree of the Hindus, according to the Rigveda, is supernaturally
the God Brahma himself; and all the gods are considered as branches
of the divine parent stem--the elementary or fragmentary form of
Brahma, the vast overspreading tree of the universe. In the Vedas
this celestial tree is described as the _Pippala_ (Peepul), and is
alluded to as being in turns visited by two beauteous birds--the one
feeding itself on the fruit (typifying probably the moon or twilight);
the other simply hovering, with scintillating plumage, and singing
melodiously (typifying perhaps the sun or daybreak).
Under the name of _Ilpa_ (the _Jamboa_, or Rose-apple) the cosmogonic
tree is described as growing in the midst of the lake Ara in Brahma’s
world, beyond the river that never grows old, from whence are procured
the waters of eternal youth. Brahma imparts to it his own perfume, and
from it obtains the sap of vitality. To its branches the dead cling and
climb, in order that they may enter into the regions of immortality.
As the _Kalpadruma_, _Kalpaka-taru_, and _Kalpavriksha_, the Indian
sacred writings describe a cloud-tree, which, by its shadows, produced
day and night before the creation of sun and moon. This cosmogonic
tree, which is of colossal proportions, grows in the midst of flowers
and streamlets on a steep mountain. It fulfils all desires, imparts
untold bliss, and, what in the eyes of Buddhists constitutes its chief
sublimity, it gives knowledge and wisdom to humanity; in a word it
combines within its mystic branches all riches and all knowledge.
As the _Soma_, the world-tree becomes in Indian mysticism a tree
of Paradise, at once the king of all trees and vegetation, and the
god Soma to be adored. It furnishes the divine ambrosia or essence
of immortality, concealed sometimes in the clouds, sometimes in
the billows of the soft and silvery light that proceeds from the
great-Soma, the great Indu, the moon. Hence this mystic tree, from the
foliage of which drops the life-giving Soma, is sometimes characterised
as the Hindu Moon-Tree. Out of this cosmogonic tree the immortals
shaped the heaven and the earth. It is the Tree of Intelligence, and
grows in the third heaven, over which it spreads its mighty branches;
beneath it Yama and the Pitris dwell, and quaff the immortalising
Soma with the gods. At its foot grow plants of all healing virtue,
incorporations of the Soma. Two birds sit on its top, one of which eats
Figs, whilst the other simply watches. Other birds press out the Soma
juice from its branches. This ambrosial tree, besides dropping the
precious Soma, bears fruit and seed of every kind known in the world.
The World-Tree of the Buddhists.
The Sacred Tree of Buddha is in the complex theology of his followers
represented under different guises: it is cosmogonic, it imparts
wisdom, it produces the divine ambrosia or food of immortality, it
yields the refreshing and life-inspiring rain, and it affords an
abiding-place for the souls of the blessed.
The supernatural and sacred Tree of Buddha, the cloud-tree, the Tree
of Knowledge, the Tree of Wisdom, the Ambrosia-tree, is covered with
divine flowers; it glows and sparkles with the brilliance of all
manner of precious stones; the root, the trunk, the branches, and the
leaves are formed of gems of the most glorious description. It grows
in soil pure and delightfully even, to which the rich verdure of grass
imparts the tints of a peacock’s neck. It receives the homage of the
gods; and the arm of Mâyâ (the mother of Buddha) when she stretches
it forth to grasp the bough which bends towards her, shines as the
lightning illumines the sky. Beneath this sacred tree, the Tree of
Knowledge, Buddha, at whose birth a flash of light pierced through
all the world, sat down with the firm resolve not to rise until he
had attained the knowledge which “maketh free.” Then the Tempter,
Mâra, advanced with his demoniacal forces: encircling the Sacred Tree,
hosts of demons assailed Buddha with fiery darts, amid the whirl of
hurricanes, darkness, and the downpour of floods of water, to drive
him from the Tree. Buddha, however, maintained his position unmoved;
and at length the demons were compelled to fly. Buddha had conquered,
and in defeating the Tempter Mâra, and obtaining possession of his
Tree of Knowledge, he had also obtained possession of deliverance.
Prof. De Gubernatis, in explaining this myth, characterises the tree
as the cloud-tree: in the clouds the heavenly flame is stored, and it
is guarded by the dark demons. In the Vedic hymns, the powers of light
and darkness fight their great battle for the clouds, and the ambrosia
which they contain; this is the identical battle of Buddha with the
hosts of Mâra. In the cloud-battle the ambrosia (_amrita_) which is in
the clouds is won; the enlightenment and deliverance which Buddha wins
are also called an ambrosia; and the kingdom of knowledge is the land
of immortality.
There is a tradition current in Thibet that the Tree of Buddha received
the name of _Târâyana_, that is to say, The Way of Safety, because it
grew by the side of the river that separates the world from heaven; and
that only by means of its overhanging branches could mankind pass from
the earthly to the immortal bank.
The material tree of Buddha is generally represented either under the
form of the _Asvattha_ (the _Ficus religiosa_), or of the _Udumbara_
(the _Ficus glomerata_), which appeared at the birth of Buddha; but in
addition to these guises, we find it also associated with the _Asoka_
(_Jonesia Asoka_), the _Palasa_ (_Butea frondosa_), the _Bhânuphalâ_
(_Musa sapientum_), and sometimes with the Palmyra Palm (_Borassus
flabelliformis_).
Under one of these trees the ascetic, Gautama Buddha, one momentous
night, went through successively purer and purer stages of abstraction
of consciousness, until the sense of omniscient illumination came
over him, and he attained to the knowledge of the sources of mortal
suffering. That night which Buddha passed under the Tree of Knowledge
on the banks of the river _Nairanjanâ_, is the sacred night of the
Buddhist world. There is a Peepul-tree (_Ficus religiosa_) at Buddha
Gayâ which is regarded as being this particular tree: it is very much
decayed, and must have been frequently renewed, as the present tree
is standing on a terrace at least thirty feet above the level of the
surrounding country.
The Iranian World-Tree.
The world-tree of the Iranians is the Haoma, which is thought to be
the same as the _Gaokerena_ of the Zendavesta. This Haoma, the sacred
Vine of the Zoroastrians, produces the primal drink of immortality
after which it is named. It is the first of all trees, planted in
heaven by Ormuzd, in the fountain of life, near another tree called
the “impassive” or “inviolable,” which bears the seeds of every kind
of vegetable life. Both these trees are situated in a lake called
Vouru Kasha, and are guarded by ten fish, who keep a ceaseless watch
upon a lizard sent by the evil power, Ahriman, to destroy the sacred
Haoma. The “inviolable” tree is also known both as the eagle’s and
the owl’s tree. Either one or the other of these birds (probably the
eagle) sits perched on its top. The moment he rises from the tree,
a thousand branches shoot forth; when he settles again he breaks a
thousand branches, and causes their seed to fall. Another bird, that
is his constant companion, picks up these seeds and carries them to
where Tistar draws water, which he then rains down upon the earth with
the seeds it contains. These two trees--the Haoma and the eagle’s or
“inviolable”--would seem originally to have been one. The lizard sent
by Ahriman to destroy the Haoma is known to the Indians as a dragon,
the spoiler of harvests, and the ravisher of the Apas, or brides of the
gods, Peris who navigate the celestial sea.
The Assyrian Sacred Tree.
In intimate connection with the worship of Assur, the supreme deity
of the Assyrians, “the God who created himself,” was the Sacred
Tree, regarded by the Assyrian race as the personification of life
and generation. This tree, which was considered coeval with Assur,
the great First Source, was adored in conjunction with the god; for
sculptures have been found representing figures kneeling in adoration
before it, and bearing mystic offerings to hang upon its boughs. In
these sculptured effigies of the Sacred Tree the simplest form consists
of a pair of ram’s horns, surmounted by a capital composed of two
pairs of rams’ horns, separated by horizontal bands, above which is a
scroll, and then a flower resembling the Honeysuckle ornament of the
Greeks. Sometimes this blossoms, and generally the stem also throws
out a number of smaller blossoms, which are occasionally replaced by
Fir-cones and Pomegranates. In the most elaborately-portrayed Sacred
Trees there is, besides the stem and the blossoms, a network of
branches, which forms a sort of arch, and surrounds the tree as it were
with a frame.
The Phœnicians, who were not idolaters, in the ordinary acceptation of
the word--inasmuch as they did not worship images of their deities,
and regarded the ever-burning fire on their altars as the sole emblem
of the Supreme Being,--paid adoration to this Sacred Tree, effigies of
which were set up in front of the temples, and had sacrifices offered
to them. This mystic tree was known to the Jews as _Asherah_. At
festive seasons the Phœnicians adorned it with boughs, flowers, and
ribands, and regarded it as the central object of their worship.
The Mother Tree of the Greeks, Romans, and Teutons.
The Greeks appear to have cherished a tradition that the first race of
men sprang from a cosmogonic Ash. This cloud Ash became personified
in their myth as a daughter of Oceanos, named Melia, who married
the river-god Inachos, and gave birth to Phoroneus, in whom the
Peloponnesian legend recognised the fire-bringer and the first man.
According to Hesychius, however, Phoroneus was not the only mortal to
whom the Mother Ash gave birth, for he tells us distinctly that the
race of men was “the fruit of the Ash.” Hesiod also repeats the same
fable in a somewhat different guise, when he relates how Jove created
the third or brazen race of men out of Ash trees. Homer appears to have
been acquainted with this tradition, for he makes Penelope say, when
addressing Ulysses: “Tell me thy family, from whence thou art; for thou
art not sprung from the olden tree, or from the rock.” The Ash was
generally deemed by the Greeks an image of the clouds and the mother of
men,--the prevalent idea being that the Meliai, or nymphs of the Ash,
were a race of cloud goddesses, daughters of sea gods, whose domain was
originally the cloud sea.
But besides the Ash, the Greeks would seem to have regarded the Oak as
a tree from which the human race had sprung, and to have called Oak
trees the first mothers. This belief was shared by the Romans. Thus
Virgil speaks
“Of nymphs and fauns, and savage men, who took
Their birth from trunks of trees and stubborn Oak.”
In another passage the great Latin poet, speaking of the _Æsculus_, a
species of Oak, sacred to Jupiter, gives to it attributes which remind
us in a very striking manner of Yggdrasill, the cloud-tree of the
Norsemen.
“_Æsculus in primis, quæ quantum vortice ad auras
Ætherias, tantum radice in Tartara tendit._”--_Georg._ ii.
“High as his topmost boughs to heaven ascend,
So low his roots to hell’s dominion tend.”--_Dryden._
In the Æneid, Book IV., speaking of the Oak as _Quercus_, Virgil uses
the same expression with regard to the roots of Jove’s tree descending
to the infernal regions. Juvenal, also, in his sixth satire, alluding
to the beginning of the world, speaks of the human race as formed
of clay or born of the opening Oak, which thus becomes the mystical
mother-tree of mankind, and, like a mother, sustained her offspring
with food she herself created. Thus Ovid tells us that the simple food
of the primal race consisted largely of “Acorns dropping from the tree
of Jove;” and we read in Homer and Hesiod that the Acorn was the common
food of the Arcadians.
The belief of the ancient Greeks and Romans that the progenitors of
mankind were born of trees was also common to the Teutons. At the
present day, in many parts of both North and South Germany, a hollow
tree overhanging a pool is designated as the first abode of unborn
infants, and little children are taught to believe that babies are
fetched by the doctor from cavernous trees or ancient stumps. “Frau
Holda’s tree” is a common name in Germany for old decayed boles; and
she herself, the cloud-goddess, is described in a Hessian legend as
having in front the form of a beautiful woman, and behind that of a
hollow tree with rugged bark.
But besides Frau Holda’s tree the ancient Germans knew a cosmogonic
tree, assimilating to the Scandinavian Yggdrasill. The trunk of this
Teutonic world-tree was called _Irminsul_, a name implying the column
of the universe, which supports everything.
A Byzantine legend, which is current in Russia, tells of a vast
world-tree of iron, which in the beginning of all things spread its
gigantic bulk throughout space. Its root is the power of God; its head
sustains the three worlds,--heaven, with the ocean of air; the earth,
with its seas of water; and hell, with its sulphurous fumes and glowing
flames.
Rabbinic traditions make the Mosaic Tree of Life, which stood in
the centre of the Garden of Eden, a vast world-tree, resembling in
many points the Scandinavian Ash Yggdrasill. A description of this
world-tree of the Rabbins, however, need not appear in the present
chapter, since it will be found on page 13.
[Tailpiece]
[Headpiece]
CHAPTER II.
The Trees of Paradise and the Tree of Adam.
Amongst all peoples, and in all ages, there has lingered a belief
possessing peculiar powers of fascination, that in some unknown region,
remote and unexplored, there existed a glorious and happy land; a
land of sunshine, luxuriance, and plenty, a land of stately trees and
beauteous flowers,--a terrestrial Paradise.
A tradition contained in the sacred books of the Parsis states that at
the beginning of the world Ormuzd, the giver of all good, created the
primal steer, which contained the germs of all the animals. Ahriman,
the evil spirit, then created venomous animals which destroyed the
steer: while dying, there sprang out of his right hip the first man,
and out of his left hip the first man’s soul. From him arose a tree
whence came the original human pair, namely _Mâshya_ and _Mashyôî_
who were placed in _Heden_, a delightful spot, where grew _Hom_
(or _Haoma_), the Tree of Life, the fruit of which gave vigour and
immortality. This Paradise was in Iran. The woman being persuaded by
Ahriman, in the guise of a serpent, gave her husband fruit to eat,
which was destructive.
The Persians also imagined a Paradise on Mount Caucasus. The Arabians
conceived an Elysium in the midst of the deserts of Aden. The pagan
Scandinavians sang of the Holy City of Asgard, situated in the centre
of the world. The Celts believed an earthly Paradise to exist in the
enchanted Isle of Avalon--the Island of the Blest--
“Where falls not hail or rain, or any snow,
Nor even wind blows loudly; but it lies
Deep-meadow’d, happy, fair, with orchard lawn
And bowery hollows.”
The Greeks and Romans pictured to themselves the delightful gardens
of the Hesperides, where grew the famous trees that produced Apples
of gold; and in the early days of Christendom the poets of the West
dreamt of a land in the East (the true Paradise of Adam and Eve, as
they believed) in which dwelt in a Palm-tree the golden-breasted
Phœnix,--the bird of the sun, which was thought to abide a hundred
years in this Elysium of the Arabian deserts, and then to appear in
the Temple of the Sun at Heliopolis, fall upon the blazing altar, and,
pouring forth a melodious song from or through the orifices of its
feathers (which thus formed a thousand organ-pipes), cremate itself,
only to rise again from its smoking ashes, and fly back to its home
in the Palm-tree of the earthly Paradise. The Russians tell of a
terrestrial Paradise to be sought for on the island of Bujan, where
grows the vast Oak tree, amidst whose majestic branches the sun nestles
to sleep every evening, and from whose summit he rises every morning.
The Hindu religion shadows forth an Elysium on Mount Meru, on the
confines of Cashmere and Thibet. The garden of the great Indian god
Indra is a spot of unparalleled beauty. Here are to be found an
umbrageous grove or wood, where the gods delight to take their ease;
cooling fountains and rivulets; an enchanting flower-garden, luminous
flowers, immortalising fruits, and brilliantly-plumed birds, whose
melody charms the gods themselves. In this Paradise are fine trees,
which were the first things that appeared above the surface of the
troubled waters at the beginning of the creation; from these trees drop
the immortalising ambrosia. The principal tree is the _Pârijâta_, the
flower of which preserves its perfume all the year round, combines in
its petals every odour and every flavour, presents to each his favorite
colour and most-esteemed perfume, and procures happiness for those who
ask it. But beyond this, it is a token of virtue, losing its freshness
in the hands of the wicked, but preserving it with the just and
honourable. This wondrous flower will also serve as a torch by night,
and will emit the most enchanting sounds, producing the sweetest and
most varied melody; it assuages hunger and thirst, cures diseases, and
remedies the ravages of old age.
The Paradise of Mahomet is situated in the seventh heaven. In the
centre of it stands the marvellous tree called _Tooba_,[1] which is so
large that a man mounted on the fleetest horse could not ride round
its branches in one hundred years. This tree not only affords the most
grateful shade over the whole extent of the Mussulman Paradise; but its
boughs are laden with delicious fruits of a size and taste unknown to
mortals, and moreover bend themselves at the wish of the inhabitants
of this abode of bliss, to enable them to partake of these delicacies
without any trouble. The Koran often speaks of the rivers of Paradise
as adding greatly to its delights. All these rivers take their rise
from the tree _Tooba_; some flow with water, some with milk, some with
honey, and others even with wine, the juice of the grape not being
forbidden to the blessed.
[1] The name of “_Tooba_” applied to this tree, originated in a
misunderstanding of the words _Tooba lahum_, “it is well with them,” or
“blessedness awaits them,” in Koran xiii., 28. Some commentators took
_Tooba_ for the name of a tree.
We have seen how the most ancient races conceived and cherished
the notion of a Paradise of surpassing beauty, situate in remote
and unknown regions, both celestial and terrestrial. It is not,
therefore, surprising that the Paradise of the Hebrew race--the Mosaic
Eden--should have been pictured as a luxuriant garden, stocked with
lovely flowers and odorous herbs, and shaded by majestic trees of every
description.
We are told, in the second chapter of Genesis, that at the beginning
of the world “the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden,” and
that out of this country of Eden a river went out “to water the
garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.”
These “heads” or rivers are further on, in the Biblical narrative,
named respectively Pison, Gihon, Hiddekel, and Euphrates. Many have
been the speculations as to the exact site, geographical features,
&c., of Eden, and the Divinely-planted Paradise in its midst, and
the subject has been one which has ever been fruitful of controversy
and conjecture. Sir John Maundevile has recorded that the Garden of
Eden, or Paradise, was enclosed by a wall. This old Eastern traveller
tells us that although, in the course of his wanderings, he had never
actually seen the land of Eden, yet wise men had discoursed to him
concerning it. He says: “Paradise Terrestre, as wise men say, is the
highest place of earth--that is, in all the world; and it is so high,
that it toucheth nigh to the circle of the moon. For it is so high that
the flood of Noah might never come to it, albeit it did cover all the
earth of the world, all about, and aboven and beneathen, save Paradise
alone. And this Paradise is enclosed all about with a wall, and men
wist not whereof it is; for the walls be covered all over with moss, as
it seemeth. And it seemeth not that the wall is stone of nature. And
that wall stretcheth from the South to the North, and it hath not but
one entry, that is closed with fire burning, so that no man that is
mortal he dare not enter. And in the highest place of Paradise, exactly
in the middle, is a well that casts out the four streams which run by
divers lands, of which the first is called Pison, or Ganges, that runs
throughout India. And the other is called Nile, or Gyson, which goes
through Ethiopia, and after through Egypt. And the other is called
Tigris, which runs by Assyria, and by Armenia the Great. And the other
is called Euphrates, which runs through Media, Armenia, and Persia. And
men there beyond say that all the sweet waters of the world, above and
beneath, take their beginning from the well of Paradise, and out of the
well all waters come and go.”
Eden (a Hebrew word, signifying “Pleasure”), it is generally conceded,
was the most beauteous and luxuriant portion of the world; and the
Garden of Eden, the Paradise of Adam and Eve, was the choicest and
most exquisite portion of Eden. As regards the situation of this
terrestrial Paradise, the Biblical narrative distinctly states that
it was in the East, but various have been the speculations as to the
precise locality. Moses, in writing of Eden, probably contemplated the
country watered by the Tigris and Euphrates--the land of the mighty
city of Babylon. Many traditions confirm this view: not only were
there a district called Eden, and a town called Paradisus, in Syria, a
neighbouring country to Mesopotamia, but in Mesopotamia itself there
is a certain region which, as late as the year 1552, was called Eden.
Some would localise the Eden of Scripture near Mount Lebanon, in Syria;
others between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates, to the west of Babylon;
others, again, in the delightful plains of Armenia, or in the highlands
of Armenia, where the Tigris and Euphrates have their rise. An opinion
very generally held is, that Eden was placed at the junction of several
rivers, on a site which is now swallowed up by the Persian Gulf, and
that it never existed after the deluge, which effaced this Paradise
from the face of a polluted earth. Another theory places Eden in a
vast central portion of the globe, comprising a large piece of Asia
and a portion of Africa, the four rivers being the Ganges, the Tigris,
the Euphrates, and the Nile. Dr. Wild, of Toronto, is of opinion that
the Garden of Paradise embraced what we now call Syria. The land
that God gave to Abraham and his seed for ever--the Land of Promise,
the Holy Land--is the very territory that constituted the Garden of
Paradise. “Before the flood,” says the reverend gentleman, “there was
in connection with this garden, to the east of it, a gate and a flaming
sword, guarding this gate, and a way to the Tree of Life. On that very
spot I believe the Great Pyramid of Egypt to be built, to mark where
the face of God shone forth to man before the Flood; and the Flood,
by changing the land surface through the changing of the ocean bed,
changed the centre somewhat, and threw it further south. It is the very
centre of the earth now where the Pyramid stands, ... and marks the
place where the gate of Eden was before the Flood.”[2]
[2] Besides the localities already mentioned, Paradise has been
located on Mount Ararat; in Persia; in Ethiopia; in the land now
covered by the Caspian Sea; in a plain on the summit of Mount Taurus;
in Sumatra; in the Canaries; and in the Island of Ceylon, where there
is a mountain called the Peak of Adam, underneath which, according to
native tradition, lie buried the remains of the first man, and whereon
is shown the gigantic impress of his foot. Goropius Becanus places
Paradise near the river Acesines, on the confines of India. Tertullian,
Bonaventura, and Durandus affirm that it was under the Equinoctial,
while another authority contends that it was situated beneath the
North Pole. Virgil places the happy land of the Hyperboreans under the
North Pole, and the Arctic Regions were long associated with ideas of
enchantment and beauty, chiefly because of the mystery that has always
enveloped these remote and unexplored regions. Peter Comestor and Moses
Barcephas set Paradise in a region separated from our habitable zone by
a long tract of land and sea, and elevated so that it reaches to the
sphere of the moon.
The Tree of life.
Whatever may have been the site of the land of Eden or Pleasure, Moses,
in describing Paradise as its garden (much as we speak of Kent as the
Garden of England), doubtless wished to convey the idea of a sanctuary
of delight and primal loveliness; indeed, he tells us that “out of the
ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the
sight and good for food.” This Paradise was in the middle of Eden, and
in the middle of Paradise was planted the Tree of Life, and, close by,
the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Into this garden the Lord put
the man whom He had formed, “to dress and to keep it,” in other words
to till, plant, and sow.
In the very centre of Paradise, in the midst of the land of Eden,
grew the Tree of Life. Now, what was this tree? Various have been the
conjectures with regard to its nature. The traditions of the Rabbins
make the Tree of Life a supernatural tree, resembling the world- or
cloud-trees of the Scandinavians and Hindus, and bearing a striking
resemblance to the _Tooba_ of the Mahomedan Paradise. They describe the
Tree of Life as being of enormous bulk, towering far above all others,
and so vast in its girth, that no man, even if he lived so long, could
travel round it in less than five hundred years. From beneath the
colossal base of this stupendous tree gushed all the waters of the
earth, by whose instrumentality nature was everywhere refreshed and
invigorated. Regarding these Rabbinic traditions as purely mythical,
certain commentators have regarded the Tree of Life as typical only of
that life and the continuance of it which our first parents derived
from God. Others think that it was called the Tree of Life because it
was a memorial, pledge, and seal of the eternal life which, had man
continued in obedience, would have been his reward in the Paradise
above. Others, again, believe that the fruit of it had a certain vital
influence to cherish and maintain man in immortal health and vigour
till he should have been translated from the earthly to the heavenly
Paradise.
Dr. Wild considers that the Tree of Life stood on Mount Moriah, the
very spot selected, in after years, by Abraham, whereon to offer his
son Isaac, the type, and the mount to which Christ was led out to be
sacrificed. As Eden occupied the centre of the world, and the Tree
of Life was planted in the middle of Eden, that spot marked the very
centre of the world, and it was necessary that He who was the life of
mankind should die in the centre of the world, and act from the centre.
Hence, the Tree of Life, destroyed at the flood, on account of man’s
wickedness, was replaced on the same spot, centuries after, by the
Cross,--converted by the Redeemer into a second and everlasting Tree of
Life.
Adam was told he might eat freely of every tree in the garden,
excepting only the Tree of Knowledge; we may, therefore, suppose
that he would be sure to partake of the fruit of the Tree of Life,
which, from its prominent position “in the midst of the garden,”
would naturally attract his attention. Like the sacred Soma-tree of
the Hindus, the Tree of Life probably yielded heavenly ambrosia, and
supplied to Adam food that invigorated and refreshed him with its
immortal sustenance. So long as he remained in obedience, he was
privileged to partake of this glorious food; but when, yielding to
Eve’s solicitations, he disobeyed the Divine command, and partook of
the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, he found it had given to him the
knowledge of evil--something of which he had hitherto been in happy
ignorance. He had sinned; he was no longer fit to taste the immortal
ambrosia of the Tree of Life; he was, therefore, driven forth from
Eden, and lest he should be tempted once again to return and partake of
the glorious fruit of the immortalising tree, God “placed at the east
of the Garden of Eden cherubims and a flaming sword, which turned every
way, to keep the way of the Tree of Life.” Henceforth the immortal
food was lost to man: he could no longer partake of that mystic fruit
which bestowed life and health. Dr. Wild is of opinion that the Tree
of Knowledge stood on Mount Zion, the spot afterwards selected by
the Almighty for the erection of the Temple; because, through the
Shechinah, men could there obtain knowledge of good and evil.
Some have claimed that the Banana, the _Musa paradisiaca_, was the Tree
of Life, and that another species of the tree, the _Musa sapientum_,
was the Tree of Knowledge; others consider that the Indian sacred
Fig-tree, the _Ficus religiosa_, the Hindu world-tree, was the Tree of
Life which grew in the middle of Eden; and the Bible itself contains
internal evidence supporting this idea. In Gen. iii. 8, we read
that Adam and Eve, conscious of having sinned, “hid themselves from
the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden.” Dr.
Wright, however, in his Commentary, remarks that, in the original, the
word rendered “trees” is singular--“in the midst of the tree of the
garden”--consequently, we may infer that Adam and Eve, frightened by
the knowledge of their sin, sought the shelter of the Tree of Life--the
tree in the centre of the garden; the tree which, if it were the _Ficus
religiosa_, would, by its gigantic stature, and the grove-like nature
of its growth, afford them agreeable shelter, and prove a favourite
retreat. Beneath the shade of this stupendous Fig-tree, the erring pair
reflected upon their lost innocence; and in their conscious shame,
plucked the ample foliage of the tree, and made themselves girdles of
Fig-leaves. Here they remained hidden beneath the network of boughs
which drooped almost to the earth, and thus formed a natural thicket
within which they sought to hide themselves from an angry God.
“A pillared shade
High over-arched, with echoing walks between.”--_Milton._
The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.
The Tree of Knowledge, in the opinion of some commentators, was so
called, not because of any supernatural power it possessed of inspiring
those who might eat of it with universal knowledge, as the serpent
afterwards suggested, but because by Adam and Eve abstaining from or
eating of it after it was prohibited, God would see whether they would
prove good or evil in their state of probation.
The tradition generally accepted as to the fruit which the serpent
tempted Eve to eat, fixes it as the Apple, but there is no evidence
in the Bible that the Tree of Knowledge was an Apple-tree, unless
the remark, “I raised thee up under the Apple-tree,” to be found in
Canticles viii., 5, be held to apply to our first parents. Eve is
stated to have plucked the forbidden fruit because she saw that it was
good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and that the tree
which bore it was “to be desired to make one wise.”
According to an Indian legend, it was the fruit of the Banana tree
(_Musa paradisiaca_ or _M. sapientum_) that proved so fatal to Adam and
Eve. We read in Gerarde’s ‘Herbal,’ that “the Grecians and Christians
which inhabit Syria, and the Jewes also, suppose it to be that tree
of whose fruit Adam did taste.” Gerarde himself calls it “Adam’s
Apple-tree,” and remarks of the fruit, that “if it be cut according to
the length oblique, transverse, or any other way whatsoever, may be
seen the shape and forme of a crosse, with a man fastened thereto. My
selfe have seene the fruit, and cut it in pieces, which was brought me
from Aleppo, in pickle; the crosse, I might perceive, as the forme of
a spred-egle in the root of Ferne, but the man I leave to be sought
for by those which have better eies and judgement than my selfe.” Sir
John Mandeville gives a similar account of the cross in the Plantain
or “Apple of Paradise.” In a work by Léon, called ‘Africa,’ it is
stated that the Banana is in that country generally identified with
the Tree of Adam. “The Mahometan priests say that this fruit is that
which God forbade Adam and Eve to eat; for immediately they eat they
perceived their nakedness, and to cover themselves employed the leaves
of this tree, which are more suitable for the purpose than any other.”
To this day the Indian Djainas are by their laws forbidden to eat
either Bananas or Figs. Vincenzo, a Roman missionary of the seventeenth
century, after stating that the Banana fruit in Phœnicia bears the
effigy of the Crucifixion, tells us that the Christians of those
parts would not on any account cut it with a knife, but always broke
it with their hands. This Banana, he adds, grows near Damascus, and
they call it there “Adam’s Fig Tree.” In the Canaries, at the present
time, Banana fruit is never cut across with a knife, because it then
exhibits a representation of the Crucifixion. In the island of Ceylon
there is a legend that Adam once had a fruit garden in the vicinity
of the torrent of Seetagunga, on the way to the Peak. Pridham, in
his history of the island, tells us that from the circumstance that
various fruits have been occasionally carried down the stream, both the
Moormen and Singalese believe that this garden still exists, although
now inaccessible, and that its explorer would never return. Tradition,
however, affirms that in the centre of this Ceylon Paradise grows a
large Banana-tree, the fruit of which when cut transversely exhibits
the figure of a man crucified, and that from the huge leaves of this
tree Adam and Eve made themselves coverings.
Certain commentators are of opinion that the Tree of Knowledge was a
Fig-tree--the _Ficus Indica_, the Banyan, one of the sacred trees of
the Hindus, under the pillared shade of which the god Vishnu was fabled
to have been born. In this case the Fig-tree is a tree of ill-omen--a
tree watched originally by Satan in the form of a serpent, and whose
fruit gave the knowledge of evil. After having tempted and caused
Adam to fall by means of its fruit, its leaves were gathered to cover
nakedness and shame. Again, the Fig was the tree which the demons
selected as their refuge, if one may judge from the _fauni ficarii_,
whom St. Jerome recognised in certain monsters mentioned by the
prophets. The Fig was the only tree accursed by Christ whilst on earth;
and the wild Fig, according to tradition, was the tree upon which
the traitor Judas hanged himself, and from that time has always been
regarded as under a bane.
The Citron is held by many to have been the forbidden fruit. Gerarde
tells us that this tree was originally called _Pomum Assyrium_, but
that it was known among the Italian people as _Pomum Adami_; and,
writes the old herbalist, “that came by the opinion of the common rude
people, who thinke it to be the same Apple which Adam did eate of in
Paradise, when he transgressed God’s commandment; whereupon also the
prints of the biting appeare therein as they say; but others say that
this is not the Apple, but that which the Arabians do call _Musa_ or
_Mosa_, whereof Avicen maketh mention: for divers of the Jewes take
this for that through which by eating Adam offended.”
The Pomegranate, Orange, Corn, and Grapes have all been identified as
the “forbidden fruit;” but upon what grounds it is difficult to surmise.
After their disobedience, Adam and Eve were driven out of Paradise,
and, according to Arabian tradition, Adam took with him three
things--an ear of Wheat, which is the chief of all kinds of food;
Dates, which are the chief of fruits; and the Myrtle, which is
the chief of sweet-scented flowers. Maimonides mentions a legend,
cherished by the Nabatheans, that Adam, when he reached the district
about Babylon, had come from India, carrying with him a golden tree
in blossom, a leaf that no fire would burn, two leaves, each of which
would cover a man, and an enormous leaf plucked from a tree beneath
whose branches ten thousand men could find shelter.
The Tree of Adam.
There is a legend handed down both by Hebrews and Greeks, that when
Adam had attained the ripe age of 900 years, he overtaxed his strength
in uprooting an enormous bush, and that falling very sick, and feeling
the approach of death, he sent his son Seth to the angel who guarded
Paradise, and particularly the way to the Tree of Life, to ask of
him some of its ambrosia, or oil of mercy, that he might anoint his
limbs therewith, and so regain good health. Seth approached the Tree
of Knowledge, of the fruit of which Adam and Eve had once partaken. A
youth, radiant as the sun, was seated on its summit, and, addressing
Seth, told him that He was the Son of God, that He would one day come
down to earth, to deliver it from sin, and that He would then give the
oil of mercy to Adam.
The angel who was guarding the Tree of Life then handed to Seth three
small seeds, charging him to place them in his father’s mouth, when
he should bury him near Mount Tabor, in the valley of Hebron. Seth
obeyed the angel’s behests. The three seeds took root, and in a short
time appeared above the ground, in the form of three rods. One of
these saplings was a branch of Olive, the second a Cedar, the third
a Cypress. The three rods did not leave the mouth of Adam, nor was
their existence known until the time of Moses, who received from God
the order to cut them. Moses obeyed, and with these three rods, which
exhaled a perfume of the Promised Land, performed many miracles, cured
the sick, drew water from a rock, &c.
After the death of Moses, the three rods remained unheeded in the
Valley of Hebron until the time of King David, who, warned by the
Holy Ghost, sought and found them there. Hence they were taken by the
King to Jerusalem, where all the leprous, the dumb, the blind, the
paralysed, and other sick people presented themselves before the King,
beseeching him to give them the salvation of the Cross. King David
thereupon touched them with the three rods, and their infirmities
instantly vanished. After this the King placed the three rods in a
cistern, but to his astonishment upon going the next day for them, he
discovered they had all three firmly taken root, that the roots had
become inextricably interlaced, and that the three rods were in fact
reunited in one stem which had shot up therefrom, and had become a
Cedar sapling,--the tree that was eventually to furnish the wood of the
Cross. This reunion of the three rods was typical of the Trinity. The
young Cedar was subsequently placed in the Temple, but we hear nothing
more of it for thirty years, when Solomon, wishing to complete the
Temple, obtained large supplies of Cedars of Lebanon, and as being well
adapted for his purpose cut down the Cedar of the Temple. The trunk of
this tree, lying with the other timber, was seen by a woman, who sat
down on it, and inspired with the spirit of prophecy cried: “Behold!
the Lord predicts the virtues of the Sacred Cross.” The Jews thereupon
attacked the woman, and having stoned her, they plunged the sacred wood
of the Temple into the _piscina probatica_, of which the water acquired
from that moment healing qualities, and which was afterwards called
the Pool of Bethesda. In the hope of profaning it the Jews afterwards
employed the sacred wood in the construction of the bridge of Siloam,
over which everybody unheedingly passed, excepting only the Queen of
Sheba, who, prostrating herself, paid homage to it and prophetically
cried that of this wood would one day be made the Cross of the Redeemer.
Thus, although Adam by eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge,
came to know that which was evil, and could no longer be permitted to
partake of the fruit or essence of the Tree of Life, yet, from its
seeds, placed in his mouth after death, sprang the tree which produced
the Cross of Christ, by means of which he and his race could attain to
eternal life.
According to Prof. Mussafia,[3] an authority quoted by De Gubernatis,
the origin of this legend of Seth’s visit to Paradise is to be found in
the apocryphal gospel of Nicodemus, where it is stated that the Angel
Michael refused to give the oil of mercy to Seth, and told him that
Christ would one day visit the earth to anoint all believers, and to
conduct Adam to the Tree of Mercy. Some of the legends collected by the
Professor are very curious.
[3] Treatise on the Legend of the Sacred Wood. Vienna, 1870.
An Austrian legend records that the Angel Michael gave to Eve and her
son Seth a spray with three leaves, plucked from the Tree of Knowledge,
with directions to plant it on the grave of Adam. The spray took root
and became a tree, which Solomon placed as an ornament in the Temple of
Jerusalem, and which was cast into the _piscina probatica_, where it
lay until the day of Christ’s condemnation, when it was taken out and
fashioned into the Cross on which He suffered.
A German legend narrates that Eve went with Seth to Paradise, where
she encountered the serpent; but the Angel Michael gave her a branch
of Olive, which, planted over the grave of Adam, grew rapidly. After
the death of Eve, Seth returned to Paradise, and there met the Angel,
who had in his hands a branch to which was suspended the half of the
Apple which had been bitten by his mother Eve. The Angel gave this to
Seth, at the same time recommending him to take as great care of it as
of the Olive planted on Adam’s grave, because these two trees would one
day become the means of the redemption of mankind. Seth scrupulously
watched over the precious branch, and at the hour of his death
bequeathed it to the best of men. Thus it came into the hands of Noah,
who took it into the Ark with him. After the Deluge, Noah sent forth
the dove as a messenger, and it brought to him a branch of the Olive
planted on the tomb of Adam. Noah religiously guarded the two precious
branches which were destined to be instrumental in redeeming the human
race by furnishing the wood of the Cross.
A second German legend states that Adam, when at the point of death,
sent Seth to Paradise to gather there for him some of the forbidden
fruit (probably this is a mistake for “some of the fruit of the Tree
of Life”). Seth hesitated, saying as an excuse that he did not know
the way. Adam directed him to follow a tract of country entirely bare
of vegetation. Arrived safely at Paradise, Seth persuaded the angel to
give him, not the Apple, but simply the core of the Apple tasted by
Eve. On Seth returning home, he found his father dead; so extracting
from the Apple-core three pips, he placed them in Adam’s mouth. From
them sprang three plants that Solomon cut down in order to form a
cross--the selfsame cross afterwards borne by our Saviour, and on which
He was crucified--and a rod of justice, which, split in the middle,
eventually served to hold the superscription written by Pilate, and
placed at the head of the Cross.
A legend, current in the Greek Church, claims the Olive as the Tree of
Adam: this, perhaps, is not surprising considering in what high esteem
the Greeks have always held the Olive. The legend tells how Seth, going
to seek the oil of mercy in Paradise, in consequence of his father’s
illness, was told by the angel that the time had not arrived. The angel
then presented him with three branches--the Olive, Cedar, and Cypress:
these Seth was ordered to plant over Adam’s grave, and the promise was
given him that when they produced oil, Adam should rise restored to
health. Seth, following these instructions, plaited the three branches
together and planted them over the grave of his father, where they soon
became united as one tree. After a time this tree was transplanted,
in the first place to Mount Lebanon, and afterwards to the outskirts
of Jerusalem, and it is there to this day in the Greek Monastery,
having been cut down and the timber placed beneath the altar. From
this circumstance the Monastery was called, in Hebrew, the Mother of
the Cross. This same wood was revealed to Solomon by the Queen of
Sheba, and Solomon therefore ordered it to be used in the foundation
of a tower; but the tower having been rent in twain by an earthquake
which occurred at our Saviour’s birth, the wood was cast into a pool
called the _probatica piscina_, to which it imparted wonderful healing
qualities.[4]
[4] Sir John Maundevile, who visited Jerusalem about the middle of
the fourteenth century, states that to the north of the Temple stood
the Church of St. Anne, “oure Ladyes modre: and there was our Lady
conceyved. And before that chirche is a gret tree, that began to
growe the same nyght.... And in that chirche is a welle, in manere of
a cisterne, that is clept _Probatica Piscina_, that hath 5 entreez.
Into that welle aungeles were wont to come from Hevene, and bathen hem
with inne: and what man that first bathed him aftre the mevynge of the
watre, was made hool of what maner sykenes that he hadde.”
There is another somewhat similar Greek legend, in which Abraham
takes the place of Adam, and the Pine supersedes the Olive. According
to this version, a shepherd met Abraham on the banks of the Jordan,
and confessed to him a sin he had committed. Abraham listened, and
counselled the erring shepherd to plant three stakes, and to water them
carefully until they should bud. After forty days the three stakes had
taken the form of a Cypress, a Cedar, and a Pine, having different
roots and branches, but one indivisible trunk. This tree grew until the
time of Solomon, who wished to make use of it in the construction of
the Temple. After several abortive attempts, it was at length made into
a seat for visitors to the Temple. The Sibyl Erythræa (the Queen of
Sheba) refused to sit upon it, and exclaimed: “Thrice blessed is this
wood, on which shall perish Christ, the King and God.” Then Solomon had
the wood mounted on a pedestal and adorned with thirty rings or crowns
of silver. These thirty rings became the thirty pieces of silver, the
price of Judas, the betrayer, and the wood was eventually used for the
Saviour’s Cross.
[Tailpiece]
[Headpiece]
CHAPTER III.
Sacred Trees & Plants of the Ancients.
All the nations of antiquity entertained for certain trees and
plants a special reverence, which in many cases degenerated into a
superstitious worship. The myths of all countries contain allusions
to sacred or supernatural plants. The Veda mentions the heavenly tree
which the lightning strikes down; the mythology of the Finns speaks of
the celestial Oak which the sun-dwarf uproots; Yama, the Vedic god of
death, sits drinking with companies of the blessed, under a leafy tree,
just as in the northern Saga Hel’s place is at the foot of the Ash
Yggdrasill.
In the eyes of the ancient Persians the tree, by its changes in Spring,
Summer, Autumn, and Winter, appeared as the emblem of human existence,
whilst at the same time, by the continuity of its life, it was
reverently regarded as a symbol of immortality. Hence it came to pass
that in Persia trees of unusual qualities were in course of time looked
upon as being the abode of holy and even celestial spirits. Such trees
became sacred, and were addressed in prayer by the reverential Parsis,
though they eschewed the worship of idols, and honoured the sun and
moon simply as symbols. Ormuzd, the good spirit, is set forth as giving
this command:--“Go, O Zoroaster! to the living trees, and let thy mouth
speak before them these words: I pray to the pure trees, the creatures
of Ormuzd.” Of all trees, however, the Cypress, with its pyramidal
top pointing to the sky, was to the Parsis the most venerated: hence
they planted it before their temples and palaces as symbolic of the
celestial fire.
The Oak, the strongest of all trees, has been revered as the emblem
of the Supreme Being by almost all the nations of heathendom, by the
Jewish Patriarchs, and by the children of Israel, who eventually came
to esteem the tree sacred, and offered sacrifices beneath its boughs.
Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Teutons, and Celts, all considered the Oak
as sacred, and the Druids taught the people of Britain to regard this
tree with peculiar reverence and respect. It is frequently mentioned
by the Roman poets as the tree of Jove, to whom it was dedicated; and
near to Chaonia, a mountainous part of Epirus, was a forest of Oaks,
called the Chaonian or Dodonæan Forest, where oracles were given, as
some say, by the trees themselves. The world-tree of Romowe, the old
centre of the Prussians, was an Oak, and it was reverenced as a tree of
great sanctity.
The Indians adored the tree _Asoka_, consecrated to Vishnu; and the
Banyan, in the belief that Vishnu was born amongst its branches.[5]
[5] In the rites appertaining to the great sacrifice in honour of the
god Vishnu at the end of March, the following plants were employed,
and consequently acquired a sacred character in the eyes of the
Indians:--Sesamum seed, leaves of the Asvattha, Mango leaves, flowers
of the Sami, Kunda flowers, the Lotus flower, Oleander flowers,
Nagakesara flowers, powdered Tulasi leaves, powdered Bel leaves, leaves
of the Kunda, Barley meal, meal of the Nivara grain (a wild paddy),
powder of Sati leaves, Turmeric powder, meal of the Syamaka grain,
powdered Ginger, powdered Priyangu seeds, Rice meal, powder of Bel
leaves, powder of the leaves of the Amblic Myrobalan, and Kangni seed
meal.--_An Imperial Assemblage at Delhi Three Thousand Years Ago._
The _Soma-latâ_ (_Sarcostemma aphylla_), or sacred plant yielding the
immortal fluid offered to the gods on the altars of the Brahmans,
is regarded with extreme reverence. The name _Amrita_, or Immortal
Tree, is given to the _Euphorbia_, _Panicum Dactylon_, _Cocculus
cordifolius_, _Pinus Deodara_, _Emblica officinalis_, _Terminalia
citrina_, _Piper longum_, and many others. The Holy Basil (_Ocimum
sanctum_) is looked upon as a sacred plant. The Deodar is the
_Devadâru_ or tree-god of the Shastras, alluded to in Vedic hymns as
the symbol of majesty and power.
To Indra, the supreme god of the Vedic Olympus, are dedicated the
_Terminalia Arjuna_ (the Tree of Indra), the _Methonica superba_
(the Flower of Indra), a species of Pumpkin called _Indra-vârunikâ_
(appertaining to Indra and Varuna), the _Vitex Negundo_ (the drink of
Indra), the _Abrus precatorius_, and Hemp (the food of Indra).
To Brahma are sacred the _Butea frondosa_, the _Ficus glomerata_,
the Mulberry (the seed of Brahma), the _Clerodendron Siphonanthus_,
the _Hemionitis cordifolia_ (leaf of Brahma), the _Saccharum Munga_
(with which is formed the sacred girdle of the Brahmans), and the _Poa
cynosuroides_, or Kusa Grass, a species of Vervain, employed in Hindu
sacrificial rites, and held in such sanctity as to be acknowledged as a
god.
The Peepul or Bo-tree (_Ficus religiosa_) is held sacred by Buddhists
as the Holy Tree and the Tree of Knowledge.
The Burmese Buddhists surround their Pagodas and religious houses with
trees, for which they entertain a high regard. The first holy men dwelt
under the shade of forest trees, and from that circumstance, in the
Burmese cultus, every Budh is specially connected with some tree--as
Shin Gautama with the Banyan, under which he attained his full dignity,
and the _Shorea robusta_, under which he was born and died--and, as we
are told, the last Budh of this world cycle, Areemadehya, will receive
his Buddhaship under the _Mesua ferrea_.
The Burman also regards the Eugenia as a plant of peculiar sanctity--a
protective from all harm. The Jamboa, or Rose Apple, is held in much
reverence in Thibet, where it is looked upon as the representative of
the mystical _Amrita_, the tree which in Paradise produces the _amrita_
or ambrosia of the gods.
The Cedar has always been regarded by the Jews as a sacred tree; and
to this day the Maronites, Greeks, and Armenians go up to the Cedars
of Lebanon, at the Feast of the Transfiguration, and celebrate Mass at
their feet.
To the ancient inhabitants of Northern Europe the Elm and the Ash were
objects of especial veneration. Many sacred trees or pillars, formed
of the living trunks of trees, have been found in Germany, called
_Irminseule_, one of which was destroyed by Charlemagne in 772, in
Westphalia.
The Mountain Ash, or Rowan Tree, was, in olden times, an object of
great veneration in Britain; and in Evelyn’s day was reputed of such
sanctity in Wales, that there was not a churchyard that did not contain
one.
The colossal Baobab (_Adansonia_) is worshipped as a divinity by the
negroes of Senegambia. The Nipa or Susa Palm (_Nipa fruticans_) is
the sacred tree of Borneo. The gigantic Dragon Tree (_Dracæna Draco_)
of Orotava was for centuries the object of deep reverence to the
aborigines of the Canary Isles. The Zamang of Guayra, an enormous
Mimosa, has from time immemorial been held sacred in the province of
Caracas. The Moriche Palm (_Mauritia flexuosa_) is considered a deity
by the Tamancas, a tribe of Oronoco Indians, and is held sacred by the
aboriginal Mexicans.
The Nelumbo, or Sacred Bean (_Nelumbium speciosum_), was the Lotus
adored by the Ancient Egyptians, who also paid divine honours to the
Onion, Garlic, Acacia, Laurel, Peach-tree, Lentils of various sorts,
and the Heliotrope. Wormwood was dedicated to Isis, and _Antirrhinum_
(supposed to be the ancient _Cynocephalia_, or Dog’s Head) to Osiris.
The sacred Lotus of the East, the flower of the
“Old Hindu mythologies, wherein
The Lotus, attribute of Ganga--embleming
The world’s great reproductive power--was held
In veneration,”
was the _Nelumbium speciosum_. This mystic flower is a native of
Northern Africa, India, China, Japan, Persia, and Asiatic Russia,
and in all these countries has, for centuries, maintained its sacred
character. It is the _Lien-wha_ of the Chinese, and, according to their
theology, enters into the beverage of immortality.
Henna (_Lawsonia alba_), the flower of Paradise, is dedicated to
Mahomet, who characterised it as the “chief of the flowers of this
world and the next.”
The Pomegranate-tree was highly reverenced both by the Persians and the
Jews. The fruit was embroidered on the hem of Aaron’s sacred robe, and
adorned the robes of Persia’s ancient Priest-Kings.
Pine-cones were regarded by the Assyrians as sacred symbols, and as
such were used in the decoration of their temples.
In Teutonic and Scandinavian mythology the Rose is sacred to Hulda, the
Flax to Bertha, the Spignel to Baldr, and the Hair Moss (_Polytrichum
commune_) is dedicated to Thor’s wife, Sif. Of the divinities after
whom the days of the week were named, the Sun has his special flower,
the Moon her Daisy, Tyr (_Tuesday_) the Tys-fiola or March Violet
and the Mezereon; Woden (_Wednesday_) the _Geranium sylvaticum_
(Odin’s Favour) and the Monkshood (Odin’s Helm); Thor (_Thursday_)
the Monkshood (Thor’s Hat) and the Burdock (Thor’s Mantle); Frig
(_Friday_) and Freyja, who is often confounded with her, had many
plants dedicated to them, which have since been transferred to Venus
and the Virgin Mary, and are not now recognised by the name of either
of the Scandinavian goddesses. In the North of Europe, however, the
_Supercilium Veneris_ is still known as Freyja’s Hair, and the perfumed
Orchis _Gymnadenia conopsea_ as Frigg’s Grass. Sæterne or Sætere
(_Saturday_), the supposed name of an Anglo-Saxon god, is probably but
a mere adaptation of the Roman Saturnus. It may, perhaps, be apposite
to quote (for what it may be worth) Verstegan’s statement that the
Saxons represented “Seater” as carrying a pail of water in which were
flowers and fruits, whereby “was declared that with kindly raine he
would nourish the earth to bring foorth such fruites and flowers.”
In the Grecian and Roman mythology we find numerous trees and flowers
dedicated to the principal divinities. Thus, the
Alder was dedicated to Neptune.
Apple „ „ „ Venus.
Ash „ „ „ Mars.
Bay „ „ „ Apollo.
Beech „ „ „ Jupiter Ammon.
Cornel Cherry „ „ „ Apollo.
Cypress „ „ „ Pluto.
Dittany „ „ „ Juno, Diana, and Luna.
Dog-grass „ „ „ Mars.
Fir „ „ „ Cybele and Neptune.
Heliotrope „ „ „ Phœbus Apollo.
Horsetail „ „ „ Saturn.
Iris „ „ „ Juno.
Ivy „ „ „ Bacchus.
Laurel „ „ „ Apollo.
Lily „ „ „ Juno.
Maidenhair „ „ „ Pluto and Proserpine.
Myrtle „ „ „ Venus and Mars.
Narcissus „ „ „ Ceres, Pluto, and Proserpine.
Oak „ „ „ Jupiter.
Olive „ „ „ Minerva.
Palm „ „ „ Mercury.
Pine „ „ „ Neptune and Pan.
Pink „ „ „ Jupiter.
Pomegranate „ „ „ Juno.
Poplar „ „ „ Hercules.
Poppy „ „ „ Ceres, Diana, and Somnus.
Rhamnus „ „ „ Janus.
Rocket „ „ „ Priapus.
Rose „ „ „ Venus.
Vine „ „ „ Bacchus.
Willow „ „ „ Ceres.
To the Furies was consecrated the Juniper; the Fates wore wreaths of
the Narcissus, and the Muses Bay-leaves.
The Grecian Centaurs, half men, half horses, like their Indian brethren
the Gandharvas, understood the properties of herbs, and cultivated
them; but, as a rule, they never willingly divulged to mankind their
knowledge of the secrets of the vegetable world. Nevertheless, the
Centaur Chiron instructed Æsculapius, Achilles, Æneas, and other heroes
in the polite arts. Chiron had a panacea of his own, which is named
after him _Chironia Centaurium_, or _Gentiana Centaurium_; and, as a
vulnerary, the _Ampelos Chironia_ of Pliny, or _Tamus communis_. In
India, on account of the shape of its leaves, the _Ricinus communis_ is
called _Gandharvahasta_ (having the hands of a Gandharva).
[Tailpiece]
[Headpiece]
CHAPTER IV.
Floral Ceremonies, Wreaths, and Garlands.
The application of flowers and plants to ceremonial purposes is of
the highest antiquity. From the earliest periods, man, after he had
discovered
“What drops the Myrrh and what the balmy Reed,”
offered up on primitive altars, as incense to the Deity, the choicest
and most fragrant woods, the aromatic gums from trees, and the subtle
essences he obtained from flowers. In the odorous but intoxicating
fumes which slowly ascended, in wreaths heavy with fragrance, from the
altar, the pious ancients saw the mystic agency by which their prayers
would be wafted from earth to the abodes of the gods; and so, says
Mr. Rimmel, “the altars of Zoroaster and of Confucius, the temples of
Memphis, and those of Jerusalem, all smoked alike with incense and
sweet-scented woods.” Nor was the admiration and use of vegetable
productions confined to the inhabitants of the old world alone, for the
Mexicans, according to the Abbé Clavigero, have, from time immemorial,
studied the cultivation of flowers and odoriferous plants, which they
employed in the worship of their gods.
But the use of flowers and odorous shrubs was not long confined by
the ancients to their sacred rites; they soon began to consider them
as essential to their domestic life. Thus, the Egyptians, though
they offered the finest fruit and the finest flowers to the gods,
and employed perfumes at all their sacred festivals, as well as at
their daily oblations, were lavish in the use of flowers at their
private entertainments, and in all circumstances of their every-day
life. At a reception given by an Egyptian noble, it was customary,
after the ceremony of anointing, for each guest to be presented with
a Lotus-flower when entering the saloon, and this flower the guest
continued to hold in his hand. Servants brought necklaces of flowers
composed chiefly of the Lotus; a garland was put round the head,
and a single Lotus-bud, or a full-blown flower was so attached as
to hang over the forehead. Many of them, made up into wreaths and
devices, were suspended upon stands placed in the room, garlands of
Crocus and Saffron encircled the wine cups, and over and under the
tables were strewn various flowers. Diodorus informs us that when
the Egyptians approached the place of divine worship, they held the
flower of the Agrostis in their hand, intimating that man proceeded
from a well-watered land, and that he required a moist rather than a
dry aliment; and it is not improbable that the reason of the great
preference given to the Lotus on these occasions was derived from the
same notion.
This fondness of the ancients for flowers was carried to such an extent
as to become almost a vice. When Antony supped with Cleopatra, the
luxurious Queen of Egypt, the floors of the apartments were usually
covered with fragrant flowers. When Sardanapalus, the last of the
Assyrian monarchs, was driven to dire extremity by the rapid approach
of the conqueror, he chose the death of an Eastern voluptuary: causing
a pile of fragrant woods to be lighted, and placing himself on it with
his wives and treasures, he soon became insensible, and was suffocated
by the aromatic smoke. When Antiochus Epiphanes, the Syrian king,
held high festival at Daphne, in one of the processions which took
place, boys bore Frankincense, Myrrh, and Saffron on golden dishes,
two hundred women sprinkled everyone with perfumes out of golden
watering-pots, and all who entered the gymnasium to witness the games
were anointed with some perfume contained in fifteen gold dishes,
holding Saffron, Amaracus, Lilies, Cinnamon, Spikenard, Fenugreek, &c.
When the Roman Emperor Nero sat at banquet in his golden palace, a
shower of flowers and perfumes fell upon him; but Heliogabalus turned
these floral luxuries into veritable curses, for it was one of the
pleasures of this inhuman being to smother his courtiers with flowers.
Both Greeks and Romans caried the delicate refinements of the taste
for flowers and perfumes to the greatest excess in their costly
entertainments; and it is the opinion of Baccius that at their desserts
the number of their flowers far exceeded that of their fruits. The
odour of flowers was deemed potent to arouse the fainting appetite;
and their presence was rightly thought to enhance the enjoyment of the
guests at their banqueting boards:--
“The ground is swept, and the triclinium clear,
The hands are purified, the goblets, too,
Well rinsed; each guest upon his forehead bears
A wreath’d flow’ry crown; from slender vase
A willing youth presents to each in turn
A sweet and costly perfume; while the bowl,
Emblem of joy and social mirth, stands by,
Filled to the brim; and then pours out wine
Of most delicious flavour, breathing round
Fragrance of flowers, and honey newly made,
So grateful to the sense, that none refuse;
While odoriferous fumes fill all the room.”--_Xenophanes._
In all places where festivals, games, or solemn ceremonials were held,
and whenever public rejoicings and gaiety were deemed desirable,
flowers were utilised with unsparing hands.
“Set before your doors
The images of all your sleeping fathers,
With Laurels crowned; with Laurels wreath your posts,
And strew with flowers the pavement; let the priest
Do present sacrifice; pour out the wine,
And call the gods to join with you in gladness.”--_Dryden._
In the triumphal processions of Rome the streets were strewed with
flowers, and from the windows, roofs of houses, and scaffolds, the
people cast showers of garlands and flowers upon the crowds below and
upon the conquerors proudly marching in procession through the city.
Macaulay says--
“On ride they to the Forum,
While Laurel-boughs and flowers,
From house-tops and from windows,
Fell on their crests in showers.”
In the processions of the Corybantes, the goddess Cybele, the
protectress of cities, was pelted with white Roses. In the annual
festivals of the Terminalia, the peasants were all crowned with
garlands of flowers; and at the festival held by the gardeners in
honour of Vertumnus on August 23rd, wreaths of budding flowers and the
first-fruits of their gardens were offered by members of the craft.
In the sacrifices of both Greeks and Romans, it was customary to
place in the hands of victims some sort of floral decoration, and the
presiding priests also appeared crowned with flowers.
“Thus the gay victim with fresh garlands crowned,
Pleased with the sacred pipe’s enlivening sound.
Through gazing crowds in solemn state proceeds,
And dressed in fatal pomp, magnificently bleeds.”--_Phillips._
The place erected for offerings was called by the Romans _ara_, an
altar. It was decorated with leaves and grass, adorned with flowers,
and bound with woollen fillets: on the occasion of a “triumph” these
altars smoked with perfumed incense.
The Greeks had a Nymph of Flowers whom they called Chloris, and the
Romans the goddess Flora, who, among the Sabines and the Phoceans,
had been worshipped long before the foundation of the Eternal City.
As early as the time of Romulus the Latins instituted a festival in
honour of Flora, which was intended as a public expression of joy at
the appearance of the welcome blossoms which were everywhere regarded
as the harbingers of fruits. Five hundred and thirteen years after
the foundation of Rome the Floralia, or annual floral games, were
established; and after the sibyllic books had been consulted, it was
finally ordained that the festival should be kept every 20th day of
April, that is four days before the calends of May--the day on which,
in Asia Minor, the festival of the flowers commences. In Italy, France,
and Germany, the festival of the flowers, or the festival of spring,
begins about the same date--_i.e._, towards the end of April--and
terminates on the feast of St. John.
The festival of the Floralia was introduced into Britain by the Romans;
and for centuries all ranks of people went out a-Maying early on the
first of the month. The juvenile part of both sexes, in the north, were
wont to rise a little after midnight, and walk to some neighbouring
wood, accompanied with music and the blowing of horns,
“To get sweet Setywall [red Valerian],
The Honeysuckle, the Harlock,
The Lily and the Lady-smock,
To deck their summer hall.”
They also gathered branches from the trees, and adorned them with
nosegays and crowns of flowers, returning with their booty homewards,
about the rising of the sun, forthwith to decorate their doors and
windows with the flowery spoil. The after-part of the day, says an
ancient chronicler, was “chiefly spent in dancing round a tall pole,
which is called a May-pole; which, being placed in a convenient part of
the village, stands there, as it were, consecrated to the goddess of
flowers, without the least violation offered it in the whole circle of
the year.”
“Your May-pole deck with flowery coronal;
Sprinkle the flowery coronal with wine;
And in the nimble-footed galliard, all,
Shepherd and shepherdess, lively join,
Hither from village sweet and hamlet fair,
From bordering cot and distant glen repair:
Let youth indulge its sport, to old bequeath its care.”
Old John Stowe tells us that on May-day, in the morning, “every man,
except impediment, would walk into the sweet meadows and green woods,
there to rejoice their spirits with the beauty and savour of sweet
flowers, and with the harmony of birds praising God in their kind.” In
the days of Henry VIII. it was the custom for all classes to observe
the May-day festival, and we are told that the king himself rode
a-Maying from Greenwich to Shooter’s Hill, with his Queen Katherine,
accompanied by many lords and ladies. Chaucer relates how on May-day
“Went forth all the Court both most and least;
To fetch the floures fresh, and branch and blome,
And namely Hawthorn brought both page and grome;
And then rejoysen in their great delite,
Eke each at other threw the floures bright.
The Primrose, Violette, and the Golde,
With garlands partly blue and white.”
The young maidens repaired at daybreak to the meadows and hill-sides,
for the purpose of gathering the precious May-dew, wherewith to make
themselves fair for the remainder of the year. This old custom is still
extant in the north of England and in some districts of Scotland.
Robert Fergusson has told how the Scotch lassies swarmed at daybreak on
Arthur’s Seat:
“On May-day in a fairy ring,
We’ve seen them round St. Anthon’s spring
Frae grass the caller dew-draps wring,
To wet their ein,
And water clear as crystal spring.
To synd them clean.”
In Ross-shire the lassies pluck sprigs of Ivy, with the May-dew on
them, that have not been touched by steel.
It was deemed important that flowers for May garlands and posies should
be plucked before the sun rose on May-day morning; and if perchance,
Cuckoo-buds were included in the composition of a wreath, it was
destroyed directly the discovery was made, and removed immediately from
a posie.
In the May-day sports on the village green, it was customary to choose
as May Queen either the best dancer or the prettiest girl, who, at
sundown was crowned with a floral chaplet--
“See where she sits upon the grassie greene,
A seemly sight!
Yclad in scarlet, like a mayden queene,
And ermines white.
Upon her head a crimson coronet,
With Daffodils and Damask Roses set:
Bay-leaves betweene,
And Primroses greene
Embellished the sweete Violet.”--_Spenser._
The coronation of the rustic queen concluded the out-door festivities
of May-day, although her majesty’s duties would not appear to have been
fulfilled until she reached her home.
“Then all the rest in sorrow,
And she in sweet content,
Gave over till the morrow,
And homeward straight they went;
But she of all the rest
Was hindered by the way,
For every youth that met her
Must kiss the Queen of May!”
At Horncastle, in Lincolnshire, there existed, till the beginning of
the present century, a ceremony which evidently derived its origin
from the Roman Floralia. On the morning of May-day, a train of youths
collected themselves at a place still known as the May-bank. From
thence, with wands enwreathed with Cowslips they walked in procession
to the may-pole, situated at the west end of the town, and adorned
on that morning with every variety of wild flowers. Here, with loud
shouts, they struck together their wands, and, scattering around the
Cowslips, testified their thankfulness for the bounteous promise of
spring.
Aubrey (MS., 1686), tells us that in his day “at Woodstock in
Oxon they every May-eve goe into the parke, and fetch away a
number of Haw-thorne-trees, which they set before their dores.” In
Huntingdonshire, fifty years ago, the village swains were accustomed,
at sunrise, to place a branch of May in blossom before the door of
anyone they wished to honour. In Tuscany the expression, _Appiccare
il maio ad una porta_, has passed into a proverb, and means to lay
siege to a maiden’s heart and make love to her. In the vicinity of
Valenciennes, branches of Birch or Hornbeam are placed by rural swains
at the doors of their sweethearts; thorny branches at the portals of
prudes; and Elder boughs at the doors of flirts. In the villages of
Provence, on May-day, they select a May Queen. Crowned with a wreath,
and adorned with garlands of Roses, she is carried through the streets,
mounted on a platform, her companions soliciting and receiving the
offerings of the towns-people. In olden times it was customary even
among the French nobility to present May to friends and neighbours,
or as it was called, _esmayer_. Sometimes this presenting of May was
regarded as a challenge. The custom of planting a May-tree in French
towns subsisted until the 17th century: in 1610, one was planted in
the court of the Louvre. In some parts of Spain the name of _Maia_ is
given to the May Queen (selected generally as being the handsomest lass
of the village), who, decorated with garlands of flowers, leads the
dances in which the young people spend the day. The villagers in other
provinces declare their love by planting, during the preceding night,
a large bough or a sapling, decked with flowers, before the doors of
their sweethearts. In Greece, bunches of flowers are suspended over the
doors of most houses; and in the rural districts, the peasants bedeck
themselves with flowers, and carry garlands and posies of wild flowers.
In some parts of Italy, in the May-day rejoicings, a May-tree or
a branch in blossom and adorned with fruit and ribbands, plays a
conspicuous part: this is called the _Maggio_, and is probably a
reminiscence of the old Grecian _Eiresione_.
Of the flowers specially dedicated to May, first and foremost is the
Hawthorn blossom. In some parts of England the _Convallaria_ is known
as May Lily. The Germans call it _Mai blume_, a name they also apply to
the Hepatica and Kingcup. In Devon and Cornwall the Lilac is known as
May-flower, and much virtue is thought to be attached to a spray of the
narrow-leaf Elm gathered on May morning.
In Asia Minor the annual festival of flowers used to commence on the
28th of April, when the houses and tables were covered with flowers,
and every one going into the streets wore a floral crown. In Germany,
France, and Italy, the _fête_ of the flowers, or the _fête_ of
spring, commences also towards the end of April, and terminates at
Midsummer. Athenians, on an early day in spring, every year crowned
with flowers all children who had reached their third year, and in
this way the parents testified their joy that the little ones had
passed the age rendered critical by the maladies incident to infants.
The Roman Catholic priesthood, always alert at appropriating popular
pagan customs, and adapting them to the service of their church, have
perpetuated this old practice. The little children crowned with flowers
and habited as angels, who to this day accompany the procession of the
Corpus Domini at the beginning of June, are taught to scatter flowers
in the road, to symbolise their own spring-time and the spring-time of
nature. On this day, along the entire route of the procession at Rome,
the ground is thickly strewn with Bay and other fragrant leaves. In
the worship of the Madonna, flowers play an important rôle, and Roman
altars are still piled up with fragrant blossoms, and still smoke with
perfumed incense.
After the feast of Whitsuntide, the young Russian maidens repair to the
banks of the Neva, and fling in its waters wreaths of flowers, which
are tokens of affection to absent friends.
In the West of Germany and the greater part of France the ceremony is
observed of bringing home on the last harvest wain a tree or bough
decorated with flowers and gay ribbons, which is graciously received by
the master and planted on or near the house, to remain there till the
next harvest brings its successor. Some rite of this sort, Mr. Ralston
says, seems to have prevailed all over the North of Europe. “So, in
the autumnal harvest thanksgiving feast at Athens, it was customary
to carry in sacred procession an Olive-branch wrapped in wool, called
_Eiresione_, to the temple of Apollo, and there to leave it; and in
addition to this a similar bough was solemnly placed beside the house
door of every Athenian who was engaged in fruit culture or agriculture,
there to remain until replaced by a similar successor twelve months
later.”
Well-Flowering.
From the earliest days of the Christian era our Lord’s ascension
into heaven has been commemorated by various ceremonies, one of
which was the perambulation of parish boundaries. At Penkridge, in
Staffordshire, as well as at Wolverhampton, long after the Reformation,
the inhabitants, during the time of processioning, used to adorn
their wells with boughs and flowers; and this ancient custom is still
practised every year at Tissington, in Derbyshire, where it is known
as “well-flowering.” There are five wells so decorated, and the mode
of dressing or adorning them is this:--the flowers are inserted in
moist clay and put upon boards cut in various forms, surrounded with
boughs of Laurel and White Thorn, so as to give the appearance of
water issuing from small grottoes. The flowers are arranged in various
patterns, to give the effect of mosaic work, and are inscribed with
texts of Scripture and suitable mottoes. After church, the congregation
walk in procession to the wells and decorate them with these boards, as
well as with garlands of flowers, boughs, &c. Flowers were cast into
the wells, and from their manner of falling, lads and lasses divined as
to the progress of their love affairs.
“Bring flowers! bring flowers! to the crystal well,
That springs ’neath the Willows in yonder dell.
* * * * *
And we’ll scatter them over the charmed well,
And learn our fate from its mystic spell.”
“And she whose flower most tranquilly
Glides down the stream our Queen shall be.
In a crown we’ll wreath
Wild flowers that breathe;
And the maiden by whom this wreath shall be worn
Shall wear it again on her bridal morn.”--_Merritt._
Before the Reformation the Celtic population of Scotland, the Hebrides,
Ireland, Wales, and Cornwall were in the habit of naming wells and
springs after different saints and martyrs. Though forbidden by the
canons of St. Anselm, many pilgrimages continued to be made to them,
and the custom was long retained of throwing nosegays into springs and
fountains, and chaplets into wells. Sir Walter Scott tells us that “in
Perthshire there are several wells dedicated to St. Fillan, which are
still places of pilgrimage and offerings, even among Protestants.”
“Thence to St. Fillan’s blessed well
Whose spring can frenzied dreams dispel,
And the crazed brain restore.”
Into some of these Highland wells flowers are cast, and occasionally
pins, while the surrounding bushes are hung with rags and shreds, in
imitation of the old heathen practice. The ceremony of sprinkling
rivers with flowers was probably of similar origin. Milton and Dryden
both allude to this custom being in vogue as regards the Severn, and
this floral rite is described in ‘The Fleece’ as follows:--
“With light fantastic toe the nymphs
Thither assembled, thither every swain;
And o’er the dimpled stream a thousand flowers,
Pale Lilies, Roses, Violets, and Pinks,
Mix’d with the greens of Burnet, Mint, and Thyme,
And Trefoil, sprinkled with their sportive arms.
Such custom holds along th’ irriguous vales,
From Wreken’s brow to rocky Dolvoryn,
Sabrina’s early haunt.”
Bridal Floral Ceremonies.
In all countries flowers have from time immemorial been chosen as the
happy accompaniment of bridal ceremonies. Among the ancients it was
customary to crown newly-married persons with a chaplet of red and
white Roses. On arriving at the house of her husband, the Roman bride
found woollen fillets round the door-posts, which were adorned with
evergreens and blossoms, and anointed with the fat of wolves to avert
enchantment.
In M. Barthélemi’s ‘Travels of Young Anacharsis’ the author, describing
a marriage ceremony in the Island of Delos, says that the inhabitants
of the island assembled at daybreak, crowned with flowers; flowers
were strewn in the path of the bride and bridegroom; and the house
was garlanded with them. Singers and dancers appeared crowned with
Oak, Myrtles, and Hawthorn. The bride and bridegroom were crowned with
Poppies, and upon their approach to the temple, a priest received them
at the entrance, and presented to each a branch of Ivy--a symbol of the
tie which was to unite them for ever.[6]
[6] ‘_Voyage du Jeune Anacharsis en Grèce, vers le milieu du quatrième
siècle avant l’ere vulgaire._’
At Indian nuptials, the wedding wreath, the _varamâlâ_, united bride
and bridegroom. At the marriage feasts of the Persians, a little tree
is introduced, the branches of which are laden with fruit: the guests
endeavour to pluck these without the bridegroom perceiving them; if
successful, the latter has to make them a present; if, however, a guest
fails, he has to give the bridegroom a hundred times the value of the
object he sought to remove from the tree.
In Germany, among the inhabitants of Oldenburg, there exists a curious
wedding custom. When the bridegroom quits his father’s roof to settle
in some other town or village, he has his bed linen embroidered at
the corners with flowers surmounted by a tree, on whose branches are
perched cock birds: on each side of the tree are embroidered the
bridegroom’s initials. In many European countries it is customary to
plant before the house of a newly-married couple, one or two trees, as
a symbol of the good luck wished them by their friends.
Floral Games and Festivals.
Floral games have for many years been held at Toulouse, Barcelona,
Tortosi, and other places; but the former are the most famed, both on
account of their antiquity and the value of the prizes distributed
during the _fêtes_. The ancient city of Toulouse had formerly a great
reputation for literature, which had, however, been allowed to decline
until the visit of Charles IV. and his bride determined the capitouls
or chief magistrates to make an effort to restore its prestige as the
centre of Provençal song. Troubadours there were who, banded together
in a society, met in the garden of the Augustine monks to recite their
songs, _sirventes_, and ballads; and in order to foster the latent
taste for poetry, the capitouls invited the poets of the Langue d’oc,
to compete for a golden Violet to be awarded to the author of the best
poem produced on May 4th, 1324. The competition created the greatest
excitement, and great numbers of people met to hear the judges’
decision: they awarded the golden Violet to Arnaud Vidal for his poem
in honour of the Virgin. In 1355, three prizes were offered--a golden
Violet for the best song; an Eglantine (Spanish Jasmine), for the best
_sirvente_, or finest pastoral; and a _Flor-de-gang_ (yellow Acacia)
for the best ballad. In later years four prizes were competed for,
viz., an Amaranth, a Violet, a Pansy, and a Lily. In 1540, Clemence
Isaure, a poetess, bequeathed the bulk of her fortune to the civic
authorities to be expended in prizes for poetic merits, and in _fêtes_
to be held on the 1st and 3rd of May. She was interred in the church
of La Daurade, on the high altar of which are preserved the golden
flowers presented to the successful competitors at the Floral Games.
The ceremonies of the _fêtes_ thus revived by Clemence Isaure commenced
with the strewing of her tomb with Roses, followed by mass, a sermon,
and alms-giving. In 1694, the _Jeux Floraux_ were merged into the
Academy of Belles Lettres, which gives prizes, but almost exclusively
to French poets. The festival, interrupted by the Revolution, was once
more revived in 1806, and is still held annually in the Hotel-de-Ville,
Toulouse.
St. Medard, Bishop of Noyon, in France, instituted in the sixth
century a festival at Salency, his birth-place, for adjudging a most
interesting prize offered by piety to virtue. This prize consists of
a simple crown of Roses bestowed on the girl who is acknowledged by
all her competitors to be the most amiable, modest, and dutiful. The
founder of this festival had the pleasure of crowning his own sister as
the first _Rosiere_ of Salency. This simple institution still survives,
and the crown of Roses continues to be awarded to the most virtuous
of the maidens of the obscure French village. A similar prize is
awarded in the East of London by an active member of the Roman Catholic
Church--the ceremony of crowning the Rose Queen being performed
annually in the Crystal Palace at Sydenham.
In the middle ages the Queen of Flowers contributed to a singular
popular festival at Treviso, in Italy. In the middle of the city the
inhabitants erected a mock castle of upholstery. The most distinguished
unmarried females of the place defended the fortress, which was
attacked by the youth of the other sex. The missiles with which both
parties fought consisted of Roses, Lilies, Narcissi, Violets, Apples,
and Nuts, which were hurled at each other by the combatants. Volleys
of Rose-water and other perfumes were also discharged by means of
syringes. This entertainment attracted thousands of spectators from far
and near, and the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa himself accounted it a
most pleasing diversion.
The custom of pelting with Roses is still common in Persia, where it
is practised during the whole season that these flowers are blooming.
A company of young men repair to the places of public entertainment to
amuse the guests with music, singing, and dancing, and in their way
through the streets they pelt the passengers whom they meet with Roses,
and generally receive a small gratuity in return.
Striking features of the Japanese festival on New Year’s Day are the
decorations erected in front of nearly every door, of which Mr. Dixon
tells us the principal objects are, on the right a _Pinus densiflora_,
on the left a _P. Thunbergius_, both standing upright: the former is
supposed to be of the female and the latter of the male sex, and both
symbolise a robust age that has withstood the storms and trials of
life. Immediately behind each of the Pines is a Bamboo, the straight
stem of which, with the knots marking its growth, indicates hale life
and fulness of years. A straw rope of about six feet in length connects
the Bamboos seven or more feet from the ground, thus completing the
triumphal arch. In the centre of the rope (which is there to ward off
evil spirits) is a group in which figures a scarlet lobster, the bent
back of which symbolises old age: this is embedded in branches of the
_Melia Japonica_, the older leaves of which still remain after the
young ones have burst forth. So may the parents continue to flourish
while children and grandchildren spring forth! Another plant in the
central group is the _Polypodium dicotomon_, a Fern which is regarded
as a symbol of conjugal life, because the fronds spring in pairs
from the stem. There are also bunches of seaweed, which have local
significance, and a lucky bag, filled with roasted Chesnuts, the seeds
of the _Torreya nucifera_, and the dried fruit of the _Kaki_.
Garlands, Chaplets, and Wreaths.
All the nations of antiquity--Indians, Chinese, Medes, Persians,
Assyrians, Chaldeans, Egyptians, Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans--were
accustomed to deck themselves, their altars, and their dwellings with
flowers, and to weave chaplets and garlands of leaves and blossoms.
In the Vedic _Vishnupurâna_, the sage Durvâsas (one of the names of
Siva, the destroyer), receives of the goddess Srî (the Indian Venus)
a garland of flowers gathered from the trees of heaven. Proceeding on
his way, he meets the god Indra, seated on an elephant, and to pay
him homage he places on his brow the garland, to which the bees fly
in order to suck the ambrosia. The Persians were fond of wearing on
their heads crowns made of Myrrh and a sweet-smelling plant called
Labyzus. Antiochus Epiphanes, the Syrian king, once held some games at
Daphne, to which thousands of guests were invited, who, after being
richly feasted, were sent away with crowns of Myrrh and Frankincense.
Josephus, in his history of the Jews, has recorded the use of crowns
in the time of Moses, and on certain occasions the mitre of the High
Priest was adorned with a chaplet of Henbane (_Hyoscyamus niger_).
Wreaths and chaplets were in common use among the Egyptians at a
very early period; and although the Lotus was principally preferred
in their formation, many other flowers and leaves were employed--as
of the Chrysanthemum, Acinos, Acacia, Strychnos, Persoluta, Anemone,
Convolvulus, Olive, Myrtle, Amaracus, Xeranthemum, Bay-tree, and
others. Plutarch says that when Agesilaus visited Egypt, he was so
delighted with the chaplets of Papyrus sent him by the King, that he
took some home when he returned to Sparta. In India, Greece, and Rome,
the sacrificial priests were crowned, and their victims were decorated
with garlands of flowers.
In ancient Greece and Rome the manufacture of garlands and chaplets
became quite an art, so great was the estimation in which these
adornments were held by these highly-civilised nations. With them the
composition of a garland possessed a deep significance, and warriors,
statesmen, and poets alike coveted these simple insignia at the hands
of their countrymen. Pliny tells us that the Sicyonians were considered
to surpass all other people in the art of arranging the colours of
garlands and imparting to them the most agreeable mixture of perfumes.
They derived this taste from Glycera, a woman so skilled in the art of
arranging chaplets and garlands that she won the affection of Pausias,
a celebrated painter, who delighted in copying the wreaths of flowers
so deftly arranged by his mistress. Some of these pictures were still
in existence when Pliny wrote, four hundred and fifty years after they
were painted. Cato, in his treatise on gardens, directs specially that
they should be planted with such flowers as are adapted for chaplets
and wreaths. Pliny states that Mnestheus and Callimachus, two renowned
Greek physicians, compiled several books on the virtues of chaplets,
pointing out those hurtful to the brain, as well as those which had
a beneficial influence on the wearer; for both Greeks and Romans had
found, by experience, that certain plants and flowers facilitated the
functions of the brain, and assisted materially to neutralise the
inebriating qualities of wine. Thus, as Horace tells us, the floral
chaplets worn by guests at feasts were tied with the bark of the Linden
to prevent intoxication.
“I tell thee, boy, that I detest
The grandeur of a Persian feast;
Nor for me the binder’s rind
Shall no flow’ry chaplet bind.
Then search not where the curious Rose,
Beyond his season loitering grows;
But beneath the mantling Vine,
While I quaff the flowing wine,
The Myrtle’s wreath shall crown our brows,
While you shall wait and I carouse.”
Besides the guests at feasts, the attendants were decorated with
wreaths, and the wine-cups and apartments adorned with flowers.
From an anecdote related by Pliny we learn that it was a frequent
custom, common to both Greeks and Romans, to mix the flowers of their
chaplets in their wine, when they pledged the healths of their friends.
Cleopatra, to ridicule the mistrust of Antony, who would never eat or
drink at her table without causing his taster to test every viand, lest
any should be poisoned, commanded a chaplet of flowers to be prepared
for the Roman General, the edges of which were dipped in the most
deadly poison, whilst that which was woven for her own brow was, as
usual, mixed with aromatic spices. At the banquet Antony received his
coronet of flowers, and when they had become cheerful through the aid
of Bacchus, Cleopatra pledged him in wine, and taking off the wreath
from her head, and rubbing the blossoms into her goblet, drank off the
contents. Antony was following her example, but just as he had raised
the fatal cup to his lips, the Queen seized his arm, exclaiming, “Cure
your jealous fears, and learn that I should not have to seek the means
of your destruction, could I live without you.” She then ordered a
prisoner to be brought before them, who, on drinking the wine from
Antony’s goblet, instantly expired in their presence.
The Romans wore garlands at sacred rites, games and festivals, on
journeys and in war. When an army was freed from a blockade its
deliverer was presented with a crown composed of the Grass growing
on the spot. In modern heraldry, this crown of Grass is called the
Crown Obsidional, and appertains to the general who has held a
fortress against a besieging army and ultimately relieved it from
the assailants. To him who had saved the life of a Roman soldier was
given a chaplet of Oak-leaves: this is the modern heraldic civic crown
bestowed on a brave soldier who has saved the life of a comrade or has
rescued him after having been taken prisoner by the enemy. The glories
of all grand deeds were signalized by the crown of Laurel among both
Greeks and Romans. This is the heraldic Crown Triumphant, adjudged
in our own times to a general who has achieved a signal victory. The
Romans were not allowed by law to appear in festal garlands on ordinary
occasions. Hence Cæsar valued most highly the privilege accorded him by
the Senate of wearing a Laurel crown, because it screened his baldness,
which, both by the Romans and Jews, was considered a deformity. This
crown was generally composed of the Alexandrian Laurel (_Ruscus
Hypoglossum_)--the Laurel usually depicted on busts and coins. The
victors at the athletic games were adjudged crowns differing in their
composition according to the place in which they had won their honours.
Thus, crowns of
Olive were given at the Olympic games.
Beech, Laurel, or Palm „ „ „ „ Pythian „
Parsley „ „ „ „ Nemean „
Pine „ „ „ „ Isthmian „
It is not too much to say that Greeks and Romans employed garlands,
wreaths, and festoons of flowers on every possible occasion; they
adorned with them the sacrificial victims, the statue of the god to
whom sacrifice was offered, and the priest who performed the rite. They
placed chaplets on the brows of the dead, and strewed their graves
with floral wreaths, whilst at their funeral feasts the parents of
the departed one encircled their heads with floral crowns. They threw
them to the successful actors on the stage. They hung with garlands
the gates of their cities on days of rejoicing. They employed floral
wreaths at their nuptials. Nearly all the plants composing these
wreaths had a symbolical meaning, and they were varied according to
the seasons and the circumstances of the wearer. The Hawthorn adorned
Grecian brides; but the bridal wreath of the Romans was usually
composed of Verbena, plucked by the bride herself. Holly wreaths were
sent as tokens of good wishes. Chaplets of Parsley and Rue were worn to
keep off evil spirits.
But the employment of garlands has by no means been confined to the
ancients. At the present day the inhabitants of India make constant use
of them. The Brahmin women, who burn themselves on the funeral pyres
of their husbands, deck their persons with chaplets and garlands, and
present wreaths to the young women who attend them at this terrible
sacrifice. The young Indian girls adorn themselves with garlands
during the festival of Kâmadeva, the god of love, which takes place
during the last days of spring. In the nuptial ceremonies of India,
the garland of flowers is still a feature which possesses a recognised
symbolic value. In Northern India garlands of the African Marigold are
placed on the trident emblem of Mahâdeva, and both male and female
worshippers wear chaplets composed of the same sacred flower on his
festivals. The _Moo-le-hua_, a fragrant Jasmine, is employed in China
and other Eastern countries in forming wreaths for the decoration of
ladies’ hair, and an Olive crown is still the reward of literary merit
in China. The Japanese of both sexes are fond of wearing wreaths of
fragrant blossoms.
The Italians have artificers called Festaroli, whose especial office
it is to manufacture garlands and festoons of flowers and other
decorations for feasts. The maidens of Greece, Germany, and Roumania
still bear wreaths of flowers in certain processions which have long
been customary in the spring of the year. The Swiss peasants are
fond of making garlands, for rural festivities, of the Globe-flower
(_Trollius Europæus_), which grows freely on all the chain of the Alps.
In Germany a wreath of Vervain is presented to the newly-married, and
in place of the wreath of Orange-blossoms which decorates the brow
of the bride in England, France, and America, a chaplet of Myrtle is
worn. The blossom of the _Bizarade_ or bitter Orange is most prized for
wreaths and favours when the fresh flowers can be procured.
[Headpiece]
CHAPTER V.
Plants of the Christian Church.
After Rome Pagan became Rome Christian, the priests of the Church of
Christ recognised the importance of utilising the connexion which
existed between plants and the old pagan worship, and bringing the
floral world into active co-operation with the Christian Church by the
institution of a floral symbolism which should be associated not only
with the names of saints, but also with the Festivals of the Church.
But it was more especially upon the Virgin Mary that the early Church
bestowed their floral symbolism. Mr. Hepworth Dixon, writing of those
quiet days of the Virgin’s life, passed purely and tenderly among the
flowers of Nazareth, says--“Hearing that the best years of her youth
and womanhood were spent, before she yet knew grief, on this sunny hill
and side slope, her feet being for ever among the Daisies, Poppies, and
Anemones, which grow everywhere about, we have made her the patroness
of all our flowers. The Virgin is our Rose of Sharon--our Lily of the
Valley. The poetry no less than the piety of Europe has inscribed to
her the whole bloom and colouring of the fields and hedges.”
The choicest flowers were wrested from the classic Juno, Venus, and
Diana, and from the Scandinavian Bertha and Freyja, and bestowed upon
the Madonna, whilst floral offerings of every sort were laid upon her
shrines.
Her husband, Joseph, has allotted to him a white _Campanula_, which in
Bologna is known as the little Staff of St. Joseph. In Tuscany the name
of St. Joseph’s staff is given to the Oleander: a legend recounts that
the good Joseph possessed originally only an ordinary staff, but that
when the angel announced to him that he was destined to be the husband
of the Virgin Mary, he became so radiant with joy, that his very staff
flowered in his hand.
Before our Saviour’s birth, the Virgin Mary, strongly desiring to
refresh herself with some luscious cherries that were hanging in
clusters upon the branch of a tree, asked Joseph to gather some for
her. He hesitated, and mockingly said--“Let the father of thy child
present them to you.” Instantly the branch of the Cherry-tree inclined
itself to the Virgin’s hand, and she plucked from it the refreshing
fruit. On this account the Cherry has always been dedicated to the
Virgin Mary. The Strawberry, also, is specially set apart to the
Virgin’s use; and in the Isle of Harris a species of Beans, called
Molluka Beans, are called, after her, the Virgin Mary’s Nuts.
At Bethlehem, the manger in which the Infant Jesus was laid after His
birth was filled with Our Lady’s Bedstraw (_Galium verum_). Some few
drops of the Virgin’s milk fell upon a Thistle, which from that time
has had its leaves spotted with white, and is known as Our Lady’s
Thistle (_Carduus Marianus_). In Germany the _Polypodium vulgare_,
which grows in clefts of rocks, is believed to have sprung from
the milk of the Virgin (in ancient times from Freyja’s milk). The
_Pulmonaria_ is also known as _Unser Frauen Milch_ (Our Lady’s Milk).
When, after the birth of Jesus, His parents fled into Egypt, traditions
record that in order that the Virgin might conceal herself and the
infant Saviour from the assassins sent out by Herod, various trees
opened, or stretched their branches and enlarged their leaves. As
the Juniper is dedicated to the Virgin, the Italians consider that
it was a tree of that species which thus saved the mother and child,
and the Juniper is supposed to possess the power of driving away evil
spirits and of destroying magical spells. The Palm, the Willow, and the
Rosemary have severally been named as having afforded their shelter to
the fugitives. On the other hand, the Lupine, according to a tradition
still current among the Bolognese, received the maledictions of the
Virgin Mary because, during the flight, certain plants of this species,
by the noise they made, drew the attention of the soldiers of Herod to
the spot where the harassed travellers had halted.
During the flight into Egypt a legend relates that certain precious
bushes sprang up by the fountain where the Virgin washed the swaddling
clothes of her Divine babe. These bushes were produced by the drops of
water which fell from the clothes, and from which germinated a number
of little plants, each yielding precious balm. Wherever the Holy Family
rested in their flight sprang up the _Rosa Hierosolymitana_--the _Rosa
Mariæ_, or Rose of the Virgin. Near the city of On there was shown for
many centuries the sacred Fig-tree under which the Holy Family rested.
They also, according to Bavarian tradition, rested under a Hazel.
Plants of the Virgin Mary.
In Tuscany there grows on walls a rootless little pellitory
(_Parietaria_), with tiny pale-pink flowers and small leaves. They
gather it on the morning of the Feast of the Ascension, and suspend it
on the walls of bed-rooms till the day of the Nativity of the Virgin
(8th September), from which it derives its name--the Herb of the
Madonna. It generally opens its flowers after it has been gathered,
retaining sufficient sap to make it do so. This opening of a cut
flower is regarded by the peasantry as a token of the special blessing
of the Virgin. Should the flower not open, it is taken as an omen of
the Divine displeasure. In the province of Bellune, in Italy, the
_Matricaria Parthenium_ is called the Herb of the Blessed Mary: this
flower was formerly consecrated to Minerva.
In Denmark, Norway, and Iceland, they give the name of _Mariengras_
(Herb of Mary) to different Ferns, and in those countries Mary often
replaces the goddess Freyja, the Venus of the North, in the names of
flowers. No doubt the monks of old delighted in bestowing upon the
Virgin Mary the floral attributes of Venus, Freyja, Isis, and other
goddesses of the heathen; but, nevertheless, it is not long since that
a Catholic writer complained that at the Reformation “the very names
of plants were changed in order to divert men’s minds from the least
recollection of ancient Christian piety;” and a Protestant writer of
the last century, bewailing the ruthless action of the Puritans in
giving to the “Queen of Beauty” flowers named after the “Queen of
Heaven,” says: “Botany, which in ancient times was full of the Blessed
Virgin Mary, ... is now as full of the heathen Venus.”
Amongst the titles of honour given to the Virgin in the ‘Ballad of
Commendation of Our Lady,’ in the old editions of Chaucer, we find:
“Benigne braunchlet of the Pine tree.”
In England “Lady” in the names of plants generally has allusion to
Our Lady, Notre Dame, the Virgin Mary. Our Lady’s Mantle (_Alchemilla
vulgaris_) is the Máríu Stakkr of Iceland, which insures repose when
placed beneath the pillow. _Scandix Pecten_ was Our Lady’s Comb, but in
Puritan times was changed into Venus’ Comb. The _Cardamine pratensis_
is Our Lady’s Smock; _Neottia spiralis_, Our Lady’s Tresses; _Armeria
vulgaris_, Our Lady’s Cushion; _Anthyllis vulneraria_, Our Lady’s
Fingers; _Campanula hybrida_, Our Lady’s Looking-glass; _Cypripedium
Calceolus_, Our Lady’s Slipper; the Cowslip, Our Lady’s Bunch of Keys;
Black Briony, Our Lady’s Seal (a name which has been transferred
from Solomon’s Seal, of which the ‘Grete Herbal’ states, “It is al
one herbe, Solomon’s Seale and Our Lady’s Seale”). Quaking Grass,
_Briza media_, is Our Lady’s Hair; Maidenhair Fern, the Virgin’s
Hair; Mary-golds (_Calendula officinalis_) and Mary-buds (_Caltha
palustris_) are both named after the Virgin Mary. The _Campanula_ and
the _Digitalis_ are in France the Gloves of Mary; the _Nardus Celtica_
is by the Germans called _Marienblumen_; the White-flowered Wormwood
is _Unser Frauen Rauch_ (Smoke of Our Lady); _Mentha spicata_ is in
French, _Menthe de Notre Dame_--in German, _Unser Frauen Müntz_;
the _Costus hortensis_, the _Eupatorium_, the _Matricaria_, the
_Gallitrichum sativum_, the _Tanacetum_, the _Persicaria_, and a
_Parietaria_ are all, according to Bauhin, dedicated to the Virgin
Mary. The name of Our Lady’s Tears, or _Larmes de Sainte Marie_, has
been given to the Lily of the Valley, as well as to the _Lithospermon_
of Dioscorides, the _Satyrium maculatum_, and the _Satyrium basilicum
majus_. The _Narcissus Italicus_ is the Lily of Mary. The Toad Flax is
in France _Lin de Notre Dame_, in Germany, _Unser Frauen Flachs_. The
Dead-Nettle is _Main de Sainte Marie_. Besides the _Alchemilla_, the
_Leontopodium_, the _Drosera_, and the _Sanicula major_ are called on
the Continent Our Lady’s Mantle. Woodroof, Thyme, Groundsel, and St.
John’s Wort form the bed of Mary.
In Piedmont they give the name of the Herb of the Blessed Mary to a
certain plant that the birds are reputed to carry to their young ones
which have been stolen and imprisoned in cages, in order that it shall
cause their death and thus deliver them from their slavery.
The Snowdrop is the Fair Maid of February, as being sacred to the
Purification of the Virgin (February 2nd), when her image was removed
from the altar and Snowdrops strewed in its place.
To the Madonna, in her capacity of Queen of Heaven, were dedicated
the Almond, the White Iris, the White Lily, and the Narcissus, all
appropriate to the Annunciation (March 25th). The Lily and White and
Red Roses were assigned to the Visitation of Our Lady (July 2nd): these
flowers are typical of the love and purity of the Virgin Mother. To the
Feast of the Assumption (August 15th) is assigned the Virgin’s Bower
(_Clematis Flammula_); to the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin (September
8th) the Amellus (_Aster Amellus_); and to the Conception (December
8th) the Arbor Vitæ.
St. Dominick instituted the “Devotion of the Rosary” of the Virgin
Mary--a series of prayers, to mark the repetition of which a chaplet
of beads is employed, which consists of fifteen large and one hundred
and fifty small beads; the former representing the number of _Pater
Nosters_, the latter the number of _Ave Marias_. As these beads were
formerly made of Rose-leaves tightly pressed into round moulds, where
real Roses were not strung together, this chaplet was called a Rosary,
and was blessed by the Pope or some other holy person before being so
used.
_Valeriana sativa_ is in France called _Herbe de Marie Magdaleine_, in
Germany _Marien Magdalenen Kraut_; the Pomegranate is the _Pommier de
Marie Magdaleine_ and _Marien Magdalenen Apfel_.
The Plants of Our Saviour.
We have seen that at the birth of Christ, the infant Jesus was laid on
a manger containing _Galium verum_, at Bethlehem, a place commemorated
by the _Ornithogalum umbellatum_, or Star of Bethlehem, the flowers
of which resemble the pictures of the star that indicated the birth
of Jesus. Whilst lying in the manger, a spray of the rose-coloured
Sainfoin, says a French legend, was found among the dried grass
and herbs which served for His bed. Suddenly the Sainfoin began to
expand its delicate blossoms, and to the astonishment of Mary, formed
a wreath around the head of the holy babe. In commemoration of the
infant Saviour having laid on a manger, it is customary, in some parts
of Italy, to deck mangers at Christmas time with Moss, Sow-Thistle,
Cypress, and prickly Holly: boughs of Juniper are also used for
Christmas decorations, because tradition affirms that the Virgin
and Child found safety amongst its branches when pursued by Herod’s
mercenaries. The Juniper is also believed to have furnished the wood of
the Cross on which Jesus was crucified.
At Christmas, according to an ancient pious tradition, all the plants
rejoice. In commemoration of the birth of our Saviour, in countries
nearer His birthplace than England, the Apple, Cherry, Carnation, Balm,
Rose of Jericho, and Rose of Mariastem (in Alsatia), burst forth into
blossom at Christmas, whilst in our own land the day is celebrated
by the blossoming of the Glastonbury Thorn, sprung from St. Joseph’s
staff, and the flowering of the Christmas Rose, or Christ’s Herb, known
in France as _la Rose de Noel_, and in Germany as _Christwurzel_.
On Good Friday, in remembrance of the Passion of our Lord, all the
trees, says the legend, shudder and tremble. The Swedes and Scotch have
a tradition that Christ was scourged with a rod of the dwarf Birch,
which was once a noble tree, but has ever since remained stunted and
lowly. It is called _Láng Fredags ris_, or Good Friday rod. There is
another legend extant, which states that the rod with which Christ was
scourged was cut from a Willow, and that the trees of its species have
drooped their branches to the earth in grief and shame from that time,
and have, consequently, borne the name of Weeping Willows.
The Crown of Thorns.
Sir J. Maundevile, who visited the Holy Land in the fourteenth century,
has recorded that he had many times seen the identical crown of Thorns
worn by Jesus Christ, one half of which was at Constantinople and the
other half at Paris, where it was religiously preserved in a vessel
of crystal in the King’s Chapel. This crown Maundevile says was of
“Jonkes of the see, that is to sey, Rushes of the see, that prykken als
scharpely as Thornes;” he further adds that he had been presented with
one of the precious thorns, which had fallen off into the vessel, and
that it resembled a White Thorn. The old traveller gives the following
circumstantial account of our Lord’s trial and condemnation, from which
it would appear that Jesus was first crowned with White Thorn, then
with Eglantine, and finally with Rushes of the sea. He writes:--“In
that nyghte that He was taken, He was ylad into a gardyn; and there
He was first examyned righte scharply; and there the Jewes scorned
Him, and maden Him a croune of the braunches of Albespyne, that is
White Thorn, that grew in the same gardyn, and setten it on His heved,
so faste and so sore, that the blood ran doun be many places of His
visage, and of His necke, and of His schuldres. And therefore hathe
the White Thorn many vertues; for he that berethe a braunche on him
thereoffe, no thondre, ne no maner of tempest may dere him; ne in the
hows that it is inne may non evylle gost entre ne come unto the place
that it is inne. And in that same gardyn Seynt Petre denyed oure Lord
thryes. Aftreward was oure Lord lad forthe before the bischoppes and
the maystres of the lawe, in to another gardyn of Anne; and there also
He was examyned, repreved, and scorned, and crouned eft with a White
Thorn, that men clepethe Barbarynes, that grew in that gardyn; and that
hathe also manye vertues. And afterward He was lad into a gardyn of
Cayphas, and there He was crouned with Eglentier. And aftre He was lad
in to the chambre of Pylate, and there He was examynd and crouned. And
the Jewes setten Hym in a chayere and cladde Hym in a mantelle; and
there made thei the croune of Jonkes of the see; and there thei kneled
to Hym, and skorned Hym, seyenge: ‘Heyl, King of the Jewes!’”
[Illustration: Relics of the Crucifixion. From _Maundevile’s Travels_.]
The illustration represents the Crown of Thorns, worn by our Saviour,
his coat without seams, called _tunica inconsutilis_; the sponge; the
reed by means of which the Jews gave our Lord vinegar and gall; and one
of the nails wherewith He was fastened to the Cross. All these relics
Maundevile tells us he saw at Constantinople.
Of what particular plant was composed the crown of Thorns which the
Roman soldiers plaited and placed on the Saviour’s head, has long been
a matter of dispute. Gerarde says it was the _Paliurus aculeatus_,
a sharp-spined shrub, which he calls Christ’s Thorn; and the old
herbalist quotes Bellonius, who had travelled in the Holy Land, and who
stated that this shrubby Thorn was common in Judea, and that it was
“The Thorne wherewith they crowned our Saviour Christ.” The melancholy
distinction has, however, been variously conferred on the Buckthorns,
_Rhamnus Spina Christi_ and _R. Paliurus_; the Boxthorn, the Barberry,
the Bramble, the Rose-briar, the Wild Hyssop, the Acanthus, or
Brank-ursine, the _Spartium villosum_, the Holly (called in Germany,
_Christdorn_), the Acacia, or _Nabkha_ of the Arabians, a thorny plant,
very suitable for the purpose, since its flexible twigs could be
twisted into a chaplet, and its small but pointed thorns would cause
terrible wounds; and, in France, the Hawthorn--the _épine noble_. The
West Indian negroes state that Christ’s crown was composed of a branch
of the Cashew-tree, and that in consequence one of the golden petals of
its blossom became black and blood-stained.
The Reed Mace (_Typha latifolia_) is generally represented as the reed
placed, in mockery, by the soldiers in the Saviour’s right hand.
The Wood of the Cross.
According to the legend connected with the Tree of Adam, the wood of
the Cross on which our Lord was crucified was Cedar--a beam hewn from
a tree which incorporated in itself the essence of the Cedar, the
Cypress, and the Olive (the vegetable emblems of the Holy Trinity).
Curzon, in his ‘Monasteries of the Levant,’ gives a tradition that the
Cedar was cut down by Solomon, and buried on the spot afterwards called
the Pool of Bethesda; that about the time of the Passion of our Blessed
Lord the wood floated, and was used by the Jews for the upright posts
of the Cross. Another legend makes the Cross of four kinds of wood
representing the four quarters of the globe, or all mankind: it is not,
however, agreed what those four kinds of wood were, or their respective
places in the Cross. Some say they were the Palm, the Cedar, the Olive,
and the Cypress; hence the line--
“_Ligna crucis Palma, Cedrus, Cupressus, Oliva._”
In place of the Palm or the Olive, some claim the mournful honour for
the Pine and the Box; whilst there are others who aver it was made
entirely of Oak. Another account states the wood to have been the
Aspen, and since that fatal day its leaves have never ceased trembling
with horror.
“Far off in Highland wilds ’tis said
That of this tree the Cross was made.”
In some parts of England it is believed that the Elder was the
unfortunate tree; and woodmen will look carefully into the faggots
before using them for fuel, in case any of this wood should be bound
up in them. The gipsies entertain the notion that the Cross was made
of Ash; the Welsh that the Mountain Ash furnished the wood. In the
West of England there is a curious tradition that the Cross was made
of Mistletoe, which, until the time of our Saviour’s death, had been
a goodly forest tree, but was condemned henceforth to become a mere
parasite.
Sir John Maundevile asserts that the Cross was made of Palm, Cedar,
Cypress, and Olive, and he gives the following curious account of
its manufacture:--“For that pece that wente upright fro the erthe to
the heved was of Cypresse; and the pece that wente overthwart to the
wiche his honds weren nayled was of Palme; and the stock that stode
within the erthe, in the whiche was made the morteys, was of Cedre; and
the table aboven his heved, that was a fote and an half long, on the
whiche the title was written, in Ebreu, Grece, and Latyn, that was of
Olyve. And the Jewes maden the Cros of theise 4 manere of trees: for
thei trowed that oure Lord Jesu Crist scholde han honged on the Cros
als longe as the Cros myghten laste. And therfore made thei the foot
of the Cros of Cedre: for Cedre may not in erthe ne in watre rote.
And therfore thei wolde that it scholde have lasted longe. For thei
trowed that the body of Crist scholde have stonken; therfore thei made
that pece that went from the erthe upward, of Cypres: for it is welle
smellynge, so that the smelle of His body scholde not greve men that
wenten forby. And the overthwart pece was of Palme: for in the Olde
Testament it was ordyned that whan on overcomen, He scholde be crowned
with Palme. And the table of the tytle thei maden of Olyve; for Olyve
betokenethe pes. And the storye of Noe wytnessethe whan that the culver
broughte the braunche of Olyve, that betokend pes made betwene God and
man. And so trowed the Jewes for to have pes whan Crist was ded: for
thei seyd that He made discord and strif amonges hem.”
Plants of the Crucifixion.
In Brittany the Vervain is known as the Herb of the Cross. John White,
writing in 1624, says of it--
“Hallow’d be thou Vervain, as thou growest in the ground,
For in the Mount of Calvary thou first was found.
Thou healedst our Saviour Jesus Christ
And staunchedst His bleeding wound.
In the name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
I take thee from the ground.”
In the Flax-fields of Flanders, there grows a plant called the
_Roodselken_, the red spots on the leaves of which betoken the blood
which fell on it from the Cross, and which neither rain nor snow has
since been able to wash off. In Cheshire a similar legend is attached
to the _Orchis maculata_, which is there called Gethsemane.
“Those deep unwrought marks,
The villager will tell thee,
Are the flower’s portion from the atoning blood
On Calvary shed. Beneath the Cross it grew.”
In Palestine there exists a notion that the red Anemone grew at
the foot of the Cross, and hence the flower bears the name of the
“Blood-drops of Christ.” The Wood Sorrel is introduced in their
paintings of the Crucifixion by the early Italian painters, perhaps as
symbolizing the Trinity with its triple leaf.
Whilst wearily bearing His Cross on the way to Calvary, our Lord passed
by the door of St. Veronica, who, with womanly compassion, wiped with
her kerchief the drops of agony from His brow. The Redeemer’s features
remained miraculously impressed on the linen, and from that time the
flowers of the wayside Speedwell have ever borne a representation of
the precious relic. In Brittany it is said that whilst Christ was
bearing His Cross a little robin took from His mocking crown one of the
thorns, steeped in His blood, which dyed the robin’s breast; henceforth
the robin has always been the friend of man.
“Bearing His cross, while Christ passed forth forlorn,
His God-like forehead by the mock crown torn,
A little bird took from that crown one thorn,
To soothe the dear Redeemer’s throbbing head,
That bird did what she could; His blood, ’tis said,
Down dropping, dyed her bosom red.”--_J. H. Abrahall._
The early Spanish settlers of South America saw in the _Flor de las
cinco llagas_, the Flower of the Five Wounds, or Passion Flower, a
marvellous floral emblem of the mysteries of Christ’s Passion, and the
Jesuits eagerly adopted it as likely to prove useful in winning souls
to their faith.
An old legend, probably of monkish origin, recounts the emotions of
plants on the death of the Saviour of mankind.
The Pine of Damascus said:--As a sign of mourning, from this day my
foliage will remain sombre, and I will dwell in solitary places.
The Willow of Babylon.--My branches shall henceforth incline towards
the waters of the Euphrates, and there shed the tears of the East.
The Vine of Sorrento.--My grapes shall be black, and the wine that
shall flow from my side shall be called _Lacryma Christi_.
The Cypress of Carmel.--I will be the guest of the tombs, and the
testimony of grief.
The Yew.--I will be the guardian of graveyards. No bee shall pillage
with impunity my poisoned flowers. No bird shall rest on my branches;
for my exhalations shall give forth death.
The Iris of Susa.--Henceforth I will wear perpetual mourning, in
covering with a violet veil my golden chalice.
The Day Lily.--I will shut every evening my sweet-smelling corolla, and
will only re-open it in the morning with the tears of the night.
In the midst of these lamentations of the flowers the Poplar alone held
himself upright, cold, and arrogant as a free-thinker. As a punishment
for this pride, from that day forth, at the least breath of wind it
trembles in all its limbs. Revolutionists have, therefore, made it the
Tree of Liberty.
The Tree of Judas Iscariot.
In connection with the Crucifixion of our Lord many trees have had the
ill-luck of bearing the name of the traitor Judas--the disciple who,
after he had sold his Master, in sheer remorse and despair went and
hanged himself on a tree.
[Illustration: The Tree of Judas. From _Maundevile’s Travels_.]
The Fig, the Tamarisk, the Wild Carob, the Aspen, the Elder, and the
Dog Rose have each in their turn been mentioned as the tree on which
the suicide was committed. As regards the Fig, popular tradition
affirms that the tree, after Judas had hung himself on it, never
again bore fruit; that the Fig was the identical Fig-tree cursed by
our Lord; and that all the wild Fig-trees sprang from this accursed
tree. According to a Sicilian tradition, however, Judas did not hang
himself on a Fig but on a Tamarisk-tree called _Vruca_ (_Tamarix
Africana_): this _Vruca_ is now only a shrub, although formerly it
was a noble tree; at the time of Judas’ suicide it was cursed by God,
and thenceforth became a shrub, ill-looking, misshapen, and useless.
In England, according to Gerarde, the wild Carob is the Judas-tree
(_Cercis Siliquastrum_): this _Arbor Judæ_ was in olden times known as
the wild or foolish Cod. By many, however, the Elder has been supposed
to be the fatal tree: thus we read in Piers Plowman’s ‘Vision’:--
“Judas he japed
With Jewen silver,
And sithen on an Eller
Hanged hymselve.”
Sir John Maundevile, from whose work the foregoing illustration has
been copied, corroborates this view; for he tells us that in his day
there stood in the vicinity of Mount Sion “the tree of Eldre, that
Judas henge him self upon, for despeyr.”
A Russian proverb runs:--“There is an accursed tree which trembles
without even a breath of wind,” in allusion to the Aspen (_Populus
tremula_); and in the Ukraine they say that the leaves of this tree
have quivered and shaken since the day that Judas hung himself on it.
The Plants of St. John.
Popular tradition associates St. John the Baptist with numerous
marvels of the plant world. St. John was supposed to have been born
at midnight; and on the eve of his anniversary, precisely at twelve
o’clock, the Fern blooms and seeds, and this wondrous seed, gathered
at that moment, renders the possessor invisible: thus, in Shakspeare’s
Henry IV., Gadshill says: “We have the receipt of Fern-seed, we walk
invisible.”
The Fairies, commanded by their queen, and the demons, commanded by
Satan, engage in fierce combats at this mysterious time, for the
possession of the invisible seed.
In Russia, on St. John’s Eve, they seek the flower of the _Paporot_
(_Aspidium Filix mas_), which flowers only at the precise moment of
midnight, and will enable the lucky gatherer, who has watched it
flower, to realise all his desires, to discover hidden treasures, and
to recover cattle stolen or strayed. In the Ukraine it is thought that
the gatherer of the Fern-flower will be endowed with supreme wisdom.
The Russian peasants also gather, on the night of the Vigil of St.
John, the _Tirlic_, or _Gentiana Amarella_, a plant much sought after
by witches, and only to be gathered by those who have been fortunate
enough first to have found the _Plakun_ (_Lythrum Salicaria_), which
must be gathered on the morning of St. John, without using a knife or
other instrument in uprooting it. This herb the Russians hold to be
very potent against witches, bad spirits, and the evil eye. A cross
cut from the root of the _Plakun_, and worn on the person, causes
the wearer to be feared as much as fire. Another herb which should be
gathered on St. John’s Eve is the _Hieracium Pilosella_, called in
Germany _Johannisblut_ (blood of St. John): it brings good-luck, but
must be uprooted with a gold coin.
In many countries, before the break of day on St. John’s morning, the
dew which has fallen on vegetation is gathered with great care. This
dew is justly renowned, for it purifies all the noxious plants and
imparts to certain others a fabulous power. By some it is treasured
because it is believed to preserve the eyes from all harm during the
succeeding year. In Venetia the dew is reputed to renew the roots of
the hair on the baldest of heads. It is collected in a small phial,
and a herb called _Basilica_ is placed in it. In Normandy and the
Pyrenees it is used as a wash to purify the skin; in Brittany it is
thought that, thus used, it will drive away fever; and in Italy,
Roumania, Sweden, and Iceland it is believed to soften and beautify
the complexion. In Egypt the _nucta_ or miraculous drop falls before
sunrise on St. John’s Day, and is supposed to have the effect of
stopping the plague. In Sicily they gather the _Hypericum perforatum_,
or Herb of St. John, and put it in oil, which is by this means
transformed into a balm infallible for the cure of wounds.
In Spain garlands of flowers are plucked in the early morn of St.
John’s Day, before the dew has been dried by the sun, and a favourite
wether is decked with them, the village lasses singing--
“Come forth, come forth, my maidens,
we’ll gather Myrtle boughs,
And we shall learn from the dews of the Fern
if our lads will keep their vows:
If the wether be still, as we dance on the hill,
and the dew hangs sweet on the flowers,
Then we’ll kiss off the dew, for our lovers are true,
and the Baptist’s blessing is ours.”
The populace of Madrid were long accustomed, on St. John’s Eve, to
wander about the fields in search of Vervain, from a superstitious
notion that this plant possesses preternatural powers when gathered at
twelve o’clock on St. John’s Eve.
In some parts of Russia the country people heat their baths on the Eve
of St. John and place in them the herb _Kunalnitza_ (_Ranunculus_); in
other parts they place herbs, gathered on the same anniversary, upon
the roofs of houses and stables, as a safeguard against evil spirits.
The French peasantry rub the udders of their cows with similar herbs,
to ensure plenty of milk, and place them over the doorways of cattle
sheds and stables.
On the Eve of St. John, Lilies, Orpine, Fennel, and every variety of
_Hypericum_ are hung over doors and windows. Garlands of Vervain and
Flax are also suspended inside houses; but the true St. John’s garland
is composed of seven elements, namely white Lilies, green Birch,
Fennel, _Hypericum_, Wormwood, and the legs of game birds: these are
believed to have immense power against evil spirits. After daybreak on
St. John’s Day it is dangerous to pluck herbs; the gatherer running the
risk of being afflicted with cancer.
According to Bauhin, the following plants are consecrated to St.
John:--First and specially the _Hypericum_, or perforated St. John’s
Wort, the _fuga dæmonum_, or devil’s flight, so named from the virtue
ascribed to it of frightening away evil spirits, and acting as a charm
against witchcraft, enchantment, storms, and thunder. It is also called
_Tutsan_, or All-heal, from its virtues in curing all kinds of wounds;
and _Sanguis hominis_, because of the blood-red juice of its flowers.
The leaves of the common St. John’s Wort are marked with blood-like
spots, which alway appear on the 29th of August, the day on which the
Baptist was beheaded. The “Flower of St. John” is the _Chrysanthemum_
(Corn Marigold), or, according to others, the _Buphthalmus_ (Ox-Eye) or
the _Anacyclus_. Grapes of St. John are Currants. The Belt or Girdle
of St. John is Wormwood. The Herbs of St. John comprise also _Mentha
sarracenica_ or _Costus hortensis_; _Gallithricum sativum_ or _Centrum
galli_ or _Orminum sylvestre_; in Picardy _Abrotanum_ (a species of
Southernwood); and, according to others, the _Androsæmon_ (Tutsan),
the _Scrophularia_, and the _Crassula major_. The scarlet _Lychnis
Coronaria_ is said to be lighted up on his day, and was formerly called
_Candelabrum ingens_. A species of nut is named after the Saint. The
Carob is St. John’s Mead, so called because it is supposed to have
supplied him with food in the wilderness, and to be the “locusts”
mentioned in the Scriptures.
The festival of St. John would seem to be a favourite time with maidens
to practice divination in their love affairs. On the eve of St. John,
English girls set up two plants of Orpine on a trencher, one for
themselves and the other for their lover; and they estimate the lover’s
fidelity by his plant living and turning to theirs, or otherwise. They
also gather a Moss-rose so soon as the dew begins to fall, and, taking
it indoors, carefully keep it till New Year’s Eve, when, if the blossom
is faded, it is a sign of the lover’s insincerity, but if it still
retains its common colour, he is true. On this night, also, Hemp-seed
is sown with certain mystic ceremonies. In Brittany, on the Saint’s
Vigil, young men wearing bunches of green Wheat-ears, and lasses decked
with Flax-blossoms, assemble round one of the old pillar-stones and
dance round it, placing their wreath upon it. If it remains fresh for
some time after, the lover is to be trusted, but should it wither
within a day or two, so will the love prove but transient. In Sweden,
on St. John’s Eve, young maidens arrange a bouquet composed of nine
different flowers, among which the _Hypericum_, or St. John’s Wort, or
the Ox-eye Daisy, St. John’s Flower, must be conspicuous. The flowers
must be gathered from nine different places, and the posy be placed
beneath the maiden’s pillow. Then he who she sees in her dreams will
be sure soon to arrive.[7]
[7] For further details of the rites of St John’s Eve, see Part II.,
under the heads “FERN,” “HEMP,” and “MOSS-ROSE.”
“The village maids mysterious tales relate
Of bright Midsummer’s sleepless nights; the Fern
That time sheds secret seeds; and they prepare
Untold-of rites, predictive of their fate:
Virgins in silent expectation watch
Exact at twelve’s propitious hour, to view
The future lover o’er the threshold pass;
Th’ inviting door wide spread, and every charm
Performed, while fond hope flutters in the breast,
And credulous fancy, painting his known form,
Kindles concordant to their ardent wish.”--_Bidlake._
Flowers of the Saints.
In the dark ages the Catholic monks, who cultivated with assiduity all
sorts of herbs and flowers in their monastic gardens, came in time to
associate them with traditions of the Church, and to look upon them
as emblems of particular saints. Aware, also, of the innate love of
humanity for flowers, they selected the most popular as symbols of
the Church festivals, and in time every flower became connected with
some saint of the Calendar, either from blowing about the time of the
saint’s day, or from being connected with him in some old legend.
St. Benedict’s herbs are the Avens, the Hemlock, and the Valerian,
which were assigned to him as being antidotes; a legend of the saint
relating that upon his blessing a cup of poisoned wine, which a monk
had presented to him to destroy him, the glass was shivered to pieces.
To St. Gerard was dedicated the _Ægopodium Podagraria_, because it
was customary to invoke the saint against the gout, for which this
plant was esteemed a remedy. St. Christopher has given his name to the
Baneberry (_Actæa spicata_), the Osmund Fern (_Osmunda regalis_), the
Fleabane (_Pulicaria dysenterica_), and, according to old herbalists,
to several other plants, including _Betonica officinalis_, _Vicia
Cracca_ and _Sepium_, _Gnaphalium germanicum_, _Spiræa ulmaria_, two
species of Wolf’s Bane, &c. St. George has numerous plants named after
or dedicated to him. In England his flower is the Harebell, but abroad
the Peony is generally called after him. His name is also bestowed
on the _Lilium convallium_. The Herb of St. George is the _Valeriana
sativa_; his root, _Dentaria major_; his Violet, _Leucoium luteum_;
his fruit, _Cucumis agrestis_. In Asia Minor the tree of St. George is
the Carob. The _Eryngium_ was dedicated to St. Francis under the name
of St. Francis’s Thorn. _Bunium flexuosum_, is St. Anthony’s nut--a
pig-nut, because he is the patron of pigs; and _Senecio Jacobæa_ is
St. James’s Wort (the saint of horses and colts)--used in veterinary
practice. The Cowslip is dedicated to St. Peter, as Herb Peter of the
old herbals, from some resemblance which it has to his emblem--a bunch
of keys. As the patron of fishermen, _Crithmum maritimum_, which grows
on sea-cliffs, was dedicated to this saint, and called in Italian
San Pietro, in French Saint Pierre, and in English Samphire. Most of
these saintly names were, however, given to the plants because their
day of flowering is connected with the festival of the saint. Hence
_Hypericum guadrangulare_ is the St. Peter’s Wort of the modern floras,
from its flowering on the 29th of June. The Daisy, as Herb Margaret,
is popularly supposed to be dedicated to “Margaret that was so meek
and mild;” probably from its blossoming about her day, the 22nd of
February: in reality, however, the flower derived its name from St.
Margaret of Cortona. _Barbarea vulgaris_, growing in the winter, is St.
Barbara’s Cress, her day being the fourth of December, old style; and
_Centaurea solstitialis_ derives its Latin specific, and its popular
name, St. Barnaby’s Thistle, from its flourishing on the longest
day, the 11th of June, old style, which is now the 22nd. _Nigella
damascena_, whose persistent styles spread out like the spokes of a
wheel, is named Katharine’s flower, after St. Katharine, who suffered
martyrdom on a wheel. The Cranesbill is called Herb Robert, in honour
of St. Robert, Abbot of Molesme and founder of the Cistercian Order.
The Speedwell is St. Paul’s Betony. Archangel is a name given to one
umbelliferous and three labiate plants. An angel is said to have
revealed the virtues of the plants in a dream. The umbelliferous plant,
it has been supposed, has been named _Angelica Archangelica_, from
its being in blossom on the 8th of May, old style, the Archangel St.
Michael’s Day. Flowering on the _fête_ day of such a powerful angel,
the plant was supposed to be particularly useful as a preservative of
men and women from evil spirits and witches, and of cattle from elfshot.
Roses are the special flowers of martyrs, and, according to a
tradition, they sprang from the ashes of a saintly maiden of Bethlehem
who perished at the stake. Avens (_Geum urbanum_) the _Herba
benedicta_, or Blessed Herb, is a plant so blessed that no venomous
beast will approach within scent of it; and, according to the author
of the _Ortus sanitatis_, “where the root is in a house, the devil
can do nothing, and flies from it, wherefore it is blessed above all
other herbs.” The common Snowdrops are called Fair Maids of February.
This name also, like the Saints’ names, arises from an ecclesiastical
coincidence: their white flowers blossom about the second of February,
when maidens, dressed in white, walked in procession at the Feast of
the Purification.
The name of Canterbury Bells was given to the _Campanula_, in honour of
St. Thomas of England, and in allusion probably to the horse-bells of
the pilgrims to his shrine. _Saxifraga umbrosa_ is both St. Patrick’s
cabbage and St. Anne’s needlework; _Polygonum Persicaria_ is the
Virgin’s Pinch; _Polytrichum commune_, St. Winifred’s Hair; _Myrrhis
odorata_, Sweet Cicely; _Origanum vulgare_, Sweet Margery; _Oscinium
Basilicum_, Sweet Basil. _Angelica sylvestris_, the Root of the Holy
Ghost; Hedge Hyssop, Cranesbill, and St. John’s Wort are all surnamed
Grace of God; the Pansy, having three colours on one flower, is called
Herb Trinity; the four-leaved Clover is an emblem of the Cross, and all
cruciform flowers are deemed of good omen, having been marked with the
sign of the Cross. The Hemp Agrimony is the Holy Rope, after the rope
with which Christ was bound; and the Hollyhock is the Holy Hock (an old
word for Mallow).
The feeling which inspired this identification of flowers and herbs
with holy personages and festivals is gracefully expressed by a
Franciscan in the following passage:--“Mindful of the Festivals which
our Church prescribes, I have sought to make these objects of floral
nature the timepieces of my religious calendar, and the mementos of
the hastening period of my mortality. Thus I can light the taper to
our Virgin Mother on the blowing of the white Snowdrop, which opens
its flower at the time of Candlemas; the Lady’s Smock and the Daffodil
remind me of the Annunciation; the blue Harebell, of the Festival
of St. George; the Ranunculus, of the Invention of the Cross; the
Scarlet Lychnis, of St. John the Baptist’s day; the white Lily, of the
Visitation of our Lady; and the Virgin’s Bower, of the Assumption;
and Michaelmas, Martinmas, Holy Rood, and Christmas have all their
appropriate decorations.” In later times we find the Church’s Calendar
of English flowers embodied in the following lines:--
“The Snowdrop, in purest white arraie,
First rears her hedde on Candlemass daie:
While the Crocus hastens to the shrine
Of Primrose lone on S. Valentine.
Then comes the Daffodil beside
Our Ladye’s Smock at our Ladye tide,
Aboute S. George, when blue is worn,
The blue Harebells the fields adorn;
Against the daie of the Holie Cross,
The Crowfoot gilds the flowrie grasse.
When S. Barnabie bright smiles night and daie,
Poor Ragged Robbin blooms in the hay.
The scarlet Lychnis, the garden’s pride,
Flames at S. John the Baptist’s tide;
From Visitation to S. Swithen’s showers,
The Lillie white reigns queen of the floures
And Poppies a sanguine mantle spread,
For the blood of the dragon S. Margaret shed,
Then under the wanton Rose agen,
That blushes for penitent Magdalen,
Till Lammas Daie, called August’s Wheel,
When the long Corn smells of Cammomile.
When Marie left us here belowe,
The Virgin’s Bower is full in blowe;
And yet anon the full Sunflower blew,
And became a starre for S. Bartholomew.
The Passion-flower long has blowed,
To betoken us signs of the holie rood:
The Michaelmass Dasie among dede weeds,
Blooms for S. Michael’s valorous deeds,
And seems the last of the floures that stood,
Till the feste of S. Simon and S. Jude;
Save Mushrooms and the Fungus race,
That grow till All Hallowtide takes place.
Soon the evergreen Laurel alone is green,
When Catherine crownes all learned menne;
Then Ivy and Holly berries are seen,
And Yule clog and wassail come round agen.”
_Anthol. Bor. et Aus._
The Roman Catholics have compiled a complete list of flowers, one for
every day in the year, in which each flower has been dedicated to a
particular saint, usually for no better reason than because it bloomed
about the date of the saint’s feast day. This Saints’ Floral Directory
is to be found _in extenso_ in Hone’s ‘Every-day Book.’ In the Anglican
church the principal Festivals or Red Letter Days have each their
appropriate flowers assigned them, as will be seen from the following
table:--
DATE. SAINT. APPROPRIATE FLOWER.
Nov. 30. S. Andrew. S. Andrew’s Cross--_Ascyrum Crux Andreæ_.
Dec. 21. S. Thomas. Sparrow Wort--_Erica passerina_.
25. Christmas. Holly--_Ilex bacciflora_.
26. S. Stephen. Purple Heath--_Erica purpurea_.
27. S. John Evan. Flame Heath--_Erica flammea_.
28. Innocents. Bloody Heath--_Erica cruenta_.
Jan. 1. Circumcision. Laurustine--_Viburnum tinus_.
6. Epiphany. Screw Moss--_Tortula rigida_.
25. Conversion of } Winter Hellebore--_Helleborus hyemalis_.
S. Paul. }
Feb. 2. Purification of } Snowdrop--_Galanthus nivalis_.
B. V. M. }
24. S. Matthias. Great Fern--_Osmunda regalis_.
Mar. 25. Annunciation }
of B. V. M. } Marigold--_Calendula officinalis_.
Apr. 25. S. Mark. Clarimond Tulip--_Tulipa præcox_.
May 1. S. Philip and { Tulip--_Tulipa Gesneri_,
S. James. { dedicated to S. Philip.
{ Red Campion--_Lychnis dioica rubra_.
{ Red Bachelor’s Buttons--_Lychnis dioica
{ plena_, dedicated to S. James.
June 11. S. Barnabas. Midsummer Daisy--_Chrysanthemum
leucanthemum_.
24. S. John Baptist. S. John’s Wort--_Hypericum pulchrum_.
29. S. Peter Yellow Rattle--_Rhinanthus Galli_.
July 25. S. James Herb Christopher--_Actæa spicata_.
Aug. 24. S. Bartholomew Sunflower--_Helianthus annuus_.
Sept. 21. S. Matthew { Ciliated Passion-flower.--_Passiflora
{ ciliata_.
29. S. Michael. Michaelmas Daisy--_Aster Tradescanti_.
Oct. 18. S. Luke. Floccose Agaric--_Agaricus floccosus_.
28. S. Simon and { Late Chrysanthemum--_Chrysanthemum
S. Jude { serotinum_.
{ Scattered Starwort--_Aster passiflorus_,
{ dedicated to S. Jude.
Nov. 1. All Saints. Amaranth.
In old church calendars Christmas Eve is marked “_Templa
exornantur_”--Churches are decked.
Herrick, in the time of Charles I., thus combines a number of these old
customs connected with the decoration of churches--
“Down with Rosemary and Bays,
Down with the Mistletoe,
Instead of Holly now upraise
The greener Box for show.
The Holly hitherto did sway;
Let Box now domineer,
Until the dancing Easter Day
Or Easter’s Eve appear.
Then youthful Box, which now hath grace
Your houses to renew,
Grown old, surrender must his place
Unto the crisped Yew.
When Yew is out, then Birch comes in,
And many flowers beside,
Both of a fresh and fragrant kin,
To honour Whitsuntide.
Green Rushes then, and sweetest Bents,
With cooler Oaken boughs,
Come in for comely ornaments
To re-adorn the house.
Thus times do shift; each thing his turn does hold,
New things succeed as former things grow old.”
Flowers of the Church’s Festivals.
In the services of the Church every season has its appropriate
floral symbol. In olden times on Feast days places of worship were
significantly strewed with bitter herbs. On the Feast of Dedication
(the first Sunday in October) the Church was decked with boughs and
strewn with sweet Rushes; for this purpose _Juncus aromaticus_ (now
known as _Acorus Calamus_) was used.
“The Dedication of the Church is yerely had in minde,
With worship passing Catholicke, and in a wondrous kinde.
From out the steeple hie is hanged a crosse and banner fayre,
The pavement of the temple strowde with hearbes of pleasant ayre;
The pulpets and the aulters all that in the Church are seene,
And every pewe and pillar great are deckt with boughs of greene.”
_T. Naogeorgus, trans. by Barnabe Googe_, 1570.
It was customary to strew Rushes on the Church floor on all high
days. Newton, in his ‘Herbal to the Bible’ (1587), speaks of “Sedge
and Rushes, with which many in the country do use in Summer time
to strewe their parlors and Churches, as well for coolness and for
pleasant smell.” Cardinal Wolsey in the pride of his pomp had the
strewings of his great hall at Hampton Court renewed every day. Till
lately the floor of Norwich Cathedral was strewn with _Acorus Calamus_
on festal days, and when the _Acorus_ was scarce, the leaves of the
yellow Iris were used. At the church of St. Mary Redcliffe, Bristol,
Rushes are strewn every Whitsuntide. The parish of Middleton-Cheney,
Northamptonshire, has a benefaction to provide hay for strewing the
Church in summer, the rector providing straw in the winter. In Prussia
_Holcus odoratus_ is considered Holy Grass, and is used for strewing
purposes. The Rush-bearings which are still held in Westmoreland, and
were until quite recently general in Cheshire, would appear to be a
relic of the custom of the Dedication Feast. At these Rush-bearings
young men and women carry garlands in procession through the village to
the Church, which they enter and decorate with their floral tributes.
Besides giving the Church a fresh strewing every feast day, it was
in olden times customary to deck it with boughs and flowers; and as
the flowers used at festivals were originally selected because they
happened to be in bloom then, so in time they came to be associated
therewith.
On PALM SUNDAY, it was customary for the congregation to carry Palm
branches in procession, and deposit them on the altar of the Church
to be blessed, after which they were again distributed to the people.
Various substitutes for the Eastern Palm were used in England, but
the most popular was the Sallow, because its lithe green wands, full
of sap, and covered with golden catkins, were at that season of the
year the things most full of life and blossom. Yew branches were also
employed for Palm, and some Churches were decked with boughs of Box.
White Broom and white flowers of all descriptions are applicable to the
great festival of EASTER, as well as purple Pasque flowers and golden
Daffodils. The peasants of Bavaria weave garlands of the fragrant
Coltsfoot (_Nardosmia fragrans_) on Easter Day, and cast them into
the fire. In ROGATION WEEK processions perambulated the parishes with
the Holy Cross and Litanies, to mark the boundaries and to invoke the
blessing of God on the crops: on this occasion maidens made themselves
garlands and nosegays of the Rogation-flower, _Polygala vulgaris_,
called also the Cross-, Gang-, and Procession-flower.
On ASCENSION DAY it is customary in Switzerland to suspend wreaths of
Edelweiss over porches and windows,--this flower of the Alps being,
like the Amaranth, considered an emblem of immortality, and peculiarly
appropriate to the festival.
MAY DAY, in olden times, was the anniversary of all others which was
associated with floral ceremonies. In the early morn all ranks of
people went out a-Maying, returning laden with Hawthorn blossoms and
May flowers, to decorate churches and houses. Shakspeare notices how,
in his day, every one was astir betimes:--
“’Tis as much improbable,
Unless we swept them from the door with cannons,
To scatter ’em, as ’tis to make ’em sleep
On May-day morning.”
It being also the festival of SS. PHILIP AND JAMES, the feast partook
somewhat of a religious character. The people not only turned the
streets into leafy avenues, and their door-ways into green arbours,
and set up a May-pole decked with ribands and garlands, and an arbour
besides for Maid Marian to sit in, to witness the sports, but the
floral decorations extended likewise into the Church. We learn from
Aubrey that the young maids of every parish carried about garlands of
flowers, which they afterwards hung up in their Churches; and Spenser
sings how, at sunrise--
“Youth’s folke now flocken in everywhere
To gather May-buskets and smelling Brere;
And home they hasten the postes to dight
And all the Kirke pillours ere day light
With Hawthorn buds and sweete Eglantine,
And girlonds of Roses, and Soppes-in-wine.”
The beautiful milk-white Hawthorn blossom is essentially the flower
of the season, but in some parts of England the Lily of the Valley is
considered as “The Lily of the May.” In Cornwall and Devon Lilac is
esteemed the May-flower, and special virtues are attached to sprays of
Ivy plucked at day-break with the dew on them. In Germany the Kingcup,
Lily of the Valley, and Hepatica are severally called _Mai-blume_.
WHITSUNTIDE flowers in England are Lilies of the Valley and Guelder
Roses, but according to Chaucer (‘Romaunt of the Rose’) Love bids his
pupil--
“Have hatte of floures fresh as May,
Chapelett of Roses of Whit-Sunday,
For sich array ne costeth but lite.”
The Germans call Broom Pentecost-bloom, and the Peony the Pentecost
Rose. The Italians call Whitsunday _Pasqua Rosata_, Roses being then in
flower.
To TRINITY SUNDAY belong the Herb-Trinity or Pansy and the Trefoil. On
ST. BARNABAS DAY, as on ST. PAUL’S DAY, the churches were decked with
Box, Woodruff, Lavender, and Roses, and the officiating Priests wore
garlands of Roses on their heads.
On ROYAL OAK DAY (May 29th), in celebration of the restoration of
King Charles II., and to commemorate his concealment in an aged Oak
at Boscobel, gilded Oak-leaves and Apples are worn, and Oak-branches
are hung over doorways and windows. From this incident in the life of
Charles II., the Oak derives its title of Royal.
“Blest Charles then to an Oak his safety owes;
The Royal Oak, which now in song shall live,
Until it reach to Heaven with its boughs;
Boughs that for loyalty shall garlands give.”
On CORPUS CHRISTI DAY it was formerly the custom in unreformed England
to strew the streets through which the procession passed with flowers,
and to decorate the church with Rose and other garlands. In North Wales
a relic of these ceremonies lingered till lately in the practice of
strewing herbs and flowers at the doors of houses on the Corpus Christi
Eve. In Roman Catholic countries flowers are strewed along the streets
in this festival, and the route of the procession at Rome is covered
with Bay and other fragrant leaves.
On the Vigil of ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST, Stowe tells us that in his time
every man’s door was shadowed with green Birch, long Fennel, St. John’s
Wort, Orpine, white Lilies, and such like, garnished upon with garlands
of beautiful flowers, and also lamps of glass, with oil burning in them
all night. Birch is the special tree, as the yellow St. John’s Wort
(_Hypericum_) is the special flower, of St. John. In the life of Bishop
Horne we read that in the Court of Magdalen, Oxford, a sermon used to
be preached on this day from the stone pulpit in the corner, and “the
quadrangle was furnished round with a large fence of green boughs, that
the meeting might more nearly resemble that of John Baptist in the
wilderness.”
On ALL SAINTS’ or ALL HALLOWS’ DAY, Roman Catholics are wont to visit
the graves of departed relatives or friends, and place on them wreaths
of Ivy, Moss, and red Berries. On the Eve of this day, Hallowe’en
(October 31st), many superstitious customs are still practised. In
the North young people dive for Apples, and for divining purposes
fling Nuts into the fire; hence the vulgar name of Nut-crack Night.
In Scotland young women determine the figure and size of their future
husbands by paying a visit to the Kail or Cabbage garden, and “pu’ing
the Kailstock” blindfold. They also on this night throw Hazel Nuts in
the fire, named for two lovers, judging according as they burn quickly
together, or start apart, the course of their love.
At CHRISTMAS tide Holly (the “holy tree”), Rosemary, Laurel, Bay, Arbor
Vitæ, and Ivy are hung up in churches, and are suitable also for the
decoration of houses, with the important addition of Mistletoe (which,
on account of its Druidic connection, is interdicted in places of
worship). Ivy should only be placed in outer passages or doorways. At
Christmas, which St. Gregory termed the “festival of all festivals,”
the evergreens with which the churches are ornamented are a fitting
emblem of that time when, as God says by the prophet Isaiah, “I will
plant in the wilderness the Cedar, the Shittah tree and the Myrtle, and
the Oil tree; I will set in the desert the Fir tree and the Pine, and
the Box tree together (xli., 19). The glory of Lebanon shall come unto
thee, the Fir tree, the Pine tree, and the Box together, to beautify
the place of my sanctuary; and I will make the place of my feet
glorious” (lx., 13).
Gospel Oaks and Memorial Trees.
There exist in different parts of England several ancient trees,
notably Oaks, which are traditionally said to have been called Gospel
trees in consequence of its having been the practice in times long
past to read under a tree which grew upon a boundary-line a portion of
the Gospel on the annual perambulation of the bounds of the parish on
Ascension Day. In Herrick’s poem of the ‘Hesperides’ occur these lines
in allusion to this practice:--
“Dearest, bury me
Under that holy Oak or Gospel tree,
Where, though thou see’st not, thou mayest think upon
Me when thou yearly go’st in procession.”
Many of these old trees were doubtless Druidical, and under their
“leafy tabernacles” the pioneers of Christianity had probably preached
and expounded the Scriptures to a pagan race. The heathen practice of
worshipping the gods in woods and trees continued for many centuries,
till the introduction of Christianity; and the first missionaries
sought to adopt every means to elevate the Christian worship to higher
authority than that of paganism by acting on the senses of the heathen.
St. Augustine, Evelyn tells us, held a kind of council under an Oak in
the West of England, concerning the right celebration of Easter and
the state of the Anglican church; “where also it is reported he did
a great miracle.” On Lord Bolton’s estate in the New Forest stands
a noble group of twelve Oaks known as the Twelve Apostles: there is
another group of Oaks extant known as the Four Evangelists. Beneath the
venerable Yews at Fountain Abbey, Yorkshire, the founders of the Abbey
held their council in 1132.
“Cross Oaks” were so called from their having been planted at the
junction of cross roads, and these trees were formerly resorted to by
aguish patients, for the purpose of transferring to them their malady.
Venerable and noble trees have in all ages and in all countries been
ever regarded with special reverence. From the very earliest times
such trees have been consecrated to holy uses. Thus, the Gomerites, or
descendants of Noah, were, if tradition be true, accustomed to offer
prayers and oblations beneath trees; and, following the example of
his ancestors, the Patriarch Abraham pitched his tents beneath the
Terebinth Oaks of Mamre, erected an altar to the Lord, and performed
there sacred and priestly rites. Beneath an Oak, too, the Patriarch
entertained the Deity Himself. This tree of Abraham remained till the
reign of Constantine the Great, who founded a venerable chapel under
it, and there Christians, Jews, and Arabs held solemn anniversary
meetings, believing that from the days of Noah the spot shaded by the
tree had been a consecrated place.
Dean Stanley tells us that “on the heights of Ephraim, on the central
thoroughfare of Palestine, near the Sanctuary of Bethel, stood two
famous trees, both in after times called by the same name. One was the
Oak-tree or Terebinth of Deborah, under which was buried, with many
tears, the nurse of Jacob (Gen. xxxv. 8). The other was a solitary
Palm, known in after times as the Palm-tree of Deborah. Under this
Palm, as Saul afterwards under the Pomegranate-tree of Migron, as St.
Louis under the Oak-tree of Vincennes, dwelt that mother in Israel,
Deborah, the wife of Lapidoth, to whom the sons of Israel came to
receive her wise answers.”
Since the time when Solomon cut the Cedars of Lebanon for the purpose
of employing them in the erection of the Temple of the Lord, this
renowned forest has been greatly shorn of its glories; but a grove of
nearly four hundred trees still exists. Twelve of the most valuable of
these trees bear the titles of “The Friends of Solomon,” or “The Twelve
Apostles.” Every year the Maronites, Greeks, and Armenians go up to the
Cedars, at the Feast of the Transfiguration, and celebrate mass on a
homely stone altar erected at their feet.
In Evelyn’s time there existed, near the tomb of Cyrus, an
extraordinary Cypress, which was said to exude drops of blood every
Friday. This tree, according to Pietro della Valla, was adorned with
many lamps, and fitted for an oratory, and was for ages resorted to by
pious pilgrims.
Thevenot and other Eastern travellers mention a tree which for
centuries had been regarded with peculiar reverence. “At Matharee,”
says Thevenot, “is a large garden surrounded by walls, in which are
various trees, and among others, a large Sycamore, or Pharaoh’s Fig,
very old, which bears fruit every year. They say that the Virgin
passing that way with her son Jesus, and being pursued by a number of
people, the Fig-tree opened to receive her; she entered, and it closed
her in, until the people had passed by, when it re-opened, and that it
remained open ever after to the year 1656, when the part of the trunk
that had separated itself was broken away.”
Near Kennety Church, in the King’s County, Ireland, is an Ash, the
trunk of which is nearly 22 feet round, and 17 feet high, before the
branches break out, which are of enormous bulk. When a funeral of the
lower class passes by, they lay the body down a few minutes, say a
prayer, and then throw a stone to increase the heap which has been
accumulating round the roots.
The Breton nobles were long accustomed to offer up a prayer beneath the
branches of a venerable Yew which grew in the cloister of Vreton, in
Brittany. The tree was regarded with much veneration, as it was said to
have originally sprung from the staff of St. Martin.
In England, the Glastonbury Thorn was long the object of pious
reverence. This tree was supposed to have sprung from the staff of
Joseph of Arimathea, to whom the original conversion of this country
is attributed in monkish legends. The story runs that when Joseph of
Arimathea came to convert the heathen nations he selected Glastonbury
as the site for the first Christian Church, and whilst preaching
there on Christmas-day, he struck his staff into the ground, which
immediately burst into bud and bloom; eventually it grew into a
Thorn-bush, which regularly blossomed every Christmas-day, and became
known throughout Christendom as the Glastonbury Thorn.
“The winter Thorn, which
Blossoms at Christmas, mindful of our Lord.”
Like the Thorn of Glastonbury, an Oak, in the New Forest, called the
Cadenham Oak, produced its buds always on Christmas Day; and was,
consequently, regarded by the country people as a tree of peculiar
sanctity. Another miraculous tree is referred to in Collinson’s
‘History of Somerset.’ The author, speaking of the Glastonbury Thorn,
says that there grew also in the Abbey churchyard, on the north side of
St. Joseph’s Chapel, a miraculous Walnut-tree, which never budded forth
before the Feast of St. Barnabas (that is, the 11th of June), and on
that very day shot forth leaves, and flourished like its usual species.
It is strange to say how much this tree was sought after by the
credulous; and though not an uncommon Walnut, Queen Anne, King James,
and many of the nobility of the realm, even when the times of monkish
superstition had ceased, gave large sums of money for small cuttings
from the original.
[Tailpiece]
[Headpiece]
CHAPTER VI.
Plants of the Fairies and Naiades.
Centuries before Milton wrote that “Millions of spiritual creatures
walk the earth unseen, both when we wake, and when we sleep,” our Saxon
ancestors, whilst yet they inhabited the forests of Germany, believed
in the existence of a diminutive race of beings--the “missing link”
between men and spirits--to whom they attributed extraordinary actions,
far exceeding the capabilities of human art. Moreover, we have it on
the authority of the father of English poetry that long, long ago, in
those wondrous times when giants and dwarfs still deigned to live in
the same countries as ordinary human beings,
“In the olde dayes of King Artour,
Of which the Bretons speken gret honour,
All was this land fulfilled of faerie;
The Elf-quene and hire joly compaynie
Danced full oft in many a grene mede.
This was the old opinion as I rede.”
The old Welsh bards were accustomed to sing their belief that King
Arthur was not dead, but conveyed away by the fairies into some charmed
spot where he should remain awhile, and then return again to reign
with undiminished power. These wondrous inhabitants of Elf-land--these
Fays, Fairies, Elves, Little Folk, Pixies, Hobgoblins, Kobolds, Dwarfs,
Pigmies, Gnomes, and Trolls are all more or less associated with the
plant kingdom. They make their habitations in the leafy branches of
trees, or dwell in the greater seclusion of their hollow trunks;
they dally and gambol among opening buds and nodding blossoms; they
hide among blushing Roses and fragrant shrubs; they dance amid the
Buttercups, Daisies, and Meadow-Sweet of the grassy meads; and, as
Shakspeare says, they “use flowers for their charactery.”
Grimm tells us that in Germany the Elves are fond of inhabiting Oak
trees, the holes in the trunks of which are deemed by the people to be
utilised by the Fairies as means of entry and exit. A similar belief
is entertained by the Hindus, who consider holes in trees as doors by
which the inhabiting spirit passes in and out. German elves are also
fond of frequenting Elder-trees.
The Esthonians believe that during a thunder-storm, and in order to
escape from the lightning, the timorous Elves burrow several feet
beneath the roots of the trees they inhabit. As a rule these forest
Elves are good-natured: if they are not offended, not only will they
abstain from harming men, but they will even do them a good turn, and
teach them some of the mysteries of nature, of which they possess the
secret.
The Elves were in former days thought to practise works of mercy in
the woods, and a certain sympathetic affinity with trees became thus
propagated in the popular faith. The country-folk were careful not to
offend the trees that were inhabited by Fairies, and they never sought
to surprise the Elfin people in their mysterious retreats, for they
dreaded the power of these invisible creatures to cause ill-luck or
some unfortunate malady to fall on those against whom they had a spite.
Even deaths were sometimes laid at their door.
A German legend relates that as a peasant woman one day tried to uproot
the stump of an old tree in a Fir forest, she became so feeble that at
last she could scarcely manage to walk. Suddenly, while endeavouring to
crawl to her home, a mysterious-looking man appeared in the path before
the poor woman, and upon hearing what was the matter with her, he at
once remarked that she had wounded an Elf. If the Elf got well, so
would she; but if the Elf should unfortunately perish, she would also
assuredly die. The stump of the old Fir-tree was the abode of an Elf,
and in endeavouring to uproot it, the woman had unintentionally injured
the little creature. The words of the mysterious personage proved
too true. The peasant languished for some time, but drooped and died
on the same day as the wounded Elf. To this day, in the vast forests
of Germany and Russia, instead of uprooting old Firs, the foresters,
remembering the Elfish superstition, always chop them down above the
roots.
In the Indian legend of Sâvitri, the youthful Satyavant, while felling
a tree, perspires inordinately, is overcome with weakness, sinks
exhausted, and dies. He had mortally wounded the Elf of the tree. Since
the days of Æsop it has become a saying that Death has a weakness for
woodmen.
In our own land, Oaks have always been deemed the favourite abodes of
Elves, and wayfarers, upon approaching groves reputed to be haunted by
them, used to think it judicious to turn their coats for good luck.
Thus Bishop Corbet, in his _Iter Boreale_, writes:--
“William found
A means for our deliverance: ‘Turn your cloakes,’
Quoth he, ‘for Pucke is busy in these Oakes;
If ever we at Bosworth will be found,
Then turn your cloakes, for this is Fairy ground.’”
It was believed that the Fairy folk made their homes in the recesses of
forests or secluded groves, whence they issued after sunset to gambol
in the fields; often startling with their sudden appearance the tired
herdsman trudging homeward to his cot, or the goodwife returning from
her expedition to market. Thus we read of “Fairy Elves whose midnight
revels by a forest side or fountain some belated peasant sees.”
“Would you the Fairy regions see,
Hence to the greenwoods run with me;
From mortals safe the livelong night,
There countless feats the Fays delight.”--_Leftly._
In the Isle of Man the Fairies or Elves used to be seen hopping from
trees and skipping from bough to bough, whilst wending their way to the
Fairy midnight haunts.
In such esteem were they held by the country folk of Devon and
Cornwall, that to ensure their friendship and good offices, the
Fairies, or Pixies, used formerly to have a certain share of the fruit
crop set apart for their special consumption.
Hans Christian Andersen tells of a certain Rose Elf who was
instrumental in punishing the murderer of a beautiful young maiden to
whom he was attached. The Rose, in olden times, was reputed to be under
the especial protection of Elves, Fairies, and Dwarfs, whose sovereign,
Laurin, carefully guarded the Rose-garden.
“Four portals to the garden lead, and when the gates are closed,
No living wight dare touch a Rose, ’gainst his strict command opposed.
Whoe’er would break the golden gates, or cut the silken thread,
Or who would dare to waste the flowers down beneath his tread,
Soon for his pride would leave to pledge a foot and hand;
Thus Laurin, King of Dwarfs, rules within his land.”
A curious family of the Elfin tribe were the Moss- or Wood-Folk, who
dwelt in the forests of Southern Germany. Their stature was small, and
their form weird and uncouth, bearing a strange resemblance to certain
trees, with which they flourished and decayed. Describing a Moss-woman,
the author of ‘The Fairy Family’ says:--
“‘A Moss-woman!’ the hay-makers cry,
And over the fields in terror they fly.
She is loosely clad from neck to foot
In a mantle of Moss from the Maple’s root,
And like Lichen grey on its stem that grows
Is the hair that over her mantle flows.
Her skin, like the Maple-rind, is hard,
Brown and ridgy, and furrowed and scarred;
And each feature flat, like the bark we see,
Where a bough has been lopped from the bole of a tree,
When the newer bark has crept healingly round,
And laps o’er the edge of the open wound;
Her knotty, root-like feet are bare,
And her height is an ell from heel to hair.”
The Moss- or Wood-Folk also lived in some parts of Scandinavia. Thus,
we are told that, in the churchyard of Store Hedding, in Zealand, there
are the remains of an Oak wood which were trees by day and warriors by
night.
The Black Dwarfs were a race of Scandinavian Elves, inhabiting
coast-hills and caves; the favourite place of their feasts and
carousings, however, was under the spreading branches of the
Elder-tree, the strong perfume of its large moon-like clusters of
flowers being very grateful to them. As has been before pointed out,
an unexplained connection of a mysterious character has always existed
between this tree and the denizens of Fairy-land.
The Still-Folk of Central Germany were another tribe of the Fairy
Kingdom: they inhabited the interior of hills, in which they had their
spacious halls and strong rooms filled with gold, silver, and precious
stones--the entrance to which was only obtained by mortals by means
of the Luck-flower, or the Key-flower (_Schlüsselblume_). They held
communication with the outer world, like the Trolls of Scandinavia,
through certain springs or wells, which possessed great virtues: not
only did they give extraordinary growth and fruitfulness to all trees
and shrubs that grew near them, whose roots could drink of their
waters, or whose leaves be sprinkled with the dews condensed from their
vapours, but for certain human diseases they formed a sovereign remedy.
In Monmouthshire, in years gone by, there existed a good Fairy, or
Procca, who was wont to appear to Welshmen in the guise of a handful of
loose dried grass, rolling and gambolling before the wind.
Fairy Revels.
The English Fays and Fairies, the Pixies of Devon--
“Fantastic Elves, that leap
The slender Hare-cup, climb the Cowslip bells,
And seize the wild bee as she lies asleep,”
according to the old pastoral poets, were wont to bestir themselves
soon after sunset--a time of indistinctness and gloomy grandeur, when
the moonbeams gleam fitfully through the wind-stirred branches of their
sylvan retreats, and when sighs and murmurings are indistinctly heard
around, which whisper to the listener of unseen beings. But it is at
midnight that the whole Fairy kingdom is alive: then it is that the
faint music of the blue Harebell is heard ringing out the call to the
Elfin meet:
“’Tis the hour of Fairy ban and spell,
The wood-tick has kept the minutes well,
He has counted them all with click and stroke,
Deep on the heart of the forest Oak;
And he has awakened the sentry Elve,
That sleeps with him in the haunted tree,
To bid him ring the hour of twelve,
And call the Fays to their revelry.
“They come from the beds of the Lichen green,
They creep from the Mullein’s velvet screen,
Some on the backs of beetles fly
From the silver tops of moon-touched trees,
Where they swing in their cobweb hammocks high,
And rocked about in the evening breeze;
Some from the hum-bird’s downy nest,
Had driven him out by Elfin power,
And pillowed on plumes of his rainbow crest,
Had slumbered there till the charmed hour;
Some had lain in a scarp of the rock,
By glittering ising-stars inlaid,
And some had opened the ‘Four-o’-Clock,’
And stolen within its purple shade;
And now they throng the moonlight glade,
Above, below,--on every side,
Their little minim forms arrayed,
In the tricksy pomp of Fairy pride.”--_Dr. Drake’s ‘Culprit Fay.’_
Like the Witches, Fairies dearly love to ride to the trysting-place
on an aerial steed. A straw, a blade of Grass, a Fern, a Rush, or a
Cabbage-stalk, alike serve the purpose of the little people. Mounted on
such simple steeds, each joyous Elf sings--
“Now I go, now I fly,
Malkin, my sweet spirit, and I.
O what a dainty pleasure ’tis
To ride in the air,
When the morn shines fair,
And sing and dance, and toy and kiss!”
Arrived at the spot selected for the Fairy revels--mayhap, “a bank
whereon the wild Thyme blows, where Oxlips and the nodding Violet
grows”--the gay throng wend their way to a grassy link or neighbouring
pasture, and there the merry Elves trip and pace the dewy green sward
with their printless feet, causing those dark green circles that are
known to mortals as “Fairy Rings.”
The Fays that haunt the moonlight dell,
The Elves that sleep in the Cowslip’s bell,
The tricksy Sprites that come and go,
Swifter than a gleam of light;
Where the murmuring waters flow,
And the zephyrs of the night,
Bending to the flowers that grow,
Basking in the silver sheen,
With their voices soft and low,
Sing about the rings of green
Which the Fairies’ twinkling feet,
In their nightly revels, beat.
Old William Browne depicts a Fairy trysting-place as being in proximity
to one of their sylvan haunts, and moreover gives us an insight into
the proceedings of the Fays and their queen at one of their meetings.
He says:--
“Near to this wood there lay a pleasant meade
Where Fairies often did their measures treade,
Which in the meadows made such circles greene,
As if with garlands it had crowned beene,
Or like the circle where the signes we tracke,
And learned shepheards call’t the zodiacke;
Within one of these rounds was to be seene
A hillock rise, where oft the Fairie queene
At twilight sat, and did command her Elves
To pinch those maids that had not swept their shelves;
And further, if by maiden’s oversight,
Within doors water were not brought at night,
Or if they spread no table, set no bread,
They should have nips from toe unto the head,
And for the maid that had performed each thing,
She in the water-pail bade leave a ring.”
St. John’s Eve was undoubtedly chosen for important communication
between the distant Elfin groves and the settlements of men, on account
of its mildness, brightness, and unequalled beauty. Has not Shakspeare
told us, in his ‘Midsummer’s Night’s Dream,’ of the doings, on this
night, of Oberon, Ariel, Puck, Titania, and her Fairy followers?--
“The darling puppets of romance’s view;
Fairies, and Sprites, and Goblin Elves we call them,
Famous for patronage of lovers true;
No harm they act, neither shall harm befall them,
So do not thou with crabbed frowns appal them.”
Yet timorous and ill-informed folk, mistrusting the kindly disposition
of Elves and Fairies, took precautions for excluding Elfin visitors
from their dwellings by hanging over their doors boughs of St. John’s
Wort, gathered at midnight on St. John’s Eve. A more kindly feeling,
however, seems to have prevailed at Christmas time, when boughs of
evergreen were everywhere hung in houses in order that the poor
frost-bitten Elves of the trees might hide themselves therein, and thus
pass the bleak winter in hospitable shelter.
Fairy Plants.
In Devonshire the flowers of Stitchwort are known as Pixies.
Of plants which are specially affected by the Fairies, first mention
should be made of the Elf Grass (_Vesleria cærulea_), known in Germany
as _Elfenkraut_ or _Elfgras_. This is the Grass forming the Fairy
Rings, round which, with aerial footsteps, have danced
“Ye demi-puppets, that
By moonlight do the green sour ringlets make,
Whereof the ewe not bites.”--_Shakspeare’s Tempest._
The Cowslip, or Fairy Cup, Shakspeare tells us forms the couch of
Ariel--the “dainty Ariel” who has so sweetly sung of his Fairy life--
“Where the bee sucks, there lurk I;
In a Cowslip’s bell I lie;
There I couch when owls do cry;
On a bat’s back I do fly
After summer merrily.
Merrily, merrily, shall I live now
Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.”
The fine small crimson drops in the Cowslip’s chalice are said to
possess the rare virtue of preserving, and even of restoring, youthful
bloom and beauty; for these ruddy spots are fairy favours, and
therefore have enchanted value. Shakspeare says of this flower of the
Fays:--
“And I serve the Fairy queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green:
The Cowslips tall her pensioners be;
In their gold coats spots you see;
Those be rubies, fairy favours:
In those freckles live their savours.”
Another of the flowers made potent use of by the Fairies of Shakspeare
is the Pansy--that “little Western flower” which Oberon bade Puck
procure:--
“Fetch me that flower,--the herb I showed thee once:
The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laid,
Will make a man or woman madly dote
Upon the next live creature that it sees.”
The Anemone, or Wind-flower, is a recognised Fairy blossom. The crimson
marks on its petals have been painted there by fairy hands; and, in wet
weather, it affords shelter to benighted Elves, who are glad to seek
shelter beneath its down-turned petals. Tulips are greatly esteemed by
the Fairy folk, who utilise them as cradles in which to rock the infant
Elves to sleep.
The Fairy Flax (_Linum catharticum_) is, from its extreme delicacy,
selected by the Fays as the substance to be woven for their raiment.
The _Pyrus Japonica_ is the Fairies’ Fire. Fairy-Butter (_Tremella
arborea_ and _albida_) is a yellowish gelatinous substance, found upon
rotten wood or fallen timber, and which is popularly supposed to be
made in the night, and scattered about by the Fairies. The _Pezita_, an
exquisite scarlet Fungus cup, which grows on pieces of broken stick,
and is to be found in dry ditches and hedge-sides, is the Fairies’ Bath.
To yellow flowers growing in hedgerows, the Fairies have a special
dislike, and will never frequent a place where they abound; but it is
notorious that they are passionately fond of most flowers. It is part
of their mission to give to each maturing blossom its proper hue, to
guide creepers and climbing plants, and to teach young plants to move
with befitting grace.
But the Foxglove is the especial delight of the Fairy tribe: it is
_the_ Fairy plant _par excellence_. When it bends its tall stalks the
Foxglove is making its obeisance to its tiny masters, or preparing to
receive some little Elf who wishes to hide himself in the safe retreat
afforded by its accommodating bells. In Ireland this flower is called
Lusmore, or the Great Herb. It is there the Fairy Cap, whilst in Wales
it becomes the Goblin’s Gloves.
As the Foxglove is the special flower of the Fairies, so is a
four-leaved Clover their peculiar herb. It is believed only to grow
in places frequented by the Elfin tribe, and to be gifted by them with
magic power.
“I’ll seek a four-leaved Clover
In all the Fairy dells,
And if I find the charmed leaf,
Oh, how I’ll weave my spells!”--_S. Lover._
The maiden whose search has been successful for this diminutive plant
becomes at once joyous and light-hearted, for she knows that she will
assuredly see her true love ere the day is over. The four-leaved Clover
is the only plant that will enable its wearer to see the Fairies--it is
a magic talisman whereby to gain admittance to the Fairy kingdom,[8]
and unless armed with this potent herb, the only other means available
to mortals who wish to make the acquaintance of the Fairies is to
procure a supply of a certain precious unguent prepared according to
the receipt of a celebrated alchymist, which, applied to the visual
orbs, is said to enable anyone with a clear conscience to behold
without difficulty or danger the most potent Fairy or Spirit he may
anywhere encounter. The following is the form of the preparation:--
“R. A pint of Sallet-oyle, and put it into a vial-glasse; but first
wash it with Rose-water and Marygolde water; the flowers to be gathered
towards the east. Wash it till the oyle come white; then put it into
the glasse, _ut supra_: and then put thereto the budds of Holyhocke,
the flowers of Marygolde, the flowers or toppers of Wild Thyme, the
budds of young Hazle: and the Thyme must be gathered neare the side
of a hill where Fayries used to be: and take the grasse of a Fayrie
throne. Then all these put into the oyle into the glasse: and sette it
to dissolve three dayes in the sunne, and then keep it for thy use; _ut
supra_.”--[_Ashmolean MSS._].
[8] See legend in Part II., under the head of “CLOVER.”
Plants of the Water Nymphs and Fays.
Certain of the Fairy community frequented the vicinity of pools, and
the banks of streams and rivers. Ben Jonson tells of “Span-long Elves
that dance about a pool;” and Stagnelius asks--
“Say, know’st the Elfin people gay?
They dwell on the river’s strand;
They spin from the moonbeams their festive garb,
With their small and lily hand.”
Of this family are the Russalkis, river nymphs of Southern Russia, who
inhabit the alluvial islands studding the winding river, or dwell in
detached coppices fringing the banks, or construct for themselves homes
woven of flowering Reeds and green Willow-boughs.
The Swedes delight to tell of the Strömkarl, or boy of the stream, a
mystic being who haunts brooks and rivulets, and sits on the silvery
waves at moonlight, playing his harp to the Elves and Fays who dance on
the flowery margin, in obedience to his summons--
“Come queen of the revels--come, form into bands
The Elves and the Fairies that follow your train;
Tossing your tresses, and wreathing your hands,
Let your dainty feet dance to my wave-wafted strain.”
The Græco-Latin Naiades, or Water-nymphs, were also of this family:
they generally inhabited the country, and resorted to the woods or
meadows near the stream over which they presided. It was in some such
locality on the Asiatic coast that the ill-fated Hylas was carried off
by Isis and the River-nymphs, whilst obtaining water from a fountain.
“The chiefs composed their wearied limbs to rest,
But Hylas sought the springs, by thirst opprest;
At last a fount he found with flow’rets graced:
On the green bank above his urn he placed.
’Twas at a time when old Ascanius made
An entertainment in his watery bed,
For all the Nymphs and all the Naiades
Inhabitants of neighb’ring plains and seas.”
These inferior deities were held in great veneration, and received from
their votaries offerings of fruit and flowers; animal sacrifices were
also made to them, with libations of wine, honey, oil, and milk; and
they were crowned with Sedges and flowers. A remnant of these customs
was to be seen in the practice which formerly prevailed in this country
of sprinkling rivers with flowers on Holy Thursday. Milton, in his
‘Comus,’ tells us that, in honour of Sabrina, the Nymph of the Severn--
“The shepherds at their festivals
Carol her good deeds loud in rustic lays,
And throw sweet garland wreaths into her stream,
Of Pansies, Pinks, and gaudy Daffodils.”
A belief in the existence of good spirits who watched and guarded
wells, springs and streams, was common to the whole Aryan race. On
the 13th of October the Romans celebrated at the Porta Fontinalis a
festival in honour of the Nymphs who presided over fountains and wells:
this was termed the Fontinalia, and during the ceremonies wells and
fountains were ornamented with garlands. To this day the old heathen
custom of dressing and adorning wells is extant, although saints and
martyrs have long since taken the place of the Naiades and Water-nymphs
as patrons. In England, well-dressing at Ascension-tide is still
practised, and some particulars of the ancient custom will be found in
the chapter on Floral Ceremonies.
“The fountain marge is fairly spread
With every incense flower that blows,
With flowry Sedge and Moss that grows,
For fervid limbs a dewy bed.”--_Fane._
Pilgrimages are made to many holy wells and springs in the United
Kingdom, for the purpose of curing certain diseases by the virtues
contained in their waters, or to dress these health-restoring fountains
with garlands and posies of flowers. It is not surprising to find Ben
Jonson saying that round such “virtuous” wells the Fairies are fond of
assembling, and dancing their rounds, lighted by the pale moonshine--
“By wells and rills, in meadows greene,
We nightly dance our hey-day guise;
And to our Fairye king and queene
We chant our moonlight minstrelsies.”--_Percy Reliques_.
In Cornwall pilgrimages are made in May to certain wells situated close
to old blasted Oaks, where the frequenters suspend rags to the branches
as a preservative against sorcery and a propitiation to the Fairies,
who are thought to be fond of repairing at night to the vicinity of the
wells. From St. Mungo’s Well at Huntly, in Scotland, the people carry
away bottles of water, as a talisman against the enmity of the Fairies,
who are supposed to hold their revels at the Elfin Croft close by, and
are prone to resent the intrusion of mortals.
[Tailpiece]
[Headpiece]
CHAPTER VII.
Sylvans, Wood Nymphs, and Tree Spirits.
Closely allied to the Fairy family, the Well Fays, and the Naiades,
are the Sylvans of the Græco-Roman mythology, which everywhere depicts
groves and forests as the dwelling-places and resorts of merry bands
of Dryads, Nymphs, Fauns, Satyrs, and other light-hearted frequenters
of the woods. Mindful of this, Horace, when extolling the joys and
peacefulness of sylvan retirement, sings:--
“Me the cool woods above the rest advance,
Where the rough Satyrs with the light Nymphs dance.”
The Dryads were young and beautiful nymphs who were regarded as
semi-goddesses. Deriving their name from the Greek word _drus_, a
tree, they were conceived to dwell in trees, groves, and forests, and,
according to tradition, were wont to inflict injuries upon people who
dared to injure the trees they inhabited and specially protected.
Notwithstanding this, however, they frequently quitted their leafy
habitations, to wander at will and mingle with the wood nymphs in their
rural sports and dances. They are represented veiled and crowned with
flowers. Such a sylvan deity Rinaldo saw in the Enchanted Forest, when
“An aged Oak beside him cleft and rent,
And from his fertile hollow womb forth went
(Clad in rare weeds and strange habiliment)
A full-grown Nymph.”
The Hamadryads were only females to the waist, their lower parts
merging into the trunks and roots of trees. Their life and power
terminated with the existence of the tree over which they presided.
These sylvan deities had long flowing hair, and bore in their hands
axes wherewith to protect the tree with which they were associated
and on the existence of which their own life depended. The trees of
the Hamadryads usually grew in some secluded spot, remote from human
habitations and unknown to men, where
“Much sweet grass grew higher than grew the Reed,
And good for slumber, and every holier herb,
Narcissus and the low-lying Melilote,
And all of goodliest blade and bloom that springs
Where, hid by heavier Hyacinth, Violet buds
Blossom and burn, and fire of yellower flowers,
And light of crescent Lilies and such leaves
As fear the Faun’s, and know the Dryad’s foot.”--_Theocritus._
The rustic deities, called by the Greeks Satyrs, and by the Romans,
Fauns, had the legs, feet, and ears of goats, and the rest of the
body human. These Fauns, according to the traditions of the Romans,
presided over vegetation, and to them the country folk gave anything
they had a mind to ask--bunches of Grapes, ears of Wheat, and all sorts
of fruit. The food of the Satyrs was believed, by the early Romans,
to be the root of the Orchis or Satyrion; its aphrodisiacal qualities
exciting them to those excesses to which they are stated to have been
so strongly addicted.
A Roumanian legend[9] tells of a beauteous sylvan nymph called the
Daughter of the Laurel, who is evidently akin to the Dryads and wood
nymphs; and Mr. Ralston, in an article on ‘Forest and Field Myths,’[10]
gives the following variation of the story:--“There was once a
childless wife who used to lament, saying, ‘If only I had a child, were
it but a Laurel berry!’ And heaven sent her a golden Laurel berry; but
its value was not recognised, and it was thrown away. From it sprang
a Laurel-tree, which gleamed with golden twigs. At it a prince, while
following the chase, wondered greatly; and determining to return to
it, he ordered his cook to prepare a dinner for him beneath its shade.
He was obeyed. But during the temporary absence of the cook, the tree
opened, and forth came a fair maiden who strewed a handful of salt over
the viands, and returned into the tree, which immediately closed upon
her. The prince returned and scolded the cook for over-salting the
dinner. The cook declared his innocence; but in vain. The next day just
the same occurred. So on the third day the prince kept watch. The tree
opened, and the maiden came forth. But before she could return into the
tree, the prince caught hold of her and carried her off. After a time
she escaped from him, ran back to the tree, and called upon it to open.
But it remained shut. So she had to return to the prince, and after a
while he deserted her. It was not till after long wandering that she
found him again, and became his loyal consort.” Mr. Ralston says that
in Hahn’s opinion the above story is founded on the Hellenic belief in
Dryads; but he himself thinks it belongs to an earlier mythological
family than the Hellenic, though the Dryad and the Laurel-maiden are
undoubtedly kinswomen. “Long before the Dryads and Oreads had received
from the sculpturesque Greek mind their perfection of human form and
face, trees were credited with woman-like inhabitants, capable of doing
good and ill, and with power of their own, apart from those possessed
by their supernatural tenants, of banning and blessing. Therefore was
it that they were worshipped, and that recourse was had to them for
the strengthening of certain rites. Similar ideas and practices still
prevail in Asia: survivals of them may yet be found in Europe.”
[9] The legend is given in Part II., under the heading “LAUREL.”
[10] _Contemporary Review_, Vol. xxxi., p. 520.
In Moldavia there lingers the cherished tradition of Mariora Floriora,
the Zina (nymph) of the mountains, the Sister of the Flowers, at whose
approach the birds awoke and sung merrily, desirous of anticipating her
every wish, and the wild flowers exhaled their choicest perfume, and,
bowing gently in the wind, proffered every virtue contained in their
blossoms. Yielding one day to the fascinations of a mortal, Mariora
Floriora gave herself to him, and forgot her flowers, so that the
leaves fell yellow and withered, and the flowers drooped their heads
and faded. Then they complained to the Sun that the flower nymph no
longer tended them, but rambled over the mountains and meadows absorbed
with her mortal lover. So a Zméu (evil spirit) was sent, who seized her
in his arms, and carried her away over the mountain. Now she is never
seen; but when the moon is shining on a serene night, her plaintive
murmurs are sometimes heard in the caverns of the mountain.
Sacred Groves and their Denizens.
The Roman goddess Pomona, we are told by Ovid, came of the family of
Dryads, or sylvan deities; and although “the Nymph frequented not the
fluttering stream, nor meads, the subject of a virgin’s dream,” yet--
“In garden culture none could her excel,
Or form the pliant souls of plants so well,
Or to the fruit more gen’rous flavours lend,
Or teach the trees with nobler loads to bend.”
As a deity, Pomona presided over gardens and all sorts of fruit-trees,
and was honoured with a temple in Rome, and a regular priest, called
_Flamen Pomonalis_, who offered sacrifices to her divinity for the
preservation of fruit. In this respect Pomona differed from the other
Sylvans, who were only regarded as semi-gods and goddesses. The worship
of these sylvan deities, however, by the Greeks and Romans caused
them to regard with reverence and respect their nemorous habitations.
Hence we find that, like the Egyptians, they were fond of surrounding
their temples and fanes with groves and woods, which in time came to
be regarded as sacred as the temples themselves. Pliny, speaking of
groves, says: “These were of old the temples of the gods; and after
that simple but ancient custom, men at this day consecrate the fairest
and goodliest trees to some deity or other; nor do we more adore our
glittering shrines of gold and ivory than the groves in which, with
profound and awful silence, we worship them.” Ancient writers often
refer to “vocal forests,”--in their sombre and gloomy recesses, the
frighted wayfarer imagined, as the wind soughed and rustled through the
dense foliage, that the tree spirits were humming some sportive lay,
or--perchance more frequently--chanting weirdly some solemn dirge. The
grove which surrounded Jupiter’s Temple at Dodona was supposed to be
endowed with the gift of prophecy, and oracles were frequently there
delivered by the sacred Oaks.
“Due honours once Dodona’s forest had,
When oracles were through the Oaks conveyed.
When woods instructed prophets to foretel,
And the decrees of fate in trees did dwell.”
In course of time each tree of these sacred groves was held to be
tenanted, or presided over, either by a god or goddess, or by one of
the sylvan semi-deities. Impious was deemed he who dared to profane
the sanctity of one of these nemorous retreats, either by damaging or
by felling the consecrated trees. Rapin, in his Latin poem on Gardens,
says:
“But let no impious axe profane the woods,
Or violate the sacred shades; the Gods
Themselves inhabit there. Some have beheld
Where drops of blood from wounded Oaks distill’d;
Have seen the trembling boughs with horror shake!
So great a conscience did the ancients make
To cut down Oaks, that it was held a crime
In that obscure and superstitious time.
When Driopeius Heaven did provoke,
By daring to destroy th’ Æmonian Oak,
And with it its included Dryad too,
Avenging Ceres then her faith did show
To the wrong’d nymph.”
When threatened with the woodman’s axe, the tutelary genius of the
doomed tree would intercede for its life, the very leaves would sigh
and groan, the stalwart trunk tremble with horror. Ovid relates how
Erisichthon, a Thessalian, who derided Ceres, and cut down the trees
in her sacred groves, was, for his impiety, afflicted with perpetual
hunger. Of one huge old Oak the poet says--
“In the cool dusk its unpierc’d verdure spread
The Dryads oft their hallow’d dances led.”
But the vindictive Erisichthon bade his hesitating servants fell the
venerable tree, and, dissatisfied with their speed, seized an axe, and
approached it, declaring that nothing should save the Oak:--
“He spoke, and as he pois’d a slanting stroke,
Sighs heav’d and tremblings shook the frighted Oak;
Its leaves look’d sickly, pale its Acorns grew,
And its long branches sweat a chilly dew,
But when his impious hand a wound bestow’d,
Blood from the mangled bark in currents flow’d.
* * * * *
The wonder all amaz’d: yet one more bold,
The fact dissuading, strove his axe to hold;
But the Thessalian, obstinately bent,
Too proud to change, too harden’d to repent,
On his kind monitor his eyes, which burn’d
With rage, and with his eyes his weapon, turn’d;
Take the reward (says he) of pious dread;--
Then with a blow lopp’d off his parted head.
No longer check’d, the wretch his crime pursued,
Doubled his strokes, and sacrilege renew’d;
When from the groaning trunk a voice was heard,--
‘A Dryad I,’ by Ceres’ love preferred,
Within the circle of this clasping rind
Coeval grew, and now in ruin join’d;
But instant vengeance shall thy sin pursue,
And death is cheered with this prophetic view.”
_Garth’s Ovid._
Tree Spirits.
Ovid, in his ‘Metamorphoses,’ has told us how, after Daphne had been
changed into a Laurel, the nymph-tree still panted and heaved her
heart; how, when Phaethon’s grief-stricken sisters were transformed
into Poplars, they continued to shed tears, which were changed into
amber; how Myrrha, metamorphosed into a tree, still wept, in her bitter
grief, the precious drops which retain her name; how Dryope, similarly
transformed, imparted her life to the branches, which glowed with
a human heat; and how the tree into which the nymph Lotis had been
changed, shook with sudden horror when its blossoms were plucked and
blood welled from the broken stalks. In these poetic conceptions it is
easy to see the embodiment of a belief very rife among the Greeks and
Romans that trees and shrubs were tenanted in some mysterious manner
by spirits. Thus Virgil tells us that when Æneas had travelled far in
search of the abodes of the blest--
“He came to groves, of happy souls the rest;
To evergreens, the dwellings of the blest.”
Nor was this notion confined simply to the Greeks and Romans, for among
the ancients generally there existed a wide-spread belief that trees
were either the haunts of disembodied spirits, or contained within
their material growth the actual spirits themselves. Evelyn tells us
that “the Ethnics do still repute all great trees to be divine, and
the habitations of souls departed: these the Persians call _Pir_ and
_Imàm_.” The Persians, however, entertaining a profound regard for
trees of unusual magnitude, were of opinion that only the spirits of
the pure and holy inhabited them.
In this respect they differed from the Indians, who believed that both
good and evil spirits dwelt in trees. Thus we read in the story of a
_Brahmadaitya_ (a Bengal folk-tale), of a certain Banyan-tree haunted
by a number of ghosts who wrung the necks of all who were rash enough
to approach the tree during the night. And, in the same tale, we are
told of a Vakula-tree (_Mimusops Elengi_) which was the haunt of a
_Brahmadaitya_ (the ghost of a Brahman who dies unmarried), who was a
kindly and well-disposed spirit. In another folk-tale we are introduced
to the wife of a Brahman who was attacked by a _Sankchinni_, or female
ghost, inhabiting a tree near the Brahman’s house, and thrust by the
vindictive ghost into a hole in the trunk. The Rev. Lal Behari Day
explains that _Sankchinnis_ or _Sankhachurnis_ are female ghosts of
white complexion, who usually stand in the dead of night at the foot
of trees. Sometimes these tree-spirits appear to leave their usual
sylvan abode and enter into human beings, in which case an exorcist is
employed, who detects the presence of the spirit by lighting a piece of
Turmeric root, which is an infallible test, as no ghost can put up with
the smell of burnt Turmeric.
The Shánárs, aborigines of India, believe that disembodied spirits
haunt the earth, dwelling in trees, and taking special delight in
forests and solitary places. Against the malignant influence of these
wandering spirits, protection is sought in charms of various kinds; the
leaves of certain trees being esteemed especially efficacious. Among
the Hindus, if an infant refuse its food, and appear to decline in
health, the inference is drawn that an evil spirit has taken possession
of it. As this demon is supposed to dwell in some particular tree, the
mothers of the northern districts of Bengal frequently destroy the
unfortunate infant’s life by depositing it in a basket, and hanging the
same on the demon’s tree, where it perishes miserably.[11]
[11] ‘The Land of the Veda,’ by Rev. P. Percival.
In Burmah the worship of Nats, or spirits of nature, is very general.
Indeed among the Karens, and numerous other tribes, this spirit-worship
is their only form of belief. The shrines of these Nats are often, in
the form of cages, suspended in Peepul or other trees--by preference
the Le’pan tree, from the wood of which coffins are made. When a Burman
starts on a journey, he hangs a bunch of Plantains, or a spray of the
sacred _Eugenia_, on the pole of his buffalo cart, to conciliate any
spirit he may intrude upon. The lonely hunter in the forest deposits
some Rice, and ties together a few leaves, whenever he comes across
some imposing-looking tree, lest there should be a Nat dwelling there.
Should there be none, the tied-back leaves will, at any rate, stand in
evidence to the Nat or demon who presides over the forest. Some of the
Nats or spirits are known far and wide by special or generic names.
There is the Hmin Nat who lives in woods, and shakes those he meets
so that they go mad. There is the Akakasoh, who lives in the tops of
trees; Shekkasoh, who lives in the trunk; and Boomasoh, who dwells
contentedly in the roots. The presence of spirits or demons in trees
the Burman believes may always be ascertained by the quivering and
trembling of the leaves when all around is still.
Schweinfurth, the African explorer, tells us that, at the present day,
among the Bongos and the Niam-Niams, woods and forests are regarded
with awe as weird and mysterious places, the abodes of supernatural
beings. The malignant spirits who are believed to inhabit the dark and
gloomy forests, and who inspire the Bongos with extraordinary terror,
have, like the Devil, wizards, and witches, a distinctive name: they
are called _bitâbohs_; whilst the sylvan spirits inhabiting groves and
woods are known as _rangas_. Under this last designation are comprised
owls of different species, bats, and the _ndorr_, a small ape, with
large red eyes and erect ears, which shuns the light of day, and hides
itself in the trunks of trees, from whence it comes forth at night.
As a protection against the influence of these malignant spirits of
the woods, the Bongos have recourse to certain magical roots which are
sold to them by their medicine-men. According to those worthies no one
can enter into communication with the wood spirits except by means of
certain roots, which enable the possessor to exorcise evil spirits, or
give him the power of casting spells. All old people, but especially
women, are suspected of having relations, more or less intimate, with
the sylvan spirits, and of consulting the malign demons of the woods
when they wish to injure any of their neighbours. This belief in evil
spirits, which is general among the Bongos and other tribes of Africa,
exists also among the Niam-Niams. For the latter, the forest is the
abode of invisible beings who are constantly conspiring to injure
man; and in the rustling of the foliage they imagine they hear the
mysterious dialogues of the ghostly inhabitants of the woods.
The ancient German race, in whom there existed a deep reverence
for trees, peopled their groves and forests with a whole troup of
_Waldgeister_, both beneficent and malevolent. A striking example is
to be seen in the case of the Elder, in which dwells the _Hylde-moer_
(Elder-mother), or _Hylde-vinde_ (Elder-queen), who avenges all
injuries done to the Elder-tree. On this account Elder branches may not
be cut until permission has been asked of the _Hylde-moer_. In Lower
Saxony the woodman will, on his bended knee, ask permission of the
Elder-tree before cutting it, in these words: “Lady Elder, give me some
of thy wood; then will I give thee, also, some of mine when it grows
in the forest.” This formula is repeated three times.
Nearly allied to the tree-spirits were the Corn-spirits,[12] which
haunted and protected the green or yellow fields. Mr. Ralston tells us
that by the popular fancy they were often symbolised under the form
of wolves, or of “buckmen,” goat-legged creatures, similar to the
classic Satyrs. “When the wind blows the long Grass or waving Corn,
German peasants still say, ‘The Grass-wolf’ or ‘The Corn-wolf,’ is
abroad! In some places the last sheaf of Rye is left as a shelter to
the _Roggenwolf_, or Rye-wolf, during the winter’s cold; and in many a
summer or autumn festive rite, that being is represented by a rustic,
who assumes a wolf-like appearance. The Corn-spirit, however, was often
symbolised under a human form.”
[12] Further details will be found in the succeeding chapter.
The belief in the existence of a spirit whose life is bound up in
that of the tree it inhabits remains to the present day. There is a
wide-spread German belief that if a sick man is passed through a cleft
made in a tree, which is immediately afterwards bound up, the man
and the tree become mysteriously connected--if the tree flourishes
so will the man; but if it withers he will die. Should, however, the
tree survive the man, the soul of the latter will inhabit the tree;
and (according to Pagan tradition) if the tree be felled and used for
ship-building, the dead man’s ghost becomes the haunting genius of
the ship. This strange notion may have had its origin in the classic
story of the Argonauts and their famous ship. A beam on the prow of the
_Argo_ had been cut by Minerva out of the forest of Dodona, where the
trees were thought to be inhabited by oracular spirits: hence the beam
retained the power of giving oracles to the voyagers, and warned them
that they would never reach their country till Jason had been purified
of the murder of Absyrtus. There is a story that tells how, when a
musician cut a piece of wood from a tree into which a girl had been
metamorphosed by her angry mother, he was startled to see blood oozing
from the wound. And when he had shaped it into a bow, and played with
it upon his violin before her mother, such a heart-rending wail made
itself heard, that the mother was struck with remorse, and bitterly
repented of her hasty deed. Mr. Ralston quotes a Czekh story of a Nymph
who appeared day by day among men, but always went back to her willow
by night. She married a mortal, bare him children, and lived happily
with him, till at length he cut down her Willow-tree: that moment his
wife died. Out of this Willow was made a cradle, which had the power of
instantly lulling to sleep the babe she had left behind her; and when
the babe became a child, it was able to hold converse with its dead
mother by means of a pipe, cut from the twigs growing on the stump,
which once had been that mother’s abiding-place.
[Headpiece]
CHAPTER VIII.
Plants of the Devil.
We have seen, in a former chapter, how intimate has been the
association between flowers and the Fairies, Pixies, or Elves, and,
therefore, it is not surprising to find that the King of Fairies, Puck,
has a plant specially dedicated to him. This is the _Lycoperdon_, or
Puckfist. Dr. Prior points out that in some old works Puck, who has the
credit of being partial to coarse practical jokes, is alluded to as
no other than the Devil. His very name would seem to be derived from
_Pogge_, a toad, which in popular opinion was the impersonation of the
Devil: hence Toadstools, Pixie-stools, or Paddock-stools, were thought
to be but Devil’s droppings--the work of those Elves
“Whose pastime
Is to make moonlight Mushrooms.”
In Sussex, the Puff-ball is called Puck’s Stool, and the needle of the
_Scandix Pecten_ is called Pook-needle.
Loki, the Scandinavian malignant spirit, possesses many of the
characteristics of Puck, and is in point of fact the Devil of the old
Norse mythology. In Jutland, _Polytrichum commune_ is called Loki’s
Oats, and the Yellow Rattle is known there as Loki’s Purse. The Trolls,
a race of gigantic demons, or evil spirits, spoken of in Northern
mythology, have given their name to the Globe-flower (_Trollius_),
which is also known as the Troll-flower, probably on account of its
acrid and poisonous qualities having suggested its use by these
followers of the Devil.
Speaking generally, trees, plants, and herbs of evil omen may be
placed in the category of plants of the Devil, and amongst them must
be included such as have the reputation of being accursed, enchanted,
unlucky, and sorrowful. The plants dedicated to Hecate, the Grecian
goddess of Hell, who presided over magic and enchantments, as well
as those made use of by her daughters Medea and Circe, in their
sorceries, were all satanic. Circe was specially distinguished for
her knowledge of venomous herbs, and in later times the plants used
by her were universally employed by witches and sorcerers in their
incantations. The spells of wizards, magicians, witches, and others
who were acquainted with the secrets appertaining to the black art,
were always made in the name of the Devil: hence all herbs and plants
employed by them became veritable plants of the Devil. These plants are
particularised in the chapter on Plants of the Witches.
The belief that certain trees are haunted by the Devil, or by malignant
demons who act as his satellites, is of world-wide extent, and, in
connection with tree spirits, the subject has been incidentally touched
upon in the previous chapter. A Russian proverb says that “From all
old trees proceeds either an owl or a Devil;” and in many countries
where a tree becomes old and past bearing, its sterility is attributed
to a demon. The Albanians believe that trees are haunted by Devils
which they call _aërico_. Certain trees are especially affected by
these aerial demons: these are the Fig, the Walnut, the wild Plum, the
Mulberry, the Sycamore, the Pimpernel, the Willow, and in general all
fruit trees (but especially the Cherry) when they are old and cease to
bear. As regards sterile fruit trees, the belief that they are haunted
by Devils is common to many countries. In some parts of England,
Blackberries are never picked after Michaelmas-day, when the Devil is
supposed to stamp them with his hoof. Mrs. Latham has told us that the
watchfulness of the Devil makes it dangerous to go out nutting on a
Sunday, and worthy mothers may be heard warning their children against
it by assuring them that if they do so, “the Devil will hold down the
branches for them.” Mr. Sawyer has pointed out that the Sussex saying,
“as black as the Devil’s nutting bag,” is associated with this belief.
St. Ouen, writing in the 17th century, cautioned shepherds and others
never to let their flocks pass a hollow tree, because by some means or
other the Devil was sure to have taken possession of it.
Moore, in ‘The Light of the Haram,’ speaks of the _Siltim_, a demon
which is thought to haunt the forests of Persia, and to lurk among
the trees in human form. The Indian demons _bhûtûs_ and _piçacâs_ are
represented as dwelling in trees.
In the vicinity of Mount Etna the country people have a very strong
aversion to sleep beneath trees on St. John’s Eve, lest they should
become possessed of an evil spirit; for according to popular tradition,
on that night--the shortest of the year--the demons inhabiting trees
and plants quit their leafy habitations, and seek refuge in the first
object they come across.
In Germany, numerous demons are recognised as dwelling in trees; and,
according to Prof. Mannhardt, whole troops of emissaries of the Devil
are thought to haunt the fields, and lurk among the crops of Wheat
and vegetables. Among the most noticeable of this satanic legion are
the _Aprilochse_, a demon infesting the fields in April; _Auesau_, or
Sow of the Wheatsheaf, a spirit which lies concealed among the Corn;
_Baumesel_, a goblin of the trees; _Erntebock_, a demon which steals
part of the Corn during harvest; _Farre_, or the Little Bull, one
of a number of spirits infesting the Corn-fields; _Gerstenwolf_, or
Barley-wolf, a demon which devours the Barley; _Graswolf_, a spirit
haunting pastures; _Habergeiss_, or _Haferbock_, Goat of the Oats;
_Halmbock_, a goblin whose hiding-place is among straw or the stems of
plants; _Heukatze_ and _Heupudel_, Hay Cat and Pup, demons infesting
Hay; _Kartoffelwolf_, or Potato-goblin; _Katzenmann_, or Man-Cat,
a monster dwelling amidst Wheat; _Kleesau_, or Sow of the Clover;
_Krautesel_, or Ass of the Grass, a spirit especially inimical to
Lettuces; _Kornwolf_, _Kornsau_, _Kornstier_, _Kornkuh_, _Kornmutter_,
_Kornkind_, and _Kornmaid_, all demons, spirits, and monsters infesting
Corn.
In some parts of Russia the Devil is invoked through the medium of a
herb. On the occasion of a marriage, the peasants put into a bottle
of brandy a certain plant called the Herb of the Devil; the bottle is
then ornamented with ribbons and coloured tapers, and armed with this
present the father of the intended bride pays a visit to the father of
the bridegroom, who offers to ransom this bottled Devil by the payment
of five kopecks. “No,” says the girl’s father, “Our princess wishes
more than that.” So after further bargaining, a price of fifty kopecks
is finally agreed upon. In certain parts of Russia the Tobacco-plant
is deemed a diabolic plant. In India the Witches’ Herb (_Sinapis
racemosa_) is called _Asurî_ (the she-devil).
A few plants named after dragons, serpents, or snakes, and many of
those which are of a poisonous or noxious nature, must be classed
with the plants of the Devil; such as, for example, the Upas, the
Manchineel, the Magnolia, the Oleander, that deadly Persian flower, the
_Kerzereh_, the fœtid _Stapelia_, the _Phallus impudicus_, the Thief’s
Plant of the Franche-Comté Mountains, which opens all doors; that
satanic plant, the sap of which gives to Witches the power of riding
in the air on a broomstick; and the accursed plant which misleads the
traveller, dragging him from one path to another, but always leading
him farther and farther away from his goal, until at last he sinks
exhausted with fatigue.
Certain plants and trees have become ill-omened from having received
the maledictions of some divine personage. Several were cursed by the
Virgin Mary during her flight into Egypt. The tree which yielded the
timber of the Cross became for all time “the accursed tree”; the tree
on which Judas hung himself became also a satanic tree. Under this ban
have been included the Fig, the Tamarisk, the Aspen, the Dog Rose, the
Elder, and the Cercis or Judas Tree.
Many plants, both in England and on the Continent, have been specially
named after the Devil. Thus we find that, on account of the fœtid
odour of the gum or juice obtain from its root, _Ferula Assafœtida_
is known in Germany, Sweden, and Italy as Devil’s Dung (_Stercus
Diaboli_), although it is employed in Persia and Arabia as a medicine,
The Poplar-leaved Fig is the Devil’s tree; the berry of the Deadly
Nightshade, the Devil’s berry: the plant itself is called Death’s Herb,
and in olden times its fruit bore the name of Dwale-berry--the word
_dvale_, which is Danish, meaning a deadly trance. An old German name
for the Briony was Devil’s Cherry. The Germans, also, called the Petty
Spurge (_Euphorbia Peplus_) _Teufelsmilch_, Devil’s Milk; a species
of ground Moss, _Teufelsklaeun_, Devil’s Claws. The Clematis is the
Devil’s Thread; Indigo, Devil’s Dye; and the Mandrake, from the lurid
glare its leaves emit during the night-time, the Devil’s Candle. In
an old work we find the description of a small herb called _Clavis
Diaboli_, which is so poisonous that if cattle eat it they immediately
begin to swell, and eventually die, unless by good luck they should
happen to catch sight of another plant of the same species, when the
poison is dispelled and the animals will recover. We are likewise
assured that the seed is so poisonous as to render it unsafe for anyone
to walk over a plant of this genus unless his feet have previously been
wrapped in the leaves.
_Scabiosa succisa_ is generally known as the Devil’s-Bit Scabious, a
name it obtained from a notion which was formerly very prevalent that
the short blackish root of the plant had originally been bitten short
by the Devil out of spite to mankind, because he knew that otherwise
it would be good for many profitable uses. This belief was also very
general on the Continent, as the plant bears a corresponding name in
France, Germany, and Holland. Dr. Prior quotes a legend recorded by
Threlkeld, that “the root was once longer, until the Devil bit away the
rest, for spite; for he needed it not to make him sweat who is always
tormented with fear of the day of judgment.” According to the _Ortus
Sanitatis_, on the authority of Oribasius, the plant was called _Morsus
Diaboli_, “because with this root the Devil practised such power, that
the mother of God, out of compassion, took from the Devil the means
to do so with it any more; and in the great vexation that he had that
the power was gone from him, he bit it off, so that it grows no more
to this day.” Gerarde says: “The great part of the root seemeth to be
bitten away: old fantasticke charmers report that the Devil did bite it
for envie, because it is an herbe that hath so many good vertues, and
is so beneficial to mankinde.” After recounting minor virtues, the old
herbalist remarks that Devil’s Bit is potential against the stingings
of venomous beasts, poisons, and pestilent diseases, and will consume
and waste away plague sores, if pounded and laid upon them.
The _Nigella Damascena_ is called Devil-in-the-Bush, from its round
capsules peering from a bush of finely-divided involucre. The long awns
of _Scandix Pecten_ are termed the Devil’s Darning Needles, the beans
of its seed vessels being called Venus’ comb. The Dodder (_Cuscuta_)
has gained the opprobrious epithet of Devil’s Guts, from the
resemblance of its stem to cat-gut, and its mischievous tendencies.
The acrid milk or sap extracted from the Euphorbia has, from its
poisonous qualities, obtained the name of Devil’s Milk. The poisonous
Puff-balls (_Lycoperdon_) are called Devil’s Snuff-boxes, on account of
the dust or particles they contain, which have long borne an ill name.
Gerarde says that “it is very dangerous for the eies, for it hath been
often seene that divers have beene pore-blinde ever after when some
small quantitie thereof hath beene blowne into their eies.” The Fungus
_Exidia glandulosa_ (Witches’ Butter) is known in Sweden as the Devil’s
Butter.
Although the Devil extends his authority over so many plants, it
is satisfactory to know that the St. John’s Wort is a dispeller of
demons (_Fuga dæmonum_), and that there is in Russia a plant called
the Devil-chaser. Prof. De Gubernatis tells us that he has received
from the Princess Galitzin Prazorova the following particulars of this
plant, which is known as _Certagon_. It grows in meads and woods, is
somewhat thorny, and bears a deep-blue flower. It protects infants
from fright, and drives away the Devil. Sometimes the plant is boiled
in water, and the children are bathed in it. At other times the plant
is merely placed in the cradle. If mourners are prostrated with grief
and the recollection of the departed one (which is simply a visitation
of the Devil) it is only necessary to hold up a sprig of the mystic
_Certagon_, when the excessive grief will be assuaged, and the Devil
will be compelled to flee. The best way to exorcise an evil spirit
from the dead is to sit on the pall, to chew some seeds of Camphor
while combing the hair of the corpse, and finally to wave aloft the
_Certagon_--the Devil-chaser.
Noxious, Deadly, and Ill-Omened Plants.
Prof. De Gubernatis remarks that “there are good and bad herbs, and
good and bad plants: the good are the work of Ormuzd, the bad the
work of Ahriman.” All these bad herbs, plants, and trees, noxious,
poisonous, and deadly--the dangerous classes in the vegetable
kingdom--are of evil augury, and belong to the category of Plants of
the Devil.
There are many trees and plants which emit emanations highly injurious,
and in some cases fatal to life. Perhaps the most notorious of these is
the deadly Upas, which rises in the ‘Valley of Death’ in Java, where it
is said to blight all neighbouring vegetation, and to cause the very
birds that approach it in their flight to drop down lifeless. No animal
can live where its baneful influence extends, and no man durst approach
its pestilential shade.
The _Strychnos Tienté_ is the plant which yields the Upas Tienté, one
of the Javanese poisons; it contains strychnia, and is as deadly as
strychnine itself. The _Upas Antiar_ is another Javanese poison--a
bitter, milky juice, which acts violently on the heart.
The noxious exudations of the Manchineel-tree are said to cause certain
death to those who rashly sleep beneath its foliage. The wonderfully
fragrant blossoms of the _Magnolia grandiflora_ emit so strong a
perfume that, when inhaled in the immediate neighbourhood of a group
in flower, it becomes overpowering. The Indians will never sleep under
Magnolia in blossom.
Linnæus has mentioned a case in which the odour of the Oleander, or
Rose-bay (_Nerium Oleander_), proved fatal. The foliage and flowers of
this shrub will exercise a deadly influence on many quadrupeds: hence
it is called in India the Horse-killer, and in Italy, Ass-bane.
The Elder-tree is reputed to exhale so narcotic a scent when in
flower, that it is unwholesome for animals to rest under its shade;
and it is considered unadvisable to plant one of these trees where its
exhalations can be wafted into a sleeping apartment. On account of this
pungent smell, country people often strike with Elder-boughs the leaves
of fruit-trees and vegetables, in order that by being impregnated with
the scent of the Elder-berries, they may prove noisome to troublesome
insects.
The _Jatropha urens_, a native of Brazil, is a plant the properties
of which are so noxious that its possession is absolutely fraught
with danger. Not many years ago the Curator of Kew Gardens was one
day reaching over a plant when its fine bristly stings touched his
wrist: the first sensation was a numbness and swelling of the lips; the
action of the poison was on the heart, circulation was stopped, and the
unfortunate Curator soon fell unconscious. A doctor was fetched, who
administered antidotes effectually; but no gardener could afterwards
be got to come within arm’s length of the diabolical plant; and both
it and another specimen, subsequently introduced, shortly afterwards
mysteriously disappeared from the house.
The _Nitraria tridentata_, which is by some believed to be the
Lotos-tree of the ancients, grows in the Desert of Soussa, near Tunis,
and is called _Damouch_ by the Arabs, who are fully alive to the
semi-intoxicating qualities of its berries, which produce a state of
lassitude similar to the infatuating food of the Lotophagi.
Alex. Pouchkine has given a vivid description of the Indian _Antchar_,
thought to be a variety _Aconitum ferox_. Growing in a wild and
sterile desert, this _Antchar_ has its roots and the sickly verdure
of its branches steeped in poison. Melted by the mid-day heat, the
poison filters through the plant’s outer skin in clammy drops: in the
evening these become congealed into a transparent gum. Birds turn aside
directly they see this deadly plant; the tiger avoids it; a passing
puff of wind shakes its foliage,--the wind hurries on tainted and
infected; a shower waters for an instant its drooping leaves, and from
its branches forthwith falls a deadly rain on the burning soil. But a
man has made a sign: another man obeys. The _Antchar_ must be procured.
He departs without hesitation; and on the morrow brings back the
deadly gum, and some drooping stalks and leaves, while from his pallid
brow the cold sweat falls in streams. He staggers, falls on the mats of
the tent, and, poor miserable slave, expires at the feet of his proud
master. And the prince steeps his ruthless arrows in the cruel poison;
they are destined to carry destruction to his neighbours across the
frontier.
In Mexico there grows a herb, familiarly known there as the Loco or
Rattle Weed, which has such a powerful effect on animals, that horses
eating it are driven raving mad.
In Scotland there is a certain weed that grows in and about the Borgie
Well at Cambuslang, near Glasgow, which possesses the awful property of
making all who drink of its waters mad. Hence the local saying:
“A drink of the Borgie, a bite of the weed,
Sets a’ the Cam’slang folk wrang in the head.”
Some few plants are repellent from the obnoxious smells which they
emit: among these are the _Phallus impudicus_, and many of the
Stapelias. One--the Carrion-flower--has an odour so like putrid meat,
that flesh flies, attracted by it, deposit their ova in the flowers;
and when the maggots are in due course produced, they perish miserably
for lack of food.
Zahn, in his _Speculæ Physico-Mathematico-Historicæ_ (1696) enumerates
several trees and plants which had, in his day, acquired a very
sinister reputation. He tells us that--
“Herrera speaks of a tree, in Granada, called _Aquapura_, which is so
poisonous, that when the Spaniards, at first ignorant of its deadly
power, slept under its shade, their members were all swelled, as if
they had taken dropsy. The barbarians also, who lingered naked or
intoxicated under it, had their skin broken by large swellings, which
distended their intestines, and brought them to a miserable death.
“There is a tree in Hispaniola, bearing Apples of a very fragrant
smell, which, if they are tasted, prove hurtful and deadly. If any one
abides for a time beneath its shade he loses sight and reason, and
cannot be cured save by a long sleep. Similar trees are found in the
island Codega.
“In the same island, Hispaniola, another kind of tree is found which
produces fruit formed like Pears, very pleasant to the sight, and of
delicious odour. If any one lies beneath its shade and falls asleep,
his face begins to swell, and he is seized with severe pain in the
head, and with the sorest cold. In the same island another tree is
found, whose leaf, if touched, causes at once a tumour of a very
painful nature to break out, which can only be checked and healed
by frequent washing with sea water. There also grows a plant called
_Cohobba_, which is said to be lymphatic. It intoxicates by its mere
smell, and renders fanatical, Cardanus believes this plant to be of
the _Stramonium_ (_Datura_) family, which infuriates those who drink it.
“In New Andalusia very poisonous trees are seen. If one of their leaves
were to fall upon a person, he would be killed at once, unless the
place be quickly smeared with the spittle of a fasting man. These trees
are called pestiferous and pestilent, from the sudden death which they
cause, like the plague.
“In the island of San Juan de Porto Ricco grow certain small
fruit-bearing trees which are so pernicious that if a person lies down
and sleeps beneath their shade, he is seized with paralysis and cannot
move from the place. Should, perchance, a fish taste of their fallen
leaves, and a man eat the fish, he either dies at once or at least
loses all his hair.
“On an island near Brazil a very pleasant tree is said to grow, whose
leaves are not unlike those of the Laurel. But if any person should
touch ‘a leaf of this tree, and then touch his face and eyes with the
hand, he is at once deprived of sight and suffers the severest pains
in his eyes. Not far distant, however, there grows another tree, whose
leaves, if rubbed over the eyes, restore the eyesight, and remove the
pains.
“Kircher relates that a wonderful tree is found in the Philippine
Islands. Its leaves, facing eastward, are healthy, but those facing
westward are poisonous.
“Clusius states that in America there is a kind of Larch, which
makes men who sleep under its shade so delirious, that when they are
awakened, they are out of their minds and assume strange attitudes.
Some act like prophets, some like soldiers, some like merchants,
everyone for the time being as his natural propensity impels him.
“In the bishopric of New Spain, called Antequera, around the valley of
Guaxaca, a strange poisonous plant is found which, if given to anyone
in food or drink, at once causes death. If it is dried and removed
anywhere, according to the time from its being cut, it kills. Thus: if
it has been cut for a year, so after a year it causes death; if for a
month, then after a month it brings death.
“The inhabitants of Macassar in the island of Celebes obtain from a
certain tree growing there a most deadly and virulent poison, in which
they dip their weapons. So pestiferous is this poisonous tree, that the
earth around it for some distance produces neither grass nor vegetable
life of any kind. Although instant death may sometimes be avoided by
means of antidotes, yet the victim is doomed to die even after a lapse
of two or three years. Married men and Mushroom-eaters are more subject
to the action of this poison than other people.
“_Ophiusa_, in the island of Elephantine, in Ethiopia, has a livid and
horrid appearance. If persons drink it they become dreadfully afraid of
serpents--so much so, that they commit suicide. Palm wine, however, is
said to counteract its influence.
“The plant called _Apium risus_ is noxious, through causing those who
partake of it to die of excessive laughter. Apuleius says that this
is more particularly the case when the herb is taken by a person who
has not broken his fast. From the fact that the plant was also known
as _Sardonia_ arose the expression “sardonic smile.” People who taste
it do not die at once from laughter, but, as Salustius relates, rather
from the contraction of the nerves of the lips and the muscles of the
mouth; but they appear to die by laughing.
“In Bactria and around the Dnieper, a plant called _Gelotophyllis_
is said to grow, which, if it be drunk with wine and myrrh, produces
continuous laughter. A similar result is produced by _Arum Ægyptiacum_,
when eaten, and by the flowers or seed of the _Datura_.
“_Therionarca_ grows in Cappadocia and Mysia. All wild animals which
touch it become torpid, and can only regain animation by being
besprinkled with the water voided by hyænas.”
[Tailpiece]
[Headpiece]
CHAPTER IX.
Plants of the Witches.
Hecate, the Grecian goddess of the infernal regions, presided over
magic and enchantment, and may fairly be styled the goddess, queen,
and patroness of Witches and sorcerers. She was acquainted with the
properties of every herb, and imparted this knowledge to her daughters
Medea and Circe.[13] To this trio of classical Witches were specially
consecrated the following herbs:--The Mandrake, the Deadly Nightshade,
the Common Nightshade, the Wolfs-bane, the Pontic Azalea, the Cyclamen,
the Cypress, Lavender, Hyssop-leaved Mint, the Poley or Mountain
Germander, the Ethiopian Pepper, the Corn Feverfew, the Cardamom, the
Musk Mallow, the Oriental Sesame, the rough Smilax, the Lion’s-foot
Cudweed (a love philtre), and Maidenhair, a plant particularly dear to
Pluto. Medea was specially cognisant of the qualities of the Meadow
Saffron, Safflower, Dyer’s Alkanet, the clammy Plantain or Fleawort,
the Chrysanthemum, and the brown-berried Juniper. All these plants
are, therefore, persistently sought for by Witches, who have not only
the power of understanding and appreciating the value of herbs, but
know also how to render harmless and innocuous plants baleful and
deadly. Thus we find that an Italian Witch, condemned in 1474, was
shown to have sown a certain noxious powder amidst the herbage near her
dwelling, and the unfortunate cows, stricken at first with the Evil
Eye, were at length attacked with a lingering but deadly malady. So,
again, in the ‘Tempest,’ Shakspeare tells us that in the magic rings
traced on the grass by the dance of the Elves, the herbage is imbued
with a bitterness which is noisome to cattle. These rings, which are
often to be met with on the Sussex Downs, are there called Hag-tracks,
because they are thought to be caused by hags and Witches who dance
there at night.
[13] Early Greek writers describe Circe as the daughter of Sol and
Perseis, and Medea as her niece.
It is recorded that, during the period of the Witch persecutions,
whoever found himself unexpectedly under an Elder-tree was
involuntarily seized with such horror, that he in all probability fell
into an ecstatic or hysterical state. Although not one of the trees
dedicated to Hecate and her Witch progeny, the Elder appears to have
invariably possessed a certain weird attraction for mischievous Elves
and Witches, who are fond of seeking the shelter of its pendent boughs,
and are wont to bury their satanic offspring, with certain cabalistic
ceremonies, beneath its roots.
These satanic children of Witches are elfish creatures, sometimes
butterflies, sometimes bumble bees, sometimes caterpillars or worms.
They are called good or bad things--Holds or Holdikens. The Witches
injure cattle with them; conjure them into the stem of a tree; and,
as we have seen, bury them under the Elder-bushes; then, as the
caterpillars eat the foliage of the tree, the hearts of those people
are troubled of whom the Witches think.
The ill-omened _Cercis Siliquastrum_, or Judas Tree, is reputed to
be specially haunted by Witches, who experience a grim pleasure in
assembling around the tree on which the traitorous disciple is said to
have hung himself. Perhaps it is they who have spread the tradition
that death overtakes anyone who is unfortunate enough to fall into one
of these trees.
The Witches of the Tyrol are reputed to have a great partiality for
Alder-trees.
Witches are fond of riding about through the air in the dead of night,
and perform long journeys to attend their meetings. Matthison tells us
that
“From the deep mine rush wildly out
The troop of Gnomes in hellish rout:
Forth to the Witches’ club they fly;
The Griffins watch as they go by.
The horn of Satan grimly sounds;
On Blocksberg’s flanks strange din resounds,
And Spectres crowd its summit high.”
Their favourite steeds for these midnight excursions are besoms, which
are generally to be found ready to hand; but the large Ragwort (which
in Ireland is called the Fairies’ Horse) is highly prized for aerial
flights. Bulrushes are also employed for locomotive purposes, and other
plants are used for equipments, as we read in ‘The Witch of Fife’:--
“The first leet night, quhan the new moon set,
Quhan all was dousse and mirk,
We saddled our naigis wi’ the Moon-fern leif,
And rode fra Kilmerrin Kirk.
Some horses were of the Brume-cane framit,
And some of the greine Bay-tree,
But mine was made of are Humloke schaw,
And a stout stallion was he.”
William of Auverne, who wrote in the thirteenth century, states that
when the Witches of his time wished to go to the place of rendezvous,
they took a Reed or Cane, and, on making some magical signs, and
uttering certain barbarous words, it became transformed into a horse,
which carried them thither with extraordinary rapidity.
If the Witches are married, it becomes necessary to administer to
their husbands a potion that shall cause them to slumber and keep them
asleep during the Witches’ absence in the night. For this purpose the
Sleep-Apple, a mossy sort of excrescence on the Wild Rose, and Hawthorn
(called in the Edda Sleep-Thorn), are employed, because they will not
allow anyone to awake till they are taken away. A very favourite plant
made use of by American Witches to produce a similar result, is the
_Flor de Pesadilla_, or Nightmare Flower of Buenos Ayres, a small,
dark-green foliaged plant, with lanceolate leaves and clusters of
greenish-white flowers, which emit a powerful narcotic smell. From the
acrid milky juice pressed from the stem of this plant, Witches obtain
a drug which, administered to their victims, keeps them a prey all
night to terrible dreams, from which they awake with a dull throbbing
sensation in the brain, while a peculiar odour pervades the chamber,
causing the air to appear heavy and stifling.
Ben Jonson, in his ‘Masque of Queens,’ introduces therein a conventicle
of Witches, who, as part of the business which has brought them
together, relate their deeds. One of the hags, who has been gathering
that mysterious plant of superstition, the Mandragora, croaks:--
“I last night lay all alone
On the ground, to hear the Mandrake groan;
And plucked him up, though he grew full low;
And, as I had done, the cock did crow.”
Another, whose sinister proceedings have excited the neighbouring
watch-dogs, remarks:--
“And I ha’ been plucking plants among
Hemlock, Henbane, Adder’s-tongue;
Nightshade, Moonwort, Libbard’s-bane,
And twice by the dogs was like to be ta’en.”
And a third, who has procured a supply of the plants needful for the
working of the Witches’ spells, says:--
“Yes, I have brought to help our vows
Homed Poppy, Cypress boughs,
The Fig-tree wild that grows on tombs,
And juice that from the Larch-tree comes.”
One of the principal results of the knowledge possessed by Witches of
the properties of herbs was the concoction by them of noxious or deadly
potions with which they were enabled to work their impious spells.
Ovid tells us how Medea, in compounding a poisonous draught, employed
Monk’s-hood or Wolfs-bane, the deadly _Aconitum_, that sprang up from
the foam of the savage many-headed Cerberus, the watch-dog of the
infernal regions:--
“Medea to dispatch a dang’rous heir
(She knew him) did a poisonous draught prepare,
Drawn from a drug long while reserved in store,
For desp’rate uses, from the Scythian shore,
That from the Echidnæan monster’s jaws
Derived its origin.”
Medea’s sister, the Enchantress Circe, having been neglected by a youth
for whom she had conceived a passion, turned him, by means of a herb
potion, into a brutal shape, for
“Love refused, converted to disdain.
Then, mixing powerful herbs with magic art,
She changed his form who could not change his heart.”
So intimate was the acquaintance of this celebrated Witch with the
subtle properties of all plants, that by the aid of the noxious juices
she extracted from them, she was enabled to exercise marvellous powers
of enchantment. At her bidding,
“Now strange to tell, the plants sweat drops of blood,
The trees are toss’d from forests where they stood;
Blue serpents o’er the tainted herbage slide,
Pale glaring spectres on the æther ride.”
Circe was assiduous in “simpling on the flow’ry hills,” and her
attendants were taught to despise the ordinary occupations of women:
they were unburdened by household cares,
“But culled, in canisters, disastrous flowers
And plants from haunted heaths and Fairy bowers,
With brazen sickles reap’d at planetary hours
Each dose the goddess weighed with watchful eye;
So nice her art in impious pharmacy.”
Old Gerarde tells us that Circe made use in her incantations and
witchcrafts of the Mullein or Hag-taper (_Verbascum Thapsus_); and
Gower relates of Medea that she employed the Feldwode, which is
probably the same plant, its Anglo-Saxon name being _Feldwyrt_.
“Tho toke she Feldwode and Verveine,
Of herbes ben nought better tweine.”
The composition of philtres, and the working of spells and incantations
to induce love, are amongst the most highly prized of witches’
functions, investing them with a power which they delight to wield, and
leading to much pecuniary profit.
In Moore’s ‘Light of the Haram,’ the Enchantress Namouna, who was
acquainted with all spells and talismans, instructs Nourmahall to
gather at midnight--“the hour that scatters spells on herb and
flower”--certain blossoms that, when twined into a wreath, should act
as a spell to recall her Selim’s love. The flowers gathered, the
Enchantress proceeds to weave the magic chaplet, singing the while--
“I know where the wing’d visions dwell
That around the night-bed play;
I know each herb and floweret’s bell,
Where they hide their wings by day;
Then hasten we, maid,
To twine our braid,
To-morrow the dreams and flowers will fade.
“The image of love, that nightly flies
To visit the bashful maid;
Steals from the Jasmine flower, that sighs
Its soul, like her, in the shade.
The dream of a future happier hour,
That alights on misery’s brow,
Springs out of the silvery Almond flower
That blooms on a leafless bough.
“The visions that oft to worldly eyes
The glitter of mines unfold,
Inhabit the mountain herb that dyes
The tooth of the fawn like gold.
The phantom shapes--oh, touch not them!--
That appal the murderer’s sight,
Lurk in the fleshly Mandrake’s stem,
That shrieks when pluck’d at night!
“The dream of the injur’d, patient mind,
That smiles at the wrongs of men,
Is found in the bruis’d and wounded rind
Of the Cinnamon, sweetest then.
Then hasten we, maid,
To twine our braid,
To-morrow the dreams and flowers will fade.”
The chief strength of poor witches lies in the gathering and boiling of
herbs. The most esteemed herbs for their purposes are the Betony-root,
Henbane, Mandrake, Deadly Nightshade, Origanum, Antirrhinum, female
Phlox, Arum, Red and White Celandine, Millefoil, Horned Poppy, Fern,
Adder’s-tongue, and ground Ivy. Root of Hemlock, “digged in the
dark,” slips of Yew, “slivered in the moon’s eclipse,” Cypress, Wild
Fig, Larch, Broom, and Thorn are also associated with Witches and
their necromancy. The divining Gall-apple of the Oak, the mystic
Mistletoe, the Savin, the Moonwort, the Vervain, and the St. John’s
Wort are considered magical, and therefore form part of the Witches’
pharmacopœia--to be produced as occasion may require, and their juices
infused in the hell-broths, philtres, potions, and baleful draughts
prepared for their enemies. Cuckoo-flowers are gathered in the meadows
on the first of May. Chervil and Pennyroyal are used because they both
have the effect of making anyone tasting their juices see double.
Often many herbs are boiled together--by preference seven or nine.
Three kinds of wood make bewitched water boil. Witch-ointments, to be
effective, must contain seven herbs.
One of the favourite remedies of Scotch Witches is the Woodbine or
Honeysuckle. In effecting their magical cures, they cause their
patients to pass a certain number of times (usually nine) through
a “girth” or garland of Woodbine, repeating the while certain
incantations and invocations. According to Spenser, Witches in the
Spring of every year were accustomed to do penance, and purify
themselves by bathing in water wherein Origane and Thyme had been
placed:--
“Till on a day (that day is every Prime,
When witches wont do penance for their crime)
I chaunst to see her in her proper hew,
Bathing herself in Origane and Thyme.”
In Lower Germany, the Honeysuckle is called _Albranke_, the
Witch-snare. Long running plants and entangled twigs are called
Witch-scapes, and the people believe that a Witch hard pursued could
escape by their means.
On the _Walpurgisnacht_, the German Witches are wont to gather Fern to
render themselves invisible. As a protection against them, the country
people, says Aubrey, “fetch a certain Thorn, and stick it at their
house door, believing the Witches can then do them no harm.” On the way
to the orgies of this night, the Oldenburg Witches are reputed to eat
up all the red buds of the Ash, so that on St. John’s Day the Ash-trees
appear denuded of them.
The German Witches are cunning in the use and abuse of roots: for
example, they recommend strongly the _Meisterwurzel_ (root of the
master), the _Bärwurzel_ (root of the bears), the _Eberwurzel_ (root of
the wild boar), and the _Hirschwurzel_ (root of the stag--a name given
to the Wild Parsley, to the Black Gentian, and to the _Thapsia_), as a
means of making a horse run for three consecutive days without feeding
him.
On St. John’s Eve, the Witches of Russia are busily engaged searching
on the mountains for the _Gentiana amarella_, and on the morning of St.
John’s Day, for the _Lythrum silicaria_, without having found which no
one can hope to light upon the former herb. These herbs being hostile
to Witches, are sought by them only to be destroyed.
In Franche-Comté they tell of a certain satanic herb, of which the
juice gives to Witches the power of riding in the air on a broomstick
when they wish to proceed to their nocturnal meeting.
Plants used for Charms and Spells.
In mediæval times the sick poor were accustomed to seek and find
the relief and cure of their ailments at the hands of studious,
kind-hearted monks, and gentle, sympathetic nuns; but after the
Reformation, the practice of the healing art was relegated either to
charitable gentlewomen, who deemed it part of their duty to master
the mysteries of simpling, or to the Wise Woman of the village,
who frequently combined the professions of midwife and simpler,
and collected and dispensed medical herbs. Too often, however, the
trade in simples and herbs was carried on by needy and ignorant
persons--so-called herbalists, quack doctors, and charlatans, or aged
crones, desirous of turning to account the superficial knowledge
they possessed of the properties of the plants which grew on the
neighbouring hill-sides, or were to be found nearer at hand in the
fields and hedgerows. As these simplers and herbalists often made
serious mistakes in their treatment, and were willing, as a rule, to
supply noisome and poisonous herbs to anyone who cared to pay their
price, it is not to be wondered at that they were often regarded with
dread by their ignorant neighbours, and that eventually they came to be
stigmatised as Wizards and Witches.
In the preface to “The Brittish Physician,” a work issued by one Robert
Turner, “botanical student,” two hundred years ago, the author, after
expatiating on the value of herbs and plants, adds: “but let us not
offer sacrifices unto them, and say charms over them, as the Druids
of old and other heathens; and as do some cacochymists, Medean hags,
and sorcerers nowadays, who, not contented with the lawful use of the
creatures, out of some diabolical intention, search after the more
magical and occult vertues of herbs and plants to accomplish some
wicked ends; and for that very cause, King Hezekiah, fearing lest the
herbals of Solomon should come into profane hands, caused them to be
burned.” The old herbalist was doubtless acquainted with many of the
superstitious practices of the “Medean hags”--the Wise Women, old
wives, and Witches of the country--to whom he so scathingly refers.
These ill-favoured beldames had a panacea for every disease, a charm or
a potion for every disorder, a talisman or amulet against every ill. In
addition to herbs, Rowan-tree, salt, enchanted flints, south-running
water, and doggrel verses were the means employed for effecting a cure;
whilst diseases were supposed to be laid on by forming pictures and
images of clay or wax, by placing a dead hand or mutilated member in
the house of the intended victim, or by throwing enchanted articles
at his door. In reality, however, the mischief was done by means of
poisonous herbs or deadly potions, cunningly prepared by the Witch and
her confederates.
One of the most remarkable of the many superstitions inculcated by
these ignorant and designing Witches and quacks, was the notion that
diseases could be transferred from human beings to trees. Gilbert
White has recorded that at Selborne there stood, in his time, a row
of Pollard-Ashes which, when young and flexible, had been severed and
held open by wedges, while ruptured children, stripped naked, were
pushed through the apertures, under a belief that their infirmity would
be thereby cured. Children were also passed through cleft trees, to
cast out all witchcraft, or to neutralise its baleful effects, and to
protect them from the influence of Witches; and sometimes they were
passed through the branches of a Maple, in order that they might be
long-lived. Sick sheep were made to go through the cleft of a young
Oak, with a view of transferring their diseases to the spirit of the
tree. People afflicted with ague were directed to repair to the Cross
Oaks which grew at the junctions of cross-roads, for the purpose of
transferring to them their malady. Aguish patients were ordered to
proceed without speaking or crossing water, to a lofty Willow, to make
a gash in it, breathe three times into the crevice, close it quickly,
and hasten away without looking back: if they did this correctly, the
ague was warranted to leave them. A twisted neck or cuts in the body
were thought to be cured by twisting a Willow round the affected part.
In the West of England, peasants suffering from blackhead were bidden
to crawl under an arched Bramble, and if they had the toothache, the
prescribed remedy was for them to bite the first Fern that appeared in
Spring. In other parts of the country toothache was cured by sticking
into the bark of a young tree the decayed tooth after it had been
drawn. If a child did not willingly learn to walk, the Wise Woman of
the village would direct its troubled mother to make it creep through
the long withes of the Blackberry-bush, which were grown down to the
earth, and had taken fresh root therein. Sufferers from gout were
relieved by the Witch transferring the disorder to some old Pine-tree,
or rather to the genius inhabiting it. Many magical arts attended the
transference of the disease to the spirit of the vicarious tree, and
the operation was generally accompanied by the recital of some formula.
Amongst the forms of adjuration was the following commencement: “Twig,
I bind thee; fever, now leave me!” A sufferer from cramp was ordered
to stretch himself on a Plum-tree, and say, “Climbing-plant, stand!
Plum-tree, waver.”
If we seek for the origin of this superstitious notion of transferring
diseases to trees, we shall find a clue in the works of Prof.
Mannhardt, who recounts the names of demons which in Germany are
identified with nearly all the maladies of plants, and particularly
with those of Wheat and vegetables.[14] The superstitious country
people, struck with the affinity which exists between the vegetable
world and the animal world, came, in course of time, to think that the
same demon caused the disease of plants and that of man; and therefore
they conceived that, in order to safeguard mankind, it was only
necessary to confine the demon in the plant. Examples of this belief
are still to be found in our own country, and similar superstitious
observances are common on the Continent. The German peasant creeps
through an Oak cleft to cure hernia and certain other disorders; and
the Russian moujik splits an Ilex in order to perform a similar
curative operation. De Gubernatis tells us that the Venetian peasant,
when fever-stricken, repairs to a tree, binds up the trunk, and says
to it thrice, without taking breath, “I place thee here, I leave thee
here, and I shall now depart.” Thereupon the fever leaves the patient;
but if the tree be a fruit tree, it will from that time cease to yield
fruit. In the Netherlands, a countryman who is suffering from the ague
will go early in the morning to an old Willow-tree, tie three knots in
a branch, and say: “Good morning, old one! I give thee the cold; good
morning, old one.” This done, he will turn round quickly, and run off
as fast as he can, without looking behind him.
[14] The names of certain of these demons will be found in the previous
chapter.
But to revert to the superstitious practices of English Witches, Wise
Women, and midwives. One of their prescriptions for the ague was as
follows:--A piece of the nail of each of the patient’s fingers and
toes, and a bit of hair from the nape of the neck, being cut whilst
the patient was asleep, the whole were wrapped up in paper, and the
ague which they represented was put into a hole in an Aspen tree,
and left there, when by degrees the ague would quit the patient’s
body. A very old superstition existed that diseases could be got rid
of by burying them: and, indeed, Ratherius relates that, so early as
the tenth century, a case of epilepsy was cured by means of a buried
Peach-blossom; it is not surprising, therefore, that English Witches
should have professed themselves able to cure certain disorders in this
fashion; and accordingly we find that diseases and the means of their
cure were ordered by them to be buried in the earth and in ants’ nests.
One of the Witches’ most reliable sources of obtaining money from
their dupes was the concoction of love-philtres for despondent swains
and love-sick maidens. In the composition of these potions, the
juices of various plants and herbs were utilised; but these will be
found adverted to in the chapter on Magical Plants. Fresh Orchis was
employed by these cunning and unscrupulous simplers, to beget pure
love; and dried Orchis to check illicit love. Cyclamen was one of the
herbs prescribed by aged crones for a love potion, and by midwives it
was esteemed a most precious and invaluable herb; but an expectant
mother was cautioned to avoid and dread its presence. If, acting on
the advice of the Wise Woman, she ate Quince- and Coriander-seed,
her child, it was promised, would assuredly be ingenious and witty;
but, on the contrary, should she chance to partake too bountifully of
Onions, Beans, or similar vaporous vegetable food, she was warned that
her offspring would be a fool, and possibly even a lunatic. Mothers
were also sagely cautioned that to preserve an infant from evil, it
was necessary to feed it with Ash-sap directly it was born; and they
were admonished that it should never be weaned while the trees were in
blossom, or it would have grey hair.
As relics of the charms and prescriptions of the old Witches, countless
superstitions connected with plants are to be found at the present day
rife in all parts of the country. Of these the following are perhaps
the principal:--For the cure of diseases: Blue Cornflowers gathered
on Corpus Christi Sunday stop nose-bleeding if they are held in the
hand till they are warm. Club Moss is considered good for all diseases
of the eyes, and Euphrasy and Rue for dimness of sight. Cork has the
power of keeping off the cramp, and so have Horse-chesnuts if carried
in the pocket. Elder-sticks in the pocket of a horseman when riding
prevent galling; and the same, with three, five, or seven knots, if
carried in the pocket will ward off rheumatism. A Potato (stolen, if
possible) or a piece of Rowan-wood in the trousers pocket will also
cure rheumatism. The roots of Pellitory of Spain and Tarragon, held
between the teeth, cure the toothache, and so will splinters of an Oak
struck by lightning. Hellebore, Betony, Honesty, and Rue are antidotes
against madness. The root of a male Peony, dried and tied to the neck,
cures epilepsy and relieves nightmare. Castoreum, Musk, Rue-seed, and
Agnus Castus-seed are likewise all remedies for nightmare. Chelidonium
placed under the bare feet will cure jaundice. A twig of Myrtle carried
about the person is efficacious in cases of tumour in the groin. Green
Wormwood placed in the shoes will relieve pains in the stomach of the
wearer. Spurge and Laurel-leaves, if broken off upwards, will cause
vomiting; if downwards, purging. Plantain laid under the feet removes
weariness; and with Mugwort worn beneath the soles of his feet a man
may walk forty miles without tiring. Agnus Castus, if carried in the
hand, will prevent weariness; and when placed in a bed preserves
chastity. Henbane, laid between the sheets, also preserves chastity,
and will besides kill fleas. Necklaces of Peony-root, worn by children,
prevent convulsions. The excrescence found in Rose-bushes, known as
“Robin Redbreast’s Cushion,” when hung round children’s necks, will
cure whooping-cough. Pansy-leaves, placed in the shoe, or Sage-leaves
eaten, will cure ague. The roots of white Briony, bruised and applied
to any place, when the bones are broken, help to draw them forth, as
also splinters, arrow-heads, and thorns in the flesh. The root of an
Iris, if it grow upwards, will attract all thorns from the flesh; if,
on the contrary, it inclines downwards, it will cure wounds. A piece
of Oak, rubbed in silence on the body, on St. John’s Day, before the
sun rises, heals all open wounds. An Apple is deemed potent against
warts, and so is a green Elder-stick, rubbed over them, and then buried
in muck, to rot. Sometimes the Elder-stick has a notch cut in it for
each wart; it is then rubbed over the warts, and finally burned.
Warts are also cured by pricking them with a Gooseberry-thorn passed
through a wedding-ring; and by rubbing them with a Bean-shell, which is
afterwards secretly taken under an Ash-tree by the operator, who then
repeats the words--
“As this Bean-shell rots away,
So my warts shall soon decay.”
Catmint will cause those of the most gentle and mild dispositions to
become fierce and quarrelsome. Crocus-flowers will produce laughter and
great joy. Rosemary, worn about the body, strengthens the memory. He
who sows seed should be careful not to lay it on a table, otherwise it
will not grow. In sowing peas, take some of them in your mouth before
the sun goes down, keep them there in silence while you are sowing the
rest, and this will preserve them from sparrows. A piece of wood out of
a coffin that has been dug up, when laid in a Cabbage-bed, will defend
it from caterpillars. A bunch of wild Thyme and Origanum, laid by the
milk in a dairy, prevents its being spoiled by thunder: Sunflowers are
also held to be a protection against thunder. A bunch of Nettles laid
in the barrel, in brewing, answers the same purpose. Water Pepper, put
under the saddle of a tired horse, will refresh him and cause him to
travel well again. Basil, if allowed to rot under an earthen jar, will
become changed into scorpions, and the frequent smelling of this herb
is apt to generate certain animals like scorpions in the brain. The Oak
being a prophetic tree, a fly in the gall-nut is held to foretell war;
a maggot, dearth; a spider, pestilence.
Probably the most frequent visitors to the Witch’s cottage were vain
and silly maidens, desirous either of procuring some potion which
should enhance their rustic charms, or of learning from the lips of the
Witch the mysteries of the future. To such credulous applicants the
beldame would impart the precious secrets, that Lilies of the Valley,
gathered before sunrise, and rubbed over the face, would take away
freckles; and that Wild Tansy, soaked in butter-milk for nine days,
and then applied as a wash to the face, would cause the user to look
handsome. For those who were anxious to consult her as to their love
affairs, or desired to test her powers of divination, the Witch had
an abundant stock of charms and amulets, and was prepared with mystic
and unerring spells. She would take a root of the Bracken-fern, and,
cutting its stem very low down, would show to the inquiring maiden the
initial letter of her future husband’s name. She knew where to procure
two-leaved and four-leaved Clover, and even-leaved Ash, by the aid of
which lovers would be forthcoming before the day was over. She could
instruct a lass in the mystic rite of Hemp-sowing in the churchyard at
midnight on St. Valentine’s Eve. She knew and would reveal where Yarrow
was to be found growing on a dead man’s grave, and would teach country
wenches the charmed verse to be repeated when the magic plant should
be placed beneath their pillow. She could superintend the construction
of “The Witches’ Chain” by three young women, and could provide the
necessary Holly, Juniper, and Mistletoe-berries, with an Acorn for
the end of each link; and she would instruct them how to wind this
mystic chain around a long thin log of wood, which was to be placed on
the fire, accompanied by many magical rites (the secret of which she
would divulge), and then burnt, with the promised result that just as
the last Acorn was consumed, each of the three maidens should see her
future husband walk across the room, or if she were doomed to celibacy,
then a coffin or some misshapen form.
The Witch was cunning in the composition of draughts which should
procure dreams, and the secret of many of these potions is still known
and treasured. Thus: fresh Mistletoe-berries (not exceeding nine in
number), steeped in a liquid composed of equal proportions of wine,
beer, vinegar, and honey, taken as pills on an empty stomach before
going to bed, will cause dreams of your future destiny (providing you
retire to rest before twelve) either on Christmas-eve or on the first
and third of a new moon. Similar dreams may be procured by making a
nosegay of various-coloured flowers, one of a sort, a sprig of Rue, and
some Yarrow off a grave; these must be sprinkled with a few drops of
the oil of Amber, applied with the left hand, and bound round the head
under the night-cap, when retiring to bed, which must be supplied with
clean linen. A prophetic dream is to be procured through the medium
of what is known as “Magic Laurel,” by carrying out the following
formula:--Rise between three and four o’clock in the morning of your
birthday, with cautious secresy, so as to be observed by no one, and
pluck a sprig of Laurel; convey it to your chamber, and hold it over
some lighted brimstone for five minutes, which you must carefully
note by a watch or dial; wrap it in a white linen cloth or napkin,
together with your own name written on paper, and that of your lover
(or if there is more than one, write all the names down), write also
the day of the week, the date of the year, and the age of the moon;
then haste and bury it in the ground, where you are sure it will not be
disturbed for three days and three nights; then take it up, and place
the parcel under your pillow for three nights, and your dreams will be
truly prophetic as to your destiny. A dream of fate is to be procured
on the third day of the months between September and March by any odd
number of young women not exceeding nine, if each string nine Acorns on
a separate string (or as many Acorns as there are young women), wrap
them round a long stick of wood, and place it in the fire, precisely
at midnight. The maidens, keeping perfect silence, must then sit round
the fire till all the Acorns are consumed, then take out the ashes, and
retire to bed directly, repeating--
“May love and marriage be the theme,
To visit me in this night’s dream;
Gentle Venus, be my friend,
The image of my lover send;
Let me see his form and face,
And his occupation trace;
By a symbol or a sign,
Cupid, forward my design.”
Plants Antagonistic to Witchcraft.
The Rowan, Mountain Ash, or Care-tree has a great repute among country
folk in the cure of ills arising from supernatural as well as natural
causes. It is dreaded and shunned by evil spirits; it renders null
the spells of Witches and sorcerers, and has many other marvellous
properties. A piece of Rowan wood carried in the pocket of a peasant
acts as a charm against ill-wishes, and bunches of Care suspended over
the cow’s stall and wreathed around her horns will guard her from the
effects of the Evil Eye and keep, her in health, more especially if her
master does not forget to repeat regularly the pious prayer--
“From Witches and Wizards, and long-tailed Buzzards,
And creeping things that run in hedge-bottoms,
Good Lord, deliver us!”
The Ash, in common with the Rowan-tree, possesses the property of
resisting the attacks of Witches, Elves, and other imps of darkness; on
this account Ash-sap is administered to newly-born children, as without
some such precaution the Fairies or Witches might change the child, or
even steal it.
“Rowan, Ash, and red thread
Keep the Devils frae their speed.”
The Hazel, according to German tradition, is inimical to Witches and
enchanters. North says that by means of Hazel-rods Witches can be
compelled to restore to animals and plants the fecundity of which by
their malign influence they had previously deprived them.
Elder, gathered on the last day of April, and affixed to the doors and
windows of the house, disappoints designing Witches and protects the
inhabitants from their diabolical spells.
Mistletoe, as a distinctly sacred plant, is considered a talisman
against witchcraft. A small sprig of this mystic plant worn round the
neck is reputed to possess the power of repelling Witches, always
provided that the bough from which it was cut has not been allowed to
touch the earth after being gathered. Plucked with certain ceremonies
on the Eve of St. John, and hung up in windows, it is considered an
infallible protection against Witches, evil spirits, and phantoms, as
well as against storms and thunder.
Cyclamen would appear to be considered a preservative from the assaults
of witchcraft and evil spirits, if we may judge from the following
couplet:--
“St. John’s Wort and fresh Cyclamen she in her chamber kept,
From the power of evil angels to guard him while he slept.”
Vervain and St. John’s Wort, carried about the person, will prove a
sure preservation against the wiles of Satan and the machinations and
sorcery of Witches.
“Gin you would be leman of mine,
Lay aside the St. John’s Wort and the Vervain.”
Dill has also the reputation of counteracting the enchantments of
Witches and sorcerers--
“The Verdain and the Dill
That hindreth Witches of their will.”
St. John’s Wort (_Hypericum_), the _Fuga Dæmonum_ of the old
writers, is a plant detested by Witches, who are scared when in its
neighbourhood.
“St. John’s Wort, scaring from the midnight heath
The Witch and Goblin with its spicy breath.”
Herb Paris, according to Matthiolus, takes away all evil done by
witchcraft; Pimpernel is potent to prevent it; and Angelica worn round
the neck will defeat the malignant designs of Witches, who moreover, it
is satisfactory to know, detest the Bracken Fern, because if its stem
be cut, there will be found therein the monogram of Christ. Flowers of
a yellow or greenish hue, growing in hedgerows, are also repugnant to
them.
In the Tyrol there exists a belief that by binding Rue, Broom,
Maidenhair, Agrimony, and ground Ivy, into one bundle, the bearer of
the same is enabled to see and know Witches.
[Tailpiece]
[Headpiece]
CHAPTER X.
Magical Plants.
In remote ages, the poisonous or medicinal properties of plants were
secrets learnt by the most intelligent and observant members of
pastoral and nomadic tribes and clans; and the possessor of these
secrets became often both medicine-man and priest, reserving to himself
as much as possible the knowledge he had acquired of herbs and their
uses, and particularly of those that would produce stupor, delirium,
and madness; for by these means he could produce in himself and others
many startling and weird manifestations, which the ignorance of his
fellows would cause them to attribute to Divine or supernatural causes.
The _Zuckungen_, or convulsions, ecstacies, temporary madness, and
ravings, that formerly played so important a part in the oracular and
sacerdotal ceremonies, and which survive even at the present day, had
their origin in the tricks played by the ancient medicine-man in order
to retain his influence over his superstitious brethren. The exciting
and soporific properties of certain herbs and plants, and the peculiar
phenomena which, in skilful hands, they could be made to produce in
the victim, were well known to the ancient seers and priests, and so
were easily foretold; while the symptoms and effects could be varied
accordingly as the plants were dried, powdered, dissolved in water,
eaten freshly gathered, or burnt as incense on the altars. The subtle
powers of opiates obtained from certain plants were among the secrets
carefully preserved by the magi and priests.
According to Prosper Alpinus, dreams of paradise and celestial visions
were produced among the Egyptians by the use of Opium; and Kaempfer
relates that after having partaken of an opiate in Persia, he fell into
an ecstatic state, in which he conceived himself to be flying in the
air beyond the clouds, and associating with celestial beings.
From the juice of the Hemp, the Egyptians have for ages prepared an
intoxicating extract, called _Hashîsh_, which is made up into balls
of the size of a Chestnut. Having swallowed some of these, and thereby
produced a species of intoxication, they experience ecstatic visions.
Among the Brahmins, the Soma, a sacred drink prepared from the pungent
juice of the _Asclepias acida_, or _Cyanchum viminale_, was one of the
means used to produce the ecstatic state. Soma juice was employed to
complete the phrensied trances of the Indian Yogis or seers: it is said
to have the effect of inducing the ecstatic state, in which the votary
appears in spirit to soar beyond the terrestrial regions, to become
united with Brahma, and to acquire universal lucidity (_clairvoyance_).
Windischmann observes that in the remote past, the mystic Soma was
taken as a holy act--a species of sacrament; and that, by this means,
the soul of the communicant became united with Brahma. It is frequently
said that even Parashpati partook of this celestial beverage, the
essence, as it is called, of all nourishment. In the human sacrifices,
the Soma-drink was prepared with magical ceremonies and incantations,
by which means the virtues of the inferior and superior worlds were
supposed to be incorporated with the potion.
John Weir speaks of a plant, growing on Mount Lebanon, which places
those who taste it in a state of visionary ecstacy; and Gassendi
relates that a fanatical shepherd in Provence prepared himself for the
visionary and prophetic state by using Stramonium.
The Laurel was held specially sacred to Apollo, and the Pythia who
delivered the answer of the god to those who consulted the famous
oracle at Delphi, before becoming inspired, shook a Laurel-tree that
grew close by, and sometimes ate the leaves with which she crowned
herself. A Laurel-branch was thought to impart to prophets the faculty
of seeing that which was obscure or hidden; and the tree was believed
to possess the property of inducing sleep and visions. Among the
ancients it was also thought useful in driving away spectres. Evelyn,
remarking on the custom of prophets and soothsayers sleeping upon
the boughs and branches of trees, or upon mattresses composed of
their leaves, tells us that the Laurel and _Agnus Castus_ were plants
“which greatly composed the phansy, and did facilitate true visions,
and that the first was specially efficacious to inspire a poetical
fury.” According to Abulensis, he adds, “such a tradition there goes
of Rebekah, the wife of Isaac, in imitation of her father-in-law.” And
he thinks it probable that from that incident the Delphic Tripos, the
Dodonæan Oracle in Epirus, and others of a similar description, took
their origin. Probably, when introducing the Jewish fortune-tellers in
his sixth satire, Juvenal alludes to the practice of soothsayers and
sibyls sleeping on branches and leaves of trees, in the lines--
“With fear
The poor she-Jew begs in my Lady’s ear,
The grove’s high-priestess, heaven’s true messenger,
Jerusalem’s old laws expounds to her.”
The Druids, besides being priests, prophets, and legislators, were also
physicians; they were acquainted, too, with the means of producing
trances and ecstacies, and as one of their chief medical appliances
they made use of the Mistletoe, which they gathered at appointed times
with certain solemn ceremonies, and considered it as a special gift
of heaven. This plant grew on the Oak, the sacred tree of the Celts
and Druids; it was held in the highest reverence, and both priests
and people then regarded it as divine. To this day the Welsh call
_Pren-awr_--the celestial tree--
“The mystic Mistletoe,
Which has no root, and cannot grow
Or prosper but by that same tree
It clings to.”
The sacred Oak itself was thought to possess certain magical properties
in evoking the spirit of prophecy: hence we find the altars of the
Druids were often erected beneath some venerated Oak-tree in the sombre
recesses of the sacred grove; and it was under the shadow of such trees
that the ancient Germans offered up their holy sacrifices, and their
inspired bards made their prophetic utterances. The Greeks had their
prophetic Oaks that delivered the oracles of Jupiter in the sacred
grove of Dodona--
“Such honours famed Dodona’s grove acquired,
As justly due to trees by heaven inspired;
When once her Oaks did fate’s decrees reveal,
And taught wise men truths future to foretel.”--_Rapin._
The Arcadians attributed another magical power to the Oak, for they
believed that by stirring water with an Oaken bough rain could be
brought from the clouds.
The Russians are acquainted with a certain herb which they call
_Son-trava_, or Dream Herb, which has been identified with the
_Pulsatilla patens_. This plant is said to blossom in the month of
April, and to put forth an azure-coloured flower; if this is placed
under the pillow, it will induce dreams, and these dreams are said to
be fulfilled. In England, a four-leaved Clover similarly treated will
produce a like result.
Like the Grecian sorceresses, Medea and Circe, the Vedic magicians
were acquainted with numerous plants which would produce love-philtres
of the most powerful character, if not altogether irresistible. The
favourite flowers among the Indians for their composition are the
Mango, Champak, Jasmine, Lotus, and Asoka. According to Albertus
Magnus, the most powerful flower for producing love is that which
he calls _Provinsa_. The secret of this plant had been transmitted
by the Chaldeans. The Greeks knew it as _Vorax_, the Latins as
_Proventalis_ or _Provinsa_; and it is probably the same plant now
known to the Sicilians as the _Pizzu’ngurdu_, to which they attribute
most subtle properties. Thus the chastest of women will become the
victim of the most burning passion for the man who, after pounding the
_Pizzu’ngurdu_, is able to administer it to her in any sort of food.
Satyrion was a favourite herb with magicians, sorceresses, Witches,
and herbalists, who held it to be one of the most powerful incentives
of amatory passions. Kircher relates the case of a youth who, whenever
he visited a certain corner of his garden, became so inflamed with
passionate longings, that, with the hope of obtaining relief, he
mentioned the circumstance to a friend, who, upon examing the spot,
found it overgrown with a species of Satyrion, the odour from which had
the effect of producing amatory desires.
The Mandrake, Carrot, Cyclamen, Purslain (_Aizoon_), Valerian,
Navel-wort (_Umbilicus Veneris_), Wild Poppy (_Papaver Argemone_),
Anemone, _Orchis odoratissima_, _O. cynosorchis_, _O. tragorchis_,
_O. triorchis_, and others of the same family, and Maidenhair Fern
(_Capillus Veneris_) have all of them the property of inspiring love.
In Italy, Basil is considered potent to inspire love, and its scent is
thought to engender sympathy. Maidens think that it will stop errant
young men and cause them to love those from whose hands they accept a
sprig. In England, in olden times, the leaves of the Periwinkle, when
eaten by man and wife, were supposed to cause them to love one another.
An old name appertaining to this plant was that of the “Sorcerer’s
Violet,” which was given to it on account of its frequent use by
wizards and quacks in the manufacture of their charms against the
Evil Eye and malign spirits. The French knew it as the _Violette des
Sorciers_, and the Italians as _Centocchio_, or Hundred Eyes.
In Poland, a plant called _Troizicle_, which has bluish leaves and red
flowers, has the reputation of causing love and forgetfulness of the
past, and of enabling him who employs it to go wherever he desires.
Helmontius speaks of a herb that when held in the palm of the hand
until it grows warm, will rapidly acquire the power of detaining the
hand of another until it not only grows warm, also, but the owner
becomes inflamed with love. He states that by its use he inspired a dog
with such love for himself, that he forsook a kind mistress to follow
him, a stranger. This herb is said to be met with everywhere, but
unfortunately the name is not given.
Cumin is thought to possess a mystical power of retention: hence it
has found its way into many a love-philtre, as being able to ensure
fidelity and constancy in love.
Among the plants and flowers to which the power of divination has been
ascribed, and which are consulted for the most part by rustic maidens
in affairs of the heart, are the Centaury, Bluet, or Horseknot, the
Starwort, the Ox-eye Daisy, the Dandelion, Bachelor’s Buttons, the
Primrose, the Rose, the Poppy, the Hypericum, the Orpine, the Yarrow,
the Mugwort, the Thistle, the Knotweed, Plantain, the Stem of the
Bracken Fern, Four-leaved and Two-leaved Clover, Even Ash-leaves, Bay
or Bay-leaves, Laurel-leaves, Apples and Apple-pips, Nuts, Onions,
Beans, Peascods, Corn, Maize, Hemp-seed, &c.
Albertus Magnus states that _Valeria_ yields a certain juice of amity,
efficacious in restoring peace between combatants; and that the
herb _Provinsa_ induces harmony between husband and wife. Gerarde,
in his ‘Herbal,’ mentions a plant, called _Concordia_, which he
says is _Argentina_, or Silver-weed (_Potentilla anserina_); and in
Piedmont, at the present time, there grows a plant (_Palma Christi_),
locally known as _Concordia_, which the peasantry use for matrimonial
divinations. The root of the plant is said to be divided into two
parts, each bearing a resemblance to the human hand, with five fingers:
if these hands are found united, marriage is sure; but if separated,
a rupture between the lovers is presaged. There is also, in Italy, a
plant known as _Discordia_, likewise employed for love divinations. In
this plant the male flowers are violet, the female white; the male and
female flowers blossom almost always the one after the other--the male
turns to the East, the female to the West.
In the Ukraine, there grows a plant called there _Prikrit_, which,
if gathered between August 15th and October 1st, has the property
of destroying calumnies spread abroad in order to hinder marriages.
In England, the Baccharis, or Ploughman’s Spikenard, is reputed to
be able to repel calumny. In Russia, a plant called _Certagon_, the
Devil-chaser, is used to exorcise the devil, who is supposed to haunt
the grief-stricken husband or wife whom death has robbed of the loved
one. This grief-charming plant is also used to drive away fear from
infants. The Sallow has many magical properties: no child can be born
in safety where it is hung, and no spirit can depart in peace if its
foliage be anywhere near.
The Zuñis, a tribe of Mexican Indians, hold in high veneration a
certain magical plant called _Té-na-tsa-li_, which they aver grows
only on one mountain in the West, and which produces flowers of many
colours, the most beautiful in the world, whilst its roots and juices
are a panacea for all injuries to the flesh of man.
The Indian _Tulasi_, or Sacred Basil (_Ocimum sanctum_) is
pre-eminently a magical herb. By the Hindus it is regarded as a plant
of the utmost sanctity, which protects those that cultivate it from
all misfortunes, guards them from diseases and injuries, and ensures
healthy children. In Burmah, the _Eugenia_ is endowed with similar
magical properties, and is regarded by the Burmese with especial
reverence.
The Onion, if suspended in a room, possesses the magical powers of
attracting and absorbing maladies that would otherwise attack the
inmates.
In Peru, there is said to grow a wonderful tree called _Theomat_. If a
branch be placed in the hand of a sick person, and he forthwith shows
gladness, it is a sign that he will at length recover; but if he
shows sadness and no sign of joy, that is held to be a certain sign of
approaching death.
In England, the withering of Bay-leaves has long been considered
ominous of death: thus Shakspeare writes--
“’Tis thought the King is dead; we will not stay.
The Bay-trees in our country are all withered.”
The smoke of the green branches of the Juniper was the incense offered
by the ancients to the infernal deities, whilst its berries were burnt
at funerals to keep off evil spirits.
The Peony drives away tempests and dispels enchantments. The St. John’s
Wort (called of old _Fuga dæmonum_) is a preservative against tempests,
thunder, and evil spirits, and possesses other magical properties which
are duly enumerated in another place.
The Rowan-tree of all others is gifted with the powers of magic, and is
held to be a charm against the Evil Eye, witchcraft, and unholy spells.
The Elder, the Thorn, the Hazel, and the Holly, in a similar manner,
possess certain properties which entitle them to be classed as magical
plants. Garlic is employed by the Greeks, Turks, Chinese, and Japanese,
as a safeguard against the dire influences of the Evil Eye.
The extraordinary attributes of the Fern-seed are duly enumerated in
Part II., under the head of FERN, and can be there studied by all who
are desirous of investigating its magic powers.
The Clover, if it has four leaves, is a magical plant, enabling him who
carries it on his person to be successful at play, and have the power
of detecting the approach of malignant spirits. If placed in the shoe
of a lover, the four-leaved Clover will ensure his safe return to the
arms and embraces of his sweetheart.
The Mandrake is one of the most celebrated of magical plants, but for
an enumeration of its manifold mystic powers readers must be referred
to the description given in Part II., under the head of MANDRAKE. This
plant was formerly called _Circeium_, a name derived from Circe, the
celebrated enchantress. The Germans call it _Zauberwurzel_ (Sorcerer’s
root), and the young peasant girls of the Fatherland often wear bits of
the plant as love charms.
The marshes of China are said to produce a certain fruit which the
natives call _Peci_. If any one puts with this fruit a copper coin into
his mouth, he can diminish it with no less certainty than the fruit
itself, and reduce it to an eatable pulp.
In France, Piedmont, and Switzerland, the country-people tell of a
certain Herb of Oblivion which produces loss of memory in anyone
putting his foot upon it. This herb also causes wayfarers to lose their
way, through the unfortunates forgetting the aspects of the country,
even although they were quite familiar to them before treading on the
Herb of Forgetfulness. Of a somewhat similar nature must have been the
fruit of the Lotos-tree, which caused the heroes of the Odyssey to
forget their native country.
King Solomon, whose books on Magic King Hezekiah destroyed lest their
contents should do harm, ascribed great magical powers to a root
which he called _Baharas_ (or _Baara_). Josephus, in his History of
the Jewish Wars, states that this wonderful root is to be found in
the region of Judæa. It is like a flame in colour, and in the evening
appears like a glittering light; but upon anyone approaching it with
the idea of pulling it up, it appears to fly or dart away, and will
avoid its pursuer until it be sprinkled either with menstrual blood or
_lotium femininum_.
“The Mandrake’s charnel leaves at night”
possess the same characteristic of shining through the gloom, and, on
that account, the Arabians call it the Devil’s Candle.
The ancients knew a certain herb called _Nyctilopa_, which had the
property of shining from afar at night: this same herb was also known
as _Nyctegredum_ or _Chenomychon_, and geese were so averse to it, that
upon first spying it they would take to instant flight. Perhaps this
is the same plant as the _Johanniswurzel_ or Springwort (_Euphorbia
lathyris_), which the peasants of Oberpfalz believe can only be found
among the Fern on St. John’s Night, and which is stated to be of a
yellow colour, and to shine at night as brightly as a candle. Like
the Will-o’-the-Wisp, the _Johanniswurzel_ eludes the grasp of man by
darting and frisking about.
Several plants are credited with possessing the power of preservation
from thunder and lightning. Pliny mentions the _Vibro_, which he calls
_Herba Britannica_, as a plant which, if picked before the first
thunderblast of a storm was heard, was deemed a safeguard against
lightning. In the Netherlands, the St. John’s Wort, gathered before
sunrise, is credited with protective powers against lightning. In
Westphalia, the _Donnerkraut_ (the English Orpine, or Live-long) is
kept in houses as a preservative from thunder. In England, the Bay
is considered a protection from lightning and thunder; the Beech was
long thought to be a safeguard against the effects of lightning; and
Houseleek or Stonecrop, if grown upon a roof, is still regarded as
protecting the house from being struck by lightning. The _Gnaphalium_,
an Everlasting-flower, is gathered on the Continent, on Ascension Day,
and suspended over doorways, to fulfil the same function. In Wales, the
Stonecrop is cultivated on the roof to keep off disease.
The Selago, or Golden Herb of the Druids, imparted to the priestess who
pressed it with her foot, the knowledge of the language of animals and
birds. If she touched it with iron, the sky grew dark, and a misfortune
befell the world.
The old magicians were supposed to have been acquainted with certain
plants and herbs from which gold could be extracted or produced. One
of these was the Sorb-tree, which was particularly esteemed for its
invaluable powers; another was a herb on Mount Libanus, which was
said to communicate a golden hue to the teeth of the goats and other
animals that grazed upon it. Niebuhr thinks this may be the herb which
the Eastern alchymists employed as a means of making gold. Father
Dundini noticed that the animals living on Mount Ida ate a certain
herb that imparted a golden hue to the teeth, and which he considered
proceeded from the mines underground. It was an old belief in Germany,
by the shores of the Danube, and in Hungary, that the tendrils and
leaves of the Vines were plated with gold at certain periods, and
that when this was the case, it was a sure sign that gold lay hidden
somewhere near.
Plutarch speaks of a magical herb called _Zaclon_, which, when bruised
and thrown into wine, would at once change it into water.
Some few plants, like the well-known _Sesame_ of the ‘Arabian Nights,’
are credited with the power of opening doors and obtaining an entry
into subterranean caverns and mountain sides. In Germany, there is a
very favourite legend of a certain blue Luck-flower which gains for its
fortunate finder access to the hidden recesses of a mountain, where
untold riches lie heaped before his astonished eyes. Hastily filling
his pockets with gold, silver, and gems, he heeds not the presence
of a dwarf or Fairy, who, as he unknowingly drops the Luck-flower
whilst leaving the treasure-house, cries “Forget not the best of all.”
Thinking only of the wealth he has pocketed, he unheedingly passes
through the portal of the treasure cave, only just in time to save
himself from being crushed by the descending door, which closes with an
ominous clang, and shuts in for ever the Luck-flower, which can alone
open the cave again.
In Russia, a certain herb, which has the power of opening, is known as
the _Rasriv-trava_. The peasants recognise it in this manner: they cut
a good deal of grass about the spot where the _Rasriv-trava_ is thought
to grow, and throw the whole of it into the river; thereupon this magic
plant will not only remain on the surface of the water, but it will
float against the current. The herb, however, is extraordinarily rare,
and can only be found by one who also possesses the herb _Plakun_ and
the Fern _Paporotnik_. The Fern, like the Hazel, discovers treasures,
and therefore possesses the power of opening said to belong to the
_Rasriv-trava_, but the latter is the only plant that can open the
locks of subterranean entrances to the infernal regions, which are
always guarded by demons. It also has the special property of being
able to reduce to powder any metal whatsoever.
The Primrose is in Germany regarded as a _Schlüsselblume_, or
Key-flower, and is supposed to provide the means of obtaining ingress
to the many legendary treasure-caverns and subterranean passages under
hill and mountain sides dating back from the remote times when the
Goddess Bertha was wont to entice children to enter her enchanted halls
by offering them pale Primroses.
The Mistletoe, in addition to its miraculous medicinal virtues,
possesses the power of opening all locks; and a similar property is by
some ascribed to Artemisia, the Mandrake, and the Vervain.
The Moonwort, or Lesser Lunary (_Botrychium Lunaria_)--the _Martagon_
of ancient wizards, the _Lunaria minor_ of the alchymists--will open
the locks of doors if placed in proper fashion in the keyhole. It is,
according to some authorities, the _Sferracavallo_ of the Italians, and
is gifted with the power of unshoeing horses whilst at pasture.
Grimm is of opinion that the _Sferracavallo_ is the _Euphorbia
lathyris_, the mystic Spring-wort, which, like the Luck-flower,
possesses the wondrous power of opening hidden doors, rocks, and secret
entrances to treasure caves, but which is only to be obtained through
the medium of a green or black woodpecker under conditions which will
be found duly recorded in Part II., under the head of SPRINGWORT.
The Mouse-ear is called _Herba clavorum_ because it prevents the
blacksmith from hurting horses when he is shoeing them.
Magic Wands and Divining Rods.
At so remote a period as the Vedic age we find allusions to magic
wands or rods. In the Vedas, the Hindu finds instructions for cutting
the mystic _Sami_ branch and the _Arani_. This operation was to be
performed so that the Eastern and Western sun shone through the fork
of the rod, or it would prove of no avail. The Chinese still abide
by these venerable instructions in the cutting of their magic wands,
which are usually cut from the Peach or some other fruit tree on the
night preceding the new year, which always commences with the first
new moon after the Winter solstice. The employment of magic wands and
staffs was in vogue among the Chaldæans and Egyptians, who imparted the
knowledge of this system of divination to the Hebrews dwelling among
them. Thus we find the prophet Hosea saying, “My people ask counsel
at their stocks, and their staff declareth unto them.” Rhabdomancy,
or divination by means of a rod, was practised by the ancient Greeks
and Romans, and the art was known in England at the time of Agricola,
though now it is almost forgotten. In China and Eastern lands, the art
still flourishes, and various kinds of plants and trees are employed;
the principal being, however, the Hazel, Osier, and Blackthorn. The
Druids were accustomed to cut their divining-rods from the Apple-tree.
In competent hands, the Golden Rod is said to point to hidden springs
of water, as well as to hidden treasures of gold and silver.
“Some sorcerers do boast they have a rod,
Gathered with vows and sacrifice,
That, borne aloft, will strangely nod
To hidden treasure where it lies.”--_Shepherd_ (1600).
In Cornwall, the divining-rod is still employed by miners to discover
the presence of mineral wealth; in Lancashire and Cumberland, the
belief in the powers of the magic wand is widely spread; and in
Wiltshire, it is used for detecting water. The _Virgula divinatoria_ is
also frequently in requisition both in Italy and France. Experts will
tell you that, in order to ensure success, certain mystic rites must
be performed at the cutting of the rod: this must be done after sunset
and before sunrise, and only on certain special nights, among which
are those of Good Friday, Epiphany, Shrove-Tuesday, and St. John’s
Day, the first night of a new moon, or that preceding it. In cutting
the divining-rod, the operator must face the East, so that it shall
be one which catches the first rays of the morning sun, or it will be
valueless. These conditions, it will be found, are similar to those
contained in the Hindu Vedas, and still enforced by the Chinese. Some
English experts are of opinion that a twig of an Apple-tree may be
used as successfully as a Hazel wand--but it must be of twelve months’
growth. The seventh son of a seventh son is considered to be the most
fitting person to use the rod. In operating, the small ends, being
crooked, are to be held in the hands in a position flat or parallel
to the horizon, and the upper part at an elevation having an angle
to it of about seventy degrees. The rod must be grasped strongly and
steadily, and then the operator walks over the ground: when he crosses
a lode, its bending is supposed to indicate the presence thereof.
According to Vallemont, the author of a treatise on the divining-rod,
published towards the end of the seventeenth century, its use was not
merely confined to indicate metal or water, but it was also employed in
tracking criminals; and an extraordinary story is told of a Frenchman
who, guided by his rod, “pursued a murderer, by land, for a distance
exceeding forty-five leagues, besides thirty leagues more by water.”
From an article in the ‘Quarterly Review,’ No. 44, the statements
in which were vouched by the Editor, it would seem that a Lady Noel
possessed the faculty of using the divining-rod. In operating, this
lady “took a thin forked Hazel-twig, about sixteen inches long, and
held it by the end, the joint pointing downwards. When she came to the
place where the water was under the ground, the twig immediately bent;
and the motion was more or less rapid as she approached or withdrew
from the spring. When just over it, the twig turned so quick as to
snap, breaking near the fingers, which, by pressing it, were indented
and heated, and almost blistered; a degree of agitation was also
visible in her face. The exercise of the faculty is independent of any
volition.”
In Germany, the divining-rod is often called the wishing-rod, and as
it is by preference cut from the Blackthorn, that tree is known also
as the Wishing Thorn. In Prussia, the Hazel rod must be cut in Spring
to have its magical qualities thoroughly developed. When the first
thunderstorm is seen to be approaching, a cross is made with the rod
over every heap of grain, in order that the Corn so distinguished
may keep good for many a month. In Bohemia, the magic rod is thought
to cure fever; it is necessary, however, when purchasing one, not to
raise an objection to the price. In Ireland, if anyone dreams of buried
money, there is a prescribed formula to be employed when digging for
it--a portion of which is the marking upon a Hazel wand three crosses,
and the recital of certain words, of a blasphemous character, over it.
Sir Thomas Browne tells us that, in his time, the divining-rod was
called Moses’ Rod; and he thinks, with Agricola, that this rod is of
Pagan origin:--“The ground whereof were the magical rods in poets, that
of Pallas in Homer, that of Mercury that charmed Argus, and that of
Circe which transformed the followers of Ulysses. Too boldly usurping
the name of Moses’ Rod, from which notwithstanding, and that of Aaron,
were probably occasioned the fables of all the rest. For that of Moses
must needs be famous, unto the Egyptians, and that of Aaron unto many
other nations as being preserved in the Ark until the destruction of
the Temple built by Solomon.” The Rabbis tell us that the rod of Moses
was, originally, carved by Adam out of a tree which grew in the Garden
of Eden; that Noah, who took it into the Ark with him, bequeathed it to
Shem; that it descended to Abraham; that Isaac gave it to Jacob; that,
during his sojourn in Egypt, he gave it to Joseph; and that finally it
became the property of Moses.
[Tailpiece]
[Headpiece]
CHAPTER XI.
Fabulous, Wondrous, and Miraculous Plants.
We have seen how, among the ancient races of the earth, traditions
existed which connected the origin of man with certain trees. In the
_Bundehesh_, man is represented as having first appeared on earth under
the form of the plant _Reiva_ (_Rheum ribes_). In the Iranian account
of man’s creation, the primal couple are stated to have first grown up
as a single tree, and at maturity to have been separated and endowed
with a distinct existence by Ormuzd. In the Scandinavian Edda, men
are represented as having sprung from the Ash and Poplar. The Greeks
traced the origin of the human race to the maternal Ash; and the Romans
regarded the Oak as the progenitor of all mankind. The conception of
human trees was present in the mind of the Prophet Isaiah, when he
predicted that from the stem of Jesse should come forth a rod, and from
his roots, a branch. The same idea is preserved in the genealogical
trees of modern heraldry; and the marked analogy between man and trees
has doubtless given rise to the custom of planting trees at the birth
of children. The old Romans were wont to plant a tree at the birth
of a son, and to judge of the prosperity of the child by the growth
and thriving of the tree. It is said in the life of Virgil, that the
Poplar planted at his birth flourished exceedingly, and far outstripped
all its contemporaries. De Gubernatis records that, as a rule, in
Germany, they plant Apple-trees for boys, and Pear-trees for girls. In
Polynesia, at the birth of an infant, a Cocoa-nut tree is planted, the
nodes of which are supposed to indicate the number of years promised to
the little stranger.
According to a legend that Hamilton found current in Central India,
the Khatties had this strange origin. When the five sons of _Pându_
(the heroes whose exploits are told in the _Mahâbhârata_) had become
simple tenders of flocks, Karna, their illegitimate brother, wishing to
deprive them of these their last resource, prayed the gods to assist
him: then he struck the earth with his staff, which was fashioned
from the branch of a tree. The staff instantly opened, and out of it
sprang a man, who said that his name was Khat, a word which signifies
“begotten of wood.” Karna employed this tree-man to steal the coveted
cattle, and the Khatties claim to be descended from this strange
forefather.
The traditions of trees that brought forth human beings, and of
trees that were in themselves partly human, are current among most
of the Aryan and Semitic races, and are also to be found among the
Sioux Indians. These traditions (which have been previously noticed
in Chapter VII.) have probably given rise to others, which represent
certain trees as bearing for fruit human beings and the members of
human beings.
In the fourteenth century, an Italian voyager, Odoricus du Frioul, on
arriving at Malabar, heard the natives speaking of trees which, instead
of fruit, bore men and women: these creatures were scarcely a yard
high, and their nether extremities were attached to the tree’s trunk,
like branches. Their bodies were fresh and radiant when the wind blew,
but on its dropping, they became gradually withered and dried up.
In the first book of the _Mahâbhârata_, reference is made, in the
legend of Garuda, to an enormous Indian Fig-tree (_Ficus religiosa_),
from the branches of which are suspended certain devotees of dwarfed
proportions, called _Vâlakhilyas_.
Among the Arabs, there exists a tradition of an island in the Southern
Ocean called Wak-Wak, which is so-named because certain trees growing
thereon produce fruit having the form of a human head, which cries
_Wak! Wak!_
Among the Chinese, the myth of men being descended from trees is
reversed, for we find a legend current in the Flowery Land that, in the
beginning, the herbs and plants sprang from the hairs of a cosmic giant.
The Chinese, however, preserve the tradition of a certain lake by
whose margin grew great quantities of trees, the leaves of which
when developed became changed into birds. In India, similar trees
are referred to in many of the popular tales: thus, in “The Rose of
Bakavali” mention is made of a garden of Pomegranate-trees, the fruit
of which resembled earthenware vases. When these were plucked and
opened, out hopped birds of beautiful plumage, which immediately flew
away.
Pope Pius II., in his work on Asia and Europe, published towards the
end of the fifteenth century, states that in Scotland there grew on the
banks of a river a tree which produced fruits resembling ducks; these
fruits, when matured, fell either on the river bank or into the water:
those which fell on the ground perished instantly; those which fell
into the water became turned at once into ducks, acquired plumage, and
then flew off. His Holiness remarks that he had been unable to obtain
any proof of this wondrous tree existing in Scotland, but that it was
to be found growing in the Orkney Isles.
As early as the thirteenth century, Albertus Magnus expressed his
disbelief in the stories of birds propagated from trees, yet there
were not wanting writers who professed to have been eye-witnesses of
the marvels they recounted respecting Bernicle or Claik Geese. Some of
these witnesses, however, asserted that the birds grew on living trees,
while others traced them to timber rotted in the sea, or boughs of
trees which had fallen therein. Boëce, who favoured the latter theory,
writes that “because the rude and ignorant people saw oft-times the
fruit that fell off the trees (which stood near the sea) converted
within a short time into geese, they believed that yir-geese grew upon
the trees, hanging by their nebbis [bills] such like as Apples and
other fruits hangs by their stalks, but their opinion is nought to be
sustained. For as soon as their Apples or fruit falls off the tree into
the sea-flood, they grow first worm-eaten, and by short process of time
are _altered_ into geese.” Munster, in his ‘Cosmographie,’ remembers
that in Scotland “are found trees which produce fruit rolled up in
leaves, and this, in due time, falling into water, which it overhangs,
is converted into a living bird, and hence the tree is called the
Goose-tree. The same tree grows in the island of Pomona. Lest you
should imagine that this is a fiction devised by modern writers, I
may mention that all cosmographists, particularly Saxo Grammaticus,
take notice of this tree.” Prof. Rennie says that Montbeillard seems
inclined to derive the name of Pomona from its being the orchard of
these goose-bearing trees. Fulgosus depicts the trees themselves
as resembling Willows, “as those who had seen them in Ireland and
Scotland” had informed him. To these particulars, Bauhin adds that, if
the leaves of this tree fall upon the land, they become birds; but if
into the water, then they are transmuted into fishes.
Maundevile speaks of the Barnacle-tree as a thing known and proved in
his time. He tells us, in his book, that he narrated to the somewhat
sceptical inhabitants of Caldilhe how that “in oure contre weren trees
that beren a fruyt that becomen briddes fleiynge: and thei that fallen
on the erthe dyen anon: and thei ben right gode to mannes mete.”
Aldrovandus gives a woodcut of these trees, in which the foliage
resembles that of Myrtles, while the strange fruit is large and
heart-shaped.
[Illustration: [TO FACE PAGE 118.
The Barnacle or Goose Tree.
_From ‘Aldrovandi Ornithologia.’_]
Gerarde also gives a figure of what he calls the “Goose-tree,
Barnacle-tree, or the tree bearing geese,” a reproduction of which
is annexed. And although he speaks of the goose as springing from
decayed wood, &c., the very fact of his introducing the tree into
the catalogue of his ‘Herbal,’ shows that he was, at least, divided
between the above-named opinions. “What our eyes have seen,” he
says, “and what our hands have touched, we shall declare. There is a
small island in Lancashire, called the Pile of Foulders, wherein are
found broken pieces of old ships, some whereof have been thrown thither
by shipwracke, and also the trunks and bodies, with the branches
of old and rotten trees cast up there likewise; whereon is found a
certain spume or froth, that in time breedeth unto certaine shells,
in shape like to those of the muskle, but sharper pointed, and of a
whitish colour, wherein is contained a thing in forme like a lace of
silke finely woven, as it were, together, of a whitish colour; one end
whereof is fastned unto the inside of the shell, even as the fish of
oisters and muskles are; the other end is made fast unto the belly of
a rude mass, or lumpe, which, in time, commeth to the shape and forme
of a bird. When it is perfectly formed, the shell gapeth open, and the
first thing that appeareth is the foresaid lace or string; next come
the legs of the bird hanging out, and as it groweth greater it openeth
the shell by degrees, till at length it is all come forth, and hangeth
onely by the bill; in short space after it commeth to full maturitie,
and falleth into the sea, where it gathereth feathers, and groweth to
a fowle bigger than a mallard and lesser than a goose, having blacke
legs and bill or beake, and feathers blacke and white, spotted in such
manner as is our magpie; called in some places a pie-annet, which the
people of Lancashire call by no other name than tree-goose; which place
aforesaid, and all those parts adjoyning, do so much abound therewith,
that one of the best is bought for threepence. For the truth hereof, if
any doubt, may it please them to repaire unto me, and I shall satisfie
them by the testimonie of good witnesses.
[Illustration: The Goose Tree. From _Gerarde’s Herbal_.]
Martin assures us that he had seen many of these fowls in the shells,
sticking to the trees by the bill, but acknowledges that he had never
descried any of them with life upon the tree, though the natives [of
the Orkney Isles] had seen them move in the heat of the sun.
In the ‘Cosmographiæ of Albioun,’ Boëce (to whom we have before
referred) considered the nature of the seas acting on old wood more
relevant to the creation of barnacle or claik geese than anything else.
“For,” he says, “all trees that are cassin into the seas, by process
of time appears at first worm-eaten, and in the small holes or bores
thereof grows small worms. First they show their head and neck, and
last of all they show their feet and wings. Finally, when they are come
to the just measure and quantity of geese, they fly in the air, as
other fowls wont, as was notably proven in the year of God one thousand
four hundred and eighty in the sight of many people beside the castle
of Pitslego.” He then goes on to describe how a tree having been cast
up by the sea, and split by saws, was found full of these geese, in
different stages of their growth, some being “perfect shapen fowls;”
and how the people, “having ylk day this tree in more admiration,” at
length deposited it in the kirk of St. Andrew’s, near Tyre.”
Among the more uninformed of the Scotch peasantry, there still exists a
belief that the Soland goose, or gannet, and not the bernicle, grows by
the bill on the cliffs of Bass, of Ailsa, and of St. Kilda.
Giraldus traces the origin of these birds to the gelatinous drops of
turpentine which appear on the branches of Fir-trees.
“A tree that bears oysters is a very extraordinary thing,” remarks
Bishop Fleetwood in his ‘Curiosities of Agriculture and Gardening’
(1707), “but the Dominican Du Tertre, in his Natural History of Antego,
assures us that he saw, at Guadaloupa, oysters growing on the branches
of trees. These are his very words. The oysters are not larger than
the little English oysters, that is to say, about the size of a crown
piece. They stick to the branches that hang in the water of a tree
called _Paretuvier_. No doubt the seed of the oysters, which is shed
in the tree when they spawn, cleaves to those branches, so that the
oysters form themselves there, and grow bigger in process of time,
and by their weight bend down the branches into the sea, and then are
refreshed twice a day by the flux and reflux of it.”
The Oyster-bearing Tree, however, is not the only marvel of which
the good Bishop has left a record: he tells us that near the island
Cimbalon there lies another, where grows a tree whose leaves, as they
fall off, change into animals: they are no sooner on the ground, than
they begin to walk like a hen, upon two little legs. Pigafetta says
that he kept one of these leaves eight days in a porringer; that it
took itself to walking as soon as he touched it; and that it lived only
upon the air. Scaliger, speaking of these very leaves, remarks,
as though he had been an eye-witness, that they walk, and march away
without further ado if anyone attempts to touch them. Bauhin, after
describing these wonderful leaves as being very like Mulberry-leaves,
but with two short and pointed feet on each side, remarks upon the
great prodigy of the leaf of a tree being changed into an animal,
obtaining sense, and being capable of progressive motion.
[Illustration: TO FACE PAGE 121.]
The Barometz, or Vegetable Lamb.
_From Zahn’s ‘Speculæ Physico-Mathematico-Historicæ.’_]
Kircher records that in his time a tree was said to exist in Chili,
the leaves of which produced worms; upon arriving at maturity, these
worms crawled to the edge of the leaf, and thence fell to the earth,
where after a time they became changed into serpents, which over-ran
the whole land. Kircher endeavours to explain this story of the
serpent-bearing tree by giving, as a reason for the phenomenon, that
the tree attached to itself, through its roots, moisture pregnant with
the seed of serpents. Through the action of the sun’s rays, and the
moisture of the tree, this serpent-spawn degenerates into worms, which
by contact with the earth become converted into living serpents.
The same authority states that in the Molucca islands, but more
particularly in Ternate, not far from the castle of the same name,
there grew a plant which he describes as having small leaves. To this
plant the natives gave the name of _Catopa_, because when its leaves
fall off they at once become changed into butterflies.
Doctor Darwin, in his botanical poem called ‘The Loves of the Plants,’
thus apostrophises an extraordinary animal-bearing plant:--
“Cradled in snow and fanned by Arctic air,
Shines, gentle Barometz! thy golden hair;
Rooted in earth, each cloven hoof descends,
And round and round her flexile neck she bends;
Crops the gray coral-moss and hoary Thyme,
Or laps with rosy tongue the melting rime,
Eyes with mute tenderness her distant dam,
Or seems to bleat, a vegetable Lamb.”
In the curious frontispiece to Parkinson’s ‘Paradisus,’ which will
be found reproduced at the commencement of this work, it will
be noticed that the Barometz, or Vegetable Lamb, is represented
as one of the plants growing in Eden. In Zahn’s _Speculæ
Physico-Mathematico-Historicæ_ (1696) is given a figure of this plant,
accompanied by a description, of which the following is a translation:--
“Very wonderful is the Tartarian shrub or plant which the natives call
_Boromez_, _i.e._, Lamb. It grows like a lamb to about the height of
three feet. It resembles a lamb in feet, in hoofs, in ears, and in the
whole head, save the horns. For horns, it possesses tufts of hair,
resembling a horn in appearance. It is covered with the thinnest bark,
which is taken off and used by the inhabitants for the protection of
their heads. They say that the inner pulp resembles lobster-flesh, and
that blood flows from it when it is wounded. Its root projects and
rises to the _umbilicus_. What renders the wonder more remarkable is
the fact that, when the _Boromez_ is surrounded by abundant herbage,
it lives as long as a lamb, in pleasant pastures; but when they become
exhausted, it wastes away and perishes. It is said that wolves have a
liking for it, while other carnivorous animals have not.”
Scaliger, in his _Exotericæ Exercitationes_, gives a similar
description, adding that it is not the fruit, the Melon, but the whole
plant, that resembles a lamb. This does not tally with the account
given by Odorico da Pordenone, an Indian traveller, who, before
the _Barometz_ had been heard of in Europe, appears to have been
informed that a plant grew on some island in the Caspian Sea which
bore Melon-like fruit resembling a lamb; and this tree is described
and figured by Sir John Maundevile, who, in speaking of the countries
and isles beyond Cathay, says that when travelling towards Bacharye
“men passen be a Kyngdom that men clepen Caldilhe; that is a fulle
fair Contree. And there growethe a maner of fruyt as thoughe it waren
Gowrdes; and whan thei ben rype, men kutten hem a to, and men fynden
with inne, a lytylle Best, in flessche, in bon, and blode, as though
it were a lytylle Lomb, with outen wolle. And men eten bothe the Frut
and the Best; and that is a gret marveylle. Of that Frute I have eten;
alle thoughe it were wonderfulle; but that I knowe wel that God is
marveyllous in his werkes.”
[Illustration: The Lamb Tree. From _Maundevile’s Travels_.]
Maundevile, who in his book has left a record of so many marvellous
things which he either saw or was told of during his Eastern travels,
mentions a certain Indian island in the land of Prester John, where
grew wild trees which produced Apples of such potent virtue that the
islanders lived by the mere smell of them: moreover if they went on a
journey, the men “beren the Apples with hem: for yif thei hadde lost
the savour of the Apples thei scholde dyen anon.” In another island in
the same country, Sir John was told were the Trees of the Sun and of
the Moon that spake to King Alexander, and warned him of his death.
Moreover, it was commonly reported that “the folk that kepen the trees,
and eten of the frute and of the bawme that growethe there, lyven wel
400 yere or 500 yere, be vertue of the fruit and of the bawme.” In
Egypt the old traveller heard of the Apple-tree of Adam, “that hav a
byte at on of the sydes;” there also he saw Pharaoh’s Figs, which grew
upon trees without leaves; and there also he tells us are gardens that
have trees and herbs in them which bear fruit seven times in the year.
One of the most celebrated of fabulous trees is that which grew in
the garden of the Hesperides, and produced the golden Apples which
Hercules, with the assistance of Atlas, was able to carry off. Another
classic tree is that bearing the golden branch of Virgil, which is by
some identified with the Mistletoe. Among other celebrated mythical
trees may be named the prophetic Oaks of the Dodonæan grove; the
Singing Tree of the ‘Arabian Nights,’ every leaf of which was a mouth
and joined in concert; and the Poet’s Tree referred to by Moore, in
‘Lalla Rookh,’ which grows over the tomb of Tan-Sein, a musician of
incomparable skill at the court of Akbar, and of which it is said that
whoever chews a leaf will have extraordinary melody of voice.
Wondrous Plants.
In Bishop Fleetwood’s curious work, to which reference has already been
made, we find many extraordinary trees and plants described, some of
which are perhaps worthy of a brief notice. He tells us of a wonderful
metal-sapped tree known as the _Mesonsidereos_, which grows in Java,
and even there is very scarce. Instead of pith, this tree has an iron
wire that comes out of the root, and rises to the top of the tree. “But
the best of all is, that whoever carries about him a piece of this
ferruginous pith is invulnerable to any sword or iron whatever.” In
_Hirnaim de Typho_ this tree is said to produce fruit impenetrable by
iron.
There are some trees that must have fire to nourish them. Methodius
states that he saw on the top of the mountain Gheschidago (the Olympus
of the ancients), near the city of Bursa, in Natolia, a lofty tree,
whose roots were spread amidst the fire that issues from the vents of
the earth; but whose leafy and luxuriant boughs spread their shade
around, in scorn of the flames in the midst of which it grew.
This vegetable salamander finds its equal in a plant described by
Nieuhoff as growing in rocky and stony places in the kingdom of Tanju,
in Tartary. This extraordinary plant cannot be either ignited or
consumed by fire; for although it becomes hot, and on account of the
heat becomes glowing red in the fire, yet so soon as heat is removed,
it grows cold, and regains its former appearance: in water, however,
this plant is wont to become quite putrid.
Of a nature somewhat akin to these fire-loving plants must be the
Japanese Palm, described by A. Montanus. This tree is said to shun
moisture to such an extent, that if its trunk be in the least wet,
it at once pines away and perishes as though it had been poisoned.
However, if this arid tree be taken up by the roots, throughly dried in
the sun, and re-planted with sand and iron filings around it, it will
once more flourish, and become covered with new branches and leaves,
provided that so soon as it has been re-planted, the old leaves are cut
off with an iron instrument and fastened to the trunk.
The Bishop remarks that “one of the most wonderful plants is that which
so mollifies the bones, that when we have eaten of it we cannot stand
upon our legs. An ox who has tasted of it cannot go; his bones grow so
pliant, that you may bend his legs like a twig of Ozier. The remedy is
to make him swallow some of the bones of an animal who died from eating
of that herb: ’tis certain death, and cannot be otherwise, for the
teeth grow soft immediately, and ’tis impossible even to eat again.”
“There is a plant that produces a totally opposite effect. It hardens
the bones to a wondrous degree. A man who has chewed some of it, will
have his teeth so hard as to be able to reduce flints and pebbles into
impalpable powder.”
Maundevile describes some wonderful Balm-trees that in his time grew
near Cairo, in a field wherein were seven wells “that oure Lord Jesu
Christ made with on of His feet, whan He wente to pleyen with other
children.” The balm obtained from these trees was considered so
precious, that no one but the appointed tenders was allowed to approach
them. Christians alone were permitted to till the ground in which they
grew, as if Saracens were employed, the trees would not yield; and
moreover it was necessary that men should “kutten the braunches with a
scharp flyntston or with a scharp bon, whanne men wil go to kutte hem:
For who so kutte hem with iren, it wolde destroye his vertue and his
nature.”
The old knight has left a record of his impressions of the country near
the shores of the Dead Sea, and has given a sketch of those Apple-trees
of which Byron wrote--
“Like to the Apples on the Dead Sea’s shore,
All ashes to the taste.”
These trees producing Dead Sea fruit he tells us bore “fulle faire
Apples, and faire of colour to behold; but whoso brekethe hem or
cuttethe hem in two, he schalle fynd with in hem Coles and Cyndres, in
tokene that, be wratthe of God, the cytees and the lond weren brente
and sonken in to Helle.”
[Illustration: Dead Sea Fruit. From _Maundevile’s Travels_.]
In Zahn’s _Speculæ Physico-Mathematico-Historicæ_ we read of a peculiar
Mexican tree, called _Tetlatia_ or _Gao_, which causes both men and
animals to lose their hair if they rub themselves against its trunk
or sleep beneath its branches. Then we are told of a tree growing in
Sofala, Africa, which yields no leaf during the whole year, but if a
branch be cut off and placed in water, it grows green in ten hours, and
produces abundance of leaves. Again, we read of the _Zeibas_, immense
trees “in the new Kingdom of Granada,” which fifteen men could scarcely
encompass with their arms; and which, wonderful to relate, cast all
their leaves every twelve hours, and soon afterwards acquire other
leaves in their place.
A certain tree is described as growing in America, which bears flowers
like a heart, consisting of many white leaves, which are red within,
and give forth a wonderfully sweet fragrance: these flowers are said to
comfort and refresh the heart in a remarkable manner. A curious account
is given of a plant, which Nierenbergius states grows in Bengal, which
attracts wood so forcibly, that it apparently seizes it from the hands
of men. A similar plant is said to exist in the island of Zeilan,
which, if placed between two pieces of wood, each distant twenty paces
from it, will draw them together and unite them.
Respecting the _Boriza_, a plant also known as the _Lunaria_ or Lunar
Herb, Zahn states that it is so called because it increases and
decreases according to the changes of the moon: for when the moon is
one day old, this plant has one leaf, and increases the number of
leaves in proportion to the moon’s age until it is fifteen days old;
then, as the moon decreases, its leaves one by one fall off. In the
no-moon period, being deprived of all its leaves, it hides itself. Just
as the _Boriza_ is influenced by the moon, so are certain shrubs under
the sway of the sun. These shrubs are described as growing up daily
from the sand until noon, when they gradually diminish, and finally
return to the earth at sunset.
Gerarde tells us that among the wonders of England, worthy of great
admiration, is a kind of wood, called Stony Wood, alterable into the
hardness of a stone by the action of water. This strange alteration of
Nature, he adds, is to be seen in sundry parts of England and Wales;
and then he relates how he himself “being at Rougby (about such time
as our fantasticke people did with great concourse and multitudes
repaire and run headlong unto the sacred wells of Newnam Regis, in the
edge of Warwickshire, as unto the water of life, which could cure all
diseases),” went from thence unto these wells, “where I found growing
ouer the same a faire Ashe-tree, whose boughs did hang ouer the spring
of water, whereof some that were seare and rotten, and some that of
purpose were broken off, fell into the water and were all turned into
stones. Of these boughes or parts of the tree I brought into London,
which when I had broken in pieces, therein might be seene that the pith
and all the rest was turned into stones, still remaining the same shape
and fashion that they were of before they were in the water.”
[Illustration: The Stone Tree. From _Gerarde’s Herbal_.]
In Hainam, a Chinese island, grows a certain tree known as the Fig of
Paradise. Its growth is peculiar: from the centre of a cluster of six
or seven leaves springs a branch with no leaves, but a profusion of
fruit resembling Figs. The leaves of this tree are so large and so far
apart, that a man could easily wrap himself up in them; hence it is
supposed that our first parents, after losing their innocence, clothed
themselves with the leaves of a tree of this species.
The island of Ferro, one of the Canaries, is said to be without rivers,
fountains, and wells. However, it has a peculiar tree, as Metellus
mentions, surrounded by walls like a fountain. It resembles the
Nut-tree; and from its leaves there drops water which is drinkable by
cattle and men. A certain courtesan of the island, when it was first
subdued, made it known to the Spaniards. Her perfidy, however, is said
to have been discovered and punished with death by her own people.
Bishop Fleetwood gives the following description, by Hermannus
Nicolaus, of what he calls the Distillatory Plant:--“Great are the
works of the Lord, says the wise man; we cannot consider them without
ravishment. The Distillatory Plant is one of these prodigies of nature,
which we cannot behold without being struck with admiration. And what
most surprises me is the delicious nectar, with which it has often
supplied me in so great abundance to refresh me when I was thirsty to
death and unsufferably weary.... But the greatest wonder of it is the
little purse, or if you will, a small vessel, as long and as big as the
little finger, that is at the end of each leaf. It opens and shuts with
a little lid that is fastened to the top of it. These little purses
are full of a cool, sweet, clear cordial and very agreeable water.
The kindness this liquor has done me when I have been parched up with
thirst, makes me always think of it with pleasure. One plant yields
enough to refresh and quench the thirst of a man who is very dry. The
plant attracts by its roots the moisture of the earth, which the sun
by his heat rarifies and raises up through the stem and the branches
into the leaves, where it filtrates itself to drop into the little
recipients that are at the end of them. This delicious sap remains in
these little vessels till it be drawn out; and it must be observed
that they continue close shut till the liquor be well concocted and
digested, and open of themselves when the juice is good to drink.
’Tis of wonderful virtue to extinguish speedily the heats of burning
fevers. Outwardly applied, it heals ring-worms, St. Anthony’s Fire, and
inflammations.”
Plants Bearing Inscriptions and Figures.
Gerarde has told us that in the root of the Brake Fern, the figure of
a spread-eagle may be traced; and Maundevile has asserted that the
fruit of the Banana, cut it how you will, exhibits a representation
of the Holy Cross. L. Sarius, in his Chronicles to the year 1559,
records that, in Wales, an Ash was uprooted during a tempest, and in
its massive trunk, rent asunder by the violence of the storm, a cross
was plainly depicted, about a foot long. This cross remained for many
years visible in the shattered trunk of the Ash, and was regarded
with superstitious awe by the Catholics as having been Divinely sent
to reprove the officious zeal of Queen Elizabeth in banishing sacred
images from the Churches.
In Zahn’s work is an account--“resting on the sworn testimony of the
worthiest men,” and on the authority of an archbishop--of the holy name
JESU found in a Beech that had been felled near Treves. The youth, who
was engaged in chopping up this tree, observed while doing so, a cloud
or film surrounding the pith of the wood. Astonished at the sight, he
called his uncle Hermann, who noticed at once the sacred name in a
yellow colour, changing to black. Hermann carried the wood home to his
wife, who had long been an invalid, and she, regarding it as a precious
relic, received much comfort, and finally, in answer to daily prayer,
her strength was restored. After this, the wood was presented to the
Elector Maximilian Henry, who was so struck with the phenomenon, that
he had it placed in a rich silver covering, and publicly exposed as
a sacred relic in a church; and on the spot where the tree was cut,
he caused a chapel to be erected, to preserve the name of Jesu in
everlasting remembrance.
In the same work, we are told that in a certain root, called
_Ophoides_, a serpent is clearly represented; that the root of
_Astragalus_ depicts the stars; that in the trunk of the _Quiacus_,
a dog’s head was found delineated, together with the perfect figure
of a bird; that the trunk of a tree, when cut, displayed on its inner
surface eight Danish words; that in a Beech cut down by a joiner, was
found the marvellous representation of a thief hanging on a gibbet;
and that in another piece of wood adhering to the former was depicted
a ladder such as was used in those days by public executioners: these
figures were distinctly delineated in a black tint. In 1628, in the
wood of a fruit-tree that had been cut down near Haarlem, in Holland,
the images of bishops, tortoises, and many other things were seen;
and one Schefferus, a physician, has recorded that near the same
place, a piece of wood was found in which there was given “a wonderful
representation by Nature of a most orderly star with six rays.” Evelyn,
in his ‘Sylva,’ speaks of a tree found in Holland, which, being cleft,
exhibited the figures of a chalice, a priest’s alb, his stole, and
several other pontifical vestments. Of this sort, he adds, was an
Oxfordshire Elm, “a block of which wood being cleft, there came out
a piece so exactly resembling a shoulder of veal, that it was worthy
to be reckoned among the curiosities of this nature.” Evelyn also
notices a certain dining-table made of an old Ash, whereon was figured
in the wood fish, men, and beasts. In the root of a white Briony was
discovered the perfect image of a human being: this curious root was
preserved in the Museum at Bologna. Many examples of human figures in
the roots of Mandrakes have been known, and Aldrovandus tell us that he
was presented with a Mandrake-root, in which the image was perfect.
Vegetable Monstrosities.
It is related that, in the year 1670, there was exposed for sale,
in the public market of Vratislavia, an extraordinary wild Bugloss,
which, on account of the curiosity of the spectators and the different
superstitious speculations of the crowd, was regarded not only as
something monstrous but also as marvellous. This Bugloss was a little
tortuous and 25 inches in length. Its breadth was 4 inches. It
possessed a huge and very broad stem, the fibres of which ran parallel
to each other in a direct line. It bore flowers in the greatest
abundance, and had at least one root.
Aldrovandus, in his _Liber de Monstris_, describes Grapes with beards,
which were seen in the year 1541 in Germany, in the province of
Albersweiler. They were sent as a present, first to Louis, Duke of
Bavaria, and then to King Ferdinand and other princes.
Zahn figures, in his work, a Pear of unusual size which was gathered
from a tree growing in the Royal Garden at Stuttgart, towards the
close of June, 1644. This Pear strongly resembled a human face, with
the features distinctly delineated, and at the end, forming a sort of
crown, were eight small leaves and two young shoots with a blossom at
the apex of each. This curious and unique vegetable monstrosity was
presented to his Serene Highness the Prince of Wurtemburg.
In the same book is given a description of a monstrous Rape--bearing
a striking resemblance to the figure of a man seated, and exhibiting
perfectly body, arms, and head, on which the sprouting foliage took
the place of hair. This Rape grew in the garden of a nobleman in the
province of Weiden, in the year 1628.
Mention is made of a _Daucus_ which was planted and became unusually
large in size. Some pronounced it to be a Parsnip, having a yellow
root, and thin leaves. This Parsnip had an immense root, like a human
hand, which, from its peculiar growth, had the appearance of grasping
the _Daucus_ itself.
In Zahn’s book are recorded many other vegetable marvels: amongst
them is the case of a Reed growing in the belly of an elephant; a ear
of Wheat in the nose of an Italian woman; Oats in the stomach of a
soldier; and various grains found in wounds and ulcers, in different
parts of the human body.
Miraculous Trees and Plants.
There are some few plants which have at different times been
prominently brought into notice by their intimate association with
miracles. Such a one was the branch of the Almond-tree forming the rod
of Aaron, which, when placed by Moses in the Tabernacle, miraculously
budded and blossomed in the night, as a sign that its owner should
be chosen for High Priest. Such, again, was the staff of Joseph of
Arimathea, which, when driven, one Christmas-day, into the ground
at Glastonbury, took root and produced a Thorn-tree, which always
blossomed on that day. Such, again, was the staff of St. Martin, from
which sprang up a goodly Yew, in the cloister of Vreton, in Brittany;
and such was the staff of St. Serf, which, thrown by him across the
sea from Inchkeith to Culross, straightway took root and became an
Apple-tree.
In the same category must be included the tree miraculously secured by
St. Thomas, the apostle of the Indians, and from which he was enabled
to construct a church, inasmuch as when the sawdust emitted by the
tree when being sawn was sown, trees sprang up therefrom. The tree
(represented as being a species of _Kalpadruma_) was hewn on the Peak
of Adam, in Ceylon, by two servants of St. Thomas, and dragged by
him into the sea, where he appears to have left it with the command,
“_Vade, expecta nos in portu civitatis Mirapolis._” ... When it reached
its destination, this tree had grown to such an enormous bulk, that
although the king and his army of ten thousand troops, with many
elephants, did their utmost to secure it and drag it on shore, they
were unable to move it. Mortified at his failure, the king descried
the holy Apostle Thomas approaching, riding upon an ass. The holy
Apostle was accompanied by his two servants, and by two great lions.
“Forbear,” said he, addressing the king: “Touch not the wood, for it is
mine.” “How can you prove it is yours?” enquired the king. Then Thomas,
loosing his girdle, threw it to the two servants, and bade them tie it
around the tree; this they speedily did, and, with the assistance of
the lions, dragged the huge trunk ashore. The king was astonished and
convinced by the miracle, and at once offered to Thomas as much land
whereon to erect a church to his God as he cared to ride round on his
ass. So with the aid of the miraculous tree the Apostle Thomas set to
work to build his church. When his workmen were hungry he took some of
the sawdust of the tree, and converted it into Rice; when they demanded
payment, he broke off a small piece of the wood, which instantly became
changed into money.
Popular tradition has everywhere preserved the remembrance of a certain
_Arbor secco_, which, according to Marco Polo, Frate Odorico, and
the Book of Sidrach, existed in the East. This _Arbor secco_ of the
Christians is the veritable Tree of the Sun of the ancient pagans.
Marco Polo calls the tree the Withered Tree of the Sun, and places
it in the confines of Persia; Odorico, near Sauris. According to
Maundevile, the tree had existed at Mamre from the beginning of the
world. It was an Oak, and had been held in special veneration since the
time of Abraham. The Saracens called it _Dirpe_, and the people of the
country, the Withered Tree, because from the date of the Passion of Our
Lord, it has been withered, and will remain so until a Prince of the
West shall come with the Christians to conquer the Holy Land: then “he
shalle do synge a masse undir that dry tree, and than the tree shalle
waxen grene and bere bothe fruyt and leves.” Fra Mauro, in his map of
the world, represents the Withered Tree in the middle of Central Asia.
It has been surmised that this Withered Tree is no other than that
alluded to by the Prophet Ezekiel (xvii., 24): “And all the trees of
the field shall know that I the Lord have brought down the high tree,
have exalted the low tree, have dried up the green tree.”
[Illustration: Arbor Secco, or The Withered Tree. From _Maundevile’s
Travels_.]
Sulpicius Severus relates that an abbot, in order to test the patience
of a novice, planted in the ground a branch of Styrax that he chanced
to have in his hand, and commanded the Novice to water it every day
with water to be obtained from the Nile, which was two miles from the
monastery. For two years the novice obeyed his superior’s injunction
faithfully, going every day to the banks of the river, and carrying
back on his shoulder a supply of Nile water wherewith to water the
apparently lifeless branch. At length, however, his steadfastness was
rewarded, for in the third year the branch miraculously shot out very
fine leaves, and afterwards produced flowers. The historian adds that
he saw in the monastery some slips of the same tree, which they took
delight to cultivate as a memento of what the Almighty had been pleased
to do to reward the obedience of his servant.
Another miraculous tree is alluded to in Fleetwood’s ‘Curiosities,’
where, on the authority of Philostratus, the author describes a certain
talking Elm of Ethiopia, which, during a discussion held under its
branches between Apollonius and Thespesio, chief of the Gymnosophists,
reverently “bowed itself down and saluted Apollonius, giving him the
title of Wise, with a distinct but weak and shrill voice, like a woman.”
The blind man to whom our Saviour restored his sight said, at first,
“I see men walking as if they were trees!” one Anastasius of Nice,
however, has recorded that, oppositely, he had seen trees walk as if
they were men. Bishop Fleetwood remarks that this Anastasius, being
persuaded that by miraculous means our neighbours’ trees may be brought
into our own field, relates that a heretic of Zizicum, of the sect of
the Pneumatomachians, had, by the virtue of his art, brought near to
his own house a great Olive-tree belonging to one of his neighbours,
that he and his disciples might have the benefit of the freshness of
the shade to protect them from the heat of the sun. By this art, also,
it was that the plantation of Olives, belonging to Vectidius, changed
its place.
Maundevile has preserved a record of a tree of miraculous origin, that
in his time grew in the city of Tiberias. The old knight writes:--“In
that cytee a man cast an brennynge [a burning] dart in wratthe after
oure Lord, and the hed smote in to the eerthe, and wex grene, and it
growed to a gret tree; and yit it growethe, and the bark there of is
alle lyke coles.”
[Illustration: Miraculous Tree of Tiberias. From _Maundevile’s
Travels_.]
Among flowers, the Rose--the especial flower of martyrdom--has been
the most connected with miracles. Maundevile gives it a miraculous
origin, alleging that at Bethlehem the faggots lighted to burn an
innocent maiden were, owing to her earnest prayers, extinguished and
miraculously changed into bushes which bore the first Roses, both
white and red. According to monastic tradition, the martyr-saint
Dorothea sent a basket of Roses miraculously to the notary Theophilus,
from the garden of Paradise. The Romish legend of St. Cecilia relates
that after Valerian, her husband, had been converted and baptised by
St. Urban, he returned to his home, and heard, as he entered it, the
most enchanting music. On reaching his wife’s apartment, he beheld
an angel standing near her, who held in his hand two crowns of Roses
gathered in Paradise, immortal in their freshness and perfume, but
invisible to the eyes of unbelievers. With these the angel encircled
the brows of Cecilia and Valerian, and promised that the eyes of
Tiburtius, Valerian’s brother, should be opened to the truth. Then he
vanished. Soon afterwards Tiburtius entered the chamber, and perceiving
the fragrance of the celestial Roses, but not seeing them, and knowing
that it was not the season for flowers, he was astonished, yielded to
the fervid appeal of St. Cecilia, and became a Christian.
St. Elizabeth, of Hungary, is always represented with Roses in her
lap or hand, in allusion to a legend which relates that this saint,
the type of female charity, one day, in the depth of winter, left
her husband’s castle, carrying in the skirts of her robe a supply of
provisions for a certain poor family; and as she was descending the
frozen and slippery path, her husband, returning from the chase, met
her bending under the weight of her charitable burden. “What dost thou
here, my Elizabeth?” he asked: “let us see what thou art carrying
away.” Then she, confused and blushing to be so discovered, pressed
her mantle to her bosom; but he insisted, and opening her robe, he
beheld only red and white Roses, more beautiful and fragrant than any
that grow on this earth, even at summer-tide, and it was now the depth
of winter! Turning to embrace his wife, he was so overawed by the
supernatural glory exhibited on her face, that he dared not touch her;
but, bidding her proceed on her mission, he took one of the Roses of
Paradise from her lap, and placed it reverently in his breast.
Trithemius narrates that Albertus Magnus, in the depths of winter, gave
to King William on the festival of Epiphany a most elegant banquet in
the little garden of his Monastery. Suddenly, although the monastery
itself was covered with snow, the atmosphere in the garden became
balmy, the trees became covered with leaves, and even produced ripe
fruit--each tree after its kind. A Vine sent forth a sweet odour and
produced fresh grapes in abundance, to the amazement of everyone.
Flocks of birds of all kinds were attracted to the spot, and, rejoicing
at the summer-like temperature, burst into song. At length, the
wonderful entertainment came to an end, the tables were removed, and
the servants all retired from the grounds. Then the singing of the
birds ceased, the green of the trees, shrubs, and grasses speedily
faded and withered, the flowers drooped and perished, the masses of
snow which had so strangely disappeared now covered everything, and a
piercing cold of great intensity obliged the king and his fellow-guests
to seek shelter and warmth within the Monastery walls. Greatly
astonished and moved at what he had seen, King William called Albertus
to him, and promised to grant him whatever he might request. Albertus
asked for land in the State of Utrecht, whereon to erect a Monastery of
his own order. His request was granted, and he also obtained from the
King many other favours.
It is recorded that on the same day that Alexander de’ Medici, the
Duke of Florence, was treacherously killed, in the Villa of Cosmo de’
Medici, an abundance of all kinds of flowers burst into bloom, although
quite out of the flowering season; and on that day the Cosmian gardens
alone appeared gay with flowers, as though Spring had come.
Father Garnet’s Straw.
At the commencement of the present chapter on extraordinary and
miraculous plants, allusion was made to certain trees which were
reputed to have borne as fruit human heads. A fitting conclusion to
this list of wonders would appear to be an account of a wondrous ear of
Straw, which, in the year 1606, was stated miraculously to have borne
in effigy the head of Father Garnet, who was executed for complicity in
the Gunpowder Plot. It would seem that, after the execution of Garnet
and his companion Oldcorne, tales of miracles performed in vindication
of their innocence, and in honour of their martyrdom, were circulated
by the Jesuits. But the miracle most insisted upon as a supernatural
confirmation of the Jesuit’s innocence and martyrdom, was the story of
Father Garnet’s Straw. The originator of this miracle was supposed to
be one John Wilkinson, a young Catholic, who, at the time of Garnet’s
trial and execution, was about to pass over into France, to commence
his studies at the Jesuits’ college at St. Omers. Some time after
his arrival there, Wilkinson was attacked by a dangerous disease,
from which there was no hope of recovery; and while in this state he
gave utterance to the story, which Eudæmon-Joannes relates in his own
words. Having described his strong impression that he should “witness
some immediate testimony from God in favour of the innocence of His
saint,” his attendance at the execution, and its details, he proceeds
thus:--“Garnet’s limbs having been divided into four parts, and placed
together with the head in a basket, in order that they might be
exhibited according to law in some conspicuous place, the crowd began
to disperse. I then again approached close to the scaffold, and stood
between the cart and the place of execution; and as I lingered in that
situation, still burning with the desire of bearing away some relique,
that miraculous ear of Straw, since so highly celebrated, came, I know
not how, into my hand. A considerable quantity of dry Straw had
been thrown with Garnet’s head and quarters from the scaffold into the
basket; but whether this ear came into my hand from the scaffold or
from the basket, I cannot venture to affirm: this only I can truly say,
that a Straw of this kind was thrown towards me before it had touched
the ground. This Straw I afterwards delivered to Mrs. N., a matron
of singular Catholic piety, who inclosed it in a bottle, which being
rather shorter than the Straw, it became slightly bent. A few days
afterwards, Mrs. N. showed the Straw in the bottle to a certain noble
person, her intimate acquaintance, who, looking at it attentively, at
length said, ‘I can see nothing in it but a man’s face.’ At this, Mrs.
N. and I, being astonished at the unexpected exclamation, again and
again examined the ear of Straw, and distinctly perceived in it a human
countenance, which others, also coming in as casual spectators, or
expressly called by us as witnesses, also beheld at that time. This is,
as God knoweth, the true history of Father Garnet’s Straw.”
[Illustration: TO FACE PAGE 135.]
Father Garnet’s Straw.
_From the ‘Apology of Eudæmon-Joannes.’_]
In process of time, the fame of the prodigy encouraged those who had
an interest in upholding it to add considerably to the miracle as it
was at first promulgated. Wilkinson and the first observers of the
marvel merely represented that the appearance of a face was shown on
so diminutive a scale, upon the husk or sheath of a single grain, as
scarcely to be visible unless specifically pointed out. Fig. 1 in the
accompanying plate accurately depicts the miracle as it was at first
displayed.
But a much more imposing image was afterwards discovered. Two faces
appeared upon the middle part of the Straw, both surrounded with rays
of glory; the head of the principal figure, which represented Garnet,
was encircled with a martyr’s crown, and the face of a cherub appeared
in the midst of his beard. In this improved state of the miracle, the
story was circulated in England, and excited the most profound and
universal attention; and thus depicted, the miraculous Straw became
generally known throughout the Christian world. Fig. 2 in the sketch
exactly represents the prodigy in its improved state: it is taken from
the frontispiece to the ‘Apology of Eudæmon-Joannes.’
So great was the scandal occasioned by this story of Father Garnet’s
miraculous Straw, that Archbishop Bancroft was commissioned by the
Privy Council to institute an inquiry, and, if possible, to detect
and punish the perpetration of what he considered a gross imposture;
but although a great many persons were examined, no distinct evidence
of imposition could be obtained. It was proved, however, that the
face might have been limned on the Straw by Wilkinson, or under his
direction, during the interval which occurred between the time of
Garnet’s death and the discovery of the miraculous head. At all events,
the inquiry had the desired effect of staying public curiosity in
England; and upon this the Privy Council took no further proceedings
against any of the parties.
[Headpiece]
CHAPTER XII.
Plants Connected with Birds and Animals.
The association of trees and birds has been the theme of the most
ancient writers. The Skalds have sung how an Eagle sat in stately
majesty on the topmost branch of Yggdrasill, whilst the keen-eyed Hawk
hovered around. The Vedas record how the Pippala of the Hindu Paradise
was daily visited by two beauteous birds, one of which fed from its
celestial food, whilst its companion poured forth delicious melody
from its reed-like throat. On the summit of the mystic Soma-tree were
perched two birds, the one engaged in expressing the immortalising
Soma-juice, the other feeding on the Figs which hung from the branches
of the sacred tree. A bird, bearing in its beak a twig plucked from its
favourite tree, admonished the patriarch Noah that the waters of the
flood were subsiding from the deluged world.
In olden times there appears to have been a notion that in some
cases plants could not be germinated excepting through the direct
intervention of birds. Thus Bacon tells us of a tradition, current in
his day, that a bird, called a Missel-bird, fed upon a seed which,
being unable to digest, she evacuated whole; and that this seed,
falling upon boughs of trees, put forth the Mistletoe. A similar story
is told by Tavernier of the Nutmeg. “It is observable,” he says, “that
the Nutmeg-tree is never planted: this has been attested to me by
several persons who have resided many years in the islands of Bonda. I
have been assured that when the nuts are ripe, there come certain birds
from the islands that lie towards the South, who swallow them down
whole, and evacuate them whole likewise, without ever having digested
them. These nuts being then covered with a viscous and glutinous
matter, when they fall on the ground, take root, vegetate, and produce
a tree, which would not grow from them if they were planted like other
trees.”
The Druids, dwelling as they did in groves and forests, frequented by
birds and animals, were adepts at interpreting the meaning of their
actions and sounds. A knowledge of the language of the bird and animal
kingdoms was deemed by them a marvellous gift, which was only to be
imparted to the priestess who should be fortunate enough to tread under
foot the mystic _Selago_, or Golden Herb.
At a time when men had no almanack to warn them of the changing of the
seasons, no calendar to guide them in the planting of their fields and
gardens, the arrival and departure of birds helped to direct them in
the cultivation of plants. So we find Ecclesiastes preached “a bird of
the air shall carry the voice,” and in modern times the popular saying
arose of “a little bird has told me.”
This notion of the birds imparting knowledge is prettily rendered
by Hans Christian Andersen, in his story of the Fir-tree, where the
sapling wonders what is done with the trees taken out of the wood at
Christmas time. “Ah, we know--we know,” twittered the Sparrows; “for we
have looked in at the windows in yonder town.”
Dr. Solander tells us that the peasants of Upland remark that “When you
see the Wheatear you may sow your grain,” for in this country there is
seldom any severe frost after the Wheatear appears; and the shepherds
of Salisbury Plain say:--
“When Dotterel do first appear,
It shows that frost is very near;
But when the Dotterel do go,
Then you may look for heavy snow.”
Aristophanes makes one of his characters say that in former times the
Kite ruled the Greeks; his meaning being that in ancient days the
Kite was looked upon as the sign of Spring and of the necessity of
commencing active work in field and garden; and again, “The Crow points
out the time for sowing when she flies croaking to Libya.” In another
place he notices that the Cuckoo in like manner governed Phœnicia and
Egypt, because when it cried _Kokku, Kokku_, it was considered time to
reap the Wheat and Barley fields.
In our own country, this welcome harbinger of the Springtide has
been associated with a number of vernal plants: we have the Cuckoo
Flower (_Lychnis Flos cuculi_), Cuckoo’s Bread or Meat, and Cuckoo’s
Sorrel (_Oxalis Acetosella_), Cuckoo Grass (_Lazula campestris_),
and Shakspeare’s “Cuckoo Buds of yellow hue,” which are thought to
be the buds of the Crowfoot (_Ranunculus_). The association in the
popular rhyme of the Cuckoo with the Cherry-tree is explained by an
old superstition that before it ceases its song, the Cuckoo must eat
three good meals of Cherries. In Sussex, the Whitethorn is called the
Cuckoo’s Bread-and-Cheese Tree, and an old proverb runs--
“When the Cuckoo comes to the bare Thorn,
Then sell your Cow and buy your Corn.”
Mr. Parish has remarked that it is singular this name should be given
to the Whitethorn, as among all Aryan nations the tree is associated
with lightning, and the Cuckoo is connected with the lightning gods
Jupiter and Thor.
Pliny relates that the Halcyon, or Kingfisher, at breeding-time,
foretold calm and settled weather. The belief in the wisdom of birds
obtained such an ascendancy over men’s minds, that we find at length
no affair of moment was entered upon without consulting them. Thus
came in augury, by which was meant a forewarning of future events
derived from prophetic birds. One of these systems of divinations, for
the purpose of discovering some secret or future event was effected
by means of a Cock and grains of Barley, in the following manner: the
twenty-four letters of the alphabet having been written in the dust,
upon each letter was laid a grain of Barley, and a Cock, over which
previous incantations had been uttered, was let loose among them; those
letters off which it pecked the Barley, being joined together, were
then believed to declare the word of which they were in search. The
magician Jamblichus, desirous to find out who should succeed Valens in
the imperial purple, made use of this divination, but the Cock only
picked up four grains, viz., those which lay upon the (Greek) letters
th. e. o. d., so that it was uncertain whether Theodosius, Theodotus,
Theodorus, or Theodectes, was the person designed by the Fates. Valens,
when informed of the matter, was so terribly enraged, that he put
several persons to death simply because their names began with these
letters. When, however, he proceeded to make search after the magicians
themselves, Jamblichus put an end to his majesty’s life by a dose of
poison, and he was succeeded by Theodosius in the empire of the East.
The loves of the Nightingale and the Rose have formed a favourite topic
of Eastern poets. In a fragment by the celebrated Persian poet Attar,
entitled _Bulbul Nameh_ (the Book of the Nightingale), all the birds
appear before Solomon, and charge the Nightingale with disturbing
their rest by the broken and plaintive strains which he warbles forth
in a sort of frenzy and intoxication. The Nightingale is summoned,
questioned, and acquitted by the wise king, because the bird assures
him that his vehement love for the Rose drives him to distraction,
and causes him to break forth into those languishing and touching
complaints which are laid to his charge. Thus the Persians believe that
the Nightingale in Spring flutters around the Rose-bushes, uttering
incessant complaints, till, overpowered by the strong scent, he drops
stupefied to the ground. The impassioned bird makes his appearance in
Eastern climes at the season when the Rose begins to blow: hence the
legend that the beauteous flower bursts forth from its bud at the song
of its ravished adorer. The Persian poet Jami says, “The Nightingales
warbled their enchanting notes and rent the thin veils of the Rose-bud
and the Rose;” and Moore has sung--
“Oh sooner shall the Rose of May
Mistake her own sweet Nightingale,
And to some meaner minstrel’s lay
Open her bosom’s glowing veil,
Than love shall ever doubt a tone--
A breath--of the beloved one!”
And in another place, the author of ‘Lalla Rookh’ asks--
“Though rich the spot
With every flower the earth hath got,
What is it to the Nightingale,
If there his darling Rose is not?”
Lord Byron has alluded to this pretty conceit in the ‘Giaour,’ when he
sings--
“The Rose o’er crag or vale,
Sultana of the Nightingale,
The maid for whom his melody,
His thousand songs are heard on high,
Blooms blushing to her lover’s tale,
His queen, the garden queen, his Rose,
Unbent by winds, unchill’d by snows.”
From the verses of the poet Jami may be learnt how the first Rose
appeared in Gulistan at the time when the flowers, dissatisfied with
the reign of the torpid Lotus, who would slumber at night, demanded a
new sovereign from Allah. At first the Rose queen was snowy white, and
guarded by a protecting circlet of Thorns; but the amorous Nightingale
fell into such a transport of love over her charms, and so recklessly
pressed his ravished heart against the cruel Thorns, that his blood
trickling into the lovely blossom’s bosom, dyed it crimson; and, in
corroboration of this, the poet demands, “Are not the petals white at
the extremity where the poor little bird’s blood could not reach?”
Perhaps this Eastern poetic legend may have given rise to the belief,
which has long been entertained, that the Nightingale usually sleeps
on, or with its bosom against, a Thorn, under the impression that in
such a painful situation it must remain awake. Young, in his ‘Night
Thoughts,’ thus refers to this curious idea--
“Grief’s sharpest Thorn hard-pressing on my breast,
I share with wakeful melody to cheer
The sullen gloom, sweet Philomel! like thee,
And call the stars to listen.”
And in Thomson’s ‘Hymn to May,’ we find this allusion:--
“The lowly Nightingale,
A Thorn her pillow, trills her doleful tale.”
In a sonnet by Sir Philip Sydney, afterwards set to music by Bateson,
we read--
“The Nightingale, as soon as April bringeth
Unto her rested sense a perfect waking,
When late bare earth, proud of new clothing, springeth,
Sings out her woes, a Thorn her song-book making,
And mournfully bewailing,
Her throat in tunes expresseth,
While grief her heart oppresseth,
For Tereus o’er her chaste will prevailing.”
Shakspeare notices the story in the following quaint lines--
“Everything did banish moan,
Save the Nightingale alone;
She, poor bird, as all forlorn,
Leaned her breast up till a Thorn,
And then sung the doleful ditty,
That to hear it was great pity.”
In Yorkshire, there is a tradition of Hops having been planted many
years ago, near Doncaster, and of the Nightingale making its first
appearance there about the same time. The popular idea was, that
between the bird and the plant some mysterious connecting link existed.
Be this as it may, both the Hops and the Nightingale disappeared long
ago.
It is not alone the Nightingale that has a legendary connection with
a Thorn. Another favourite denizen of our groves may also lay claim
to this distinction, inasmuch as, according to a tradition current in
Brittany, its red breast was originally produced by the laceration of
an historic Thorn. In this story it is said that, whilst our Saviour
was bearing His cross on the way to Calvary, a little bird, struck with
compassion at His sufferings, flew suddenly to Him, and plucked from
His bleeding brow one of the cruel thorns of His mocking crown, steeped
in His blood. In bearing it away in its beak, drops of the Divine blood
fell upon the little bird’s breast, and dyed its plumage red; so that
ever since the Red-breast has been treated as the friend of man, and is
studiously protected by him from harm.
Whether or no this legend of the origin of our little friend’s red
breast formerly influenced mankind in its favour, it is certain that
the Robin has always been regarded with tenderness. Popular tradition,
even earlier than the date of the story of the Children in the Wood,
has made him our sexton with the aid of plants:--
“No burial this pretty pair
Of any man receives,
Till Robin Redbreast, painfully,
Did cover them with leaves.”
It is noted in Gray’s Shakspeare that, according to the oldest
traditions, if the Robin finds the dead body of a human being, he will
cover the face at least with Moss and leaves.
“Cov’ring with Moss the dead’s unclosed eye
The little Redbreast teacheth charitie.”--_Drayton’s ‘Owl.’_
The Wren is also credited with employing plants for acts of similar
charity. In Reed’s old plays, we read--
“Call for the Robin Redbreast and the Wren,
Since o’er shady groves they hover,
And with leaves and flow’rs do cover
The friendless bodies of unburied men.”
A writer in one of our popular periodicals[15] gives another quaint
quotation expressive of the tradition, from Stafford’s ‘Niobe dissolved
into a Nilus’: “On her (the Nightingale) smiles Robin in his redde
livvrie; who sits as a coroner on the murthred man; and seeing his body
naked, plays the sorrie tailour to make him a Mossy rayment.”
[15] ‘All the Year Round,’ Vol. xiii.
The Missel or Missel-Thrush is sometimes called the Mistletoe-Thrush,
because it feeds upon Mistletoe berries. Lord Bacon, in _Sylva
Sylvarum_, refers (as already noted) to an old belief that the seeds of
Mistletoe will not vegetate unless they have passed through the stomach
of this bird.
The Peony is said to cure epilepsy, if certain ceremonies are duly
observed. A patient, however, must on no account taste the root, if a
Woodpecker should happen to be in sight, or he will be certain to be
stricken with blindness.
Among the many magical properties ascribed to the _Spreng-wurzel_
(Spring-wort), or, as it is sometime called, the Blasting-root, is
its power to reveal treasures. But this it can only do through the
instrumentality of a bird, which is usually a green or black Woodpecker
(according to Pliny, also the Raven; in Switzerland, the Hoopoe; in
the Tyrol, the Swallow). In order to become possessed of a root of
this magical plant, arrangements must be made with much care and
circumspection, and the bird closely watched. When the old bird has
temporarily left its nest, access to it must be stopped up by plugging
the hole with wood. The bird, finding this, will fly away in search
of the Spring-wort, and returning, will open the nest by touching the
obstruction with the mystic root. Meanwhile a fire or a red cloth must
be spread out closely, which will so startle the bird, that it will let
the root fall from its bills, and it can thus be secured. Pliny relates
of the Woodpecker, that the hen bird brings up her young in holes, and
if the entrance be plugged up, no matter how securely, the old bird
is able to force out the plug with an explosion caused by the plant.
Aubrey confounds the Moonwort with the Springwort. He says:--“Sir Benet
Hoskins, Baronet, told me that his keeper at his parke at Morehampton,
in Herefordshire, did, for experiment’s sake, drive an iron naile
thwert the hole of the Woodpecker’s nest, there being a tradition that
the damme will bring some leafe to open it. He layed at the bottome
of the tree a cleane sheet, and before many hours passed, the naile
came out, and he found a leafe lying by it on the sheete. They say the
Moonewort will doe such things.”
Tradition tells us of a certain magical herb called _Chora_, which
was also known as the _Herba Meropis_, or plant of the Merops, a bird
which the Germans were familiar with under the name of _Bömhechel_ or
_Baumhacker_ (Woodpecker). This bird builds its nest in high trees, but
should anyone cover the young brood with something which prevents the
parent bird from visiting the nest, it flies off in search of a herb.
This is brought in the Merops’ beak, and held over the obstacle till it
falls off or gives way.
In Swabia, the Springwort is regarded as a plant embodying electricity
or lightning; but the Hoopoe takes the place of the Woodpecker in
employing the herb for blasting and removing offensive obstacles. The
Swabians, however, instead of a red cloth, place a pail of water, or
kindle a fire, as the Hoopoe, wishing to destroy the Springwort, after
using it, drops it either into fire or water. It is related of the
Hoopoe, that one of these birds had a nest in an old wall in which
there was a crevice. The proprietor, noticing the cleft in the wall,
had it stopped up with plaster during the Hoopoe’s absence, so that
when the poor bird returned to feed her young, she found that it was
impossible to get to her nest. Thereupon she flew off in quest of a
plant called _Poa_, thought to be Sainfoin or Lucerne, and, having
found a spray, returned and applied it to the plaster, which instantly
fell from the crevice, and allowed the Hoopoe ingress to her nest.
Twice again did the owner plaster up the rent in his wall, and twice
again did the persistent and sagacious bird apply the magic _Poa_ with
successful results.
In Piedmont there grows a little plant which, as stated in a previous
chapter, bears the name of the Herb of the Blessed Mary. This plant is
known to the birds as being fatal when eaten: hence, when their young
are stolen from them and imprisoned in cages, the parent birds, in
order that death may release them from their life of bondage, gather
a spray of this herb and carry it in their beaks to their imprisoned
children.
The connection between the Dove and the Olive has been set forth for
all time in the Bible narrative of Noah and the Flood; but it would
seem from Sir John Maundevile’s account of the Church of St. Katherine,
which existed at his time in the vicinity of Mount Sinai, that Ravens,
Choughs, and Crows have emulated the example of the Dove, and carried
Olive-branches to God-fearing people. This Church of St. Katherine, we
are told, marks the spot where God revealed Himself to Moses in the
burning bush, and in it there were many lamps kept burning: the reason
of this Maundevile thus explains:--“For thei han of Oyle of Olyves
ynow bothe for to brenne in here lampes, and to ete also: And that
plentee have thei be the Myracle of God. For the Ravenes and Crowes
and the Choughes, and other Foules of the Contree assemblen hem there
every Yeer ones, and fleen thider as in pilgrymage: and everyche of hem
bringethe a Braunche of the Bayes or of Olive, in here bekes, in stede
of Offryng, and leven hem there; of the whiche the monkes maken gret
plentee of Oyle; and this is a gret Marvaylle.”
[Illustration: Pious Birds and Olives. From _Maundevile’s Travels_.]
The ancients entertained a strong belief that birds were gifted with
the knowledge of herbs, and that just as the Woodpecker and Hoopoe
sought out the Springwort, wherewith to remove obstructions, so other
birds made use of certain herbs which they knew possessed valuable
medicinal or curative properties; thus Aristotle, Pliny, Dioscorides,
and the old herbalists and botanical writers, all concur in stating
that Swallows were in the habit of plucking Celandine (_Chelidonium_),
and applying it to the eyes of their young, because, as Gerarde tells
us, “With this herbe the dams restore sight to their young ones when
their eies be put out.” W. Coles, fully accepting the fact as beyond
cavil, thus moralizes upon it:--“It is known to such as have skill of
nature what wonderful care she takes of the smallest creatures, giving
to them a knowledge of medicine to help themselves, if haply diseases
annoy them. The Swallow cureth her dim eyes with Celandine; the Wesell
knoweth well the virtue of Herb Grace; the Dove the Verven; the Dogge
dischargeth his mawe with a kind of Grasse; ... and too long it were
to reckon up all the medicines which the beestes are known to use by
Nature’s direction only.” The same writer, in his ‘Adam and Eden,’
tells us that the _Euphrasia_, or Eyebright, derived its English name
from the fact of its being used by Linnets and other birds to clear
their sight. Says he: “Divers authors write that Goldfinches, Linnets,
and some other birds make use of this herb for the repairing of their
young ones’ sight. The purple and yellow spots and stripes which are
upon the flowers of Eyebright very much resemble the diseases of the
eyes, or bloodshot.”
Apuleius tells us that the Eagle, when he wishes to soar high and scan
far and wide, plucks a wild Lettuce, and expressing the juice, rubs
with it his eyes, which in consequence become wonderfully clear and
far-seeing. The Hawk, for a similar purpose, was thought to employ the
Hawk-bit, or Hawk-weed (_Hieracium_). Pigeons and Doves, not to be
behind their traditional enemy, discovered that Vervain possessed the
power of curing dimness of vision, and were not slow to use it with
that object: hence the plant obtained the name of Pigeon’s-grass. Geese
were thought to “help their diseases” with _Galium aparine_, called on
that account Goose-grass; and they are said to sometimes feed on the
_Potentilla anserina_, or Goose Tansy. On the other hand, they were so
averse to the herb known to the ancients as _Chenomychon_, that they
took to flight the moment they spied it.
There is an old tradition of a certain life-giving herb, which was
known to birds, and a story is told of how one day an old man watched
two birds fighting till one was overcome. In an almost exhausted state
it went and ate of a certain herb, and then returned to the onslaught.
When the old man had observed this occur several times, he went and
plucked the herb which had proved so valuable to the little bird; and
when at last it came once more in search of the life-giving plant, and
found it gone, it uttered a shrill cry, and fell down dead. The name of
the herb is not given; but the story has such a strong family likeness
to that narrated by Forestus, in which the Goat’s Rue is introduced,
that, probably, _Galega_ is the life-giving herb referred to. The
story told by Forestus is as follows:--A certain old man once taking
a walk by the bank of a river, saw a Lizard fighting with a Viper; so
he quietly lay down on the ground, that he might the better witness
the fight without being seen by the combatants. The Lizard, being the
inferior in point of strength, was speedily wounded by a very powerful
stroke from the Viper--so much so, that it lay on the turf as if dying.
But shortly recovering itself, it crept through the rather long Grass,
without being noticed by the Viper, along the bank of the river, to
a certain herb (Goat’s Rue), growing there nigh at hand. The Lizard,
having devoured it, regained at once its former strength, and returning
to the Viper, attacked it in the same way as before, but was wounded
again from receiving another deadly blow from the Viper. Once more the
Lizard secretly made for the herb, to regain its strength, and being
revived, it again engaged with its dangerous enemy--but in vain; for it
experienced the same fate as before. Looking on, the old man wondered
at the plant not less than at the battle; and in order to try if the
herb possessed other hidden powers, he pulled it up secretly, while the
Lizard was engaged afresh with the Viper. The Lizard having been again
wounded, returned towards the herb, but not being able to find it in
its accustomed place, it sank exhausted and died.
Numerous plants have had the names of birds given to them, either from
certain peculiarities in their structure resembling birds, or because
they form acceptable food for the feathered race. Thus the Cock’s Comb
is so called from the shape of its calyx; the Cock’s Foot, from the
form of its spike; and the Cock’s Head (the Sainfoin), from the shape
of the legume. The Crane’s Bill and the Heron’s Bill both derive their
names from the form of their respective seed vessels. The Guinea Hen
(_Fritillaria meleagris_) has been so called from its petals being
spotted like this bird. The Pheasant’s Eye (_Adonis autumnalis_) owes
its name to its bright red corolla and dark centre; the Sparrow Tongue
(the Knot-grass) to its small acute leaves; and the Lark’s Spur, Heel,
Toe, or Claw (_Delphinium_) to its projecting nectary. Chickweed and
Duckweed have been so called from being favourite food for poultry. The
Crow has given its name to a greater number of plants than any other
bird. The Ranunculus is the _Coronopus_ or Crow Foot of Dioscorides,
the _Geranium pratense_ is the Crowfoot Crane’s Bill, the _Lotus
corniculatus_ is called Crow Toes, the Daffodil and the Blue-bell both
bear the name of Crow Bells, the _Empetrum nigrum_ is the Crow Berry,
_Allium vineale_ is Crow Garlick, _Scilla nutans_, Crow Leeks, and
the _Scandix Pecten_, Crow Needles. The Hen has a few plants named
after it, the greater and lesser Hen Bits (_Lamium amplexicaule_ and
_Veronica hederifolia_); the Hen’s Foot (_Caucalis daucoides_), so
called from the resemblance of its leaves to a hen’s claw; and Henbane
(_Hyoscyamus niger_), which seems to have derived its name from the
baneful effects its seeds have upon poultry.
Plants connected with Animals.
The Ass has named after it the Ass Parsley (_Æthusa Cynapium_), and
the Ass’s Foot, the Coltsfoot, _Tussilago Farfara_. William Coles
says that “if the Asse be oppressed with melancholy, he eates of the
Herbe _Asplenion_ or Miltwaste, and eases himself of the swelling of
the spleen.” D. C. Franciscus Paullini has given, in an old work, an
account of three Asses he met in Westphalia, which were in the habit of
intoxicating themselves by eating white Henbane and Nightshade. These
four-footed drunkards, when in their cups, strayed to a pond, where
they pulled themselves together with a dip and a draught of water. The
same author relates another story. A miller of Thuringia had brought
meal with his nine Asses into the next district. Having accepted the
hospitality of some boon companions, he left his long-eared friends
to wander around the place and to feed from the hedgerows and public
roads. There they chanced to find a quantity of Thistles that had been
cut, and other food mixed with Hemlock, and at once devoured the spoil
greedily and confidently. At dusk, the miller, rising to depart, was
easily detained by his associates, who cried out that the road was
short, and that the moon, which had risen, would light him better than
any torch. Meanwhile, the Asses, feeling the Hemlock’s power in their
bodies, fell down on the public road, being deprived of all motion and
sensation. At length, about midnight, the miller came to his Asses, and
thinking them to be asleep, lashed them vigorously. But they remained
motionless, and apparently dead. The miller, much frightened, now
besought assistance from the country-folks, but they were all of one
opinion, that the Asses were dead, and that they should be skinned
the next day, when the cause of such a sudden death could be inquired
into. “Come,” said he, “if they are dead, why should I worry myself
about them--let them lie. We can do no good. Come, my friends, let us
return into the inn--to-morrow you will be my witnesses.” Meanwhile
the skinners were called; and, after looking at the Asses, one of them
said, “Do you wish, miller, that we should take their skins off; or
would you be disposed, if we restored the beasts to life, to give us
a handsome reward? You see they are quite in our power. Say what you
wish, and it shall be done, miller.” “Here is my hand,” replied the
miller, “and I pledge my word that I will give you what you wish, if
you restore them to life.” The skinner, smiling, caught hold of the
whip, and lashing the beasts with all his might, roused all from their
lethargic condition. The rustics were confounded. “O! you foolish
fellows,” said he, “look at this herb (showing them some Hemlock), how
profusely it grows in this neighbourhood. Do you not know that Hemlock
causes Asses to fall into a profound sleep?” The rustics, flocking
together under a Lime-tree, as rustics do, made there and then a law
that whosoever should discover, in field or garden, or anywhere else,
that noxious plant, he should pluck it quickly, in order that men and
beasts might be injured by it no more.
The Bear has given its name to several English plants. The _Primula
Auricula_, on account of the shape of its leaves, is called Bear’s
Ears; the _Helleborus fœtidus_, for a similar reason, is known as
Bears Foot; _Meum athamanticum_ is Bear’s-wort; _Allium ursinum_,
Bear’s Garlic; and _Arctostaphylos uva ursi_, Bear’s Berry, or Bear’s
Bilberry; the three last plants being favourite food of Bears. The
Acanthus used at one time to be called Bear’s Breech, but the name has
for some unaccountable reason been transferred to the Cow Parsnip,
_Heracleum Sphondylium_. In Italy the name of _Branca orsina_ is
given to the Acanthus. This plant was considered by Dioscorides a
cure for burns. Pliny says that Bear’s grease had the same property.
De Gubernatis states that two Indian plants, the _Argyreia argentea_
and the _Batatas paniculata_, bear Sanscrit names signifying “Odour
pleasing to Bears.”
The Bull has given its name to some few plants. _Tussilago Farfara_,
generally called Coltsfoot, is also known as Bull’s-Foot; _Centaurea
nigra_ is Bull’s-weed; _Verbascum Thapsus_ is Bullock’s Lungwort,
having been so denominated on account of its curative powers,
suggested, on the Doctrine of Signatures, by the similarity of its
leaf to the shape of a dewlap. The purple and the pale spadices of
_Arum maculatum_ are sometimes called Bulls and Cows. The Great Daisy
is Ox-Eye; the _Primula elatior_, Ox-Lip; the _Helminthia echioides_,
Ox-Tongue; and the _Helleborus fætidus_, Ox-Heel. The _Antirrhinum_ and
_Arum maculatum_ are, from their resemblance in shape, respectively
known as Calf’s Snout and Calf’s Foot.
Cats have several representative plants. From its soft flower-heads,
the _Gnaphalium dioicum_ is called Cat’s Foot; from the shape of its
leaves, the _Hypochæris maculata_ is known as Cat’s Ear; the Ground
Ivy, also from the shape of its leaves, is Cat’s Paw; two plants are
known as Cat’s Tail, viz., _Typha latifolia_ and _Phleum pratense_.
_Euphorbia helioscopia_, on account of its milky juice, is Cat’s Milk;
and, lastly, _Nepeta cataria_ is denominated Cat-Mint, because, as
Gerarde informs us in his ‘Herbal,’ “Cats are very much delighted
herewith: for the smell of it is so pleasant unto them, that they rub
themselves upon it, and wallow or tumble in it, and also feed on the
branches very greedily.” We are also told by another old writer that
Cats are amazingly delighted with the root of the plant Valerian; so
much so, that, enticed by its smell, they at once run up to it, lick
it, kiss it, jump on it, roll themselves over it, and exhibit almost
uncontrollable signs of joy and gladness. There is an old rhyme on the
liking of Cats for the plant _Marum_, which runs as follows:--
“If you set it,
The Cats will eat it;
If you sow it,
The Cats will know it.”
The Cow has given its name to a whole series of plants: its Berry is
_Vaccinium Vitis idæa_, its Cress, _Lepidium campestre_, its Parsley or
Weed, _Chærophyllum sylvestre_, its Parsnip, _Heracleum Sphondylium_,
its Wheat, _Melampyrum_. The Quaking Grass, _Briza media_, is known
as Cow Quake, from an idea that cattle are fond of it; and the Water
Hemlock (_Cicuta virosa_) has the opprobrious epithet of Cow Bane
applied to it, from its supposed baneful effect upon oxen. The _Primula
veris_ is the Cowslip.
In Norway is to be found the herb Ossifrage--a kind of Reed which is
said to have the remarkable power of softening the bones of animals; so
much so, that if oxen eat it, their bones become so soft that not only
are the poor beasts rendered incapable of walking, but they can even be
rolled into any shape. They are not said to die however. Fortunately
they can be cured, if the bones are exhibited to them of another animal
killed by the eating of this plant. It is most wonderful, however, that
the inhabitants make a medicine for cementing bones from this very herb.
There are several plants dedicated to man’s faithful friend. Dog’s Bane
(_Apocynum_) is a very curious plant: its bell-shaped flowers entangle
flies who visit the flower for its honey-juice, so that in August,
when full blown, the corolla is full of their dead bodies. Although
harmless to some persons, yet it is noxious to others, poisoning and
creating swellings and inflammations on certain people who have only
trod on it. Gerarde describes it as a deadly and dangerous plant,
especially to four-footed beasts; “for, as Dioscorides writes, the
leaves hereof, mixed with bread, and given, kill dogs, wolves, foxes,
and leopards.” Dog’s Chamomile (_Matricaria Chamomila_) is a spurious
or wild kind of Chamomile. Dog Grass (_Triticum caninum_) is so called
because Dogs take it medicinally as an aperient. Dog’s Mercury (or
Dog’s Cole) is a poisonous kind, so named to distinguish it from
English Mercury. Dog’s Nettle is _Galeopsis Tetrahit_. Dog’s Orach
(_Chenopodium Vulvaria_), is a stinking kind. Dog’s Parsley (_Æthusa
Cynapium_), a deleterious weed, also called Fool’s Parsley and Lesser
Hemlock. Dog Rose (_Rosa canina_) is the common wilding or Canker
Rose; the ancients supposed the root to cure the bite of a mad Dog, it
having been recommended by an oracle for that purpose; hence the Romans
called it _Canina_; and Pliny relates that a soldier who had been
bitten by a mad Dog, was healed with the root of this shrub, which had
been indicated to his mother in a dream. Dog’s Tail Grass (_Cynosurus
cristatus_) derives its name from its spike being fringed on one side
only. Dog Violet (_Viola canina_) is so-called contemptuously because
scentless. Dog’s Tongue, or Hound’s Tongue (_Cynoglossum officinale_)
derived its name from the softness of its leaf, and was reputed to have
the magical property of preventing the barking of Dogs if laid under a
person’s feet. Dog Wood (_Cornus sanguinea_) is the wild Cornel; and
Dog Berries the fruit of that herb, which was also formerly called
Hound’s Tree. Dr. Prior thinks that this name has been misunderstood,
and that it is derived from the old English word _dagge_, or dagger,
which was applied to the wood because it was used for skewers by
butchers. The ancient Greeks knew a plant (supposed to be a species of
_Antirrhinum_) which they called _Cynocephalia_ (Dog’s Head), as well
as Osiris; and to this plant Pliny ascribes extraordinary properties.
As a rule, the word “Dog,” when applied to any plant, implies contempt.
After the Fox has been named, from its shape, the _Alopecurus
pratensis_, Fox-Tail-grass; and the _Digitalis_ has been given the name
of Fox-Glove.
The Goat has its Weed (_Ægopodium Podagraria_), and has given its name
to the _Tragopogon pratensis_, which, on account of its long, coarse
pappus, is called Goat’s Beard. _Caprifolium_, or Goat’s Leaf, is a
specific name of the Honeysuckle, given to it by the old herbalists,
because the leaf, or more properly the stem, climbs and wanders over
high places where Goats are not afraid to tread.
A species of Sow Thistle, the _Sonchus oleraceus_, is called the Hare’s
Palace, from a superstitious notion that the Hare derives shelter and
courage from it. Gerarde calls it the Hare’s Lettuce, a name given
to it by Apuleius, because, when the Hare is fainting with heat or
fatigue, she recruits her failing strength with it. Dr. Prior gives the
following extracts from old authors respecting this curious tradition.
Anthony Askam says, “yf a Hare eate of this herbe in somer, when he is
mad, he shal be hole.” Topsell also tells us in his ‘Natural History,’
p. 209, that “when Hares are overcome with heat, they eat of an herb
called _Lactuca leporina_, that is, the Hare’s-lettuce, Hare’s-house,
Hare’s-palace; and there is no disease in this beast, the cure whereof
she does not seek for in this herb.” This plant is sometimes called
Hare’s Thistle. _Bupleurum rotundifolium_ is termed Hare’s Ear, from
the shape of its leaves, as is also _Erysimum orientale_. _Trifolium
arvense_ is Hare’s Foot, from the soft grey down which surrounds the
blossoms resembling the delicate fur of the Hare’s foot. Both _Lagurus
oratus_, and the flowering Rush, _Eriophorum vaginatum_, are called
Hare’s Tail, from the soft downy inflorescence.
_Melilotus officinalis_ is Hart’s Clover; _Scolopendrium vulgare_,
Hart’s Tongue; _Plantago Coronopus_, Hart’s Horn; _Scirpus cæspitosus_,
Deer’s or Hart’s Hair; _Rhamnus catharticus_, Hart’s or Buck Thorn
(_Spina cervina_); and _Tordylium maximum_, Hart Wort, so called
because, as Dioscorides tells us, the juice of the leaves was given to
Roes in order that they might speedily be delivered of their young.
According to Pliny, the Roman matrons used to employ it for the same
purpose, having been “taught by Hindes that eate it to speade their
delivery, as Aristotle did declare it before.” The Raspberry is still
sometimes called by its ancient name of Hindberry; and the _Teucrium
Scorodonia_ is known as Hind-heal, from an old tradition that it cures
Deer when bitten by venomous serpents. The Dittany is said to have the
same extraordinary effect on wounded Harts as upon Goats (see DITTANY,
Part II.).
Numerous indeed are the plants named after the Horse, either on account
of the use they are put to, the shape of their foliage, &c., their
large size, or the coarseness of their texture. _Inula Helenium_
is Horse-heal, a name attached to the plant by a double blunder of
_Inula_ for _hinnula_, a Colt, and _Helenium_, for heal or heel;
employed to heal Horses of sore heels, &c. _Vicia Faba_ is the Horse
Bean; _Teucrium Chamædrys_, the Germander, is called Horse Chire,
from its springing up after Horse-droppings. _Melampyrum sylvaticum_
is the Horse Flower, so called from a verbal error. The Alexandrian
Laurel was formerly called Horse Tongue. _Tussilago Farfara_, from the
shape of its leaf, is termed Horse Hoof. _Centaurea nigra_ is Horse
Knob. Another name for Colt’s Foot is Horse Foot; and we have Horse
Thistle, Mint, Mushroom, Parsley, Thyme, and Radish. The Dutch Rush,
_Equisetum_, is called Horse Tail, a name descriptive of its shape;
_Hippocrepis comosa_ is known as the Horse-shoe Vetch, from the shape
of the legumes; and, lastly, the _Œnanthe Phellandrium_ is the Horse
Bane, because, in Sweden, it is supposed to give Horses the palsy.
In Mexico, the Rattle Grass is said to instantly kill Horses who
unfortunately eat it. The Indians call the Oleander Horse’s Death,
and they name several plants after different parts of the Horse. In
connection with Horses, we must not forget to mention the Moonwort,
which draws the nails out of the Horses’ shoes, and of which Culpeper
writes: “Moonwort is an herb which they say will open locks and
unshoe such Horses as tread upon it; this some laugh to scorn, and
those no small fools neither; but country people that I know, call
it Unshoe-the-Horse. Besides, I have heard commanders say that, on
White Down, in Devonshire, near Tiverton, there were found thirty
horse-shoes, pulled off from the Earl of Essex’s horses, being then
drawn up in a body, many of them being newly shod, and no reason known,
which caused much admiration, and the herb described usually grows upon
heaths.” In Italy, the herb _Sferracavallo_ is deemed to have the power
of unshoeing Horses out at pasture. The Mouse-ear, or _Herba clavorum_,
is reputed to prevent blacksmiths hurting horses when being shod. The
Scythians are said to have known a plant, called _Hippice_, which, when
given to a Horse, would enable him to travel for some considerable
time without suffering either from hunger or thirst. Perhaps this is
the Water Pepper, which, according to English tradition, has the same
effect if placed under the saddle.
The humble Hedgehog has suggested the name of Hedgehog Parsley for
_Caucalis daucoides_, on account of its prickly burs.
In a previous chapter, a full description has been given of the
_Barometz_, that mysterious plant of Tartary, immortalised by Darwin
as the Vegetable Lamb. From the shape of its leaf, the _Plantago
media_ has gained the name of Lamb’s Tongue; from its downy flowers,
the _Anthyllis vulneraria_ is called Lamb’s Toe; either from its
being a favourite food of Lambs, or because it appears at the lambing
season, the _Valerianella olitoria_ is known as Lamb’s Lettuce; and the
_Atriplex patula_ is called Lamb’s Quarters.
The Leopard has given its name to the deadly _Doronicum Pardalianches_
(from the Greek _Pardalis_, a Leopard, and _ancho_, to strangle); hence
our name of Leopard’s Bane, because it was reputed to cause the death
of any animal that ate it, and it was therefore formerly mixed with
flesh to destroy Leopards.
The Lion, according to Gerarde, claimed several plants. The _Alchemilla
vulgaris_, from its leaf resembling his foot, was called Lion’s Foot
or Paw; a plant, called _Leontopetalon_ by the Greeks, was known in
England as Lion’s Turnip or Lion’s Leaf; and two kinds of Cudweed,
_Leontopodium_ and _L. parvum_, bore the name of Lion’s Cudweed, from
their flower-heads resembling a Lion’s foot. The _Leontopodium_ has
been identified with the _Gnaphalium Alpinum_, the _Filago stellata_,
the Edelweiss of the Germans, and the _Perlière des Alpes_ of the
French. De Gubernatis points out that, inasmuch as the Lion represents
the Sun, the plants bearing the Lion’s name are essentially plants of
the Sun. This is particularly noticeable in the case of the Dandelion
(_Dent de Lion_) or Lion’s Tooth. In Geneva, Switzerland, children
form a chain of these flowers, and holding it in their hands, dance
in a circle; a German name for it is _Sonneswirbel_ (_Solstice_), as
well as _Solsequium heliotropium_. The Romans saw in the flower of the
_Helianthus_ a resemblance to a Lion’s mouth. In the _Orobanche_ or
Broom Rape (the _Sonnenwurz_, Root of the Sun, of the Germans) some
have seen the resemblance to a Lion’s mouth and foot; it was called the
Lion’s Pulse or Lion’s Herb, and was considered an antidote to poison.
The tiny Mouse, like the majestic Lion, is represented in the vegetable
kingdom by several plants. From the shape of the leaves, _Hieracium
Pilosella_ is known as Mouse Ear, _Cerastium vulgare_, Mouse Ear
Chickweed, and _Myosotis palustris_, or Forget-Me-Not, Mouse Ear
Scorpion Grass. _Myosurus minimus_, from the shape of its slender
seed-spike, is called Mouse Tail; and _Alopecurus agrestis_, Mouse Tail
Grass. _Hordeum marinum_ is Mouse Barley.
Swine plants are numerous. We have the Swine Bane, Sow Bane, or Pig
Weed (_Chenopodium rubrum_), a herb which, according to Parkinson, was
“found certain to kill Swine.” The Pig Nut (_Bunium flexuosum_) is
so called from its tubers being a favourite food of Pigs. Sow Bread
(_Cyclamen Europæum_) has obtained its name for a similar reason; and
Swine’s Grass (_Polygonum aviculare_) is so called because Swine are
believed to be fond of it. _Hyoseris minima_ is Swine Succory, and
_Senebiera Coronopus_, Swine’s Cress. For possession of the Dandelion,
the Pig enters the lists with the Lion, and claims the flower as the
Swine’s Snout, on account of the form of its receptacle. According to
Du Bartas, Swine, when affected with the spleen, seek relief by eating
the Spleenwort or Miltwaste (_Asplenium Ceterach_),
“The Finger-Fern, which being given to Swine,
It makes their milt to melt away in fine.”
De Gubernatis states that the god Indra is thought to have taken the
form of a Goat, and he gives a long list of Indian plants named after
Sheep and Goats. The Ram, He-Goat, and Lamb, called _Mesha_, also give
their names, in Sanscrit, to different plants. In England, _Rumex
Acetosella_ is Sheep’s Sorrel, _Chærophyllum temulum_ Sheep’s Parsley,
_Jasione montana_ Sheep’s-Bit-Scabious, and _Hydrocotyle vulgaris_, or
White Rot, Sheep’s Bane, from its character of poisoning Sheep.
The Squirrel, although a denizen of the woods, only claims one plant,
_Hordeum maritimum_, which, from the shape of its flower-spike, has
obtained the name of Squirrel Tail.
The Elephant has a whole series of Indian trees and plants dedicated to
him, which are enumerated by De Gubernatis; the _Bignonia suaveolens_
is called the Elephant’s Tree; and certain Cucumbers, Pumpkins, and
Gourds are named after him.
The Wolf, in India, gives its name to the _Colypea hernandifolia_, and
Wolf’s Eye is a designation given to the _Ipomœa Turpethum_. Among
the Germans, the Wolf becomes, under the several names of _Graswolf_,
_Kornwolf_, _Roggenwolf_, and _Kartoffelwolf_, a demon haunting fields
and crops. In our own country, the _Euphorbia_, from its acrid, milky
juice, is called Wolf’s Milk; the _Lycopodium clavatum_ is the Wolf’s
Claw, and the _Aconitum Lycoctonum_ is Wolf’s Bane, a name it obtained
in olden times when hunters were in the habit of poisoning with the
juice of this plant the baits of flesh they laid for Wolves.
There are several plants bearing, in some form or other, the
appellation of Dragon. The common Dragon (_Arum Dracunculus_) is, as
its name implies, a species of Arum, which sends up a straight stalk
about three feet high, curiously spotted like the belly of a serpent.
The flower of the Dragon plant has such a strong scent of carrion, that
few persons can endure it, and it is consequently usually banished
from gardens. Gerarde describes three kinds of Dragons, under the
names of Great Dragon, Small Dragon, and Water Dragon: these plants
all have homœopathic qualities, inasmuch as although they are by name
at least vegetable reptiles, yet, according to Dioscorides, all who
have rubbed the leaves or roots upon their hands, will not be bitten
by Vipers. Pliny also says that Serpents will not come near anyone
who carries a portion of a Dragon plant with him, and that it was a
common practice in his day to keep about the person a piece of the
root of this herb. Gerarde tells us that “the distilled water has
vertue against the pestilence or any pestilentiall fever or poyson,
being drunke bloud warme with the best treacle or mithridate.” He also
says that the smell of the flowers is injurious to women who are about
to become mothers. The Green Dragon (_Arum Dracontium_), a native of
China, Japan, and America, possesses a root which is prescribed as
a very strong emmenagogue. There is a species of Dragon which grows
in the morasses about Magellan’s Strait, whose flowers exhibit the
appearance of an ulcer, and exhale so strong an odour of putrid flesh,
that flesh-flies resort to it to deposit their eggs. Another Dragon
plant is the _Dracontium polyphyllum_, a native of Surinam and Japan,
where they prepare a medicine from the acrid roots, which they call
_Konjakf_, and esteem as a great emmenagogue: it is used there to
procure abortion. _Dracontium fœtidum_, Fetid Dragon, or Skunk-weed,
flourishes in the swamps of North America, and has obtained its
nickname from its rank smell, resembling that of a Skunk or Pole-cat.
Dragon’s Head (_Dracocephalum_) is a name applied to several plants.
The Moldavian Dragon’s Head is often called Moldavian or Turk’s Balm.
The Virginian Dragon’s Head is named by the French, _La Cataleptique_,
from its use in palsy and kindred diseases. The Canary Dragon’s
Head, a native of the Canary Islands, is called (improperly) Balm
of Gilead, from its fine odour when rubbed. The old writers called
it _Camphorosma_ and _Cedronella_, and ascribed to it, as to other
Dragon plants, the faculty of being a remedy for the bites and stings
of venomous beasts, as well as for the bites of mad Dogs. The Tarragon
(_Artemisia Dracunculus_), “the little Dragon,” is the Dragon plant
of Germany and the northern nations, and the _Herbe au Dragon_ of the
French. The ancient herbalists affirmed that the seed of the Flax put
into a Radish-root or Sea Onion, and so set, would bring forth the
herb Tarragon. The Snake Weed was called by the ancients, Dragon and
Little Dragon, and the Sneezewort, Dragon of the Woods. The Snap-dragon
appears to have been so named merely from the shape of its corolla,
but in many places it is said to have a supernatural influence, and to
possess the power of destroying charms.
Snakes are represented by the _Fritillaria Meleagris_, which is called
Snake’s Head, on account of its petals being marked like Snakes’
scales. The Sea Grass (_Ophiurus incurvatus_) is known as Snake’s Tail,
and the Bistort (_Polygonum Bistorta_) is Snake Weed.
Vipers have the _Echium vulgare_ dedicated to them under the name of
Viper’s Bugloss, a plant supposed to cure the bite of these reptiles;
and the _Scorzonera edulis_, or Viper’s Grass, a herb also considered
good for healing wounds caused by Vipers.
The Scorpion finds a vegetable representative in the _Myosotis_, or
Scorpion Grass, so named from its spike resembling a Scorpion’s Tail.
It is not surprising to find that Toads and Frogs, living as they do
among the herbage, should have several plants named after them. The
Toad, according to popular superstition, was the impersonation of the
Devil, and therefore it was only fit that poisonous and unwholesome
Fungi should be called Toad Stools, the more so as there was a very
general belief that Toads were in the habit of sitting on them:--
“The griesly Todestol grown there mought I see,
And loathed paddocks lording on the same.”--_Spenser._
Growing in damp places, haunted by Toads croaking and piping to one
another, the _Equisetum limosum_, with its straight, fistulous stalks,
has obtained the name of Toad Pipe. The _Linaria vulgaris_, from its
narrow Flax-like leaves, is known as Toad Flax, from a curious mistake
of the old herbalists who confounded the Latin words _bubo_ and _bufo_.
Frogs claim as their especial plants the Frog Bit (_Morsus ranæ_),
so called because Frogs are supposed to eat it; Frog’s Lettuce
(_Potamogeton densus_); Frog Grass (_Salicornia herbacea_); and Frog
Foot, a name originally assigned to the Vervain (the leaf of which
somewhat resembles a Frog’s foot); but now transferred to the Duck
Meat, _Lemna_.
Bees are recognised in the _Delphinium grandiflorum_, or Bee Larkspur;
the _Galeopsis Tetrahit_, or Bee Nettle; the _Ophrys apifera_, or Bee
Orchis; and the _Daucus Carota_, or Bee’s Nest.
[Headpiece]
CHAPTER XIII.
The Doctrine of Plant Signatures.
William Coles, in his ‘Art of Simpling’ (a work published in the
year 1656), abandoning for awhile practical instruction, moralises
thus:--“Though sin and Sathan have plunged mankinde into an Ocean of
Infirmities, yet the mercy of God, which is over all His workes, maketh
Grasse to grow upon the Mountaines, and Herbes for the use of men;
and hath not only stamped upon them a distinct forme, but also given
them particular Signatures, whereby a man may read, even in legible
characters, the use of them.” This ancient Doctrine of Signatures was
an ingenious system elaborated for discovering from certain marks or
appearances on the various portion of a plant’s structure, the supposed
medicinal virtue attached to it. A good illustration is to be found
in the following passage, translated from P. Lauremberg’s _Apparatus
Plantarum_:--“The seed of Garlic is black; it obscures the eyes with
blackness and darkness. This is to be understood of healthy eyes, but
those which are dull through vicious humidity, from these Garlic drives
this viciousness away. The tunic of Garlic is ruddy; it expels blood.
It has a hollow stalk, and it helps affections of the wind-pipe.”
Many curious details of the system of Plant Signatures are to be
found in the works of Porta, Grollius, Schröder, and Kircher: these
authorities tell us that there are given, not only in animals, but
also in vegetables, certain sure marks, signs, and indications from
which their virtues and powers can be inferred by the sagacious and
painstaking student. Kircher is of opinion that the Egyptians derived
their first knowledge of the elements of medicine from these signs,
which they had patiently and closely studied; and in one of his works
he enunciates his views in the following passage:--“Since one and all
of the members of the human body, under the wise arrangement of Nature,
agree or differ with the several objects in the world of creation, by a
certain sympathy or antipathy of nature, it follows that there has been
implanted by the providence of Nature, both in the several members and
in natural objects, a reciprocal instinct, which impels them to seek
after those things which are similar and consequently beneficial to
themselves, and to avoid and shun those things which are antagonistic
or hurtful. Hence has emanated that more recondite part of medicine
which compares the Signatures or Characterisms of natural things with
the members of the human body, and by magnetically applying like to
like produces marvellous effects in the preservation of human health.
In this way, the occult properties of plants--first of those that
are endowed with life, and secondly of those destitute of life--are
indicated by resemblances; for all exhibit to man, by their Signatures
and Characterisms, both their powers, by which they can heal, and the
diseases in which they are useful. Not only by their parts (as the
root, stem, leaf, flower, fruit, and seed), but also by their actions
and qualities (such as their retaining or shedding their leaves,
their offspring, number, beauty or deformity, form, and colour), they
indicate what kind of service they can render to man, and what are
the particular members of the human body to which they are specially
appropriate.”
As examples of the practical working of the system of Plant Signatures,
Kircher tells us that if the root of the _Chelidonium_ be placed in
white wine, it is rendered yellow, resembling bilious humour, and thus
discloses a sure and infallible remedy against yellow jaundice. He
remarks that he had learned this by personal experience, having advised
some persons suffering from that malady to try _Chelidonium_ as a
cure; and that as a result they were freed from the disease. Persons
liable to apoplexy are said to have a line resembling an anchor traced
in their hands. The plant _Acorus_ has a similar mark in its leaves,
and is a highly-approved remedy for apoplexy. So again, a certain line
or mark is to be found in the hands of persons suffering from colic,
similar in character to an outline found traced in the foliage of the
_Malobathrum_, a plant which will afford relief to patients suffering
from the disorder. Hellebore, which emits a most disagreeable odour,
possesses the property of absorbing offensive smells and expelling
them. _Dracontium_, or Great Dragon, a plant which bears a resemblance
to a dragon, is a most effectual preservation against serpents; Pliny
averring that serpents will not come near anyone carrying this plant.
Other examples of the application of the Doctrine of Signatures are not
difficult to be found among the quaintly-named plants enumerated in
English herbals. The Lung-wort (_Pulmonaria_), spotted with tubercular
scars, was a specific for consumption. The Bullock’s Lung-wort
(_Verbascum Thapsis_), so called from the resemblance of its leaf
to a dewlap, was employed as a cure for the pneumonia of bullocks.
The Liver-wort (_Marchantia polymorpha_), liver-shaped in its green
fructification, was a specific for bilious complaints. The Blood-root
(_Tormentilla_), which derives its name from the red colour of its
roots, was adopted as a cure for the bloody flux. The throat-like
corolla of the Throat-wort (_Campanula Trachelium_), better known as
the Canterbury Bell, caused it to be administered for bronchitis.
Tutsan (_Hypericum androsæmum_) was used to stop bleeding, because
the juice of its ripe capsule is of a claret colour. _Brunella_ (now
spelt _Prunella_) was called Brown-wort, having brownish leaves and
purple-blue flowers, and was in consequence supposed to cure a kind
of quinsy, called in German _die braune_. This plant has a corolla,
the profile of which is suggestive of a bill-hook, and therefore it
was called Carpenter’s-herb, and supposed to heal the wounds inflicted
by edge-tools. _Pimpinella Saxifraga_, _Alchemilla arvensis_, and the
genus _Saxifraga_, plants which split rocks by growing in their cracks,
have been named “Breakstones,” and were administered in cases of
calculus. Clary was transformed into Clear-eye, Godes-eie, Seebright,
and _Oculus Christi_, and eye-salves were consequently made of it.
Burstwort was thought efficacious in ruptures. The Scorpion-grass, or
Forget-Me-Not (_Myosotis_), whose flower-spike is somewhat suggestive
of a scorpion’s tail, was an antidote to the sting of that or other
venomous creatures. The Briony, which bears in its root a mark
significative of a dropsical man’s feet, was adopted as a cure for
dropsy. The Moon-daisy averted lunacy; and the Birth-wort, Fig-wort,
Kidney-vetch, Nipple-wort, and Spleen-wort were all appropriated as
their names suggest, on account of fancied resemblances. The Toad-flax
(_Linaria_), it may here be pointed out, owes its name to a curious
mistake on the part of some believer in the Doctrine of Signatures.
According to Dodoens, it was useful in the treatment of a complaint
called buboes, and received its Latin name, _Bubonium_. A confusion
between the words _bubo_ and _bufo_ (Latin for toad) gave rise to its
present name of Toad-flax; and soon arose legends of sick or wounded
toads seeking this plant and curing themselves with its leaves.
The general rules that guided the founders of the system of Plant
Signatures, which were supposed to reveal the occult powers and virtues
of vegetables, would seem to have been as under:--
Vegetables, as herbs and plants, or their fruit, seed, flowers, &c.,
which resemble some human member in figure, colour, quality, and
consistence, were considered to be most adapted to that member, and to
possess medical properties specially applicable to it.
All herbs or plants that in flowers or juice bear a resemblance to
one or other of the four humours, viz., blood, yellow bile, phlegm,
and black bile, were deemed suitable for treating the same humour, by
increasing or expelling it.
All yellow-hued plants, if they were eatable, were thought to increase
yellow bile. In this category were included Orach, Melons, Crocus,
yellow Turnips, and all other yellow plants which have a sweet flavour.
Plants or herbs of a dull blackish colour, or of a brownish or a
spotted hue, were held to be serviceable in the treatment of black
bile. Some of them had a tendency to increase it, while others assisted
in carrying it off. Thus, Smilax, Mandragora, many kinds of Parsley,
Nightshade, and Poppies, having partly black, ash-coloured, and spotted
flowers, intermixed with pale tints, by causing bad dreams, excite
giddiness, vertigo, and epilepsy. Napellus, also, indicates in a
most marked manner its poisonous and virulent nature, for its flower
represents the skull of a dead man.
Plants which bear white flowers and have thick juice, which often
grow in moist and extremely humid places, and which resemble phlegm
or rheum, were thought to increase the very humours they represented.
Others of a drier temperament were thought to correct and purify the
same. Milky plants, as _Tithymallus_, _Polygala_, _Sonchus_, and
_Britalzar Ægyptiaca_, were supposed to increase and accumulate milk in
nurses.
Some plants of a red colour were believed to increase blood; some
to correct and purify it; and others to benefit hemorrhoidal and
dysenteric affections from a similarity of colour.
Plants of a mixed colour, as they unite in themselves a diversity of
temperaments, were thought to produce a diversity of effects; whence
two-coloured herbs were believed to possess and exercise a double
virtue. On this principle, diverse colours were said to cure diverse
humours in the human body; for example, _Tripolium_, _Panacæa_, and
_Triphera_ were considered beneficial for all humours.
Plants whose decoction and infusion, as well as colour and consistence,
were like some humour of the human body, were declared to be
appropriate for the purpose of evacuating that humour by attraction, or
increasing it by incorporation.
Certain plants were deemed to represent some disease or morbid
condition, and were judged to be helpful in its cure. Thus those were
administered in cases of calculus which represented stones, such as
_Milium solis_, the root of the White Saxifrage, the shells of Nuts,
and Nuts themselves. Spotted plants and herbs were thought to eradicate
spots, and scaly plants to remove scales. Perforated herbs were
selected for the cure of wounds and perforations of the body. Plants
which exude gums and resins were considered available for the treatment
of pus and matter. Swelling plants were thought good for tumours;
those that permit the cutting or puncturing of the stem were employed
for closing up wounds; and those that shed bark and skin were thought
adapted for the cleansing of the skin.
Accordingly as plants and herbs exhibited peculiarities in their
actions, so were they supposed to operate on man. Thus, sterile plants,
such as Lettuce, Fern, Willow, Savin, and many others, were believed
to conduce to the procuring of sterility in men; whilst salacious
and fecund plants were considered to confer fecundity. On the same
principle, long-lived and evergreen plants were said to procure vigour
for the human body.
Helvetius has left a list of classified herbs and plants which in his
time were considered by experts in herbcraft to exhibit peculiar marks
and Signatures by which they could be identified with the several
parts and members of the human body. This may be said to have formed
the basis of the system embraced in the Doctrine of Plant Signatures,
and as it epitomises the results of the protracted and laborious
researches of the old herbalists, who may fairly be said to have laid
the foundations of our present system of Botany, it has been thought
worth while to give an abbreviation of it.
The Head. Antirrhinum, Crocus, Geranium, Walnuts, Lily
of the Valley, Marjoram, Poppy, Violet, Rose,
Lime-blossom, the genus Brassica, &c.
The Hair. Asparagus, Goat’s-beard, Fennel, Nigella, Flax,
Tree Musk, the Vine, and Vine-roots, &c.
The Eyes. The flowers of Acacia, Euphrasy, Daisy, Bean,
Hyacinth, Geranium, Mallow, Narcissus, Hyacinth,
Ranunculus, Cornflower, &c.
The Ears. Bear’s Ear (_Auricula ursi_), Mountain Bindweed,
_Cyclamen Doronicum_, Gentian, rough Viper’s
Bugloss, Hypericum, Organy, Egyptian Beans, &c.
The Tongue. Horse-tongue (_Hippoglossum_), Adder’s-tongue
(_Ophioglossum_), Hound’s-tongue (_Cynoglossum_),
Hart’s-tongue, Frog-bit, Grass of Parnassus,
Prunella, Salvia, Sempervivum, &c.
The Teeth. The leaves of Fir and Juniper, Sunflower-seed,
Toothed Moss (_Muscus denticulatus_), Toothed
Violet (_Dentaria_), Dandelion (_Dens Leonis_),
&c.
The Heart. Borage, Motherwort (_Cardiaca_), Malaca Beans
(_Anacardium_), Strawberries, Pomegranate-blossom,
Hepatica, Violet, Peony, Rose, Iris,
Egyptian Lotus, &c.
The Lungs. Lung-wort, (_Pulmonaria_), Beet, the stalks of Anise,
Garden Teasel, Cresses, Fennel, Curled Lettuce,
Scabious, Rhubarb, Valerian, the Sea Moss
_Muscus marinus virens latifolius_, &c.
The Liver. Noble Liver-wort (_Hepatica trifolia_), Ground
Liver-wort (_Hepatica terrestris_), Garden Endive,
Portulaca, Aloe, Our Lady’s Thistle (_Carduus
Mariæ_), Gentian, Lettuce, Alpine Sanicle, &c.
The Bladder. Bladder-wort, Winter Cherry, Black Hellebore,
Nasturtium, Persicaria, Leaves of Senna, root
of True Rhubarb, broad-leaved Tithymallus,
Botrys, &c.
The Spleen. Spleenwort or Ceterach (_Asplenium_), Agrimony,
Shepherd’s Purse, Dandelion, Devil’s Bit
Scabious, Fern, Broom, Hawk-weed, Turnip,
Treacle Mustard, &c.
The Stomach. Roots of Acorus, Cyclamen, Elecampane, Iris,
and Galingale, Earth-nut, Parsnip, Radish,
Chives, Ginger, &c.
The Kidneys. Kidney-wort, Agnus Castus, seeds of Broom,
Bombax, Jasmine, and Lupine, Beans, Currants,
Ground Ivy, root of Leopard’s Bane, &c.
The Intestines, Navel-wort, Chickweed, Briony, Dodder, Bitter-sweet
&c. (Nightshade), Fenugreek, Nasturtium,
Honeysuckle, Chamomile-flowers, Alpine Sanicle,
roots of Polypody, &c.
The Hands, Agnus Castus, Garlick, Briony, Shepherd’s Purse, Fig,
Fingers, and Geranium, Ash-bark, Cinquefoil (_Heptaphyllum_),
Nerves. Tormentilla, Water Hellebore, Lupine,
Melon, Ophrys, Hoary Clover, Satyrion, Plantain,
Currants, Sanicle, Soap-wort, Wolf’s Bane,
Swallow-wort, _Vitis Idæa_, Asiatic Ranunculus,
with gummy root, &c.
The Doctrine of Signatures did not exclusively apply to the medicinal
virtues of herbs and plants: for example, Hound’s-tongue _Cynoglossum
officinale_, named from the shape and softness of its leaf, was (if we
may believe William Coles) thought to “tye the tongues of hounds, so
that they shall not bark at you, if it be laid under the bottom of your
feet, as Miraldus writeth.” Garlic (from the Anglo-Saxon words _gár_,
a spear, and _leác_, a plant) was, from its acute tapering leaves,
marked out as the war plant of the warriors and poets of the North. The
heavenly blue of the flower of the Germander Speedwell won for it the
Welsh appellation of the Eye of Christ. Even abstract virtues were to
be learnt by an attentive study of the Signatures of certain plants,
according to the dictum of that loyal and godly herbalist Robert
Turner, who naively tells us that “God hath imprinted upon the Plants,
Herbs, and Flowers, as it were in Hieroglyphicks, the very Signature of
their Vertues; as the learned Grollius and others well observe: as the
Nutmeg, being cut, resembles the Brain; the _Papaver erraticum_, or red
Poppy Flower, resembleth at its bottom the setling of the Blood in the
Plurisie; and how excellent is that Flower in Diseases of the Plurisie,
and Surfeits hath sufficiently been experienced.” In the Heliotrope
and Marigold subjects may learn their duty to their Sovereign: which
his Sacred Majesty King Charles the First mentions in his Princely
Meditations, walking in a Garden in the Isle of Wight, in the following
words, viz.:--
“‘The Marigold observes the Sun
More than my subjects me have done,’ &c.”
That great naturalist, John Ray, whilst expressing his disbelief of
the Doctrine of Plant Signatures as a whole, admitted that there were
tangible grounds for the formation of the system. He wrote:--“Howbeit,
I will not deny but that the noxious and malignant plants do, many of
them, discover something of their nature by the sad and melancholick
visage of their leaves, flowers, or fruits. And that I may not leave
that head wholly untouched, one observation I shall add, relating to
the virtues of plants, in which I think is something of truth; that is,
that there are, by the wise dispensation of Providence, such species of
plants produced in every country, as are made proper and convenient for
the meat and medicine of the men and animals that are bred and inhabit
therein. Insomuch that Solenander writes that, from the frequency of
the plants that spring up naturally in any region, he could easily
gather what endemical diseases the inhabitants thereof are subject to.
So in Denmark, Friesland, and Holland, where the scurvy usually reigns,
the proper remedy thereof, Scurvy-grass, doth plentifully grow.”
The Old Herbals and Herbalists.
It is impossible to make an attentive examination of the old Herbals
without being astonished at the extraordinary number and nature of
the ills which their authors professed to cure by means of plants
and simples. Every conceivable disease and ailment appears to be
enumerated, and each has a number of specifics allotted for its
treatment and cure. The contents of these ancient works, indeed, are
apt to heat the imagination, and to cause one to form a conception
that the merrie England of our forefathers was a land swarming with
wild beasts, so venomous in their nature, and ferocious in their
proclivities, that the unfortunate inhabitants were constantly being
grievously maimed and wounded by their malicious “bitings.” Be this
as it may, however, it is evident that the old herbalists deemed
themselves fully equal to any emergency. Leopards, Wolves, and
venomous beasts of all kinds, as well as Dragons, Serpents, Vipers,
and Scorpions, could all, by means of herbs, be driven away, kept at
bay, or killed, and the venom of their bites be quickly and effectually
cured. Such simple things as the stings of Hornets, Wasps, and Bees,
were of course easily extracted by men who professed themselves able
and willing to draw out arrow-heads from wounds, or remove broken
bones, glue them together, and cover them when bare of flesh. They
could provide counterpoisons against deadly medicines, poisoned arrows,
noxious herbs, and the bitings and stingings of venomous creatures;
they could cure the bites of sea Dragons and mad Dogs, and could keep
Dogs from growing great. They could cause troublesome and dangerous
dreams, and they could cure nightmare. They could drive away dulness
and melancholy, and consume proud and superfluous flesh. They could
preserve the eyesight, “helpe blacke eies comming by blowes,” and take
away redness and yellowness. They could prevent the hair falling off,
and restore it to the bald pate, and knew how to turn it yellow, red,
or black. They could cause hens to lay plentifully, and refresh a weary
horse. They could cure lunatics, relieve madness, and purge melancholy;
to say nothing of counteracting witchcraft and the malignant influence
of the mysterious Evil Eye. They could destroy warts, remove freckles,
and beautify young wenches’ faces. In fine, the herbalist of old was one
“Who knew the cause of everie maladie,
Were it of colde or hote, or moist or drie.”
A remarkable characteristic of the herbarists (as they were called of
yore) was a habit of ascribing extraordinary and fabulous properties
to the herbs and plants whose merits they descanted upon. Just as the
Druids taught the people of their time to call the sacred Mistletoe the
“All-heal,” and to look upon it as a panacea for all bodily ailments,
so did the herbalists, in the pages of their ponderous tomes, set
forth the marvellous virtues of Betony, Agrimony, Angelica, Garlic,
Fennel, Sage, Rue, and other favourite medicinal plants. Johannes de
Mediolano, a doctor, of the Academy of Salerno, once wrote of Rue, that
it diminishes the force of love in man, and, on the contrary, increases
the flame in women. When eaten raw, it both clears the sight and the
perceptions of the mind, and when cooked it destroys fleas. The English
herbalists called it Herb Grace and Serving-men’s Joy, because of the
multiplicity of ailments that it was warranted to cure; Mithridates
used the herb as a counterpoison to preserve himself against infection;
and Gerarde records that Serpents are driven away at the smell of
Rue if it be burned, and that “when the Weesell is to fight with the
Serpent, shee armeth herselfe by eating Rue against the might of the
Serpent.” The virtues of Rue, however, are cast into the shade by those
of Sage. Says witty Alphonse Karr--“Rue is nothing in comparison with
Sage. Sage preserves the human race; and the _whole school_ of Salerno,
after a long enumeration of the virtues of Sage, seriously exclaims:
‘How can it happen that a man who has Sage in his garden yet ends by
dying?’” Perhaps this exclamation was the foundation of the English
proverb--
“He that eats Sage in May
Shall live for aye.”
Regarding the wondrous curative properties of Betony, Antonius Musa,
physician to the Emperor Augustus, wrote a volume setting forth the
excellencies of the herb, which he demonstrated would cure no less than
forty-seven different disorders; and in England an old advice to the
sufferer is, “Sell your coat, and buy Betony.” Agrimony is another herb
whose praises were loudly proclaimed by the herbalists; it formed an
ingredient in most of the old-fashioned herb teas, and Drayton speaks
of it as “All-heal, and so named of right.” Of Angelica, or Holy
Ghost, Parkinson writes that it is “so goode an herbe that there is no
part thereof but is of much use.” Fennel, in addition to its uses as
a medicine, was recommended by old writers, when boiled in wine, as
a counterpoison for use by such as had been bitten by those terrible
reptiles, serpents, and scorpions that seem to have so exercised the
ancient herbalists. Treacle-Mustard, or Triacle, was also highly
esteemed as a cure for “all those that were bitten or stung by venomous
beasts, or had drunk poison, or were infected with pestilence: it
formed one of seventy-three ingredients in making “Venice treacle”--a
famous vermifuge and antipoison in the Middle Ages. The Vervain, or
Holy Herb, was credited with almost supernatural healing powers.
English Mercury was called All-good; and other herbs obtained the
names of All-heal, Clown’s All-heal, Self-heal, Poor-man’s Treacle,
Poor-man’s Parmacetty, the Blessed Herb, Grace of God, Master-Wort,
Ploughman’s Spikenard, &c., on account of the numerous virtues which
the herbalists had discovered in them. One of these old worthies (the
compiler of a Herbal, and a believer in astrology) has, indeed, stated
in rhyme, his conviction that there was no disease but what would yield
to the virtues of herbs and the skill of the herbalist. “In his book,”
he confidently says--
“He hath a method plain devised,
All parts of it, so curiously comprised;
That vulgar men, which have but skill to read,
May be their own physicians at need;
The better sort are hereby taught, how all
Things springing from earth’s bowels safely shall
By love or hatred (as the Stars dispose)
Each sickness cure, that in the body grows.”
The poet Michael Drayton has drawn the portrait of an ancient simpler,
and has given a list of the remedies of which he made the most frequent
use; the lines are to be found in his ‘Polyolbion,’ and as they contain
examples of herbs selected under the system of the Doctrine of Plant
Signatures, they may be appropriately introduced at the conclusion of
this chapter:--
“But, absolutely free,
His happy time he spends the works of God to see,
In those so sundry herbs which there in plenty grow,
Whose sundry strange effects he only seeks to know;
And in a little maund, being made of Osiers small,
Which serveth him to do full many a thing withal,
He very choicely sorts his simples, got abroad;
Here finds he on an Oak rheum-purging Polypode;
And in some open place that to the sun doth lie,
He Fumitory gets, and Eyebright for the eye;
The Yarrow wherewithal he stays the wound-made gore,
The healing Tutsan then, and Plantaine for a sore;
And hard by them, again, he holy Vervain finds,
Which he about his head that hath the megrim binds;
The wonder-working Dill he gets not far from these,
Which curious women use in many a nice disease;
For them that are with Newts, or Snakes, or Adders stung
He seeketh out a herb, that is called Adder’s-tongue;
As Nature it ordain’d its own like hurt to cure,
And sportive did herself to niceties inure.
Valerian then he crops, and purposely doth stamp
To apply unto the place that’s haled with the cramp;
The Chickweed cures the heat that in the face doth rise,
For physic some again he inwardly applies;
For comforting the spleen and liver, gets for juice
Pale Horehound, which he holds of most especial use.
And for the labouring wretch that’s troubled with a cough,
Or stopping of the breath by phlegm that’s hard and tough,
Campana here he crops, approved wondrous good;
Or Comfrey unto him that’s bruised, spitting blood;
And for the falling ill by Five-leafe doth restore,
And melancholy cures by sovereign Hellebore:
Of these most helpful herbs yet tell we but a few
To those unnumbered sort of simples here that grew,
What justly to set down even Dodon short doth fall,
Nor skilful Gerarde yet shall ever find them all.”
[Tailpiece]
[Headpiece]
CHAPTER XIV.
Plants and the Planets.
Two centuries ago there existed a very general belief that every plant
was under the direct influence of a particular Planet, and therefore
that all the details connected with its cultivation and utilisation
were to be conducted with a strict regard to this supposition. Aubrey
has recorded his opinion, that if a plant “be not gathered according
to the rules of astrology, it hath little or no virtue in it;” and the
Jesuit Rapin, in his Latin poem on ‘Gardens,’ says, with respect to
flowers--
“This frequent charge I give, whene’er you sow
The flow’ry kind, be studious first to know
The monthly tables, and with heedful eye
Survey the lofty volumes of the sky;
Observe the tokens of foreboding Stars,
What store of wind and rain the Moon prepares;
What weather Eurus or moist Auster blows,
What both in east and west the Sun foreshows;
What aid from Helice the trees obtain,
What from Boötes with his tardy wain;
Whether the wat’ry Pleiades with show’rs
Kindly refresh alone, or drown the flow’rs;
For Stars neglected fatal oft we find,
The Gods to their dominion have assign’d
The products of our earth and labours of mankind.”
Michael Drayton, in whose time the doctrine of planetary influence on
plants was generally accepted, says, in reference to the longevity of
antediluvian men:--
“Besides, in medicine simples had the power
That none need then the planetary hour
To helpe their working, they so juiceful were.”
Culpeper, who was a profound believer in astrology, has given at the
commencement of his ‘British Herbal and Family Physician,’ a list of
some five hundred plants, and the names of the Planets which govern
them; and in his directions as to the plucking of leaves for medical
purposes, the old herbalist and physician remarks:--“Such as are
astrologers (and indeed none else are fit to make physicians) such
I advise: let the planet that governs the herb be angular, and the
stronger the better; if they can, in herbs of Saturn, let Saturn be
in the ascendant; in the herb of Mars, let Mars be in the mid-heaven,
for in those houses they delight; let the Moon apply to them by good
aspect, and let her not be in the houses of her enemies; if you cannot
well stay till she apply to them, let her apply to a Planet of the same
triplicity; if you cannot meet that time neither, let her be with a
fixed Star of their nature.”
The classification of Plants under the planets Saturn, Jupiter, Mars,
Venus, Mercury, the Sun, and the Moon, appears to have been made
according to the Signatures or outward appearances of the plants
themselves. The stalks, stems, branches, roots, foliage, flowers,
odour, taste, native places, death, and medical virtues, were also
considered; and, according to the character of the plant thus deduced,
it was placed under the government of the particular Planet with which
it was considered to be most in consonance.
Plants allotted to SATURN had their _Leaves_: hairy, hard, dry,
parched, coarse, and of ill-favoured appearance. _Flowers_:
Unprepossessing, gloomy, dull, greenish, faded or dirty white, pale
red, invariably hirsute, prickly, and disagreeable. _Roots_: Spreading
widely in the earth and rambling around in discursive fashion. _Odour_:
Fœtid, putrid, muddy.
JUPITER.--_Leaves_: Smooth, even, slightly cut and pointed, the
veins not prominent, and the lines not strongly marked. Colour,
greyish blue-green. _Flowers_: Graceful, pleasing, bright, succulent,
transparent, ruddy, flesh-colour, blue, yellow. _Roots_: Rather small,
with short hairy filaments, spread about in the ground. _Odour_: Highly
subtle, grateful to the brain; the kernels comforting; easily fermented.
MARS.--_Leaves_: Hard, long, somewhat heavy, pointed and pendulous,
harsh and hot to the tongue, not of good appearance. _Flowers_: Of a
colour between yellow, vermilion, or blue, green, purple, red, changing
quickly, abundance of flowers and seeds. _Roots_: Highly fibrous and
creeping underground. _Odour_: Oppressive to the brain, potent, sharp,
acrid.
VENUS.--_Leaves_: Large, handsome, bright, rich green or roseate,
soft, plentiful. _Flowers_: Pleasing to the eyes, white, blue, rosy,
charming, fine, abundant. _Roots_: Of early growth, but not deeply
fixed. Quickly and freely produced. _Odour_: Subtle, delightful,
pungent, refreshing to the brain.
MERCURY.--_Leaves_: Different kinds, but pleasing to the eye.
_Flowers_: Of various descriptions and colours, refreshing, agreeable,
and pleasant. _Roots_: Abiding deep in the earth, and spreading far and
wide. _Odour_: Highly subtle and penetrating, refreshing to the heart
and brain.
THE SUN.--_Leaves_: Succulent, with stout stalks, deeply veined,
pleasant green or tawny, with reddish stalks. _Flowers_: Yellow and
gold, or purple, handsome, glittering, and radiant. _Roots_: Strong,
deeply fixed in the earth, but not laterally. _Odour_: Agreeable,
acceptable, and pungent, strong, restorative to brain and eyes.
THE MOON.--_Leaves_: Pale, highly succulent, pith thick, firm,
strongly-developed veins, bottle-green. _Flowers_: Pale yellow or
greenish, watery, mellifluous, but uninteresting and without beauty.
_Roots_: Penetrating easily through water and earth, not durable,
and easily decayed, spreading neither thickly nor deeply. _Odour_:
Disagreeable, almost none, without pungency, redolent of the earth,
rain, or soft savour of honey.
According to Indian mythology, herbs are placed under the special
protection of Mitra, the Sun. De Gubernatis tells us that there are
several Indian plants named after the great luminary. In the Grecian
Pantheon, the Solar-god, Apollo, possessed a knowledge of all the
herbs. It was to Phœbus, the Sun-god, that poor Clytie lost her heart,
and, when changed into a flower, held firmly by the root, she still
turned to the Sun she loved, “and, changed herself, still kept her
love unchanged.” As to the particular Sunflower, Turnsole, Heliotrope,
or Solsequium that is the floral embodiment of the love-sick nymph,
readers must be referred to the disquisition under the heading
“SUNFLOWER.” De Gubernatis gives it as his opinion, that Clytie’s
flower is the _Helianthemum roseum_ of De Candolle. In a previous
chapter, certain plants have been noticed which were supposed by
the ancients to have been specially under the domination of the Sun
and Moon. According to the dictum of wizards and wise folk, plants
possessing magical properties must as a general rule be gathered,
if not by moonlight, yet at any rate before sunrise, for the first
appearance of the Sun’s rays immediately dispels all enchantment, and
drives back the spirits to their subterranean abodes.
We are told in Deuteronomy xxxiii., 14, that precious things are put
forth by the Moon, but precious fruits by the Sun; and it is certainly
very remarkable that, although mankind in all ages have regarded, and
even worshipped, the Sun as being the supreme and ruling luminary,
from whose glorious life-giving rays, vegetation of all kinds drew its
very existence, yet that an idea should have sprung up, and taken root
widely and deeply, that the growth and decay of plants were associated
intimately with the waxing and waning of the Moon. We have seen how the
plant kingdom was parcelled out by the astrologers, and consigned to
the care of different Planets; but, despite this, the Moon was held to
have a singular and predominant influence over vegetation, and it was
supposed that there existed a sympathy between growing and declining
nature and the Moon’s wax and wane. Bacon seems to have considered that
even the “braine of man waxeth moister and fuller upon the Full of the
Moone;” and, therefore, he continues, “it were good for those that
have moist braines, and are great drinkers, to take fume of Lignum,
Aloes, Rose-Mary, Frankincense, &c., about the Full of the Moone.” He
also tells us, in his Natural History, that “the influences of the Moon
are four: the drawing forth of heat, the inducing of putrefaction, the
moisture, and the exciting of the motions of spirits.”
In respect to this last influence, he goes on to say, “You must note
that the growth of hedges, herbs, haire, &c., is caused from the Moone,
by exciting of the spirits as well as by increase of the moisture.
But for spirits in particular the great instance is lunacies.” This
lunar influence which Bacon speaks of was, as already pointed out,
fully recognised in olden times, and a belief was even current that
the Moon specially watched over vegetation, and that when she was
propitious--that is, during her growth--she produced medicinal herbs;
when she was not propitious--that is to say, during her wane--she
imbued herbs with poisons; her humidity being, perhaps, more injurious
than otherwise.
In old almanacks we find the supremacy of the Moon over the plant
kingdom fully admitted, albeit in a jargon which is rather puzzling.
Thus, in the ‘Husbandman’s Practice or Prognostication for Ever,’
the reader is advised “to set, sow seeds, graft, and plant, the
Moone being in Taurus, Virgo, or Capricorne, and all kinds of Corne
in Cancer, to graft in March, at the Moone’s increase, she being in
Taurus or Capricorne.” Again, in Mr. Wing’s Almanack for 1661, occurs
the following passage:--“It is a common observation in astrology, and
confirmed by experience, that what Corn or tree soever are set or
sown when the Sun or Moon is eclipsed, and the infortunate planets
predominate, seldom or never come to good. And again he saith thus:--It
is a common and certain observation also, that if any corn, seed, or
plant be either set or sown within six hours either before or after the
full Moon in Summer, or before or after the new Moon in Winter, having
joined with the cosmical rising of Arcturus and Orion, the Hædi and the
Siculi, it is subject to blasting and canker.”
As an illustration of the predominance given to the Moon over the other
planets in matters pertaining to plant culture, it is worth noticing
that, although Culpeper, in his ‘Herbal,’ places the Apple under Venus,
yet the Devonshire farmers have from time immemorial made it a rule to
gather their Apples for storing at the wane of the Moon; the reason
being that, during the Moon’s increase, it is thought that the Apples
are full, and will not therefore keep. It is said that if timber be
felled when the Moon is on the increase, it will decay; and that it
should always be cut when the Moon is on the wane. No reason can be
assigned for this; yet the belief is common in many countries, and what
is still more strange, professional woodcutters, whose occupation is to
fell timber, aver, as the actual result of their observation, that the
belief is well founded. It was formerly interwoven in the Forest Code
of France, and, unless expunged by recent alterations, is so still.
The same opinion obtains in the German forests, and is said to be held
in those of Brazil and Yucatan. The theory given to account for this
supposed fact is, that as the Moon grows, the sap rises, and the wood
is therefore less dense than when the Moon is waning, because at that
time the sap declines. The belief in the Moon’s influence as regards
timber extends to vegetables, and was at one time universal in England,
although, at the present day, the theory is less generally entertained
in our country than abroad, where they act upon the maxim that root
crops should be planted when the Moon is decreasing, and plants such
as Beans, Peas, and others, which bear the crops on their branches,
between new and full Moon. Throughout Germany, the rule is that Rye
should be sown as the Moon waxes; but Barley, Wheat, and Peas, when it
wanes.
The wax and wane of the belief in lunar influence on plant-life among
our own countrymen may be readily traced by reference to old books on
husbandry and gardening.
In ‘The Boke of Husbandry,’ by Mayster Fitzherbarde, published in 1523,
we read with respect to the sowing of Peas, that “moste generally to
begyn sone after Candelmasse is good season, so that they be sowen ere
the begynnynge of Marche, or sone upon. And specially let them be sowen
in the olde of the Mone. For the opinion of old husbandes is, that they
shoulde be better codde, and sooner be rype.”
Tusser, in his ‘Five Hundred Points of Husbandry,’ published in 1562,
says, in his quaint verse--
“Sowe Peason and Beans in the wane of the Moone,
Who soweth them sooner, he soweth too soone;
That they with the planet may rest and rise,
And flourish with bearing, most plentiful wise.”
Commenting on that “Point,” the editor of an edition of Tusser’s poem
printed in 1744, says: “It must be granted the Moon is an excellent
clock, and if not the cause of many surprising accidents, gives a just
indication of them, whereof this Pease and Beans may be one instance;
for Pease and Beans sown during the increase do run more to hawm or
straw, and during the declension more to cod, according to the common
consent of countrymen.” Again, as regards grafting, old Tusser writes:--
“In March is good graffing, the skilful do know,
So long as the wind in the East do not blow,
From Moone being changed, til past be the prime,
For graffing and cropping is very good time.”
The editor remarks: “The Prime is the first three days after the New
Moon, in which time, or at farthest during the first quarter, our
author confines his graffing, probably because the first three days
are usually attended with rain.” He confesses, however, he cannot
explain the following couplet:--
“The Moone in the wane gather fruit for to last,
But winter fruit gather when Michel is past.”
In the ‘Garden of Eden,’ an old gardening book compiled and issued
by Sir Hugh Plat, Knt., in the year 1600, constant allusions are
made to the necessity of studying the Moon’s phases in gardening and
grafting operations. The worthy knight considered that the Moon would
exercise her powers in making single flowers double if only she were
respectfully courted. His counsel on this point is as follows:--“Remove
a plant of Stock Gilliflowers when it is a little woodded, and not too
greene, and water it presently. Doe this three dayes after the full,
and remove it twice more before the change. Doe this in barren ground;
and likewise, three dayes after the next full Moone, remove again; and
then remove once more before the change. Then at the third full Moon,
viz., eight dayes after, remove againe, and set it in very rich ground,
and this will make it to bring forth a double flower; but if your Stock
Gilliflowers once spindle, then you may not remove them. Also you
must make Tulippes double in this manner. Some think by cutting them
at every full Moone before they beare to make them at length to beare
double.”
In ‘The Countryman’s Recreation’ (1640) the author fully recognises
the obligation of gardeners to study the Moon in all their principal
operations. Says he: “From the first day of the new Moone unto the
xiii. day thereof is good for to plant, or graffe, or sow, and for
great need some doe take unto the xvii. or xviii. day thereof, and
not after, neither graffe nor sow, but as is afore-mentioned, a
day or two afore the change, the best signes are Taurus, Virgo, or
Capricorne.” And as regards the treatment of fruit trees, he tells us
that “trees which come of Nuttes” should be set in the Autumn “in the
change or increase of the Moone;” certain grafting manipulations are
to be executed “in the increase of the Moone and not lightly after;”
fruit, if it is desired of good colour and untouched by frost, ought
to be gathered “when the time is faire and dry, and the Moone in her
decreasing;” whilst “if ye will cut or gather Grapes, to have them
good, and to have good wine thereof, ye shall cut them in the full, or
soone after the full, of the Moone, when she is in Cancer, in Leo, in
Scorpio, and in Aquarius, the Moone being on the waine and under the
earth.”
In ‘The Expert Gardener’ (1640)--a work stated to be “faithfully
collected out of sundry Dutch and French authors”--a chapter is
entirely devoted to the times and seasons which should be selected “to
sow and replant all manner of seeds,” with special reference to the
phases of the Moon. As showing how very general must have been the
belief in the influence of the Moon on vegetation at that time, the
following extract is given:--
_A short Instruction very profitable and necessary for all those that
delight in Gardening, to know the Times and Seasons when it is good
to sow and replant all manner of Seeds._
Cabbages must be sowne in February, March, or April, at the waning of
the Moone, and replanted also in the decrease thereof.
Cabbage Lettuce, in February, March, or July, in an old Moone.
Onions and Leeks must be sowne in February or March, at the waning of
the Moone.
Beets must be sowne in February or March, in a full Moone.
Coleworts white and greene in February, or March, in an old Moone, it
is good to replant them.
Parsneps must be sowne in February, April, or June, also in an old
Moone.
Radish must be sowne in February, March, or June, in a new Moone.
Pompions must be sowne in February, March, or June, also in a new
Moone.
Cucumbers and Mellons must be sowne in February, March, or June, in
an old Moone.
Spinage must be sowne in February or March, in an old Moone.
Parsley must be sowne in February or March, in a full Moone.
Fennel and Annisseed must be sowne in February or March, in a full
Moone.
White Cycory must be sowne in February, March, July, or August, in a
full Moone.
Carduus Benedictus must be sowne in February, March, or May, when the
Moone is old.
Basil must be sowne in March, when the Moone is old.
Purslane must be sowne in February or March, in a new Moone.
Margeram, Violets, and Time must be sowne in February, March, or
April, in a new Moone.
Floure-gentle, Rosemary, and Lavender, must be sowne in February or
April, in a new Moone.
Rocket and Garden Cresses must be sowne in February, in a new Moone.
Savell must be sowne in February or March, in a new Moone.
Saffron must be sowne in March, when the Moone is old.
Coriander and Borage must be sowne in February or March, in a new
Moone.
Hartshorne and Samphire must be sowne in February, March, or April,
when the Moone is old.
Gilly-floures, Harts-ease, and Wall-floures, must be sowne in March
or April, when the Moone is old.
Cardons and Artochokes must be sowne in April or March, when the
Moone is old.
Chickweed must be sowne in February or March, in the full of the
Moone.
Burnet must be sowne in February or March, when the Moone is old.
Double Marigolds must be sowne in February or March, in a new Moone.
Isop and Savorie must be sowne in March when the Moone is old.
White Poppey must be sowne in February or March, in a new Moone.
Palma Christi must be sowne in February, in a new Moone.
Sparages and Sperage is to be sowne in February, when the Moone is
old.
Larks-foot must be sowne in February, when the Moone is old.
Note that at all times and seasons, Lettuce, Raddish, Spinage and
Parsneps may be sowne.
Note, also, from cold are to be kept Coleworts, Cabbage, Lettuce,
Basill, Cardons, Artochokes, and Colefloures.
In ‘The English Gardener’ (1683) and ‘The Dutch Gardener’ (1703) many
instructions are given as to the manner of treating plants with
special regard to the phases of the Moon; and Rapin, in his poem on
Gardens, has the following lines:--
“If you with flow’rs would stock the pregnant earth,
Mark well the Moon propitious to their birth:
For earth the silent midnight queen obeys,
And waits her course, who, clad in silver rays,
Th’ eternal round of times and seasons guides,
Controls the air, and o’er the winds presides.
Four days expir’d you have your time to sow,
Till to the full th’ increasing Moon shall grow;
This past, your labour you in vain bestow:
Nor let the gard’ner dare to plant a flow’r
While on his work the heav’ns ill-boding low’r;
When Moons forbid, forbidding Moons obey,
And hasten when the Stars inviting beams display.”
John Evelyn, in his ‘Sylva, or a Discourse on Forest Trees,’ first
published in 1662, remarks on the attention paid by woodmen to the
Moon’s influence on trees. He says: “Then for the age of the Moon, it
has religiously been observed; and that Diana’s presidency _in sylvis_
was not so much celebrated to credit the fictions of the poets, as for
the dominion of that moist planet and her influence over timber. For
my part, I am not so much inclined to these criticisms, that I should
altogether govern a felling at the pleasure of this mutable lady;
however, there is doubtless some regard to be had--
‘Nor is’t in vain signs’ fall and rise to note.’
The old rules are these: Fell in the decrease, or four days after
the conjunction of the two great luminaries; sowe the last quarter
of it; or (as Pliny) in the very article of the change, if possible;
which hapning (saith he) in the last day of the Winter solstice, that
timber will prove immortal. At least should it be from the twentieth
to the thirtieth day, according to Columella; Cato, four days after
the full, as far better for the growth; nay, Oak in the Summer: but
all vimineous trees, _silente lunâ_, such as Sallows, Birch, Poplar,
&c. Vegetius, for ship timber, from the fifteenth to the twenty-fifth,
the Moon as before.” In his ‘French Gardener,’ a translation from
the French, Evelyn makes a few allusions to the Moon’s influence on
gardening and grafting operations, and in his _Kalendarium Hortense_
we find him acknowledging its supremacy more than once; but he had
doubtless begun to lose faith in the scrupulous directions bequeathed
by the Romans. In his introduction to the ‘Kalendar’ he says:--“We are
yet far from imposing (by any thing we have here alledged concerning
these menstrual periods) those nice and hypercritical punctillos
which some astrologers, and such as pursue these rules, seem to
oblige our gard’ners to; as if forsooth all were lost, and our pains
to no purpose, unless the sowing and the planting, the cutting and
the pruning, were performed in such and such an exact minute of
the Moon: _In hac autem ruris disciplina non desideratur ejusmodi
scrupulositas._ [Columella]. There are indeed some certain seasons and
_suspecta tempora_, which the prudent gard’ner ought carefully (as much
as in him lies) to prevent: but as to the rest, let it suffice that he
diligently follow the observations which (by great industry) we have
collected together, and here present him.”
The opinion of John Evelyn, thus expressed, doubtless shook the faith
of gardeners in the efficacy of lunar influence on plants, and, as a
rule, we find no mention of the Moon in the instructions contained in
the gardening books published after his death. It is true that Charles
Evelyn, in ‘The Pleasure and Profit of Gardening Improved’ (1717)
directs that Stock Gilliflower seeds should be sown at the full of the
Moon in April, and makes several other references to the influence of
the Moon on these plants; but this is an exception to the general rule,
and in ‘The Retired Gardener,’ a translation from the French of Louis
Liger, printed in 1717, the ancient belief in the Moon’s supremacy in
the plant kingdom received its death-blow. The work referred to was
published under the direction of London and Wise, Court Nurserymen to
Queen Anne, and in the first portion of it, which is arranged in the
form of a conversation between a gentleman and his gardener, occurs the
following passage:--
_Gent._--“I have heard several old gardeners say that vigorous trees
ought to be prun’d in the Wane, and those that are more sparing of
their shoots in the Increase. Their reason is, that the pruning by
no means promotes the fruit if it be not done in the Wane. They add
that the reason why some trees are so long before they bear fruit is,
because they were planted or grafted either in the Increase or Full
of the Moon.”
_Gard._--“Most of the old gardeners were of that opinion, and there
are some who continue still to be misled by the same error. But
’tis certain that they bear no ground for such an imagination, as
I have observ’d, having succeeded in my gardening without such a
superstitious observation of the Moon. However, I don’t urge this
upon my own authority, but refer my self to M. de la Quintinie, who
deserves more to be believed than my self. These are his words:--
‘I solemnly declare [saith he] that after a diligent observation
of the Moon’s changes for thirty years together, and an enquiry
whether they had any influence on gardening, the affirmation of which
has been so long established among us, I perceiv’d that it was no
weightier than old wives’ tales, and that it has been advanc’d by
unexperienc’d gardeners.’
“And a little after: ‘I have therefore follow’d what appear’d most
reasonable, and rejected what was otherwise. In short, graft in what
time of the Moon you please, if your graft be good, and grafted in a
proper stock, provided you do it like an artist, you will be sure to
succeed.... In the same manner [continues he] sow what sorts of grain
you please, and plant as you please, in any Quarter of the Moon, I’ll
answer for your success; the first and last day of the Moon being
equally favourable.’ This is the opinion of a man who must be allow’d
to have been the most experienc’d in this age.”
Plants of the Moon.
The Germans call _Mondveilchen_ (Violet of the Moon), the _Lunaria
annua_, the _Leucoion_, also known as the Flower of the Cow, that is
to say, of the cow Io, one of the names of the Moon. The old classic
legend relates that this daughter of Inachus, because she was beloved
by Jupiter, fell under the jealous displeasure of Juno, and was much
persecuted by her. Jupiter therefore changed his beautiful mistress
into the cow Io, and at his request, Tellus (the Earth) caused a
certain herb (_Salutaris_, the herb of Isis) to spring up, in order to
provide for the metamorphosed nymph suitable nourishment. In the Vedic
writings, the Moon is represented as slaying monsters and serpents,
and it is curious to note that the Moonwort (_Lunaria_), Southernwood
(_Artemisia_), and Selenite (from _Selene_, a name of the Moon), are
all supposed to have the power of repelling serpents. Plutarch, in his
work on rivers, tells us that near the river Trachea grew a herb called
Selenite, from the foliage of which trickled a frothy liquid with which
the herdsmen anointed their feet in the Spring in order to render them
impervious to the bites of serpents. This foam, says De Gubernatis,
reminds one of the dew which is found in the morning sprinkled over
herbs and plants, and which the ancient Greeks regarded as a gift of
the nymphs who accompanied the goddess Artemis, or Diana, the lunar
deity.
Numerous Indian plants are named after the Moon, the principal being
the _Cardamine_; the _Cocculus cordifolius_ (the Moon’s Laughter); a
species of _Solanum_ called the Flower of the Moon; the _Asclepias
acida_, the _Somalatâ_, the plant that produces Soma; Sandal-wood
(beloved of the Moon); Camphor (named after the Moon); the _Convolvulus
Turpethum_, called the Half-Moon; and many other plants named after
Soma, a lunar synonym.
In a Hindu poem, the Moon is called the fructifier of vegetation and
the guardian of the celestial ambrosia, and it is not surprising
therefore to find that in India the mystic Moon-tree, the Soma, the
tree which produces the divine and immortalising ambrosia is worshipped
as the lunar god. Soma, the moon-god, produces the revivifying dew of
the early morn; _Soma_, the Moon-tree, the exhilarating ambrosia. The
Moon is cold and humid: it is from her the plants receive their sap,
says Prof. De Gubernatis, “and thanks to the Moon that they multiply,
and that vegetation prospers. There is nothing very wonderful,
therefore, if the movements of the Moon preside in a general way over
agricultural operations, and if it exercises a special influence on the
health and _accouchements_ of women, who are said to represent Water,
the humid element. The Roman goddess Lucina (the Moon) presided over
_accouchements_, and had under her care the Dittany and the Mugwort [or
Motherwort] (_Artemisia_, from Artemis, the lunar goddess), considered,
like the Vedic _Soma_, to be the queen or mother of the herbs.”
Thus Macer says of it:--
“_Herbarum matrem justum puto ponere primo;
Præcipue morbis muliebribus illa medetur._”
This influence of the Moon over the female portion of the human race
has led to a class of plants being associated either directly with
the luminary or with the goddesses who were formerly thought to
impersonate or embody it. Thus we find the _Chrysanthemum leucanthemum_
named the Moon Daisy, because its shape resembles the pictures of a
full moon, the type of a class of plants which Dr. Prior points out,
“on the Doctrine of Signatures, were exhibited in uterine complaints,
and dedicated in pagan times to the goddess of the Moon and regulator
of monthly periods, Artemis, whom Horsley (on Hosea ix., 10) would
identify with Isis, the goddess of the Egyptians, with Juno Lucina, and
with Eileithuia, a deity who had special charge over the functions of
women--an office in Roman Catholic mythology assigned to Mary Magdalene
and Margaret.” The Costmary, or Maudeline-wort (_Balsamita vulgaris_);
the Maghet, or May-weed (_Pyrethrum Parthenium_); the Mather, or
Maydweed (_Anthemis Cotula_); the Daisy, or Marguerite (_Bellis
perennis_); the _Achillea Matricaria_, &c., are all plants which come
under the category of lunar herbs in their connection with feminine
complaints.
The Man in the Moon.
Chaucer describes the Moon as Lady Cynthia:--
“Her gite was gray and full of spottis blake,
And on her brest a chorle paintid ful even
Bearing a bush of Thornis on his bake
Which for his theft might climb no ner the heven.”
Allusion is here made to the Man in the Moon, bearing a Thorn-bush
on his shoulders--one of the most widely-diffused superstitions
still extant. It is curious that, in several legends respecting this
inhabitant of the Moon, he is represented as having been engaged, when
on earth, in gardening operations. Kuhn relates a tradition in the
Havel country. One Christmas Eve, a peasant felt a great desire to eat
a Cabbage; and, having none himself, he slipped stealthily into his
neighbour’s garden to cut some. Just as he had filled his basket, the
Christ Child rode past on his white horse, and said: “Because thou
hast stolen in the holy night, thou shalt immediately sit in the Moon
with thy basket of Cabbage.” At Paderhorn, in Westphalia, the crime
committed was not theft, but hindering people from attending church
on Easter-Day, by placing a Thorn-bush in the field-gate through
which they had to pass. In the neighbourhood of Wittingen, the man is
said to have been exiled to the Moon because he tied up his brooms
on Maunday Thursday; and at Deilinghofen, of having mown the Grass
in his meadows on Sunday. A Swabian mother at Derendingen will tell
her child that a man was once working in his vineyard on Sunday, and
after having pruned all his Vines, he made a bundle of the shoots he
had just cut off, laid it in his basket, and went home. According to
one version, the Vine-shoots were stolen from a neighbour’s Vineyard.
When taxed either with Sabbath-breaking or with the theft, the culprit
loudly protested his innocence, and at length exclaimed: “If I have
committed this crime, may I be sent to the Moon!” After his death this
fate duly befell him, and there he remains to this day. The Black
Forest peasants relate that a certain man stole a bundle of wood on
Sunday because he thought on that day he should be unmolested by the
foresters. However, on leaving the forest, he met a stranger, who was
no other than the Almighty himself. After reproving the thief for not
keeping the Sabbath-day holy, God said he must be punished, but he
might choose whether he would be banished to the Sun or to the Moon.
The man chose the latter, declaring he would rather freeze in the Moon
than burn in the Sun; and so the Broom-man came into the Moon with his
faggot on his back. At Hemer, in Westphalia, the legend runs that a man
was engaged in fencing his garden on Good Friday, and had just poised
a bundle of Thorns on his fork when he was at once transported to the
Moon. Some of the Hemer peasants, however, declare that the Moon is
not only inhabited by a man with a Thorn-bush and pitchfork, but also
by his wife, who is churning, and was exiled to the Moon for using
a churn on Sunday. According to other traditions, the figure in the
Moon is that of Isaac bearing the faggot on his shoulders for his own
sacrifice on Mount Moriah; or Cain with a bundle of Briars; or a tipsy
man who for his audacity in threatening the Moon with a Bramble he held
in his hand, was drawn up to this planet, and has remained there to the
present day.
[Tailpiece]
[Headpiece]
CHAPTER XV.
Plant Symbolism and Language.
The antiquity of floral emblems probably dates from the time when
the human heart first beat with the gentle emotions of affection or
throbbed with the wild pulsations of love. Then it was that man sought
to express through the instrumentality of flowers his love of purity
and beauty, or to typify through their aid the ardour of his passionate
desires; for the symbolism of flowers, it has been conjectured, was
first conceived as a parable speaking to the eye and thence teaching
the heart.
Driven, in his struggle for existence, to learn the properties of
plants in order to obtain wholesome food, man found that with the
beauty of their form and colour they spoke lovingly to him. They could
be touched, tasted, handled, planted, sown, and reaped: they were
useful, easily converted into simple articles of clothing, or bent,
twisted, and cut into weapons and tools. Flowers became a language
to man very early, and according to their poisonous, soothing, or
nutritious qualities, or on account of some peculiarities in their
growth or shape which seemed to tell upon the mysteries of life, birth,
and death, he gave them names which thenceforth became words and
symbols to him of these phenomena.
Glimpses of the ancient poetical plant symbolism have been found amid
the ruins of temples, graven on the sides of rocks, and inscribed on
the walls of mighty caves where the early nations of India, Assyria,
Chaldæa, and Egypt knelt in adoration. The Chinese from time immemorial
have known a comprehensive system of floral signs and emblems, and
the Japanese have ever possessed a mode of communicating by symbolic
flowers. Persian literature abounds in chaste and poetical allegories,
which demonstrate the antiquity of floral symbolism in that far Eastern
land: thus we are told that Sadi the poet, when a slave, presented to
his tyrant master a Rose accompanied with this pathetic appeal:--“Do
good to thy servant whilst thou hast the power, for the season of power
is often as transient as the duration of this beautiful flower.”
The beauty of the symbol melted the heart of his lord, and the slave
obtained his liberty.
The Hindu races are passionately fond of flowers, and their ancient
Sanscrit books and poems are full of allusions to their beauty and
symbolic character. With them, the flower of the field is venerated
as a symbol of fecundity. In their mythology, at the beginning of all
things there appeared in the waters the expanded Lotus-blossom, the
emblematic flower of life and light; the Sun, Moon, and Stars are
flowers in the celestial garden; the Sun’s ray is a full-blown Rose,
which springs from the waters and feeds the sacrificial fire; the
Lightning is a garland of flowers thrown by Narada. _Pushpa_ (flower),
or _Pushpaka_ (flowery), is the epithet applied to the luminous car
of the god Kuvera, which was seized by Râvana, the royal monster of
Lankâ, and recaptured by the demi-god Râma, the incarnation of Vishnu.
The bow of Kâma, the Indian Cupid, darts forth flowers in the guise of
arrows. The Indian poetic lover gathers from the flowers a great number
of chaste and beautiful symbols. The following description of a young
maiden struck down by illness is a fair example of this:--“All of a
sudden the blighting glance of unpropitious fortune having fallen on
that Rose-cheeked Cypress, she laid her head on the pillow of sickness;
and in the flower-garden of her beauty, in place of the Damask Rose,
sprang up the branch of the Saffron. Her fresh Jasmine, from the
violence of the burning illness, lost its moisture, and her Hyacinth,
full of curls, lost all its endurance from the fever that consumed her.”
It was with the classic Greeks, however, that floral symbolism reached
its zenith: not only did the Hellenic race entertain an extraordinary
passion for flowers, but with consummate skill they devised a code
of floral types and emblems adapted to all phases of public and
private life. As Loudon writes, when speaking of the emblematic use
made by the Greeks of flowers:--“Not only were they then, as now, the
ornament of a beauty, and of the altars of the gods, but the youths
crowned themselves with them in the fêtes, the priests in religious
ceremonies, and the guests in convivial meetings. Garlands of flowers
were suspended from the gates of the city in the times of rejoicing ...
the philosophers wore crowns of flowers, and the warriors ornamented
their foreheads with them in times of triumph.” The Romans, although
they adopted most of the floral symbolic lore of their Hellenic
predecessors, and in the case of emblematic garlands were particularly
refined, were still evidently not so passionately fond of floral
symbolism as were the Greeks; and with the decadence of the Empire, the
attractive art gradually fell into oblivion.
The science of plant symbolism may, if we accept the views of Miss
Marshall, a writer on the subject,[16] be classified into five
divisions. These are, firstly, plants which are symbols, pure and
simple, of the Great Unknown God, or Heaven Father; and embrace those,
the form, colour, or other peculiarities of which led the priests,
the early thinkers to the community, the medicine-men, magicians, and
others, to associate them with ideas of the far-distant, unknown,
incomprehensible, and overwhelming--the destructive forces of Nature.
Such plants were used as hieroglyphics for these ideas, and became
symbols of the Deity or Supreme Power. To these visible symbols belong
plants such as the Lily, Onion, flowers of heavenly blue colour
(symbolising the blue sky), and leaves threefold or triangular,
symbolising God the Creator, Preserver, and Destroyer.
[16] ‘Plant Symbolism,’ in ‘Natural History Notes,’ Vol. II.
Secondly, the plants symbolising or suggesting portions or organs
of the human body, internal and external, which to the earliest of
mankind, and certainly to the Egyptian embalmers, were organs of
mystery and importance; such is the heart, the first to beat in the
fœtal, and the last to cease pulsating in the adult organism, &c. To
this section belong heart-shaped leaves and petals; and where, as in
the Shamrock, there is united the threefold emblem and the heart-shaped
leaf, there is a doubly sacred idea united with the form. To this
section belong also plants and fruits such as the Fig, Pomegranate, &c.
The third section comprises plants that were consecrated or set apart
as secret and sacred, because those who possessed the knowledge of
their powers made use of them to awe the ignorant people of their race.
These plants were supposed to be under the control of the good or
evil powers. They were the narcotics, the stupefying or the exciting
vegetable drugs. The sacred incense in all temples was compounded of
these, and their use has been, and still is, common to all countries;
and as some of these compounds produced extraordinary or deadly
effects, as the very dust of the burnt incense, when mixed with water,
and drunk, brought on a violent and agonising death, while the fumes
might merely produce delightful and enticing ecstacy, making men
and women eloquent and seemingly inspired, the knowledge was wisely
kept secret from the people, and severe penalties--sometimes even
death--awaited those who illegally imitated, compounded, or used these
drugs. To this section belong the plants used to make the Chinese and
Japanese joss, as well as Opium, Tobacco, Stramonium, and various
opiates now well known.
The fourth section comprises those plants which in all countries have
been observed to bear some resemblance to parts of the human body.
Such plants were valued and utilised as heaven-sent guides in the
treatment of the ills flesh is heir to; and they are the herbs whose
popular names among the inhabitants of every land have become “familiar
in their mouths as household words.” To such belong the Birth-wort,
Kidney-wort, Lung-wort, Liver-wort, Pile-wort, Nit-grass, Tooth-cress,
Heart-clover, and many others known to the ancient herbalists. It was
their endeavours to find out whether or no the curious forms, spots,
and markings of such plants really indicated their curative powers,
that led to the properties of other herbs being discovered, and a
suggestive nomenclature being adopted for them, such as is found in the
names Eyebright, Flea-bane, Canker-weed, Hunger-grass, Stone-break, &c.
Lastly, in the fifth section of symbolical plants we come to those
which point to a time when symbols were expressed by letters, such
as appear on the Martagon Lily--the true poetical Hyacinth of the
Greeks--on the petals of which are traced the woeful AI, AI,--the
expression of the grief of Phœbus at the death of the fair Adonis.
“In the flower he weaved
The sad impression of his sighs; which bears
_Ai_, _Ai_, displayed in funeral characters.”
In this section also are included plants which exhibit in some portion
of their structure typical markings, such as the _Astragalus_, which in
its root depicts the stars; the Banana, whose fruit, when cut, exhibits
a representation of the Holy Cross; and the Bracken Fern, whose stem,
when sliced, exhibits traces of letters which are sometimes used for
the purposes of love divination. In Ireland, however, the _Pteris
aquilina_ is called the Fern of God, because the people imagine that
if the stem be cut into three sections, on the first of these sections
will be seen the letter G, on the second O, and on the third D--forming
the sacred word God.
In the science of plant symbols, not only the names, but the forms,
perfumes, and properties of plants have to be considered, as well
as the numerical arrangements of their parts. Thus of all sacred
symbolical plants, those consisting of petals or calyx-sepals, or
leaves, divided into the number Five, were formerly held in peculiar
reverence, because among the races of antiquity five was for ages a
sacred number. The reason of this is thus explained by Bunsen:--“It
is well known,” he says, “that the numeral _one_, the undivided, the
eternal, is placed in antithesis to all other numerals. The figure four
included the perfect ten, as 1+2+3+4=10. So four represents the All
of the universe. Now if we put these together, 4+1 will be the sign
of the whole God-Universe.” _Three_ is a number sacred to the most
ancient as well as modern worship. Pythagoras called it the perfect
number, expressive of “beginning, middle, and end,” and therefore he
made it a symbol of deity. _Three_ therefore plays its _rôle_ in plant
symbology. Thus the _Emblica officinalis_, one of the sacred plants of
India, was once the exclusive property of the priests, who kept its
medicinal virtues secret: it was held in peculiar reverence because of
its flowers possessing a six-parted calyx; three stamens, combined;
three dichotomous styles; a fleshy fruit, tricoccous and six-seeded;
these being all the sacred or double number of _Three_. In later days,
the Shamrock or Trefoil, and the Pansy, or Herb Trinity, were regarded
as symbolising the Trinity. Cruciform flowers are, at the present day,
all regarded as of good omen, having been marked with the Sign of the
Cross, and thus symbolising Redemption.
The presence of flowers as symbols and language on the monuments of
Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, India, and other countries of the past,
and the graceful floral adornments sculptured on the temples of the
Græco-Roman period, demonstrate how great a part flower and plant
symbolism played in the early history of mankind. The Jews, learning
the art from the Egyptians, preserved it in their midst, and introduced
plant emblems in their Tabernacle, in their Temple, and on the garments
of the priests. Flowers with golden rays became symbols of the Sun;
and as the Sun was the giver of life and warmth, the bringer of
fertility, the symbolic flowers stood as symbol-words for these great
gifts; and gradually all the mysterious phenomena connected with birth,
reproduction, and fecundity, were represented in plant, flower, and
fruit symbolism; for not only were flowers early used as a pictorial
language, but the priests made use of fruits, herbs, shrubs, and trees
to symbolise light, life, warmth, and generation. Let us take a few
examples:--When in the Spring, church altars and fonts are piously
adorned with white Lilies, which are, in some countries, carried about,
worn, and presented by ladies to each other in the month of May, few
of them, we may be sure, imagine that they are perpetuating the plant
symbolism of the Sun-worship of ancient Egypt. Miss Marshall tells us
that “in Catholic countries the yellow anthers are carefully removed;
their white filaments alone are left, not, as folks think, that the
flower may remain pure white, but that the fecundating or male organs
being removed, the Lilies may be true flower symbols or visible words
for pure virgins; for the white dawn as yet unwedded to the day--for
the pure cold Spring as yet yielding no blossoms and Summer fruits.”
Of the flowers consecrated to their deities by the symbol-worshipper of
India and Egypt, the most prominent is the sacred Lotus, whose leaf was
the “emblem and cradle of creative might.” It was anciently revered in
Egypt as it is now in Hindustan, Thibet, and Nepaul, where the people
believe it was in the consecrated bosom of this plant that Brahma was
born, and that Osiris delights to float. From its peculiar organisation
the Lotus is virtually self-productive: hence it became the symbol of
the reproductive power of all nature, and was worshipped as a symbol of
the All-Creative Power. The same floral symbol occurs wherever in the
northern hemisphere symbolic religion has prevailed. The sacred images
of the Tartars, Japanese, and Indians are almost all represented as
resting upon Lotus-leaves. The Chinese divinity, Puzza, is seated in
a Lotus, and the Japanese god is represented sitting in a Water-Lily.
The Onion was formerly held in the highest esteem as a religious
symbol in the mysterious solemnities and divinations of the Egyptians
and Hindus. In the first place, its delicate red veins and fibres
rendered it an object of veneration, as typifying the blood, at the
shedding of which the Hindu shudders. Secondly, it was regarded as an
astronomical emblem, for on cutting through it, there appeared beneath
the external coat a succession of orbs, one within another, in regular
order, after the manner of revolving spheres. The Rose has been made a
symbolic flower in every age. In the East, it is the emblem of virtue
and loveliness. The Egyptians made it a symbol of silence; the Romans
regarded it as typical of festivity. In modern times it is considered
the appropriate symbol of beauty and love,--the half-expanded bud
representing the first dawn of the sublime passion, and the full-blown
flower the maturity of perfect love. The Asphodel, like the Hyacinth
of the ancients, was regarded as an emblem of grief and sorrow. The
Myrtle, from its being dedicated to Venus, was sacred as a symbol of
love and beauty. White flowers were held to be typical of light and
innocence, and were consecrated to virgins. Sombre and dark-foliaged
plants were held to be typical of disaster and death.
The floral symbols of the Scriptures are worthy of notice. From the
circumstance of Elijah having been sheltered from the persecutions of
King Ahab by the Juniper, that tree has become a symbol of succour
or an asylum. The Almond was an emblem of haste and vigilance to
the Hebrew writers; with Eastern poets, however, it was regarded as
a symbol of hope. Throughout the East, the Aloe is regarded as a
religious symbol, and is greatly venerated. It is expressive of grief
and bitterness, and is religiously planted by the Mahommedans at the
extremity of every grave. Burckhardt says that they call it by the
Arabic name _Saber_, signifying patience--a singularly appropriate
name; for as the plant is evergreen, it whispers to those who mourn
for the loved ones they have lost, _patience_ in their affliction.
The Clover is another sacred plant symbol. St. Patrick chose it as an
emblem of the Trinity when engaged in converting the Irish, who have
ever since, in the Shamrock, regarded it as a representative plant. The
Druids thought very highly of the Trefoil because its leaf symbolised
the three departments of nature--the earth, the sea, and the heaven.
But of all plant symbols, none can equal in beauty or sanctity the
Passion Flower, the lovely blossom of which, when first met with by the
Spanish conquerors of the New World, suggested to their enthusiastic
imagination the story of our Saviour’s Passion. The Jesuits professed
to find in the several parts of the Maracot the crown of thorns, the
scourge, the pillar, the sponge, the nails, and the five wounds, and
they issued drawings representing the flower with its inflorescence
distorted to suit their statements regarding its almost miraculous
character. John Parkinson, in his _Paradisus Terrestris_ (1629), gives
a good figure of the Virginian species of the plant, as well as an
engraving of “The Jesuites Figure of the Maracoc--_Granadillus Frutex
Indicus Christi Passionis Imago_.” But, as a good Protestant, he feels
bound to enter his protest against the superstitious regard paid to the
flower by the Roman Catholics, and so he writes: “Some superstitious
Jesuites would fain make men believe that in the flower of this plant
are to be seen all the markes of our Saviour’s Passion: and therefore
call it _Flos Passionis_: and to that end have caused figures to be
drawn and printed, with all the parts proportioned out, as thornes,
nailes, spear, whip, pillar, &c., in it, and as true as the sea burns,
which you may well perceive by the true figure taken to the life of
the plant, compared with the figure set forth by the Jesuites, which
I have placed here likewise for everyone to see: but these be their
advantageous lies (which with them are tolerable, or rather pious and
meritorious) wherewith they use to instruct their people; but I dare
say, God never willed His priests to instruct His people with lies: for
they come from the Devill, the author of them.”
[Illustration: The Passion-flower of the Jesuits. From _Parkinson’s
Paradisus_.]
In early times, it was customary in Europe to employ particular colours
for the purpose of indicating ideas and feelings, and in France where
the symbolical meaning of colours was formed into a regular system,
much importance was attached to the art of symbolising by the selection
of particular colours for dresses, ornaments, &c. In this way, flowers
of various hues became the apt media of conveying ideas and feelings;
and in the ages of chivalry the enamoured knight often indicated his
passion by wearing a single blossom or posy of many-hued flowers. In
the romance of _Perceforet_, a hat adorned with Roses is celebrated as
a favourite gift of love; and in _Amadis de Gaule_, the captive Oriana
is represented as throwing to her lover a Rose wet with tears, as the
sweetest pledge of her unalterable faith. Red was recognised as the
colour of love, and therefore the Rose, on account of its tint, was a
favourite emblem. Of the various allegorical meanings which were in the
Middle Ages attached to this lovely flower, a description will be found
in the celebrated _Romaunt de la Rose_, which was commenced in the year
1620 by Guillaume de Lorris, and finished forty years later by Jean de
Meung.
In France, during the Middle Ages, flowers were much employed as
emblems of love and friendship. At the banquet given in celebration of
the marriage of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, with the English
Princess, Margaret, several ingenious automata were introduced, one
being a large unicorn, bearing on its back a leopard, which held
in one claw the standard of England, and on the other a Daisy, or
_Marguerite_. The unicorn having gone round all the tables, halted
before the Duke; and one of the _maîtres d’hôtel_, taking the Daisy
from the leopard’s claw, presented it, with a complimentary address, to
the royal bridegroom.
In the same country, an act of homage, unique in its kind, was paid
to a lady in the early part of the seventeenth century. The Duke of
Montausier, on obtaining the promise of the hand of Mademoiselle de
Rambouillet, sent to her, according to custom, every morning till
that fixed for the nuptials, a bouquet composed of the finest flowers
of the season. But this was not all: on the morning of New Year’s
Day, 1634--the day appointed for the marriage--he laid upon her
dressing-table a magnificently-bound folio volume, on the parchment
leaves of which the most skilful artists of the day had painted
from nature a series of the choicest flowers cultivated at that
time in Europe. The first poets of Paris contributed the poetical
illustrations, which were written by the cleverest penmen under the
different flowers. The most celebrated of these madrigals, composed
by Chapelain on the Crown Imperial, represented that superb flower as
having sprung from the blood of Gustavus Adolphus, who fell in the
battle of Lützen; and thus paid, in the name of the Swedish hero, a
delicate compliment to the bride, who was a professed admirer of his
character. According to a statement published some years since, this
magnificent volume, which was called, after the name of the lady, the
Garland of Julia, was disposed of, in 1784, at the sale of the Duke de
la Vallière’s effects, for fifteen thousand five hundred and ten livres
(about £650), and was brought to England.
The floral emblems of Shakspeare are evidence of the great poet’s
fondness for flowers and his delicate appreciation of their uses
and similitudes. In ‘A Winter’s Tale,’ Perdita is made to present
appropriate flowers to her visitors, symbolical of their various ages;
but the most remarkable of Shakspeare’s floral symbols occur where
poor Ophelia is wearing, in her madness, “fantastic garlands of wild
flowers”--denoting the bewildered state of her faculties.
The order of these flowers runs thus, with the meaning of each term
beneath:--
CROW FLOWERS. NETTLES. DAISIES. LONG PURPLES.
Fayre Mayde. Stung to the Her Virgin Under the cold
Quick. Bloom. hand of Death.
“A fair maid, stung to the quick; her virgin bloom under the cold hand
of death.”
Probably no wreath could have been selected more truly typifying the
sorrows of this beautiful victim of disappointed love and filial sorrow.
The most noted code of floral signs, used as a language by the Turkish
and Greek women in the Levant, and by the African females on the coast
of Barbary, was introduced into Western Europe by Lady Mary Wortley
Montagu and La Mortraie, the companion in exile of Charles XII., and
obtained in France and England much popularity as the “Turkish Language
of Flowers.” This language is said to be much employed in the Turkish
harems, where the women practise it, either for the sake of mere
diversion in their seclusion, or for carrying on secret communication.
In France and Germany, the language of flowers has taken deep root,
and in our own country the poetic symbolisms of Shakspeare, Chaucer,
Herrick, Drayton, and others of the earlier bards, laid the groundwork
for the very complete system of floral emblemism, or language of
flowers, which we now possess. A great many works have been published,
containing floral codes, or dictionaries: most of these, however,
possess but little merit as expositions of old symbols or traditions,
and have been compiled principally from modern sources.
An ancient floral vocabulary, taken from Dierbach’s _Flora Mythologica
der Griechen und Römer_, and an approved modern English ‘Dictionary of
Flowers,’ are appended, in order to make this portion of our subject
complete.
Ancient Floral Vocabulary.
Absinth The Bitterness and Torments of Love.
Acacia Love, pure and platonic.
Acanthus Love of Fine Arts.
Althea Exquisite Sweetness.
Amaranth Fidelity and Constancy.
Anemone Abandonment.
Angelica Gentle Melancholy.
Argentine Ingenuity.
Aster Elegance.
Balsam Impatience.
Basil Poverty.
Betony Emotion and Surprise.
Bindweed Coquetry.
Bluet Clearness and Light.
Box Firmness and Stoicism.
Bramble Injustice and Envy.
Burdock Importunity.
Buttercup Sarcasm.
Calendula Anxiety.
Camellia Constancy and Steadfastness.
Carrot Good Character.
Cinquefoil Maternal Love.
Colchicum Bad Character.
Cypress Mourning and Grief.
Dahlia Sterile Abundance.
Daisy (Easter) Candour and Innocence.
Dandelion Oracle.
Darnel Vice.
Digitalis Work.
Dittany Discretion.
Elder Humility.
Ephemeris Transient Happiness.
Everlasting Flwr. Constancy.
Fennel Merit.
Fern Confidence.
Forget-me-not Faithful Remembrance.
Foxglove Adulation.
Fuchsia Amiability.
Fumitory Hatred.
Geranium Folly.
Hawthorn Sweet Hope.
Heliotrope Eternal Love.
Hellebore Wit.
Hemlock Perfidy.
Holly Defence.
Honeysuckle Bond of Affection.
Hyacinth Amenity.
Hydrangea Coldness.
Iris Indifference.
Ivy Attachment.
Jasmine Amiability.
Jonquil Amorous Languor.
Jujube-tree Relief.
Larkspur Open Heart.
Laurel Victory and Glory.
Lavender Silence.
Lilac First Troubles of Love.
Lily Purity and Majesty.
Maidenhair Bond of Love.
Marjoram Consolation.
Marvel of Peru Flame of Love.
Mallow Maternal Tenderness.
Mint Wisdom and Virtue.
Milfoil Cure and Recovery.
Moonwort Bad Payment.
Myrtle Love.
Narcissus Self-esteem and Fatuity.
Nettle Cruelty.
Olive Peace.
Orange-tree Virginity, Generosity.
Peony Shame.
Periwinkle Unalterable Friendship.
Pineapple Perfection.
Pink Pure and Ardent Love.
Poppy Sleep.
Privet Youth.
Rose Beauty and Love.
Rosemary Power of Re-kindling extinct Energy.
Rue Fecundity of Fields.
Sage Esteem.
Sensitive-plant Modesty.
Solanum Prodigality.
Spindle-tree Ineffaceable Memory.
Strawberry Intoxication, Delight.
Thyme Spontaneous Emotion.
Trefoil Uncertainty.
Tulip Grandeur.
Valerian Readiness.
Vervain Pure Affection.
Viburnum Coolness.
Violet Modesty.
A Dictionary of Flowers.
Acacia Friendship.
---- Rose Elegance.
Acanthus The Arts.
Achillea millefolia War.
Adonis, Flos Painful Recollections.
Agrimony Thankfulness.
Almond-tree Indiscretion.
Aloe Grief.
Amaranth Immortality.
Amaryllis Pride.
Anemone Forsaken.
---- Field Sickness.
Angelica Inspiration.
Angrec Royalty.
Apple-blossom Preference.
Ash-tree Grandeur.
Asphodel My regrets follow you to the grave.
Aster, China Variety.
---- After-Thought.
Balm of Gilead Cure.
---- Gentle Joking.
Balsam Impatience.
Barberry Sourness of Temper.
Basil Hate.
Beech Prosperity.
Bilberry Treachery.
Bladder-nut Frivolous Amusement.
Borage Bluntness.
Box-tree Stoicism.
Bramble Envy.
Broom Humility and Neatness.
Buckbean Calm Repose.
Bugloss Falsehood.
Bulrush Indiscretion.
Burdock Touch me not.
Buttercup Ingratitude.
Cactus, Virginia Horror.
Canterbury Bell Constancy.
Catchfly Snare.
Champignon Suspicion.
Cherry-tree Good Education.
Chesnut-tree Do me Justice.
Chicory Frugality.
Cinquefoil Beloved Daughter.
Circæa Spell.
Clematis Artifice.
Clotbur Rudeness.
Clove-tree Dignity.
Columbine Folly.
Convolvulus (night) Night.
Coriander Hidden Merit.
Corn Riches.
Corn-bottle Delicacy.
Cornel Cherry Durability.
Cowslip, Amer. You are my Divinity.
Cress Resolution.
Crown Imperial Power.
Cuscuta Meanness.
Cypress Mourning.
Daffodil Self Love.
Daisy Innocence.
---- Garden I share your sentiments.
---- Wild I will think of it.
Dandelion The Rustic Oracle.
Day Lily, Yellow Coquetry.
Dittany Childbirth.
Dock Patience.
Dodder Meanness.
Ebony-tree Blackness.
Eglantine Poetry.
Fennel Strength.
Fig Longevity.
Fir-tree Elevations.
Flax I feel your kindness.
Flower-de-Luce Flame.
Forget-Me-Not Forget me not.
Fraxinella Fire.
Fuller’s Teasel Misanthropy.
Geranium Deceit.
---- Oak-leaved True Friendship.
---- Silver-leaved Recall.
---- Pencilled-leaf Ingenuity.
---- Rose-scented Preference.
---- Scarlet Stupidity.
---- Sorrowful Melancholy Mind.
---- Wild Steadfast Piety.
Grass Utility.
Hawthorn Hope.
Hazel Peace, Reconciliation.
Heart’s Ease Think of me.
Heath Solitude.
Heliotrope, Peruvian Devoted Attachment.
Hellenium Tears.
Hepatica Confidence.
Holly Foresight.
Hollyhock Ambition.
Honeysuckle Generous and Devoted Affection.
Hop Injustice.
Hornbeam Ornament.
Horse-Chesnut Luxury.
Hortensia You are cold.
Hyacinth Game, Play.
Ice-plant Your looks freeze me.
Ipomœa I attach myself to you.
Iris Message.
Ivy Friendship.
Jasmine Amiability.
---- Carolina Separation.
Jonquil Desire.
Juniper Protection.
Larch Boldness.
Larkspur Lightness.
Laurel Glory.
Laurustinus I die if neglected.
Lavender Mistrust.
Leaves, Dead Sadness, Melancholy.
Lilac First Emotions of Love.
---- White Youth.
Lily Majesty.
Lily of the Valley Return of Happiness.
Linden-tree Conjugal Love.
Liverwort Confidence.
London Pride Frivolity.
Lotus Eloquence.
Lucern Life.
Madder Calumny.
Maidenhair Secrecy.
Mallow Beneficence.
Manchineel-tree Falsehood.
Maple Reserve.
Mandrake Rarity.
Marigold Grief.
---- Prophetic Prediction.
---- and Cypress Despair.
Marvel of Peru Timidity.
Meadow Saffron My best days are past.
Mezereon Coquetry. Desire to please.
Mignonette Your qualities surpass your charms.
Milkwort Hermitage.
Mistletoe I surmount all difficulties.
Moonwort Forgetfulness.
Moss Maternal Love.
Mulberry-tree, Black I shall not survive you.
---- White Wisdom.
Musk-plant Weakness.
Myrobalan Privation.
Myrtle Love.
Narcissus Self Love.
Nettle Cruelty.
Nightshade, Bitter-sweet Truth.
---- Enchanter’s Spell.
Nosegay Gallantry.
Oak Hospitality.
Olive Peace.
Ophrys, Spider Skill.
Orange Flower Chastity.
---- Tree Generosity.
Orchis, Bee Error.
Palm Victory.
Parsley Festivity.
Passion Flower Faith.
Peony Shame, Bashfulness.
Peppermint Warmth of Feeling.
Periwinkle Tender Recollections.
Pineapple You are perfect.
Pink Pure Love.
---- Yellow Disdain.
Plane-tree Genius.
Plum-tree Keep your promises.
---- Wild Independence.
Poplar, black Courage.
---- White Time.
Poppy Consolation.
---- Sleep.
---- White My bane, my antidote.
Potato Beneficence.
Primrose Childhood.
---- Evening Inconstancy.
Privet Prohibition.
Quince Temptation.
Ranunculus You are radiant with charms.
Reeds Music.
Rose Love.
---- 100-leaved Grace.
---- Monthly Beauty ever new.
---- Musk Capricious Beauty.
---- Single Simplicity.
---- White Silence.
---- Withered Fleeting Beauty.
---- Yellow Infidelity.
Rosebud A Young Girl.
---- White A Heart unacquainted with Love.
Rosemary Your presence revives me.
Rue, Wild Morals.
Rush Docility.
Saffron Beware of excess.
Sage Esteem.
Sainfoin, Shaking Agitation.
St. John’s Wort Superstition.
Sardonia Irony.
Sensitive-plant Chastity.
Snapdragon Presumption.
Snowdrop Hope.
Sorrel, Wood Joy.
Speedwell Fidelity.
Spindle-tree Your charms are engraven on my heart.
Star of Bethlehem Purity.
Stock Lasting Beauty.
---- Ten Week Promptness.
Stone Crop Tranquillity.
Straw, Broken Rupture of a Contract.
---- Whole Union.
Strawberry Perfection.
Sunflower False Riches.
Sweet Sultan Happiness.
Sweet William Finesse.
Sycamore Curiosity.
Syringa Fraternal Love.
Tansy, Wild I declare war against you.
Tendrils of Creepers Ties.
Thistle Surliness.
Thorn Apple Deceitful Charms.
Thrift Sympathy.
Thyme Activity.
Tremella Nostoc Resistance.
Truffle Surprise.
Tuberose Dangerous Pleasures.
Tulip Declaration of Love.
Tussilage, Sweet-scented Justice shall be done to you.
Valerian An Accommodating Disposition.
Valerian, Greek Rupture.
Venus’ Looking-glass Flattery.
Veronica Fidelity.
Vervain Enchantment.
Vine Intoxication.
Violet Modesty.
Violet, White Innocence, Candour.
Wallflower Fidelity in Misfortune.
Walnut Stratagem.
Whortleberry Treachery.
Willow, Weeping Mourning.
Wormwood Absence.
Yew Sorrow.
In the chapter on Magic Plants will be found a list of plants used by
maidens and their lovers for the purposes of divination; and in Part
II., under the respective headings of the plants thus alluded to, will
be found described the several modes of divination. This practice of
love divination, it will be seen, is not altogether unconnected with
the symbolical meaning or language of flowers, and therefore it is here
again adverted to.
In many countries it is customary to pluck off the petals of the
Marigold, or some other flower of a similar nature, while certain
words are repeated, for the purpose of divining the character of an
individual. Göthe, in his tragedy of ‘Faust,’ has touched upon this
rustic superstition, and makes Margaret pluck off the leaves of a
flower, at the same time alternately repeating the words--“He loves
me,”--“He loves me not.” On coming to the last leaf, she joyously
exclaims--“He love me!”--and Faust says: “Let this flower pronounce the
decree of heaven!”
“And with scarlet Poppies around, like a bower,
The maiden found her mystic flower.
‘Now, gentle flower, I pray thee tell
If my lover loves me, and loves me well;
So may the fall of the morning dew
Keep the sun from fading thy tender blue.
Now must I number the leaves for my lot--
He loves me not--loves me--he loves me not--
He loves me--ah! yes, thou last leaf, yes--
I’ll pluck thee not for that last sweet guess!
He loves me!’--‘Yes,’ a dear voice sighed,
And her lover stands by Margaret’s side.”--_Miss Landon._
In some places, the following mode of floral divination is resorted to.
The lover, male or female, who wishes to ascertain the character of the
beloved one, draws by lot one of the following flowers, the symbolical
meaning attached to which will give the information desired:--
1.--Ranunculus Enterprising.
2.--Wild Pink Silly.
3.--Auricula Base.
4.--Blue Cornflower Loquacious.
5.--Wild Orach Lazy.
6.--Daisy Gentle.
7.--Tulip Ostentatious.
8.--Jonquil Obstinate.
9.--Orange-flower Hasty.
10.--Rose Submissive.
11.--Amaranth Arbitrary.
12.--Stock Avaricious.
13.--Spanish Passionate.
14.--Asphodel Languishing.
15.--Tricolour Selfish.
16.--Tuberose Ambitious.
17.--Jasmine Cheerful.
18.--Heart’s Ease Delicate.
19.--Lily Sincere.
20.--Fritillary Coquettish.
21.--Snapdragon Presumptuous.
22.--Carnation Capricious.
23.--Marigold Jealous.
24.--Everlasting Flower Constant.
[Headpiece]
CHAPTER XVI.
Funeral Trees and Plants.
The association of certain trees and plants with death and its gloomy
surroundings dates from a period remote and shadowy in its antiquity.
Allusions to it are found in the most ancient writings and records,
and through one of these (the Sanscrit _Mahâbhârata_) we learn that
Pitâ Mahâ, the great Creator, after having created the world, reposed
under the tree _Salmalî_, the leaves of which the winds cannot stir.
One of the Sanscrit names applied to this tree is _Kantakadruma_,
Tree of Thorns; and on account of the great size and strength of its
spines, it is stated to have been placed as a tree of punishment in the
infernal regions, and to have been known as the Tree of Yama (the Hindu
god of death). Yama is also spoken of as the dispenser of the ambrosia
of immortality, which flows from the fruit of the celestial tree in
Paradise (_Ficus Indica_), and which is known in India as the tree dear
to Yama. As king of the spirits of the departed, Yama dwells near the
tree. Hel, the Scandinavian goddess of death, has her abode among the
roots of Yggdrasill, by the side of one of the fountains. Mîmir, who,
according to Scandinavian mythology, gives his name to the fountain of
life, is also a king of the dead. The ancients entertained the belief
that, on the road traversed by the souls of the departed, there grew a
certain tree, the fruit of which was the symbol of eternal life. In the
Elysian Fields, where dwelt the spirits of the virtuous in the gloomy
regions reigned over by Pluto, whole plains were covered with Asphodel,
flowers which were placed by the Greeks and Romans on the graves of the
departed as symbolic of the future life. In France, at the beginning of
the Christian era, the faithful, with some mystical idea, were wont to
scatter on the bottom of coffins, beneath the corpses, seeds of various
plants--probably to typify life from the dead.
The belief in a future existence doubtless led to the custom of
planting trees on tombs, especially the Cypress, which was regarded
as typical both of life and death. The tree growing over the grave,
one can easily imagine, was looked upon by the ancient races as an
emblem of the soul of the departed become immortal. Evelyn remarks, on
this point, that trees and perennial plants are the most natural and
instructive hieroglyphics of our expected resurrection and immortality,
and that they conduce to the meditation of the living, and the removal
of their cogitations from the sphere of vanity and worldliness. This
observant writer descants upon the predilection exhibited by the early
inhabitants of the world for burial beneath trees, and points out
that the venerable Deborah was interred under an Oak at Bethel, and
that the bones of Saul and his three sons were buried under the Oak
at Jabesh-Gilead. He tells us also that one use made by the ancients
of sacred groves was to place in their nemorous shades the bodies of
their dead: and that he had read of some nations whose people were wont
to hang, not only malefactors, but also their departed friends, and
those whom they most esteemed, upon trees, as being so much nearer to
heaven, and dedicated to God; believing it far more honourable than to
be buried in the earth. He adds that “the same is affirmed of other
septentrional people;” and points out that Propertius seems to allude
to some such custom in the following lines:--
“The gods forbid my bones in the high road
Should lie, by every wand’ring vulgar trod;
Thus buried lovers are to scorn expos’d,
My tomb in some bye-arbor be inclos’d.”
The ancients were wont to hang their criminals either to barren trees,
or to those dedicated to the infernal gods; and we find that in
Maundevile’s time the practice of hanging corpses on trees existed in
the Indies, or, at any rate, on an island which he describes as being
called Caffolos. He gives a sketch of a tree, probably a Palm, with
a man suspended from it, and remarks that “Men of that Contree, whan
here Frendes ben seke, thei hangen hem upon Trees; and seyn, that it is
bettre that briddes, that ben Angeles of God, eten hem, than the foul
Wormes of the Erthe.”
[Illustration: The Tree of Death. From _Maundevile’s Travels_.]
We have, in a previous chapter, seen that among the Bengalese there
still exists the practice of hanging sickly infants in baskets upon
trees, and leaving them there to die. Certain of the wild tribes of
India--the Puharris, for example--when burying their infants, place
them in earthen pots, and strew leaves over them: these pots they
deposit at the foot of trees, sometimes covering them over with
brushwood. Similar burial is given to those who die of measles or
small-pox: the corpse is placed at the foot of a tree, and left in the
underwood or heather, covered with leaves and branches. In about a year
the parents repair to the grave-tree, and there, beneath its boughs,
take part in a funeral feast.
Grotius states that the Greeks and Romans believed that spirits and
ghosts of men delighted to wander and appear in the sombre depths of
groves devoted to the sepulture of the departed, and on this account
Plato gave permission for trees to be planted over graves--as Evelyn
states, “to obumbrate and refresh them.” Since then the custom of
planting trees in places devoted to the burial of the dead has become
universal, and the trees thus selected have in consequence come to be
regarded as funereal.
As a general rule, the trees to which this funereal signification has
been attached are those of a pendent or weeping character, and those
which are distinguished by their dark and sombre foliage, black berries
and fruits, and melancholy-looking blossoms. Others again have been
planted in God’s acre on account of the symbolical meaning attached to
their form or nature. Thus, whilst the Aloe, the Yew, and the Cypress
are suggestive of life, from their perpetual verdure, they typify in
floral symbology respectively grief, sorrow, and mourning. The Bay is
an emblem of the resurrection, inasmuch as, according to Sir Thomas
Browne, when to all outward appearance it is dead and withered, it will
unexpectedly revive from the root, and its dry leaves resume their
pristine vitality. Evergreen trees and shrubs, whose growth is like
a pyramid or spire, the apex of which points heavenward, are deemed
emblematic of eternity, and as such are fitly classed among funereal
trees: the Arbor Vitæ and the Cypress are examples. The weeping Birch
and Willow and the Australian Casuarina, with their foliage mournfully
bending to the earth, fitly find their place in churchyards as
personifications of woe.
The Yew-tree has been considered an emblem of mourning from a very
early period. The Greeks adopted the idea from the Egyptians, the
Romans from the Greeks, and the Britons from the Romans. From long
habits of association, the Yew acquired a sacred character, and
therefore was considered as the best and most appropriate ornament of
consecrated ground. Hence in England it became the custom to plant Yews
in churchyards, despite the ghastly superstition attached to these
trees, that they prey upon the dead who lie beneath their sombre shade.
Moreover our forefathers were particularly careful in preserving this
funereal tree, whose branches it was at one time usual to carry in
solemn procession to the grave, and afterwards to deposit therein under
the bodies of departed friends. The custom of planting Yew trees singly
in churchyards is also one of considerable antiquity. Statius, in his
sixth Thebaid, calls it the _solitary Yew_. Leyden thus apostrophises
this funeral tree:--
“Now more I love thee, melancholy Yew,
Whose still green leaves in silence wave
Above the peasant’s rude unhonoured grave,
Which oft thou moistenest with the morning dew.
To thee the sad, to thee the weary fly;
They rest in peace beneath thy sacred gloom,
Thou sole companion of the lonely tomb;
No leaves but thine in pity o’er them sigh:
Lo! now to fancy’s gaze thou seem’st to spread
Thy shadowy boughs to shroud me with the dead.”
The Mountain Ash is to be found in most Welsh churchyards, where it
has been planted, not as a funeral tree, but as a defence against evil
spirits. In Montgomeryshire, it is customary to rest the corpse on its
way to the churchyard under one of these trees of good omen.
William Cullen Bryant, the American poet, has left us a graceful
description of an English churchyard:--
“Erewhile on England’s pleasant shores, our sires
Left not their churchyards unadorned with shades
Or blossoms; and, indulgent to the strong
And natural dread of man’s last home--the grave!
Its frost and silence, they disposed around,
Too sadly on life’s close, the forms and hues
Of vegetable beauty. Then the Yew,
Green even amid the snows of Winter, told
Of immortality; and gracefully
The Willow, a perpetual mourner, drooped;
And there the gadding Woodbine crept about;
And there the ancient Ivy.”
The Walnut-tree, of which it is said that the shadow brings death, is
in some countries considered a funeral tree. In India they call the
Tamarisk, _Yamadutika_ (Messenger of Yama, the Indian god of death),
and the _Bombax Heptaphyllum, Yamadruma_, the tree of Yama.
The Elm and the Oak, although not strictly funeral trees, are connected
with the grave by reason of their wood being used in the construction
of coffins, at the present day, just as Cypress and Cedar wood used to
be employed by the ancients.
“And well the abounding Elm may grow
In field and hedge so rife;
In forest, copse, and wooded park,
And ’mid the city’s strife;
For every hour that passes by
Shall end a human life.”--_Hood._
Brambles are used to bind down graves. Ivy, as an evergreen and a
symbol of friendship, is planted to run over the last resting-place of
those we love.
In Persia, it is the Basil-tuft that waves its fragrant blossoms over
tombs and graves. In Tripoli, Roses, Myrtle, Orange, and Jasmine are
planted round tombs; and a large bouquet of flowers is usually fastened
at the head of the coffins of females. Upon the death of a Moorish
lady of quality every place is filled with fresh flowers and burning
perfumes, and at the head of the body is placed a large bouquet. The
mausoleum of the royal family is filled with immense wreaths of fresh
flowers, and generally tombs are dressed with festoons of choice
blossoms. The Chinese plant Roses, a species of Lycoris, and the
Anemone on their graves. The Indians attribute a funereal character to
the fragrant flowers of the sacred Champak (_Michelia Champaca_).
The ancients planted the Asphodel around the tombs of the deceased,
in the belief that the seeds of this plant, and those of the Mallow,
afforded nourishment to the dead.
The Greeks employed the Rose to decorate the tombs of the dead, and the
floral decorations were frequently renewed, under the belief that this
bush was potent to protect the remains of the departed one. Anacreon
alludes to this practice in one of his odes:--
“When pain afflicts and sickness grieves,
Its juice the drooping heart relieves;
And after death its odours shed
A pleasing fragrance o’er the dead.”
The Romans, also, were so partial to the Rose, that we find, by old
inscriptions at Ravenna and Milan, that codicils in the wills of the
deceased directed that their tombs should be planted with the queen of
flowers--a practice said to have been introduced by them into England.
Camden speaks of the churchyards in his time as thickly planted with
Rose-trees; Aubrey notices a custom at Ockley, in Surrey, of planting
Roses on the graves of lovers; and Evelyn, who lived at Wotton Place,
not far distant, mentions the same practice. In Wales, White Roses mark
the graves of the young and of unmarried females; whilst Red Roses are
placed over anyone distinguished for benevolence of character.
All nations at different periods seem to have delighted to deck the
graves of their departed relatives with garlands of flowers--emblems at
once of beauty and quick fading into death.
“With fairest flowers
While summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele,
I’ll sweeten thy sad grave. Thou shalt not lack
The flower that’s like thy face, pale Primrose; nor
The azured Hare-bell, like thy veins; no, nor
The leaf of Eglantine, which, not to slander,
Out-sweetened not thy breath.”
_Shakspeare (Cymbeline, Act IV.)._
The flowers strewed over graves by the Greeks were the Amaranth,
Myrtle, and Polyanthus. The practice was reprobated by the primitive
Christians; but in Prudentius’s time they had adopted it, and it is
expressly mentioned both by St. Ambrose and St. Jerome. The flowers
so used were deemed typical of the dead: to the young were assigned
the blossoms of Spring and Summer: to middle-age, aromatic herbs and
branches of primeval trees.
Amaranthus was employed by the Thessalians to decorate the grave of
Achilles; and Electra is represented as uttering the complaint that the
tomb of her father Agamemnon had not been adorned with Myrtle:--
“With no libations, nor with Myrtle boughs,
Were my dear father’s manes gratified.”
Virgil, when recounting the sorrow of Anchises at the loss of
Marcellus, causes him to exclaim:--
“Full canisters of fragrant Lilies bring,
Mix’d with the purple Roses of the Spring.
Let me with fun’ral flowers his body strew.”
In Germany, and in the German Cantons of Switzerland, the custom of
decking graves is very common. The _Dianthus_ is a favourite flower for
this purpose in Upper Germany. In the beautiful little churchyard at
Schwytz, almost every grave is entirely covered with Pinks.
The cemetery of Père la Chaise, near Paris, exhibits proofs of the
extent to which the custom of decking graves is preserved even by a
metropolitan population and among persons of some rank. Numerous shops
in the neighbourhood of this cemetery are filled with garlands of
_Immortelles_ or Everlasting Flowers, which are purchased on _fête_
days and anniversaries, and placed on the graves. The branches of Box,
or _Bois béni_, which are used in the place of Palms and Palm-leaves,
are frequently stuck over graves in France.
“Fair flowers in sweet succession should arise
Through the long, blooming year, above the grave;
Spring breezes will breathe gentlier o’er the turf,
And summer glance with mildest, meekest beam,
To cherish piety’s dear offerings. There
Rich sounds of Autumn ever shall be heard,--
Mysterious, solemn music, waked by winds
To hymn the closing year! And when the touch
Of sullen Winter blights the last, last gem,
That bloomed around the tomb--O! there should be
The polished and enduring Laurel--there
The green and glittering Ivy, and all plants,
All hues and forms, delicious, that adorn
The brumal reign, and often waken hopes
Refreshing. Let eternal verdure clothe
The silent fields where rest the honoured dead,
While mute affection comes, and lingers round
With slow soft step, and pensive pause, and sigh,
All holy.”--_Carrington._
In Egypt, Basil is scattered over the tombs by the women, who repair to
the sepulchres of the dead twice or thrice every week, to pray and weep
over the departed. In Italy, the Periwinkle, called by the peasantry
_fior di morto_, or Death’s flower, is used to deck their children who
die in infancy. In Norway, branchlets of Juniper and Fir are used at
funerals, and exhibited in houses in order to protect the inhabitants
from the visitation of evil spirits. The Freemasons of America
scatter sprays of Acacia (_Robinia_) on the coffins of brethren.
In Switzerland, a funeral wreath for a young maiden is composed of
Hawthorn, Myrtle, and Orange-blossom. In the South of France, chaplets
of white Roses and Orange-blossom are placed in the coffins of the
young.
The Greeks and Romans crowned the dead with flowers, and the mourners
wore them at the funeral ceremonies. It should be mentioned that
the Romans did not generally bury their dead before the time of the
Antonines. The bodies of the dead were burnt, and the ashes placed in
an urn.
The funeral pyre of the ancients consisted of Cypress, Yew, Fir,
and other trees and shrubs. The friends of the deceased stood by
during the cremation, throwing incense on the fire and libations of
wine. The bones and ashes were afterwards collected, cleansed, mixed
with precious ointments, and enclosed in funeral urns. Agamemnon is
described by Homer in the ‘Odyssey,’ as informing Achilles how this
ceremony had been performed upon him:--
“But when the flames your body had consumed,
With oils and odours we your bones perfumed,
And wash’d with unmixed wine.”
Virgil, in describing the self-sacrifice, by fire, of Dido, speaks thus
of the necessary preparations:--
“The fatal pile they rear
Within the secret court, exposed in air.
The cloven Holms and Pines are heaped on high;
And garlands in the hollow spaces lie.
Sad Cypress, Vervain, Yew, compose the wreath,
And every baleful flower denoting death.”
The repast set apart by custom for the dead consisted of Lettuces
and Beans. It was customary among the ancients to offer Poppies as a
propitiation to the manes of the dead. The Romans celebrated festivals
in honour of the spirits of the departed, called Lemuria, where Beans
were cast into the fire on the altar. The people also threw black Beans
on the graves of the deceased, or burnt them, as the smell was supposed
to be disagreeable to the manes. In Italy, at the present day, it is
customary to eat Beans and to distribute them among the poor on the
anniversary of a death.
The practice of embalming the bodies of their dead, which was universal
among the ancient Egyptians, had its origin, according to Diodorus, in
the desire of the wealthy to be able to contemplate, in the midst of
luxurious appointments, the features of their ancestors. Several times
a year the mummies were brought out of the splendid chambers where
they were kept; incense was burnt over them, and sweet-scented oil was
poured over their heads, and carefully wiped off by a priest called in
expressly to officiate. Herodotus has given us a description of the
Egyptian method of embalming:--The brains having first been extracted
through the nostrils by means of a curved iron probe, the head was
filled with drugs. Then, with a sharp Ethiopian stone, an incision was
made in the side, through which the intestines were drawn out; and the
cavity was filled with powdered Myrrh, Cassia, and other perfumes,
Frankincense excepted. Thus prepared, the body was sewn up, kept in
natron (sesquicarbonate of soda) for seventy days, and then swathed in
fine linen, smeared with gum, and finally placed in a wooden case made
in the shape of a man. This was the best and most expensive style of
embalming. A cheaper mode consisted in injecting oil of Cedar into the
body, without removing the intestines, whilst for the poorer classes
the body was merely cleansed; subjecting it in both cases to a natron
bath, which completely dried the flesh. The Jews borrowed the practice
of embalming from the Egyptians; for St. Mark records that, after the
death of our Saviour, Nicodemus “brought a mixture of Myrrh and Aloes,
about an hundred pound weight. Then took they the body of Jesus, and
wound it in linen clothes with the spices, as the manner of Jews is to
bury.”
Old English Funeral Customs.
In England, there long prevailed an old custom of carrying garlands
before the bier of youthful beauty, which were afterwards strewed over
her grave, In ‘Hamlet,’ the Queen, scattering flowers over the grave of
Ophelia, says:--
“Sweets to the sweet. Farewell!
I hoped thy bride-bed to have decked, sweet maid,
And not have strewed thy grave.”
The practice of planting and scattering flowers over graves is noticed
by Gay, who says:--
“Upon her grave the Rosemary they threw,
The Daisy, Butter-flower, and Endive blue.”
Rosemary was considered as an emblem of faithful remembrance. Thus
Ophelia says: “There’s Rosemary for you, that’s for remembrance; pray
you, love, remember.” Probably this was the reason that the plant was
carried by the followers at a funeral in former days: a custom noticed
by the poet in the following lines:--
“To show their love, the neighbours far and near
Follow’d with wistful look the damsel’s bier;
Sprigg’d Rosemary the lads and lasses bore,
While dismally the parson walked before.”
It is still customary in some parts of England to distribute Rosemary
among the company at a funeral, who frequently throw sprigs of it into
the grave.
Wordsworth introduces in one of his smaller poems an allusion to a
practice which still prevails in the North of England:--
“The basin of Box-wood, just six months before,
Had stood on the table at Timothy’s door;
A coffin through Timothy’s threshold had passed,
One child did it bear, and that child was his last.”
It is stated in a note that--“In several parts of the North of England,
when a funeral takes place, a basin full of sprigs of Box-wood is
placed at the door of the house from which the coffin is taken up; and
each person who attends the funeral ordinarily takes a sprig of this
Box-wood, and throws it into the grave of the deceased.” Pepys mentions
a churchyard near Southampton, where, in the year 1662, the graves were
all sown with Sage.
Unfortunate lovers had garlands of Yew, Willow, and Rosemary laid on
their biers; thus we read in the ‘Maid’s Tragedy’:--
“Lay a garland on my hearse
Of the dismal Yew;
Maidens, Willow branches bear;
Say that I died true.
My love was false, but I was firm
From my hour of birth.
Upon my buried body lie
Lightly gentle earth.”
It was an old English custom, at the funeral of a virgin, for a young
woman to precede the coffin in the procession, carrying on her head
a variegated garland of flowers and sweet herbs. Six young girls
surrounded the bier, and strewed flowers along the streets to the
place of burial. It was also formerly customary to carry garlands of
sweet flowers at the funeral of dear friends and relatives, and not
only to strew them on the coffin, but to plant them permanently on the
grave. This pleasing practice, which gave the churchyard a picturesque
appearance, owed its origin to the ancient belief that Paradise is
planted with fragrant and beautiful flowers--a conception which is
alluded to in the legend of Sir Owain, where the celestial Paradise,
which is reached by the blessed after their passage through purgatory,
is thus described:--
“Fair were her erbers with floures;
Rose and Lili divers colours,
Primros and Parvink,
Mint, Feverfoy, and Eglenterre,
Columbin and Mother-wer,
Than ani man may bithenke
It berth erbes of other maner,
Than ani in erth groweth here,
Though that is best of priis;
Evermore thai grene springeth,
For Winter no sooner it us cloyeth,
And sweeter than licorice.”
In South Wales, the custom of planting and ornamenting graves is
noticed by Brand in his ‘Popular Antiquities,’ as being very common.
He tells us that, in Glamorgan, many churchyards have something like
the splendour of a rich and various parterre. Besides this, it is usual
to strew the graves with flowers and evergreens (within the church as
well as out of it) at least thrice a year, on the same principle of
delicate respect as the stones are whitened. No flowers or evergreens
are permitted to be planted on graves but such as are sweet-scented:
the Pink and Polyanthus, Sweet Williams, Gilliflowers and Carnations,
Mignonette, Thyme, Hyssop, Camomile, and Rosemary make up the pious
decoration of this consecrated garden. Turnesoles, Peonies, the African
Marigold, the Anemone, and some other flowers, though beautiful, should
never be planted on graves, because they are not sweet-scented.
The prejudice against old maids and old bachelors subsists among
the Welsh in a very marked degree, so that their graves have not
unfrequently been planted, by some satirical neighbours, not only with
Rue, but with Thistles, Nettles, Henbane, and other noxious weeds.
In Glamorganshire, the old custom is still retained of strewing the
bed whereon a corpse rests with fragrant flowers. In the South of
England a chaplet of white Roses is borne before the corpse of a maiden
by a young girl nearest in age and resemblance to the deceased, and
afterwards hung up over her accustomed seat at church.
Plants as Death Portents.
Though scarcely to be characterised as “funereal,” there are some
plants which have obtained a sinister reputation as either predicting
death themselves, or being associated in some manner with fatal
portents. Mannhardt tells us of a gloomy Swiss tradition, dating
from the fifteenth century, which relates that the three children of
a bootmaker of Basle having each in their garden a favourite tree,
carefully studied the inflorescence during Lent. As the result of their
close observation, the two sisters, Adelaide and Catherine, saw from
the characteristics of the blossoms that they were predestined to enter
a convent; whilst the boy Jean attentively watched the development of a
red Rose, which predicted his entry into the Church and his subsequent
martyrdom: as a matter of fact, it is said he was martyred at Prague by
the Hussites.
The Greeks regarded Parsley as a funereal herb, and were fond of
strewing the tombs of their dead with it: hence it came in time to be
thought a plant of evil augury, and those who were on the point of
death were commonly spoken of as being in need of Parsley. Something
of this association of Parsley with death is still to be found in
Devonshire, where a belief exists that to transplant Parsley is an
offence against the guardian spirit who watches over the Parsley-beds,
surely to be punished, either by misfortune or death, on the offender
himself or some member of his family within a year.
In the Siebenbürgen of Saxony, the belief exists that at the moment
when an infant dies in the house, Death passes like a shadow into the
garden, and there plucks a flower.
In Italy, the red Rose is considered to be an emblem of an early death,
and it is thought to be an evil omen if its leaves are perchance
scattered on the ground. An apt illustration of this belief is found
in the tragic story of poor Miss Ray, who was murdered at the Piazza
entrance of Covent Garden Theatre, by a man named Hackman, on April
7th, 1779. Just prior to starting with her friend Mrs. Lewis for
the theatre, a beautiful Rose fell from her bosom to the ground.
She stooped to regain it, but at her touch the red leaves scattered
themselves on the carpet, leaving the bare stalk in her hand. The
unfortunate girl, who had been depressed in spirits before, was
evidently affected by the incident, and said nervously, “I trust I
am not to consider this as an evil omen!” Soon rallying, however,
she cheerfully asked Mrs. Lewis to be sure and meet her after the
theatre--a request the fulfilment of which was prevented by her
untimely fate.
Shakspeare has recorded that the withering of the Bay was looked upon
as a certain omen of death; and it is an old fancy that if a Fir-tree
be struck, withered, or burnt with lightning, the owner will soon after
be seized with a mortal illness.
Herrick, in his ‘Hesperides,’ alludes to the Daffodil as being under
certain circumstances a death portent.
“When a Daffodill I see
Hanging down her head t’wards me,
Guess I may what I must be:
First, I shall decline my head;
Secondly, I shall be dead;
Lastly, safely buried.”
In Northamptonshire, a belief exists that if an Apple-tree blooms after
the fruit is ripe, it surely portends death:--
“A bloom upon the Apple-tree when the Apples are ripe,
Is a sure termination to somebody’s life.”
In Devonshire, it is considered very unlucky to plant a bed of Lilies
of the Valley, as the person who does this will in all probability die
before twelve months have expired; and in the same county, a plentiful
season for Hazel-nuts is believed to portend unusual mortality: hence
the saying--
“Many Nits [Nuts],
Many pits [graves].”
Sloes are also sometimes associated with this portent, as another
version of the rhyme runs--
“Many Slones [Sloes], many groans,
Many Nits, many pits.”
It is thought very unlucky in Sussex to use green brooms in May, and an
old saying is current in the same county that--
“If you sweep the house with Broom in May,
You’ll sweep the head of that house away.”
In West Sussex, there exists the strange idea that if anyone eats a
Blackberry after Old Michaelmas Day (October 10th), death or disaster
will alight either on the eater or his kinsfolk before the year is out.
In some parts of England a superstition exists that if in a row of
Beans one should chance to come up white, instead of green, a death
will occur in the family within the year.
In certain English counties there is a superstitious dread that if a
drill go from one end of the field to the other without depositing any
seed, some person on the farm will die either before the year is out or
before the crop then sown is reaped.
There is a very ancient belief that if every vestige of the Christmas
decorations is not removed from the church before Candlemas Day
(February 2nd), there will be a death during the year in the family
occupying the pew where perchance a leaf or a berry has been left.
Herrick has alluded to this superstitious notion in his ‘Hesperides’:--
“Down with the Rosemary, and so
Down with the Baies and Mistletoe:
Down with the Holly, Ivy, all
Wherewith ye dress the Christmas hall;
That so the superstitious find
Not one least branch left thar behind
For look, how many leaves there be
Neglected there (maids, trust to me)
So many goblins you shall see.”
[Tailpiece]
Part the Second.
[Headpiece]
ENCYCLOPÆDIA OF PLANTS.
=ACACIA.=--In the deserts of Arabia the finest tree is the _Acacia
Seyal_, which is reputed to be the Shittah tree of the Old Testament.
The timber of this tree was termed _Shittim_, translated by some as
“incorruptible wood.” In Exodus xxv. it is recorded that the Ark of
the Lord was made of _Shittim_ wood, overlaid within and without with
pure gold, and having a crown of gold round about it; and in chapter
xxvi. we read that the staves were made of the same wood, as were
also the boards of the Tabernacle and the woodwork of the Altar on
which the offerings were presented. From this same Acacia is obtained
a fragrant and highly-prized gum which is employed as incense in
religious ceremonials.----Tradition affirms that this Acacia--the
_Nabkha_ of the Arabians--was the tree from which was fabricated the
Saviour’s crown of thorns. It has many small sharp spines, and the
leaves resemble those of the Ivy with which the Roman Emperors were
crowned, thus making the mockery bitterly complete.----The Buddhists
make use of the wood of the _Sami_ (_Acacia Suma_) to light the fire
on their altars: this is done by striking it with the _Asvattha_,
or Peepul--the act symbolising generation. This Acacia is one of
the sacred trees of India, and yields an astringent or preservative
substance.----The tree usually known in England by the name of Acacia
is the _Robinia pseudo-Acacia_, or Locust-tree of America, named by
Linnæus after the two Robins, herbalists to Henri IV., who introduced
it into France in 1640. This tree would appear to have somewhat of
a funeral character, since we find the American Freemasons make a
practice of dropping twigs of it on the coffins of brethren. A sprig of
Acacia is one of the emblems specially revered by Freemasons.----“It
is curious,” says Mr. Reade, in ‘The Veil of Isis,’ “that _Houzza_,
which Mahomet esteemed an idol--_Houzza_ so honoured in the Arabian
works of Ghatfan, Koreisch, Renanâh, and Salem--should be simply the
Acacia. Thence was derived the word _Huzza!_ in our language, which
was probably at first a religious exclamation like the _Evoke!_ of the
Bacchantes.”----The English newspapers lately gave an account of a
singular species of American Acacia, stated to be growing at Virginia,
Nevada, and exhibiting all the characteristics of a sensitive plant.
At the commencement of 1883 the Acacia was reported to be about eight
feet high, and growing rapidly. When the sun sets, its leaves fold
together and the ends of the twigs coil up like a pig-tail; and if
the latter are handled, there is evident uneasiness throughout the
plant. Its highest state of agitation was reached when the tree was
removed from the pot in which it was matured into a larger one. To
use the gardener’s expression, it went very mad. It had scarcely been
planted in its new quarters before the leaves began to stand up in
all directions, like the hair on the tail of an angry cat, and soon
the whole plant was in a quiver. At the same time it gave out a most
sickening and pungent odour, resembling that of a rattlesnake when
teased. The smell so filled the house, that it was necessary to open
all the doors and windows, and it was a full hour before the plant
calmed down and folded its leaves in peace.
=ACANTHUS.=--The Acanthus was a favourite plant amongst both the Greeks
and Romans, who employed it for decorative purposes: its leaves form
the principal adornment of the Corinthian capital, which was invented
by Callimachus. How the idea was suggested to the architect is told
us by Vitruvius. A young Corinthian damsel fell ill and died. After
her interment, her nurse gathered her trinkets and ornaments into a
basket, and lest they should be injured by the weather, she covered the
basket with a tile, and placed it near her young mistress’s tomb over
the root of an Acanthus, the stalks and leaves of which burst forth
in the Spring, and spreading themselves on the outside of the basket,
were bent back again at the top by the corner of the tile. Callimachus
happening to pass by, was charmed with the beauty and novelty of this
accidental arrangement, and took from it the idea of the Corinthian
chapter. Both Greeks and Romans made use of the _Acanthus mollis_ in
the form of garlands, with which they adorned their buildings, their
furniture, and even their clothing. Theocritus speaks of a prize cup
as having “a crust of soft Acanthus.” Virgil narrates that the plant
formed the basis of a design embroidered on the mantle of Helen of
Troy; and tells us that the handles of Alcimedon’s cup were enwreathed
with what he elsewhere terms “Smiling Acanthus.”----Old English names
for this plant were Brank-ursine and Bear’s-breech.----Acanthus is
stated by astrologers to be under the dominion of the Moon.
=ACHYRANTHES.=--The _Apamarga_, an Indian variety of this plant,
has given the name to the sacrificial rite called _Apâmârga Homa_,
because at daybreak they offer a handful of flour made from the seeds
of the Apamarga (_Achyranthes aspera_). According to a legend quoted
by De Gubernatis, Indra had slain Vriitra and other demons, when he
encountered the demon Namuchi and wrestled with him. Vanquished, he
made peace with Namuchi on the understanding that he should never kill
anything with a solid body, nor with a liquid body, neither by night
nor by day. So Indra gathered a vegetable, which is neither solid nor
liquid, and comes during the daybreak, when the night is past, but
the day has not yet come. Then with the vegetable he attacked the
monster Namuchi, who complained of this treachery. From the head of
Namuchi sprang the plant _Apâmârga_. Indra afterwards destroyed all
the monsters by means of this plant. As may be supposed after such
a marvellous origin, the plant was soon looked upon as a powerful
talisman. According to the _Atharvaveda_, it should be held in the
hand, and invoked against the malady _Kshetriya_, and against witches,
monsters, and nightmares. They call it the Victor, having in itself
the strength of a thousand, destroying the effects of maledictions,
and especially of those inimical to generation, which produce hunger,
thirst, and poverty. It is also called the Lord of salutary plants,
son of Vibhindant, having received all its power from Indra himself.
The Hindus believe that the plant is a security against the bites of
scorpions.
ACONITE.--See Monkshood.
=ACORUS.=--This aromatic Reed, or Sweet Flag, is absurdly said to
have been called Acorus, from the Greek _koré_, pupil, because it was
esteemed good for diseases of the eye. The sacred oil of the Jews--the
“oil of holy ointment”--used to anoint the tabernacle, the ark of the
testimony, the altar of burnt offerings, the altar of incense, the
candlesticks, and all the sacred vessels, has the oil of Acorus as
one of its ingredients. It is the “Sweet Calamus” mentioned in Exodus
xxx.----The Acorus is a plant of the Moon.
=ADDER’S TONGUE.=--The Adder’s Tongue, or to give it its old Latin
name, Christ’s Spear (_Ophioglossum vulgatum_), was formerly much
prized as a remedy for wounds. Gerarde declared that boiled in olive
oil it produced “a most excellent greene oyle, or rather a balsam for
greene wounds comparable to oyle of St. John’s wort, if it doth not far
surpasse it.” A preparation called the “green oil of charity” is still
in request; and Adder’s Spear ointment (a compound of Adder’s Tongue
Fern, Plantain, and sundry herbs) is well known in country places as
a vulnerary. In olden times an Adder’s Tongue was reputed to be a
wondrous cure for tumours, if plucked at the falling of the Moon, and
applied with the accompaniment of an incantation.----Witches highly
esteemed Adder’s Tongue as a plant to be employed in their spells.
Astrologers class it as a herb of the Moon.
AFFADYL.--See Narcissus.
=AGNUS CASTUS.=--The “Chaste Tree” (_Vitex Agnus Castus_), a species of
Willow, derives its name from the Greek _hagnos_, and Latin _castus_,
both meaning chaste. The name was given to it, according to Pliny,
from the custom of the Athenian matrons to strew their beds with it
during the festival of the Thesmophora, held in honour of Ceres, when
the strictest chastity was enjoined. At the same festival young girls
adorned themselves with blossoms of the shrub and slept on its leaves
in order to guard their innocence and purity.----Agnus Castus was
consecrated to Æsculapius, and also, in the isle of Samos, to Juno.
Prometheus was crowned with it. At Grecian weddings, the bride and
groom carried crowns of it. It was also employed as a preservative
against poisoning.----The seed of this shrub in later years acquired
the name of _Piper Monachorum_, and in explanation it is said that,
following the example of the matrons of Athens, who had discovered
that the odour of branches of Agnus Castus combatted unchaste thoughts
and desires, certain Christian monks made themselves girdles of the
flexible boughs of the tree, by wearing which they professed to expel
from their hearts all passions that love could excite.----Some of
the old herbalists affirm that the seeds of Agnus Castus had a very
powerful effect in arresting generation. Gerarde says “Agnus Castus
is a singular medicine and remedy for such as would willingly live
chaste, for it withstandeth all uncleanness or desire to the flesh,
consuming and drying up the seed of generation, in what sort soever it
bee taken, whether in pouder onely, or the decoction drunke, or whether
the leaves be carried about the body; for which cause it was called
_castus_, that is to say, chaste, cleane, and pure.” The leaves, burnt
or strewn about, were reputed to drive away serpents; and, according
to Dioscorides, a branch of the shrub, carried in the hand, would keep
wayfarers from weariness.----Agnus Castus is held to be under the
dominion of Mars in Capricorn.
ALBESPYNE.--See Hawthorn.
=AGRIMONY.=--The Agrimony or Egrimony (_Agrimonia Eupatoria_) was
a herb much in vogue among the old herbalists, who attributed
extraordinary virtues to it. Dioscorides prescribes it as a cure for
the bitings and stingings of serpents. Gerarde says it is “good for
them that have naughty livers,” and in fact it was at one time known
as Liver-wort. Culpeper tells us that it will draw forth “thorns and
splinters of wood, nails, or any other such thing gotten into the
flesh,” and recommends it further as “a most admirable remedy for such
whose lives are annoyed either by heat or cold.” Sore throat, gout,
ague, colic, ear-ache, cancers, and ulcers are among the numerous
complaints the herbalists professed to cure by means of syrups and
salves made of Agrimony, a plant which has formed an ingredient in most
of the herb teas which have been from time to time introduced.----The
astrological government and virtues of Agrimony appear to the
uninitiated somewhat complicated. If we may believe Culpeper, it is
a herb under Jupiter and the sign Cancer, and strengthens those parts
under the planet and sign, and removes diseases in them by sympathy;
and those under Saturn, Mars, and Mercury by antipathy, if they happen
in any part of the body governed by Jupiter, or under the signs Cancer,
Sagittarius, or Pisces.----Michael Drayton, in his ‘Muse’s Elysium,’
thus refers to Agrimony, among other herbs dear to simplers:--
“Next these here Egrimony is,
That helps the serpent’s biting;
The blessed Betony by this,
Whose cures deserving writing.
“This All-heal, and so named of right,
New wounds so quickly healing;
A thousand more I could recite
Most worthy of revealing.”
=ALDER.=--The origin of the Alder is to be found in the following lines
from Rapin’s poem on Gardens:--
“Of watery race Alders and Willows spread
O’er silver brooks their melancholy shade,
Which heretofore (thus tales have been believed)
Were two poor men, who by their fishing lived;
Till on a day when Pales’ feast was held,
And all the town with pious mirth was filled,
This impious pair alone her rites despised,
Pursued their care, till she their crime chastised:
While from the banks they gazed upon the flood,
The angry goddess fixed them where they stood,
Transformed to sets, and just examples made
To such as slight devotion for their trade.
At length, well watered by the bounteous stream,
They gained a root, and spreading trees became;
Yet pale their leaves, as conscious how they fell,
Which croaking frogs with vile reproaches tell.”
In Germany, Alders have often a funereal and almost diabolic character.
It is a popular belief that they commence to weep, to supplicate,
and to shed drops of blood if there is any talk of cutting them
down.----A legend of the Tyrol narrates how a boy who had climbed a
tree, overlooked the ghastly doings of certain witches beneath its
boughs. They tore in pieces the corpse of a woman, and threw the
portions in the air. The boy caught one, and kept it by him. The
witches, on counting the pieces afterwards found that one was missing,
and so replaced it by a scrap of Alder-wood, when instantaneously the
dead came to life again.----Of the wood of the Alder, Virgil tells
us, the first boats were made:--_Tunc Alnos primum fluvii sensere
cavatas._----The Alder, or Aller, is said to be a tree of Venus, under
the celestial signs of either Cancer or Pisces.
ALECOST.--See Costmary.
ALEHOOF, Ground-Ivy.--See Ivy.
=ALMOND.=--According to an ancient tradition mentioned by Servius,
the origin of the Almond-tree is to be traced to Phyllis, a beautiful
Thracian queen, who became enamoured of Demophoon, the son of Theseus
and Phædra, and was wedded to him. Demophoon, who, whilst returning
from the Trojan war, had been cast by a storm on the coast of Thrace
soon after his marriage with the Queen, was recalled to Athens by his
father’s death. He promised faithfully to return to his royal bride at
the expiration of a month, but failed to do so, and Phyllis, distracted
at his continued absence, after several futile visits to the sea-shore,
expired of grief, and was transformed into an Almond-tree, which is
called _Phylla_ by the Greeks. Some time after this metamorphosis the
truant consort returned, and upon hearing of the untimely fate of
Phyllis, he ran and clasped the tree in remorseful embrace. Loving
even in death, his beautiful queen seems to have acknowledged his
repentance, for the Almond-tree into which she had been transformed,
although at that time stripped of its leaves, suddenly shot forth and
blossomed, as if eager to show how unchangeable was poor Phyllis’s
love.----A second account of the origin of the Almond-tree states that
it sprang from the blood of the monster Agdistis, the offspring of
Jupiter. This fable further narrates that the daughter of the river
Sangarius fell in love with the beautiful tree, and after gathering
its fruit, gave birth to a son named Atys.----A third account relates
how Io, daughter of King Midas, was forsaken by Atys, whom she loved;
and how Agdistis, on the death of Atys, mutilated his body, from which
sprang the bitter Almond-tree, the emblem of grief.----Virgil made the
flowering of the Almond a presage of the crop of Wheat.
“With many a bud if flowering Almonds bloom,
And arch their gay festoons that breathe perfume,
So shall thy harvest like profusion yield,
And cloudless suns mature the fertile field.”
The Hebrew word _Shakad_, from which the Almond derives its name,
means to make haste, or to awake early, given to the tree on account
of its hasty growth and early maturity. Aaron’s rod, which budded
and brought forth fruit in the Tabernacle during one day, was of an
Almond-tree: “It budded and brought forth buds, and bloomed blossoms,
and yielded Almonds.” (Numbers xvii., 8). Among the Hebrews, the
Almond-tree was regarded as the symbol of haste and vigilance, because
of the suddenness of its blossoming, which announced the Spring. The
Mahommedans consider its flowers typical of hope, because they bloom on
the bare branches.----Romanists assign the blossoming Almond-tree to
the Madonna, as Queen of Heaven.----In Tuscany, and other countries, a
branch of the Almond-tree is employed to discover hidden treasures. It
is carried to the place where the treasure is supposed to be concealed,
and, according to popular superstition, its point will turn towards
the exact spot. In the nuptial ceremonies of the Czechs, Almonds are
distributed amongst the wedding guests.----Pliny considered Almonds
a most powerful remedy against inebriation, and Plutarch relates an
anecdote of a notorious wine-bibber, who, by his habitual use of bitter
Almonds, used to escape being intoxicated.----The Almond-tree is under
Jupiter. To dream of eating Almonds portends a journey: if they taste
sweet, it will be a prosperous one; if bitter, the contrary.
=ALOE.=--The Hebrews appear to have entertained a great respect for
the Aloe (_Ahaloth_). In the Bible it is frequently referred to
in commendatory terms, and its use as a perfume is of very great
antiquity. King David, in the Psalms, says: “All thy garments smell
of Myrrh, and Aloes, and Cassia.” Solomon, in the Canticles, mentions
Aloes as one of the chief spices; and in Proverbs (vii., 17) refers
to it as a scent. Aloes is one of the spices mentioned by St. John
as having been brought by Nicodemus to embalm the body of our
Lord.----There are two trees which yield this fragrant wood, viz.,
_Aloexylum Agallochum_, a native of the mountains of Hindostan, and
_Aquilaria Malaccensis_, which grows in Malacca: the wood of these
aromatic trees forms the principal ingredient in the scented sticks
burned by the Hindus and Chinese in their temples. The heart of the
Chinese Aloe, or Wood Aloes, is called Calambac, or Tambac-wood, which
is reckoned in the Indies more precious than gold itself: it is used
as a perfume; as a specific for persons affected with fainting fits
or with the palsy; and as a setting for the most costly jewels. Both
the name and the plant of the aromatic Aloe are of Indian origin,
and it must not be confounded with the common Aloes, most of which
have an offensive smell and a bitter taste.----In Wood’s Zoography
we read: “The Mahommedans respect the Aloe as a plant of a superior
nature. In Egypt, it may be said to bear some share in their religious
ceremonies, since whoever returns from a pilgrimage to Mecca hangs
it over his street door as a proof of his having performed that holy
journey. The superstitious Egyptians believe that this plant hinders
evil spirits and apparitions from entering the house, and on this
account whoever walks the streets in Cairo will find it over the doors
of both Christians and Jews.”----The Arabic name of the Aloe, _Saber_,
signifies patience, and in Mecca at the end of most graves, facing the
epitaph, is planted an Aloe, as an allusion to the patience required
by those awaiting the arrival of the great day of resurrection.
Most Eastern poets, however, speak of the Aloe as the symbol of
bitterness; and the Romans seem to have been well acquainted with this
qualification, judging from the allusion to it in Juvenal:--“_Plus
Aloes quam mellis habere._” “As bitter as Aloes” is a proverbial saying
of considerable antiquity, derived doubtless from the acrid taste of
the medicines obtained from the plant, and made principally from the
pulp of the fleshy leaf of the Succotrine Aloe, the leaves of which
have a remarkable efficacy in curing scalds and burns.----Not only,
however, for its medicinal properties is the Aloe esteemed, for in
some countries, particularly Mexico, the poor derive from it almost
every necessary of life. The ancient manuscripts of Mexico are chiefly
inscribed upon paper made from the fibres of the _pité_, or pith. Of
the points of the leaves of the Aloe are made nails, darts, and awls,
and with these last the Indians pierce holes in their ears when they
propose to honour the Devil with some peculiar testimonies of their
devotion.
=ALYSSUM.=--This plant was regarded by the Neapolitans as possessing
magic qualities, and was suspended in their houses as a charm against
the Evil Eye. Its name _Alyssum_ is derived from the Greek _a_, not,
and _lussa_, madness. In England, the plant was called Alisson and
Madwort, because, as Gerarde says, it is “a present remedie for them
that are bitten of a mad dog.”
=AMARANTH.=--In Spenser’s ‘Fairy Queen’ is to be found the following
allusion to the mythological origin of the Amaranth:--
“And all about grew every sort of flower,
To which sad lovers were transformed of yore;
Fresh Hyacinthus, Phœbus’ paramour,
Foolish Narciss, that likes the watery shore:
Sad Amaranthus, made a flower but late,
Sad Amaranthus, in whose purple gore
Me seems I see Aminta’s wretched fate,
To whom sweet poets’ verse hath given endless date.”
The Amaranth was a sacred plant among the Greeks and Romans: from the
former it received its name, which means “never-fading,” on account
of the lasting nature of its blossoms. Hence it is considered the
emblem of immortality. The Amaranth was also classed among the funeral
flowers. Homer describes the Thessalians as wearing crowns of Amaranth
at the funeral of Achilles; and Thessalus decorated the tomb of the
same hero with Amaranth-blossoms. Philostratus records the custom of
adorning tombs with flowers, and Artemidorus tells us that the Greeks
were accustomed to hang wreaths of Amaranth in most of the temples
of their divinities: and they regarded the Amaranth as the symbol of
friendship. Milton crowns with Amaranth the angelic host assembled
before the Deity:--
“With solemn adorations down they cast
Their crowns, inwove with Amaranth and gold--
Immortal Amaranth, a flower which once
In Paradise, fast by the tree of life,
Began to bloom, but soon for man’s offence
To heaven removed, where first it grew.”
The same poet, as well as Spenser, classes the Amaranth amongst
“those flowers that sad embroidery wear.”----In Sumatra, the people
of the Batta country lead in times of peace a purely pastoral life,
and are accustomed to play on a kind of flute crowned with garlands
of Amaranth and other flowers.----At the Floral Games at Toulouse, a
golden Amaranth was awarded for the best lyric composition.----In
modern times, the Amaranth has given its name to an order instituted by
Queen Christiana of Sweden, in the year 1633, at an entertainment given
in honour of Don Antonio Pimentel, the Spanish Ambassador. On this
occasion she appeared in a dress covered with diamonds, attended by a
suite nobles and ladies. At the conclusion of the ball she stripped
her attire of the diamonds, and distributed them among the company, at
the same time presenting the new order of knighthood, consisting of a
ribbon and medal, with an Amaranth in enamel, encircled with the motto
_Dolce nella memoria_.----In Roman Catholic countries, more especially
in Portugal, the species of the flower known as the Globe Amaranth,
Prince’s Feathers, and Cock’s Comb, are much cultivated for church
decoration at Christmas time and during the Winter. The Amaranth is
also selected as one of the flowers peculiarly appropriate to Ascension
Day.----The species of Amaranth which we know as Love-lies-bleeding,
has, in France, the singular name of _Discipline des religieuses_, the
Nun’s Scourge.----The Amaranth was formerly known as Flower Gentle,
Flower Velure, Floramor, and Velvet Flower. It is said to be under
Saturn, and to be an excellent qualifier of the unruly actions of Venus.
=AMBROSIA.=--The Ambrosia-tree, or tree bearing immortal food, is one
of the most popular guises of the Hindu world-trees. The Paradise of
Indra had five trees, under the refreshing shade of which the gods
reclined and enjoyed life-inspiring draughts of Ambrosia or _Amrita_.
The chief of these trees was the _Pârijâta_ (usually identified with
the _Erythrina Indica_), and this was deemed the Ambrosia-tree.----The
Greeks knew a herb which they named _Ambrosia_, the food of immortals,
and it was so called by the ancients because they believed that a
continued use of it rendered men long-lived, just as the ambrosia of
the gods preserved their immortality. The Moors to this day entertain a
belief in the existence of such a plant. The old English name given to
this herb was Ambrose, which was applied to the _Chenopodium Botrys_;
but the ancients seem to have applied the name of _Ambrosia_ to the
Field Parsley, the Wild Sage, and the _Chenopodium ambrosioides_. The
plant known as Ambrosia at the present day belongs to the Wormwood
family.
=AMELLUS.=--This plant is believed to be a species of Starwort. Virgil,
in the Fourth Book of his Georgics, states that at Rome it was employed
to decorate the altars of the gods. Gerarde says that the Starwort
having a blue or purple flower is that referred to by Virgil as the
Amellus in the following lines:--
“In meads there is a flower Amello named,
By him that seeks it easy to be found,
For that it seems by many branches framed
Into a little wood: like gold the ground
Thereof appears; but leaves that it beset
Shine in the colour of the Violet.”
=AMORPHOPHALLUS.=--The gigantic Aroid, _Amorphophallus campanulatus_,
or Carrion Plant of Java, is regarded with repugnance as a plant of
ill-omen. Previous to the sudden bursting, about sunset, of the spathe
containing the spadix, there is an accumulation of heat therein. When
it opens, it exhales an offensive odour that is quite overpowering, and
so much resembles that of carrion, that flies cover the club of the
spadix with their eggs.
=ANDHAS.=--The luminous plant of the Vedic _Soma_. The plant is also
called in general _Arjunî_, that is to say, Shining. From Andhas it is
supposed the Greek word _anthos_ was derived.
=ANDROMEDA.=--This shrub owes its classical appellation to Linnæus,
who gave it the name of Andromeda after the daughter of Cepheus and
Cassiope. Ovid, in his ‘Metamorphoses,’ has sung how, lashed to a
rock, she was exposed to a sea monster, sent by Neptune to ravage her
father’s country, and how she was at last rescued by Perseus, and
became his bride. Linnæus thus explains why he gave the Marsh Cistus
the name of the classical princess:--“As I contemplated it, I could not
help thinking of Andromeda, as described by the poets--a virgin of most
exquisite beauty and unrivalled charms. The plant is always fixed in
some turfy hillock in the midst of the swamps, as Andromeda herself was
chained to a rock in the sea, which bathed her feet as the fresh water
does the root of the plant. As the distressed virgin cast down her
blushing face through excessive affliction, so does the rosy-coloured
flower hang its head, growing paler and paler till it withers away. At
length comes Perseus, in the shape of Summer, dries up the surrounding
waters, and destroys the monster.” The leaves of this family of plants
have noxious properties, and the very honey is said to be poisonous.
=ANEMONE.=--The origin of the Anemone, according to Ovid, is to be
found in the death of Adonis, the favourite of Venus. Desperately
wounded by a boar to which he had given chase, the ill-fated youth lay
expiring on the blood-stained grass, when he was found by Venus, who,
overcome with grief, determined that her fallen lover should hereafter
live as a flower.
“Then on the blood sweet nectar she bestows;
The scented blood in little bubbles rose;
Little as rainy drops, which flutt’ring fly,
Borne by the winds, along a lowering sky.
Short time ensued till where the blood was shed
A flower began to rear its purple head.
Such as on Punic Apples is revealed,
Or in the filmy rind but half concealed,
Still here the fate of lovely forms we see,
So sudden fades the sweet Anemone.
The feeble stems to stormy blasts a prey,
Their sickly beauties droop and pine away.
The winds forbid the flowers to flourish long,
Which owe to winds their names in Grecian song.”--_Congreve._
The Greek poet, Bion, in his epitaph on Adonis, makes the Anemone the
offspring of the tears of the sorrowing Venus.
“Alas the Paphian! fair Adonis slain!
Tears plenteous as his blood she pours amain,
But gentle flowers are born and bloom around
From every drop that falls upon the ground.
Where streams his blood, there blushing springs the Rose,
And where a tear has dropped, a Wind-flower blows.”
Rapin, in his poem, gives a somewhat similar version of the origin of
the Anemone. He says:--
“For while what’s mortal from his blood she freed,
And showers of tears on the pale body shed,
Lovely Anemones in order rose,
And veiled with purple palls the cause of all her woes.”
In Wiffen’s translation of the Spanish poet Garcilaso, we find the red
colour only of the Anemone attributed to the blood of Adonis:--
“His sunbeam-tinted tresses drooped unbound,
Sweeping the earth with negligence uncouth;
The white Anemones that near him blew
Felt his red blood, and red for ever grew.”
Rapin recounts another story, according to which the Anemone was
originally a nymph beloved by Zephyr. This is, perhaps, an explanation
of the name of the flower, which is derived from _Anemos_, the wind.
“Flora, with envy stung, as tales relate,
Condemned a virgin to this change of fate;
From Grecian nymphs her beauty bore the prize,
Beauty the worst of crimes in jealous eyes;
For as with careless steps she trod the plain,
Courting the winds to fill her flowing train,
Suspicious Flora feared she soon would prove
Her rival in her husband Zephyr’s love.
So the fair victim fell, whose beauty’s light
Had been more lasting, had it been less bright:
She, though transformed, as charming as before,
The fairest maid is now the fairest flower.”
The English name of Wind-flower seems to have been given to the
Anemone because some of the species flourish in open places exposed
to the wind, before the blasts of which they shiver and tremble in
the early Spring. Pliny asserts that the flower never blooms except
when the winds blow.----With the Egyptians, the Anemone was the emblem
of sickness. According to Pliny, the magicians and wise men in olden
times were wont to attribute extraordinary powers to the plant, and
ordained that everyone should gather the first Anemone he or she saw
in the year, the while repeating, with due solemnity--“I gather thee
for a remedy against disease.” The flower was then reverently wrapped
in scarlet cloth, and kept undisturbed, unless the gatherer became
indisposed, when it was tied either around the neck or arm of the
patient. This superstition extended to England, as is shown by the
following lines in a ballad:--
“The first Spring-blown Anemone she in his doublet wove,
To keep him safe from pestilence wherever he should rove.”
The Anemone was held sacred to Venus, and the flower was highly
esteemed by the Romans, who formed it into wreaths for the head.----In
some countries, people have a strong prejudice against the flowers of
the field Anemone: they believe the air to be so tainted by them, that
those who inhale it often incur severe illness. Shakspeare has given
to the Anemone the magical power of producing love. In ‘A Midsummer
Night’s Dream’ (Act 2), Oberon bids Puck place an Anemone-flower on
the eyes of Titania, who, on her awakening, will then fall in love
with the first object she sees.----A once famed Parisian florist,
named Bachelier, having procured some rare Anemones from the East,
would not part with a root, either for love or money. For ten years he
contrived to keep the treasures to himself, until a wily senator paid
him a visit, and, walking round the garden, observed that the cherished
Anemones were in seed. Letting his robe fall upon the plants as if by
accident, he so swept off a number of the little feathery seeds, which
his servant, following close upon his heels, brushed off his master’s
robe and secretly appropriated; and before long the niggardly florist
had the mortification of seeing his highly-prized “strain” in the
possession of his neighbours and rivals.----The Anemone is held to be
under the dominion of Mars.
=ANGELICA.=--The strong and widely-diffused belief in the manifold
virtues of this plant is sufficient to account for its angelic name,
although Fuchsius was of opinion that it was called Angelica either
from the sweet scent of its root, or its value as a remedy against
poisons and the plague. Its old German name of Root of the Holy Ghost
is still retained in some northern countries. The Laplanders believe
that the use of it strengthens life, and they therefore chew it as they
would do Tobacco; they also employ it to crown their poets, who fancy
themselves inspired by its odour.----Parkinson says that “it is so
goode an herbe that there is no part thereof but is of much use.”----Du
Bartas wrote--
“Contagious aire ingendering pestilence
Infects not those that in their mouths have ta’en
Angelica, that happy counterbane
Sent down from heav’n by some celestial scout,
As well the name and nature both avowt.”
_Sylvester’s trans._, 1641.
Angelica was popularly believed to remove the effects of intoxication;
according to Fuchsius, its roots, worn suspended round the neck,
would guard the wearer against the baneful power of witches and
enchantments; and Gerarde tells us that a piece of the root held in
the mouth, or chewed, will drive away pestilential air, and that the
plant, besides being a singular remedy against poisons, the plague,
and pestilent diseases in general, cures the biting of mad dogs and all
other venomous beasts. Regarding its astrological government, Culpeper
observes that it is a “herb of the Sun in Leo. Let it be gathered when
he is there, the moon applying to his good aspect; let it be gathered
either in his hour, or in the hour of Jupiter; let Sol be angular.”
=ANTHYLLIS.=--The English names of this plant are Kidney Vetch, Lamb
Toe, Lady’s Fingers, Silver Bush, and Jupiter’s Beard (from the thick
woolly down which covers the calyxes of a species growing in the
South of Europe). It was formerly employed as a vulnerary, and was
recommended by Gesner as useful in staunching the effusion of blood:
hence its old English names of Staunch and Wound-Wort. Clare says of
it:--
“The yellow Lambtoe I have often got
Sweet creeping o’er the banks in sunny time.”
=ANTIRRHINUM.=--Columella alludes to this flower as “the stern and
furious lion’s gaping mouth.” Its English names are Snap Dragon,
Lion’s Snap, Toad’s Mouth, Dog’s Mouth, and Calf’s Snout.----In many
rural districts the Snap Dragon is believed to possess supernatural
powers, and to be able to destroy charms. It was formerly supposed
that when suspended about the person, this plant was a protection
from witchcraft, and that it caused a maiden so wearing it to appear
“gracious in the sight of people.”
=APPLE.=--Whether the Apple, the Orange, the Pomegranate, the Fig, the
Banana, or the Grape was the actual fruit of the Tree of Knowledge,
which tempted Eve in Paradise, will possibly never be settled; but it
is certain that not only is the Apple mystical above all the fruits of
the earth, but it is the supreme fruit. To it has been given the Latin
name _Pomona_, which is the generic name of fruit, just as Pomona is
the goddess of all the fruit trees.
The Scandinavian goddess Iduna is in a measure identified with the Tree
of Immortality, which was an Apple-tree. Iduna religiously guarded in
a box the Apples which the gods, when they felt old age approaching,
had only to taste the juice of to become young again. The evil genius,
Loki, having been instrumental in the abduction of Iduna and her
renovating Apples, the gods became old and infirm, and were unable
properly to govern the world; they, therefore, threatened Loki with
condign punishment unless he succeeded in bringing back Iduna and her
mystic Apples: this he fortunately succeeded in doing.
The golden Apples which Juno presented to Jupiter on the day of their
nuptials were placed under the watchful care of a fearful dragon, in
the garden of the Hesperides; and the obtaining of some of these Apples
was one of the twelve labours of Hercules. By stooping to pick up three
of these golden Apples presented by Venus to Hippomenes, Atalanta lost
her race, but gained him as a husband. The fatal Apple--inscribed DETUR
PULCHRIORI--thrown by the malevolent Discordia into the assembly of the
gods, and which Paris adjudged to Venus, caused the ruin of Troy and
infinite misfortune to the Greeks.
The Apple was sacred to Venus, who is often represented with the
fruit in her hand. The Thebans worshipped Hercules, under the name of
Melius, and offered Apples at his altar, the custom having, according
to tradition, originated as follows:--The river Asopus being once so
swollen as to prevent some youths from bringing across it a sheep
destined to be sacrificed to Hercules, one of them recollected that the
Apple was called by the same name--Mêlon. In this emergency, therefore,
it was determined to offer an Apple, with four little sticks stuck in
it to resemble legs, as a substitute for a sheep; and it being deemed
that the sacrifice was acceptable, the Apple was thenceforth devoted to
Hercules. The god Apollo was sometimes represented with an Apple in his
hand.
The Celtic “Isle of the Blest,” the “fair Avalon,” is the “Island of
Apples,”
“Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow,
Nor ever wind blows loudly, but it lies
Deep-meadowed, happy, fair with orchard lawns,
And bowery hollows crowned with Summer sea.”
It has been attempted to localise the Island of Apples either at
Glastonbury, in Somersetshire, or at Aiguilon, in Brittany. A Gaelic
legend which asserts the claims of an island in Loch Awe to be
identified as the Isle of the Blest, changes the mystic Apples into the
fruit of the _Pyrus cordata_, a species of wild Pear, indigenous both
to the Scotch island and to Aiguilon.
The Druids highly reverenced the Apple-tree, partly on account of its
fruit, but chiefly because they believed that the Mistletoe thrived
on it and on the Oak only. In consequence of its reputed sanctity,
therefore, the Apple was largely cultivated by the early Britons, and
Glastonbury was known as the “Apple Orchard,” from the quantity of
fruit grown there previous to the Roman invasion. The Druids were wont
to cut their divining-rods from the Apple-tree.
The Saxons highly prized the Apple, and in many towns established
a separate market for the fruit. The following sentence from
their Coronation Benediction shows with what importance it was
regarded:--“May the Almighty bless thee with the blessing of heaven
above, and the mountains and the valleys, with the blessings of the
deep below, with the blessing of Grapes and Apples. Bless, O Lord, the
courage of this Prince, and prosper the work of his hands; and by Thy
blessing may this land be filled with Apples, with the fruit and dew of
heaven, from the top of the ancient mountains, from the Apples of the
eternal hills, from the fruits of the earth and its fulness.”
The old Saxon chronicles relate that before the battle of Senlac,
King Harold pitched his camp beside the “hoar Apple-tree”--evidently
a well-known object, that had doubtless preserved its quondam sacred
character. Saint Serf, when on his way to Fife, threw his staff across
the sea, from Inch Keith to Culross, and this staff, we are told,
straightway took root and became the Apple-tree called Morglas.
Many ancient rites and ceremonies connected with this mystic tree are
still practised in certain parts of the country, whilst others have of
late become obsolete. In remote districts, the farmers and peasantry
in Herefordshire, Devonshire, and Cornwall still preserve the ancient
customs of saluting the Apple-trees on Christmas Eve. In some places,
the parishioners walk in procession visiting the principal orchards in
the parish. In each orchard one tree is selected as the representative
of the rest; this is saluted with a certain form of words, which
have in them the air of an incantation, and then the tree is either
sprinkled with cider, or a bowl of cider is dashed against it, to
ensure its bearing plentifully the ensuing year. In other places,
the farmer and his servants only assemble on the occasion, and after
immersing cakes in cider, they hang them on the Apple-trees. They then
sprinkle the trees with cider, and encircling the largest, they chant
the following toast three times:--
“Here’s to thee, old Apple-tree,
Whence thou may’st bud, and whence thou may’st blow;
And whence thou may’st bear Apples enow.
Hats full! caps full!
Bushel, bushel, sacks full!
And my pockets full, too!
Huzza! Huzza!”
After this the men dance round the tree, and retire to the farm-house
to conclude, with copious draughts of cider, these solemn rites, which
are undoubtedly relics of paganism.
In Sussex, the custom of “worsling” or wassailing Apple-trees still
exists. Formerly it took place, according to the locality, some time
between Christmas Eve and Twelfth Day. The most popular wassail rhyme
was similar to the above, but others were sung by the “howlers.” At
Chailey this verse is used:--
“Stand fast root, bear well top,
Pray that God send us a good howling crop.
Every twig, Apples big.
Every bough, Apples enow.
Hats full, caps full,
Full quarters, sacks full.”
In West Sussex, during Christmas, the farmers’ labourers assemble for
the purpose of wassailing the Apple-trees. A trumpeter sounds blasts
on a bullock’s horn, and the party proceed to the orchard, where they
encircle a tree or group of trees, and chant sonorously--
“Stand fast at root, bear well top,
Every twig, bear Apple big,
Every bough, bear Apple enow.”
A loud shout completes the ceremony, which is repeated till all the
trees in the orchard have been encircled; after which the men proceed
to the homestead, and sing at the owner’s door a song common for the
occasion. They are then admitted, and partake of his hospitality.
At West Wickham, in Kent, a curious custom used to prevail in Rogation
week. The young men went into the orchards, and, encircling each tree,
said:--
“Stand fast, root, bear well, top,
God send us a youling sop;
Every twig, Apple big;
Every bough, Apple enow.”
Cider was formerly not the only drink concocted from the Apple; another
famous potation was called “Lambswool,” or more correctly, lamasool,
the derivation of the word being the Celtic _lámaesabhal_--the day of
Apple fruit. This appellation was given to the first day of November,
dedicated in olden times to the titular saint of fruit and seeds. The
Lambswool was composed of ale and roasted Apples, flavoured with sugar
and spice; and a bowl of this beverage was drunk, with some ceremony,
on the last night of October. Roasted Apples formed an important item
in the composition of the famed wassail-bowl. Shakspeare probably
alludes to this beverage in ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream,’ where we find
the mischievous Puck saying,
“Sometimes I lurk in a gossip’s bowl,
In very likeness of a roasted Crab.”
In Sussex, the wassail-bowl was formerly made at Christmas time; it was
compounded of ale, sugar, Nutmeg, and roasted Apples, the latter being
called Lambswool. On St. Clement’s day, in East Sussex, the custom
exists of going round from house to house asking for Apples and beer:
this is called Clemmening. A similar custom prevails on St. Catherine’s
Day, when the children sing a rhyme commencing--
“Cattern’ and Clemen’ be here, here, here,
Give us your Apples and give us your beer.”
In Lowland Scotland, there is an old charm still practised by village
maidens on Hallow-e’en. It is to go alone into a room, and eat an Apple
in front of a looking-glass, when the face of the future husband will
appear looking over the maid’s shoulder.
In Scotland, on Hallow-e’en, Apples are thrown into a tub of water,
and you endeavour to catch one in your mouth as they bob around in
provoking fashion. When you have caught one, you peel it carefully,
and pass the long strip of peel thrice _sunwise_ round your head, after
which you throw it over your shoulder, and it falls to the ground in
the shape of the initial letter of your true love’s name.
In some places, on this mystic night, a stick is suspended horizontally
from the ceiling, with a candle at one end and an Apple at the other.
While it is made to revolve rapidly, the revellers successively leap
up, and endeavour to grasp the Apple with their teeth (the hands must
not be used); if they fail, the candle generally swings round in time
to salute them disagreeably. Another amusement is to dive for Apples in
a tub of water.
In Sussex, on this eve, every person present fastens an Apple on a
string, and hangs and twirls it before the fire. The owner of the Apple
that first falls off is declared to be upon the point of marriage;
and as they fall successively, the order in which the rest of the
party will attain to matrimonial honours is clearly indicated, single
blessedness being the lot of the one whose Apple is the last to drop.
The custom of throwing the peel of an Apple over the head, marriage or
celibacy being foretold by its remaining whole or breaking, is well
known, as is also that of finding in a peel so cast the initial of the
coming sweetheart.
Mr. Dyer, in his ‘English Folk-lore,’ details a form of divination by
means of an Apple-pip. “In Lancashire,” he says, “in order to ascertain
the abode of a lover, the anxious inquirer moves round in a circle, at
the same time squeezing an Apple-pippin between his finger and thumb.
This, on being subjected to pressure, flies from the rind, in the
supposed direction of the lover’s residence. Meanwhile, the following
rhyme is repeated:--
‘Pippin, pippin, paradise,
Tell me where my true love lies;
East, west, north, and south,
Pilling brig or Cocker mouth.’”
It was formerly customary for Apples to be blessed by priests on July
25th; and in the manual of the Church of Sarum is preserved an especial
form for this purpose. In Derbyshire, there is a saying that if the
sun shines through the trees on Christmas Day, it ensures a good crop.
In Northamptonshire, if the Apple-tree should bloom after the fruit
is ripe, it is regarded as a sure omen of death. In the Apple-growing
districts, there is an old saying that if it rains on St. Swithin’s
Day, it is the Saint christening the Apples.
De Gubernatis, in his _Mythologie des Plantes_, gives several curious
customs connected with the Apple, which are still extant in foreign
countries. In Serbia, when a maiden accepts from her lover an Apple,
she is engaged. In Hungary, a betrothed maiden, after having received
from her lover the “engaged” ring, presents him with an Apple, the
special symbol of all nuptial gifts. Young Greek girls never cease
to invoke, upon marriage, the golden Apple. In Sicily, when a young
man is in love, he presents the object of his affections with a love
Apple. At Mount San Giuliano, in Sicily, on St. John’s Day, every young
girl throws from the window of her room an Apple into the street, and
watches to see who picks it up: should a woman do so, it is a sign
that the maiden will not be married during the year; if the Apple is
only looked at and not touched, it signifies that the maiden, after
her marriage, will soon become a widow: if the first person passing
is a priest, the young girl will die a virgin. In Montenegro, the
mother-in-law presents an Apple to the young bride, who must try and
throw it on the roof of her husband’s house: if the Apple falls on
the roof, the marriage will be blest, that is to say there will be
children. At Taranto, in Southern Italy, at the wedding breakfast, when
the Apples are introduced, each guest takes one, and having pierced it
with a knife, places a piece of silver money in the incision: then all
the Apples are offered to the young bride, who bites each, and takes
out the money.
In a Roumanian legend, the infant Jesus, in the arms of the blessed
Virgin, becomes restless, will not go to sleep, and begins to cry. The
Virgin, to calm the Holy Child, gives Him two Apples. The infant throws
one upwards, and it becomes the Moon; He then throws the second, and it
becomes the Sun. After this exploit, the Virgin Mary addresses Him and
foretells that He will become the Lord of Heaven.
In old pictures of St. Dorothea, the virgin martyr is represented
with a basket containing Apples and Roses: this is in allusion to the
legend of her death, which tells that as Dorothea was being led forth
to martyrdom, Theophilus, a lawyer, mockingly bade her send him fruits
and flowers from Paradise. Dorothea, inclining her head, said, “Thy
request, O Theophilus, is granted!” Whereat he laughed aloud with his
companions, but she went on cheerfully to death. Arrived at the place
of execution, she knelt down and prayed; and suddenly there appeared
at her side a beautiful boy, with hair bright as sunbeams. In his hand
he held a basket containing three Apples and three fresh-gathered and
fragrant Roses. She said to him, “Carry these to Theophilus, and say
that Dorothea hath sent them, and that I go before him to the garden
whence they came, and await him there.” With these words she bent her
neck, and received the death-stroke. Meantime, the angelic boy sought
Theophilus, and placed before him the basket of celestial fruit and
flowers, saying, “Dorothea sends thee these,” and vanished. Struck by
the marvellous incident, Theophilus tasted of the heavenly fruit, and
commenced a new life, following in Dorothea’s footsteps, and eventually
obtaining the crown of martyrdom.
Mr. Dyer quotes the following from ‘Notes and Queries’:--“In South-east
Devon and the neighbourhood, a curious legend is, we learn, current
among the farmers respecting St. Dunstan and the Apple-trees. It is
said that he bought up a quantity of Barley, and therewith made beer.
The Devil, knowing that the Saint would naturally desire to get a good
sale for his beer, which he had just brewed, went to him and said,
that if he would sell himself to him, then he (the Devil) would go
and blight the Apple-trees, so that there should be no cider, and,
consequently there would be a far greater demand for beer. St. Dunstan,
naturally wishing to drive a brisk trade in his beer, accepted the
offer at once; but stipulated that the trees should be blighted in
three days, which days fell on the 17th, 18th, and 19th of May. In
the almanacs, the 19th is marked as St. Dunstan’s Day, and, as about
this time the Apple-trees are in blossom, many anxious allusions are
generally made to St. Dunstan; and should, as is sometimes the case,
a sharp frost nip the Apple-blossoms, they believe they know who has
been at the bottom of the mischief. There seems to be several versions
of this legendary superstition. According to some, on a certain night
in June, three powerful witches pass through the air, and if they drop
certain charms on the blossoming orchards, the crops will be blighted.
In other parts of the country, this is known as ‘Frankum’s Night,’
and the story is, that long ago, on this night, one Frankum made ‘a
sacrifice’ in his orchard, with the object of getting a specially fine
crop. His spells were answered by a blight; and the night is thus
regarded as most critical.”
In a Polish legend, derived doubtless from the myth of the Hesperides,
the hawk takes the place of the dragon. A young princess, through
magic, is shut up in a golden castle situated on a mountain of ice:
before the castle she finds an Apple-tree bearing golden Apples. No one
is able to come to this castle. Whenever a cavalier ascends the side
of the ice mountain in order to release the princess, the hawk darts
down and blinds his horse, and both horse and rider are precipitated
down the abyss. At length the appointed hero arrives, slays the hawk,
gathers the golden Apples, and delivers the princess.
According to a Hanoverian legend, a young girl descends to the
infernal regions by means of a staircase, which she discovers under an
Apple-tree growing at the back of the house. She sees a garden, where
the sun seems to shine more brightly than on earth; the trees are
blossoming or are loaded with fruit. The damsel fills her apron with
Apples, which become golden when she returns to earth.
In the popular tales of all countries, the Apple is represented as
the magical fruit _par excellence_. The Celtic priests held the
Apple sacred, and in Gaelic, Norse, German, and Italian stories it
is constantly introduced as a mysterious and enchanted fruit. Mr.
Campbell, in the introduction to his Tales of the West Highlands,
points out that when the hero wishes to pass from Islay to Ireland,
he pulls out sixteen Apples and throws them into the sea one after
another, and he steps from one to the other. When the giant’s daughter
runs away with the king’s son, she cuts an Apple into a mystical number
of small bits, and each bit talks. When she kills the giant, she puts
an Apple under the hoof of the magic filly, and he dies, for his life
is the Apple, and it is crushed. When the byre is cleansed, it is so
clean, that a golden Apple would run from end to end and never raise a
stain. There is a Gruagach who has a golden Apple, which is thrown at
all comers, who, if they fail to catch it, die. When it is caught and
thrown back by the hero, Gruagach an Ubhail, dies. There is a certain
game called cluich an ubhail--the Apple play--which seems to have been
a deadly game. When the king’s daughter transports the soldier to the
green island on the magic table-cloth, he finds magic Apples which
transform him, and others which cure him, and by which he transforms
the cruel princess, and recovers his magic treasures. When the two
eldest idle king’s sons go out to herd the giant’s cattle, they find
an Apple-tree whose fruit moves up and down as they vainly strive to
pluck it; in fact, in all Gaelic stories, the Apple when introduced has
something marvellous about it.
So, in the German, in the ‘Man of Iron,’ a princess throws a golden
Apple as a prize, which the hero catches three times, and carries off,
and wins. In ‘Snow White,’ where the poisoned comb occurs, there is
a poisoned magic Apple also. In the ‘Old Griffin,’ the rich princess
is cured by rosy-cheeked Apples. In the ‘White Snake,’ a servant who
understands the voice of birds, helps creatures in distress, gets them
aid, and procures golden Apples from three ravens which fly over the
sea to the end of the world, where stands the tree of life. When he
had got the Apple, he and the princess eat it and marry. Again, in the
‘Wonderful Hares,’ a golden Apple is the gift for which the finder is
to gain a princess; and that Apple grew on a tree, the sole one of its
kind.
In Norse it is the same: the princess on the glass mountain held three
golden Apples in her lap, and he who could ride up the hill and carry
off the Apples was to win the prize; and the princess rolled them down
to the hero, and they rolled into his shoe. The good girl plucked the
Apples from the tree which spoke to her when she went down the well to
the underground world; but the ill-tempered step-sister thrashed down
the fruit; and when the time of trial came, the Apple-tree played its
part and protected the poor girl.
In a French tale, a singing Apple is one of the marvels which Princess
Belle Etoile and her brothers and her cousin bring from the end of the
world. In an Italian story, a lady when she has lost her husband goes
off to the Atlantic Ocean with three golden Apples; and the mermaid
who has swallowed the husband shows first his head, then his body to
the waist, and then to the knees, each time for a golden Apple. Then,
finally, in the ‘Arabian Nights,’ there is a long story, called the
Three Apples, which turns upon the theft of one, which was considered
to have been of priceless value. The Apple-blossom is considered to be
an emblem of preference. To dream of Apples betokens long life, success
in trade, and a lover’s faithfulness.
=APPLE OF SODOM.=--The _Solanum Sodomeum_ is a purple Egg-plant of
which the fruit is naturally large and handsome. It is, however,
subject to the attacks of an insect (a species of _Cynips_), which
punctures the rind, and converts the interior of the fruit into a
substance like ashes, while the outside remains fair and beautiful.
It is found on the desolate shores of the Dead Sea, on the site of
those cities of the plain the dreadful judgment on which is recorded
in sacred history. Hence the fruit, called the Apple of Sodom, has
acquired a sinister reputation, and is regarded as the symbol of sin.
Its first appearance, it is said, is always attended with a bitter
north-east wind, and therefore ships for the Black Sea take care to
sail before the harbinger of bad weather comes forth. The fruit is
reputed to be poisonous. Josephus, the Jewish historian, speaks of them
as having “a fair colour, as if they were fit to be eaten; but if you
pluck them with your hand, they vanish into smoke and ashes.” Milton,
describing an Apple which added new torments to the fallen angels,
compares it to the Apples of Sodom:--
“Greedily they pluck’d
The fruitage fair to sight, like that which grew
Near that bituminous lake where Sodom flamed.
This mere delusion, not the touch but taste
Deceived; they fondly thinking to allay
Their appetite with gust, instead of fruit
Chewed bitter ashes.”
Henry Teonge, who visited the country round the Dead Sea in 1675,
describes it as being “all over full of stones which looke just like
burnt syndurs, and on some low shrubbs there grow small round things
which are called Apples, but no witt like them. They are somewhat fayre
to looke at, but touch them and they smoulder all to black ashes, like
soote both for looks and smell.”--The name Apple of Sodom is also
given to a kind of Gall-nut, which is found growing on various species
of dwarf Oaks on the banks of the Jordan.--Dead Sea Apples is a term
applied to the Bussorah Gall-nut, which is formed on the Oak _Quercus
infectoria_ by an insect, and being of a bright ruddy purple, but
filled with a gritty powder, they are suggestive of the deceptive Apple
of Sodom.
“Dead Sea fruits, that tempt the eye,
But turn to ashes on the lips.”
APPLE OF PARADISE, OR ADAM’S APPLE.--See Banana.
APPLE, LOVE.--See Solanum.
APPLE, MAD.--See Solanum.
=APRICOT.=--According to Columella, the Persians sent the Peach to
Egypt to poison the inhabitants; and a species of Apricot is called by
the people of Barbary, _Matza Franca_, or the “Killer of Christians.”
The Persians call the Apricot of Iran, the “Seed of the Sun.” The
ancients appear to have regarded it as a prophetical or oracular
tree.----It was in the solitude of a grove of Apricot-trees that
Confucius, the venerated Chinese sage, completed his commentaries
on the _King_ or ancient books of China, and beneath this shade he
erected an altar, and solemnly thanked Heaven for having permitted him
to accomplish his cherished task.----The name has undergone curious
transformations: it is traceable to the Latin _præcoqua_, early; the
fruit being supposed by the Romans to be an early Peach. The Arabs
(although living near the region of which the tree is a native) took
the Latin name, and twisted it into _al burquq_; the Spaniards altered
its Moorish name into _albaricoque_; the Italians reproduced it as
_albicoces_; the French from them got _abricot_; and we, in England,
although taking the name from the French, first called it _Abricock_,
or _Aprecock_, and finally _Apricot_.----The Apricot is under the
dominion of Venus. To dream of this fruit denotes health, a speedy
marriage, and every success in life.
=ARBOR VITÆ.=--This tree, otherwise known as _Thuja_, is called by
Pliny, _Thya_ (from _thyon_, a sacrifice). The resin of the Eastern
variety is, in certain localities, frequently used instead of incense
at sacrifices. How the tree acquired the name of _Arbor Vitæ_ is not
known, unless from some supposed virtue of its berries. Gerarde,
who had only seen the Canadian variety, says of it that, of all the
trees from that country, the _Arbor Vitæ_, or _Thya_, was “the most
principall, and best agreeing unto the nature of man, as an excellent
cordial, and of a very pleasant smell.” He also tells us that it was
sometimes called _Cedrus Lycia_, and that it is not to be confounded
with the Tree of Life mentioned in Genesis.
=ARBUTUS.=--The Arbutus, or Strawberry-tree (_Arbutus unedo_), was held
sacred by the Romans. It was one of the attributes of Cardea, a sister
of Apollo, who was beloved by Janus, guardian of gates and avenues.
With a rod of Arbutus--_virga Janalis_--Cardea drove away witches and
protected little children when ill or bewitched. The Romans employed
the Arbutus, with other symbolic trees and flowers, at the Palilia, a
festival held in honour of the pastoral goddess Pales. It was a Roman
custom to deposit branches of the Arbutus on coffins, and Virgil tells
us that Arbutus rods and Oak twigs formed the bier of young Pallas, the
son of Evander. Horace, in his Odes, has celebrated the shade afforded
by the Arbutus. Ovid speaks of the tree as “the Arbutus heavy with its
ruby fruit,” and tells us that, in the Golden Age, the fruit afforded
food to man. This fruit is called _unedo_, and Pliny is stated to
have given it that name became it was so bitter that he who ate one
would eat no more.----The Oriental Arbutus, or Andrachne, bears fruit
resembling a scarlet Strawberry in size and flavour. In Greece, it has
the reputation of so affecting serpents who feed upon it, that they
speedily cease to be venomous. The water distilled from the leaves and
blossom of the Arbutus was accounted a very powerful agent against the
plague and poisons.
=ARCHANGEL.=--The name of Archangel is applied to the _Angelica
archangelica_; the Red Archangel, _Stachys sylvatica_; the White
Archangel, _Lamium album_; and the Yellow Archangel, _L. Galeobdolon_.
Nemnich says, the plant originally obtained its name from its having
been revealed by an angel, in a dream. Parkinson considers it was so
called on account of its heavenly virtues. Gerarde remarks of it, that
“the flowers are baked with sugar, as Roses are, which is called Sugar
Roset: as also the distilled water of them, which is used to make the
heart merry, to make a good colour in the face, and to refresh the
vitall spirits.”
=ARECA.=--The _Areca Catechu_ is one of the sacred plants of India,
producing the perfumed Areca Nuts, favourite masticatories of the
Indian races. So highly is this nut esteemed by the natives, that they
would rather forego meat and drink than their precious Areca Nuts,
which they cut into narrow pieces, and roll up with a little lime
in the leaves of the Pepper, and chew. The Areca Palm is known in
Hindostan as _Supyari_, and in Japan as _Jambi_. The Hindus adorn their
gods with these Nuts, and forbid respectable women to deck either their
heads or bosoms with them. According to Indian tradition, Devadamani,
subduer of the gods, once appeared at the court of King Vikramâditya,
to play with him, clothed in a robe the colour of the sky, having in
his hand and in his mouth an Areca Nut enveloped in a leaf of the
Kalpa-tree. This probably explains the Indian custom of presenting an
Areca Nut to guests, which is eaten with the leaf of the Betel. In
China, a similar custom prevails, but the Nut given there is the Betel
Nut.
=ARISTOLOCHIA.=--The old English name of this plant was Birth-wort,
derived from its reputed remedial powers in parturition--probably first
suggested by the shape of the corolla--whence also its Greek name,
from _aristos_, best, and _locheia_, delivery. According to Pliny, if
the expectant mother desired to have a son, she employed Aristolochia,
with the flesh of an ox.----Certain of the species are renowned, in
some European countries, for having a wonderful influence over fishes
and serpents. _A. Serpentaria_ is reputed to be so offensive to the
serpent tribe, that they will not only shun the place where it grows,
but will even flee from any traveller who carries a piece of the plant
in his hand. The snake jugglers of Egypt are believed to stupefy these
reptiles by means of a decoction distilled from the plant, and it is
asserted that a few drops introduced into the mouth of a serpent will
so intoxicate it as to render it insensible and harmless.----Apuleius
recommends the use of Aristolochia against the Evil Eye.----The
Birth-wort is under the dominion of Venus.
=ARKA.=--This is the Indian name of the _Calotropis gigantea_, also
called _Arkapatra_ and _Arkaparna_ (the lightning-leaved), the leaves
of which present the cuneiform symbols of lightning. _Arka_, says De
Gubernatis, is also the name of the Sun, and this explains why the
Brahmins employed the leaf of the _Calotropis_ on the occasion of
sacrificing to the Sun. In each part of the Arka it is stated that
a portion of the human body can be distinguished. Notwithstanding
its grand name, and its beautiful appearance, people have a dread of
approaching it, lest it should strike them blind. The origin of this
superstition is to be found in the word _Arka_, which means both the
sun and the lightning.
=ARTEMISIA.=--The genus of plants known as Artemisia was so called
after the goddess Artemis (who was regarded by the Romans as identical
with Diana, or the Moon), by reason of some of its species being
used in bringing on precocious puberty. On this account, also, it is
one of the plants specially under the influence of the Moon.--(See
SOUTHERNWOOD and WORMWOOD).
=ARUNDHATI.=--This is the Brahminical name of a climbing plant of good
omen, and to which, according to De Gubernatis, the _Atharvaveda_
attributes magical properties against diseases of the skin. It gives
milk to sterile cows, it heals wounds, it delivers men from sickness,
it protects those who drink its juices. It is the sister of the water
and of the gods; the night is its mother; the mist, the horse of Yama,
its father; Aryaman its grandfather. It descends from the mouth of the
horse of Yama.
=ARUM.=--The Germans call the Arum _Aronswurzel_, and entertain the
notion that where this flourishes, the spirits of the wood rejoice. The
majestic Ethiopian species of the Arum (_Calla Æthiopica_) is commonly
called the Horn-flower, from the shape of its large white calyx. In
tropical climates, the plant is a deadly poison. The Arum of English
hedgerows, a flower of a very much humbler character, is known by a
variety of quaint names, viz., Aaron, Cuckoo-pint, Cuckoo-pintle,
Wake Robin, Friar’s Cowl, Priest’s-pintle, Lords-and-Ladies,
Cows-and-Calves, Ramp, Starchwort, and, in Worcestershire, Bloody
Men’s Fingers (from the red berries that surround the spadix). These
blood-red spots have caused the plant to received in Cheshire the name
of Gethsemane, because it is said to have been growing at the foot of
the Cross, and to have received some drops of our Saviour’s blood.
“Those deep inwrought marks,
The villagers will tell thee,
Are the flower’s portion from the atoning blood
On Calvary shed. Beneath the Cross it grew.”
This flower, the _Arum maculatum_, is the English Passion-flower: its
berries are highly poisonous, and every part of the plant is acrid;
yet the root contains a farinaceous substance, which, when properly
prepared, and its acrid juice expressed, is good for food, and is
indeed sold under the name of Portland Sago.----Starch has been made
from the root, and the French use it in compounding the cosmetic known
as Cypress powder. A drachm weight of the spotted Wake Robin, either
fresh or dry, was formerly considered as a sure remedy for poison and
the plague. The juice of the herb swallowed, to the quantity of a
spoonful, had the same effect. Beaten up with Ox-dung, the berries or
roots were believed to ease the pains of gout.----Arum is under the
dominion of Mars.
=ASOKA.=--The _Saraca Indica_, or _Jonesia Asoka_, is one of the
sacred plants of India, which has from remotest ages been consecrated
to their temple decoration, probably on account of the beauty of its
orange-red blossoms and the delicacy of its perfume, which in the
months of March and April is exhaled throughout the night. The tree is
the symbol of love, and dedicated to Kâma, the Indian god of love. Like
the Agnus Castus, it is reported to have a certain charm in preserving
chastity: thus Sîtâ, the wife of Râma, when abducted by the monster
Râvana, escapes from the caresses of the monster and finds refuge in
a grove of Asokas. In the legend of Buddha, when Mâyâ is conscious of
having conceived the Bodhisattva, under the guise of an elephant, she
retires to a wood of Asoka trees, and then sends for her husband. The
Hindus entertain the superstition that a single touch of the foot of
a pretty woman is sufficient to cause the Asoka to flourish. The word
asoka signifies that which is deprived of grief, and Asoka, or the tree
without grief, is also one of the names of the Bodhidruma, the sacred
tree of Buddha.
=ASPEN.=--A legend referring to the tremulous motion of this tree
(_Populus tremula_--see POPLAR) is to the following effect:--“At the
awful hour of the Passion, when the Saviour of the world felt deserted
in His agony, when earth, shaken with horror, rang the parting knell
for Deity, and universal nature groaned: then, from the loftiest tree
to the lowliest flower, all felt a sudden thrill, and trembling bowed
their heads, all save the Aspen, which said: ‘Why should we weep and
tremble? The trees and flowers are pure and never sinned!’ Ere it
ceased to speak, an involuntary trembling seized its every leaf, and
the word went forth that it should never rest, but tremble on until
the Day of Judgment.” An old saying affirmed that the leaves of the
Aspen were made from women’s tongues, which never ceased wagging; and
allusion is made to this in the following rhyme by Hannay, 1622:--
“The quaking Aspen, light and thin,
In the air quick passage gives;
Resembling still
The trembling ill
Of tempers of womankind,
Which never rest,
But still are prest
To wave with every wind.”
The Bretons have a legend that the Saviour’s cross was made of Aspen
wood; and that the ceaseless trembling of the leaves of this tree marks
the shuddering of sympathetic horror. The Germans preserve an ancient
tradition that, during their flight into Egypt, the Holy Family came
to a dense forest, in which, but for an angelic guide, they must have
lost their way. As they entered this wilderness, all the trees bowed
themselves down in reverence to the infant God; only the Aspen, in
her exceeding pride and arrogance, refused to acknowledge Him, and
stood upright. Then the Holy Child pronounced a curse against her, as
He in after life cursed the barren Fig-tree; and at the sound of His
words the Aspen began to tremble through all her leaves, and has not
ceased to tremble to this day. Mr. Henderson, in his ‘Folk-lore of the
Northern Counties,’ states that this tradition has been embodied in a
little poem, which may be thus translated:--
“Once as our Saviour walked with men below,
His path of mercy through a forest lay;
And mark how all the drooping branches show,
What homage best a silent tree may pay!
“Only the Aspen stands erect and free,
Scorning to join the voiceless worship pure;
But see! He casts one look upon the tree,
Struck to the heart she trembles evermore!”
The Kirghises, who have become almost Mussulmans, have nevertheless
preserved a profound veneration for the sacred Aspen.----Astrologers
hold that the Aspen is a lunar tree.
=ASPHODEL.=--The Asphodel is the flower which flourished in the Elysian
Fields. Orpheus, in Pope’s ‘Ode on St. Cecilia’s Day,’ conjures the
infernal deities--
“By the streams that ever flow;
By the fragrant winds that blow
O’er the Elysian flowers;
By those happy souls who dwell
In yellow meads of Asphodel,
Or Amaranthine bowers.”
Homer tells us that, having crossed the Styx, the shades passed over a
long prairie of Asphodel; and Lucian makes old Charon say:--“I know why
Mercury keeps us waiting so long. Down here with us there is nothing to
be had but Asphodel, and libations and oblations, and that in the midst
of mist and darkness: but up in heaven it is all bright and clear, and
plenty of ambrosia there, and nectar without stint.” The fine flowers
of this plant of the infernal regions produced grains which were
believed by the ancients to afford nourishment to the dead. Accordingly
we find that the Greeks planted Asphodel and Mallows round graves. The
edible roots of the Asphodel were also wont to be laid as offerings in
the tombs of the departed, and, according to Hesiod, they served as
food for the poor. The Asphodel was held sacred to Bacchus, probably
because he visited the infernal regions, and rescued his mother Semele
from the kingdom of the departed. Wreaths of the Asphodel were worn
by Bacchus, Proserpine, Diana, and Semele. Asphodels were among the
flowers forming the couch of Jupiter and Juno, and Milton has named
them as put to the same use by Adam and Eve.
“Flowers were the couch,
Pansies, and Violets, and Asphodel,
And Hyacinth, earth’s freshest, softest lap.”
Dr. Prior says that the Asphodel root was, under the name of _cibo
regio_ (food for a king), highly esteemed in the middle ages, but,
however improved by cultivation, it is likely to have been troublesome
by its diuretic qualities, and has probably on that account gone out
of fashion. Rapin, in his poem, refers to the Asphodel as forming an
article of food--
“And rising Asphodel forsakes her bed,
On whose sweet root our rustic fathers fed.”
=ASTER.=--The old English name of the Aster is Star-wort. Rapin says of
this flower--
“The Attic star, so named in Grecian use,
But called Amellus by the Mantuan Muse
In meadows reigns near some cool streamlet’s side,
Or marshy vales where winding currents glide.
Wreaths of this gilded flower the shepherds twine,
When grapes now ripe in clusters load the vine.”
The Aster is thus identified with the Amellus, of the Greek and Latin
poets, and, according to Virgil, the altars of the gods were often
adorned with wreaths of these flowers. In his Fourth Georgic the poet
prescribes the root of the Italian Star-wort (_Aster Amellus_) for
sickly bees. (See AMELLUS). The leaves of the Attic Star-wort (when
burnt) had the reputation of driving away serpents. In Germany, the
Star-wort is used by lovers as an oracle, to decide whether their love
is returned or not. The person consulting it repeats the words--
“_Er liebt mich von Herzen
Mit Schmerzen,
Ja--oder Nein._”
At the recurrence of the words _ja_ and _nein_ a leaf is pulled
out, and the answer depends on which of these words is pronounced
as the last of the leaves is plucked. Göthe introduces this rustic
superstition in his tragedy of ‘Faust,’ where the luckless heroine
consults the floral oracle as to the affection entertained for her by
Faust. The French call the Italian Star-wort, or Amellus, _l’Œil de
Christ_, and the China Aster _la Reine Marguerite_----The Aster is
considered to be a herb of Venus.
=ASH.=--This tree (_Fraxinus excelsior_), called, on account of
its elegance, the Venus of the forest, and from its utility, the
husbandman’s tree, was regarded by the ancient Greeks, Romans, and
Scandinavians as a sacred tree, and as one of good omen. In the
Teutonic mythology, the Ash is the most venerated of trees, and the
Scandinavian Edda, the sacred book of the Northmen, furnishes a
detailed account of the mystic Ash Yggdrasill, or mundane tree, beneath
whose shade was the chief or holiest seat of the gods, where they
assembled every day in council. (See YGGDRASILL.) According to the
old Norse tradition, it was out of the wood of the Ash that man was
first formed; and the Greeks entertained a similar belief, for we find
Hesiod deriving his brazen race of men from it. The goddess Nemesis was
sometimes represented with an Ashen wand. Cupid, before he learnt to
use the more potent Cypress, employed Ash for the wood of his arrows.
At the Nuptials of Peleus and Thetis, Chiron appeared with a branch of
Ash, from which was made the lance of Peleus, which afterwards became
the spear of Achilles. Rapin writes of this tree--
“But on fair levels and a gentle soil
The noble Ash rewards the planter’s toil.
Noble e’er since Achilles from her side
Took the dire spear by which brave Hector died;
Whose word resembling much the hero’s mind,
Will sooner break than bend--a stubborn kind.”
There exists an old superstition, that a serpent will rather creep
into the fire than over a twig of the Ash-tree, founded upon the
statements of Pliny with respect to the magical powers of the Ash
against serpents. It was said that serpents always avoided the shade of
the Ash; so that if a fire and a serpent were placed within a circle
of Ash-leaves, the serpent, to avoid the Ash, would even run into the
midst of the fire. Cowley, enumerating various prodigies, says:--
“On the wild Ash’s tops, the bats and owls,
With, all night, ominous and baleful fowls,
Sate brooding, while the screeches of these droves
Profaned and violated all the groves.
* * * * *
But that which gave more wonder than the rest,
Within an Ash a serpent built her nest,
And laid her eggs; when once to come beneath
The very shadow of an Ash was death.”
There exists a popular belief in Cornwall, that no kind of snake is
ever found near the “Ashen-tree,” and that a branch of the Ash will
prevent a snake from coming near a person. There is a legend that a
child, who was in the habit of receiving its portion of bread and milk
at the cottage door, was found to be in the habit of sharing its food
with one of the poisonous adders. The reptile came regularly every
morning, and the child, pleased with the beauty of his companion,
encouraged the visits. So the babe and the adder thus became close
friends. Eventually this became known to the mother (who, being a
labourer in the fields, was compelled to leave her child all day),
and she found it to be a matter of great difficulty to keep the snake
from the child whenever it was left alone. She therefore adopted the
precaution of binding an Ashen-twig about its body. The adder no longer
came near the child; but, from that day forward, the poor little one
pined away, and eventually died, as all around said, through grief at
having lost the companion by whom it had been fascinated.
On the subject of the serpent’s antipathy to the Ash, we find Gerarde
writing as follows:--“The leaves of this tree are of so great vertue
against serpents, that they dare not so much as touch the morning and
evening shadowes of the tree, but shun them afar off, as Pliny reports
(_lib._ 16, c. 13). He also affirmeth that the serpent being penned
in with boughes laid round about, will sooner run into the fire, if
any be there, than come neare the boughes of the Ash; and that the Ash
floureth before the serpents appeare, and doth not cast its leaves
before they be gon againe. We write (saith he) upon experience, that
if the serpent be set within a circle of fire and the branches, the
serpent will sooner run into the fire than into the boughes. It is a
wonderfull courtesie in nature, that the Ash should floure before the
serpents appeare, and not cast his leaves before they be gon againe.”
Other old writers affirm that the leaves, either taken inwardly, or
applied outwardly, are singularly good against the biting of snakes
or venomous beasts; and that the water distilled from them, and taken
every morning fasting, is thought to abate corpulence. The ashes of the
Ash and Juniper are stated to cure leprosy.
The pendent winged seeds, called spinners or keys, were believed to
have the same effect as the leaves: in country places there is to this
day an opinion current, that when these keys are abundant, a severe
Winter will follow. A bunch of Ash-keys is still thought efficacious as
a protection against witchcraft.
In marshy situations, the roots of the Ash will run a long way at a
considerable depth, thus acting as sub-drains: hence the proverb, in
some parts of the country, “May your foot-fall be by the root of the
Ash.” In the Spring, when the Ash and Oak are coming into leaf, Kentish
folk exclaim:--“Oak, smoke; Ash, squash.” If the Oak comes out first,
they believe the Summer will prove hot; if the Ash, it will be wet.
“If the Oak’s before the Ash,
You will only get a splash;
If the Ash precedes the Oak,
You will surely have a soak.”
Gilbert White tells us of a superstitious custom, still extant, which
he thinks was derived from the Saxons, who practised it before their
conversion to Christianity. Ash-trees, when young and flexible, were
severed, and held open by wedges, while ruptured children, stripped
naked, were pushed through the apertures, under a persuasion that they
would be cured of their infirmity. The operation over, the tree was
plastered up with loam, and carefully swathed. If the severed parts
coalesced in due course, the babe was sure to be cured; but if not,
the operation would probably be ineffectual. The same writer relates
another extraordinary custom among rustics: they bore a deep hole in
an Ash-tree, and imprison a live shrew mouse therein: the tree then
becomes a Shrew-Ash, whose twigs or branches, gently applied to the
limbs of cattle, will immediately relieve the cramp, lameness, and pain
supposed to attack the animal wherever a shrew mouse has crept over it.
Lightfoot says that, in the Highlands, at the birth of an infant, the
nurse takes a green Ash stick, one end of which she puts into the fire;
and, while it is burning, receives in a spoon the sap that oozes from
the other, which she administers to the child as its first food: this
custom is thought to be derived from the old Aryan practice of feeding
young children with the honey-like juice of the _Fraxinus Ornus_. The
sap of the Ash, tapped on certain days, is drunk in Germany as a remedy
for the bites of serpents.
In Northumberland, there is a belief that if the first parings of an
infant’s nails are buried under an Ash, the child will turn out a “top
singer.” In Staffordshire, the common people believe that it is very
dangerous to break a bough from the Ash. In Leicestershire, the Ash
is employed as a charm for warts. In the month of April or May, the
sufferer is taken to an Ash-tree: the operator (who is provided with a
paper of new pins) takes a pin, and having first struck it through the
bark, presses it through the wart until it produces pain; the pin is
then taken out and stuck into the tree, where it is left. Each wart is
similarly treated, a separate pin being used for each. The warts will
disappear in a few weeks. It is a wide-spread custom to stroke with a
twig from an Ash-tree, under the roots of which a horse-shoe has been
buried, any animal which is supposed to have been bewitched.
An Ashen herding stick is preferred by Scotch boys to any other,
because in throwing it at their cattle it is sure not to strike in
a vital part, and so kill or injure the animal, a contingency which
may occur, it seems, with other sticks. It is worthy of note that the
_lituus_ of the Roman Augur--a staff with a crook at one end--was
formed of an Ash-tree bough, the crook being sometimes produced
naturally, but more often by artificial means.
In many parts of England, the finding of an even Ash-leaf is considered
to be an augury of good luck; hence the old saying, so dear to tender
maids--
“If you find an even Ash or a four-leaved Clover,
Rest assured you’ll see your true-love ere the day is over.”
In Cornwall, this charm is frequently made use of for invoking good
luck:--
“Even Ash I thee do pluck,
Hoping thus to meet good luck.
If no good luck I get from thee,
I shall wish thee on the tree.”
In Henderson’s ‘Northern Folk-lore,’ occur the following lines
regarding the virtues of even Ash-leaves:--
“The even Ash-leaf in my left hand,
The first man I meet shall be my husband.
The even Ash-leaf in my glove,
The first I meet shall be my love.
The even Ash-leaf for my breast,
The first man I meet’s whom I love best.
The even Ash-leaf in my hand,
The first I meet shall be my man.”
“Even Ash, even Ash, I pluck thee,
This night my true love for to see;
Neither in his rick nor in his rear,
But in the clothes he does every day wear.”
It is a tradition among the gipsies that the cross our Saviour was
crucified upon was made of Ash.
In Devonshire, it is customary to burn an Ashen faggot at
Christmastide, in commemoration of the fact that the Divine Infant at
Bethlehem was first washed and dressed by a fire of Ash-wood.
The Yule-clog or -log which ancient custom prescribes to be burnt on
Christmas Eve, used to be of Ash: thus we read in an old poem:--
“Thy welcome Eve, loved Christmas, now arrived,
The parish bells their tuneful peals resound,
And mirth and gladness every breast pervade.
The ponderous Ashen-faggot, from the yard,
The jolly farmer to his crowded hall
Conveys with speed; where, on the rising flames
(Already fed with store of massy brands),
It blazes soon; nine bandages it bears,
And, as they each disjoin (so custom wills),
A mighty jug of sparkling cider’s brought
With brandy mixt, to elevate the guests.”
Spenser speaks of the Ash as being “for nothing ill,” but the tree has
always been regarded as a special attractor of lightning, and there is
a very old couplet, which says:--
“Avoid an Ash,
It courts the flash.”
Its character as an embodiment of fire is manifested in a remarkable
Swedish legend given in Grimm’s ‘German Mythology.’ Some seafaring
people, it is said, received an Ash-tree from a giant, with directions
to set it upon the altar of a church he wished to destroy. Instead,
however, of carrying out his instructions, they placed the Ash on the
mound over a grave, which to their astonishment instantly burst into
flames.
There is an old belief that to prevent pearls from being discoloured,
it is sufficient to keep them shut up with a piece of Ash-root.
Astrologers appear to be divided in their opinions as to whether the
Ash is under the dominion of the Sun or of Jupiter.
=ASVATTHA.=--The Indian Veda prescribes that for the purpose
of kindling the sacred fire, the wood of an _Asvattha_ (_Ficus
religiosa_), growing upon a _Sami_ (_Mimosa Suma_), should be employed.
The idea of a marriage suggested by such a union of the two trees
is also developed in the Vedas with much minuteness of detail. The
process by which, in the Hindu temples, fire is obtained from wood
resembles churning. It consists in drilling one piece of wood (the
_Asvattha_, symbolising the male element) into another (the _Sami_,
representing the female element). This is effected by pulling a string
tied to it, with a jerk, with one hand, while the other is slackened,
and so alternately until the wood takes fire. The fire is received on
cotton or flax held in the hand of an assistant Brahman. This Indian
fire-generator is known as the “chark.” (See also SAMI and PEEPUL).
=AURICULA.=--The old Latin name of this plant was _Auricula ursi_,
from the shape of the leaves resembling a bear’s ear. It is thought to
be the _Alisma_ of Dioscorides. Matthiolus and Pena call it _Sanicula
Alpina_, from its potency in healing wounds. Old herbalists have also
named it _Paralytica_ on account of its being esteemed a remedy for the
palsy. Gerarde calls it Bear’s-ear, or Mountain Cowslip, and tells us
that the root was in great request among Alpine hunters, for the effect
it produced in strengthening the head and preventing giddiness and
swimming of the brain overtaking them on high elevations. The plant is
reputed to be somewhat carnivorous, and cultivators place juicy pieces
of meat about the roots, so that they may absorb the blood.----In
Germany, the Auricula is considered emblematical of love of home.
=AVAKA.=--The _Avaka_ or _Sîpâla_ is an India aquatic plant, which
plays an important part in their funeral ceremonies. It is placed in a
cavity made, according to their custom, to the north-east of the sacred
fire _Ahavanîya_, and it is believed that the soul of the deceased
person passes into this cavity, and thence ascends with the smoke to
heaven. The _Avaka_ or _Sîpâla_ forms the food of the Gandharvas, who
preside over the India waters.
AVENS.--See Herb Bennett.
=AZALEA.=--This handsome shrub is narcotic and poisonous in all its
parts. Xenophon, in his narrative of the ‘Retreat of the Ten Thousand,’
in Asia, after the death of Cyrus, tells how his soldiers became
temporarily stupefied and delirious, as if intoxicated, after partaking
of the honey of Trebizond on the Black Sea. The baneful properties
of this honey arose from the poisonous nature of the blossoms of the
_Azalea Pontica_, from which the bees had collected it.
=BACCHARIS.=--This plant is the _Inula Conyza_, and was called
Baccharis after the god Bacchus, to whom it was dedicated. Virgil
speaks of Baccharis as being used for making garlands, and recommends
it as a plant which is efficacious as a charm for repelling calumny--
“_Bacchari frontem
Cingite, ne vati noceat mala lingua futuro._”
Its English name is the Ploughman’s Spikenard; and it was highly
esteemed by the old herbalists on account of the sweet and aromatic
qualities of its root, from which the ancients compounded an ointment
which was also known as Baccharis.
BACHELOR’S BUTTONS.--See Ranunculus.
=BALBAGA.=--The Indian Grass, _Eleusine Indica_, had, according to
De Gubernatis, the Vedic name of _Balbaja_: and, as a sacred herb,
was employed in Indian religious festivals for litter, in ceremonials
connected with the worship of the sacred Cow.
=BALDMONEY.=--According to Gerarde, the Gentian was formerly called
Baldmoyne and Baldmoney; but Dr. Prior considers that the name
appertains to _Meum athamanticum_, and that it is a corruption of the
Latin _valde bona_, very good. The Grete Herball, speaking of Sistra,
he says, gives the following explanation:--“Sistra is Dyll, some call
it Mew; but that is not so. Howbeit they be very like in properties and
vertue, and be put eche for other; but Sistra is of more vertue then
Mew, and the leaves be lyke an herbe called _Valde Bona_, and beareth
smaller sprigges as Spiknarde. It groweth on hye hylles” (See FELDWODE).
=BALIS.=--This herb was believed by the ancients to possess the
property of restoring the dead to life. By its means Æsculapius himself
was said to have been once resuscitated; and Pliny reports that,
according to the Greek historian Xanthus, a little dog, killed by a
serpent, was brought back to life by this wonderful herb _Balis_.
=BALSAM.=--The seed vessel of this plant contains five cells. When
maturity approaches, each of these divisions curls up at the slightest
touch, and darts out its seeds by a spontaneous movement: hence
its generic name _Impatiens_, and its English appellation _Noli me
tangere_--Touch me not. Gerarde calls it the Balsam Apple, or Apple of
Jerusalem, and tells us that its old Latin name was _Pomum Mirabile_,
or Marvellous Apple. He also states that the plant was highly esteemed
for its property of alleviating the pains of maternity, and that it
was considered a valuable agent to remove sterility--the patient first
bathing and then anointing herself with an oil compounded with the
fruit.----The Turks represent ardent love by this flower.----Balsam is
under the planetary influence of Jupiter.
=BALM.=--The _Melissa_, or Garden Balm, was renowned among the Arabian
physicians, by whom it was recommended for hypochondria and affections
of the heart, and according to Paracelsus the _primum ens Melissa_
promised a complete renovation of man. Drunk in wine, it was believed
to be efficacious against the bitings of venomous beasts and mad dogs.
A variety called Smith’s or Carpenter’s Balm, or Bawm, was noted as a
vulnerary, and Pliny describes it of such magical virtue, that Gerarde
remarks, “though it be but tied to his sword that hath given the wound,
it stancheth the blood.” On account of its being a favourite plant of
the bees, it was one of the herbs directed by the ancients to be placed
in the hive, to render it agreeable to the swarm: hence it was called
_Apiastrum_.----The astrologers claimed the herb both for Jupiter
and the Sun.----In connection with the Garden Balm, Aubrey relates
a legend of the Wandering Jew, the scene of which he places in the
Staffordshire moors. When on the weary way to Golgotha, Jesus Christ,
fainting and sinking beneath the burden of the cross, asked the Jew
Ahasuerus for a cup of water to cool his parched throat, he spurned the
supplication, and bade him speed on faster. “I go,” said the Saviour,
“but thou shalt thirst and tarry till I come.” And ever since that
hour, by day and night, through the long centuries, he has been doomed
to wander about the earth, ever craving for water, and ever expecting
the Day of Judgment, which alone shall end his frightful pilgrimage.
One Whitsun evening, overcome with thirst, he knocked at the door of
a Staffordshire cottager, and craved of him a cup of small beer. The
cottager, who was wasted with a lingering consumption, asked him in and
gave him the desired refreshment. After finishing the beer, Ahasuerus
asked his host the nature of the disease he was suffering from, and
being told that the doctors had given him up, said, “Friend, I will
tell thee what thou shalt do; and by the help and power of Almighty God
above, thou shalt be well. To-morrow, when thou risest up, go into thy
garden, and gather there three Balm-leaves, and put them into a cup of
thy small beer. Drink as often as you need, and when the cup is empty,
fill it again, and put in fresh Balm-leaves every fourth day, and thou
shalt see, through our Lord’s great goodness and mercy, that before
twelve days shall be past, thy disease shall be cured and thy body
altered.” So saying, and declining to eat, he departed and was never
seen again. But the cottager gathered his Balm-leaves, followed the
prescription of the Wandering Jew, and before twelve days were passed
was a new man.
=BALM OF GILEAD.=--The mountains of Gilead, in the east of the Holy
Land, were covered with fragrant shrubs, the most plentiful being the
_Amyris_, which yielded the celebrated Balm of Gilead, a precious gum
which, at a very early period, the Ishmaelites or Arabian carriers
trafficked in. It was to a party of these merchants that Joseph was
sold by his brethren as they came from Gilead, with their camels,
bearing spicery, and Balm, and Myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt
(Gen. xxxvii., 25). There were three productions from this tree, all
highly esteemed by the ancients, viz.: _Xylobalsamum_, a decoction
of the new twigs; the _Carpobalsamum_, an expression of the native
fruit; and the _Opobalsum_, or juice, the finest kind, composed of
the greenish liquor found in the kernel of the fruit. The principal
quantity of Balm has, however, always been produced by excision. The
juice is received in a small earthen bottle, and every day’s produce
is poured into a larger, which is kept closely corked. So marvellous
were the properties of this Balm considered, that in order to test its
quality, the operator dipped his finger in the juice, and then set fire
to it, expecting fully to remain scathless if the Balm was of average
strength. The Balm of Gilead has always had a wonderful reputation as
a cosmetic among ladies. The manner of applying it in the East is thus
given by a traveller in Abyssinia:--“You first go into the tepid bath,
till the pores are sufficiently opened; you then anoint yourself with
a small quantity, and as much as the vessels will absorb: never-fading
youth and beauty are said to be the consequences.” By the Arabs, it
is employed as a stomachic and antiseptic, and is believed by them to
prevent any infection of the plague.----Tradition relates that there is
an aspic that guards the Balm-tree, and will allow no one to approach.
Fortunately, however, it has a weakness--it cannot endure the sound of
a musical instrument. As soon as it hears the approaching torment, it
thrusts its tail into one of its ears, and rubs the other against the
ground, till it is filled with mud. While it is lying in this helpless
condition, the Balm-gatherers go round to the other side of the tree,
and hurry away with their spoil.----Maundevile says that the true
Balm-trees only grew in Egypt (near Cairo), and in India. The Egyptian
trees were tended solely by Christians, as they refused to bear if
the husbandmen were Saracens. It was necessary, also, to cut the
branches with a sharp flint-stone or bone, for if touched with iron,
the Balm lost its incomparable virtue. The Indian Balm-trees grew “in
that desert where the trees of the Sun and of the Moon spake to King
Alexander,” and warned him of his death. The fruit of these Balm-trees
possessed such marvellous properties, that the people of the country,
who were in the habit of partaking of it, lived four or five hundred
years in consequence.
=BAMBOO.=--The _Bambusa Arundinaceæ_ is one of the sacred plants of
India: it is the tree of shelter, audience, and friendship. As jungle
fires were thought to be caused by the stems of Bamboos rubbing
together, the tree derived from that fact a mystic and holy character,
as an emblem of the sacred fire.----Indian anchorites carry a long
Bamboo staff with seven nodes, as a mark of their calling. At Indian
weddings, the bride and bridegroom, as part of the nuptial ceremony,
get into two Bamboo baskets, placed side by side, and remain standing
therein for some specified time. The savage Indian tribe called Garrows
possess neither temples nor altars, but they set up a pillar of Bamboo
before their huts, and decorate it with flowers and tufts of cotton,
and sacrifice before it to their deity. In various parts of India
there is a superstitious belief that the flowering and seeding of
various species of Bamboo is a sure prognostication of an approaching
famine.----Europeans have noticed, as an invariable rule, in Canara,
that when the Bamboos flower and seed, fever prevails. At the foot of
the Ghauts, and round Yellapûr, it has been observed that when the
Bamboos flowered and seeded, fever made its appearance, few persons
escaping it. During blossom, the fever closely resembles hay fever at
home, but the type becomes more severe as the seeds fall.----The poor,
homeless fishermen of China, to supply themselves with vegetables,
have invented a system of culture which may move with them, and they
thus transport their gardens wherever they may go. This they do by
constructing rafts of Bamboo, which are well woven with weeds and
strong grass, and then launched on the water and covered with earth.
These floating gardens are made fast to the stern of their junks and
boats, and towed after them.
=BANANA.=--The Banana (_Musa sapientum_) and the Plantain (_M.
paradisiaca_) are so closely related, as to be generally spoken of
together. The Banana has been well designated the king of all fruit,
and the greatest boon bestowed by Providence on the inhabitants of hot
countries. According to Gerarde, who calls it in his Herbal, Adam’s
Apple Tree, it was supposed in his time by the Grecians and Christians
inhabiting Syria, as well as by the Jews, to be that tree of whose
fruit Adam partook at Eve’s solicitation--the Tree of the Knowledge of
Good and Evil, planted by the Lord Himself in the midst of the Garden
of Eden. It has also been supposed that the Grapes brought by the
Israelites’ spies to Moses out of the Holy Land, were in reality the
fruit of the Banana-tree.----In the Canary Islands, the Banana is never
cut across with a knife because it then exhibits a representation of
the Crucifixion. Gerarde refers to this mark, remarking that the fruit
“pleaseth and entiseth a man to eate liberally thereof, by a certaine
entising sweetnesse it yields; in which fruit, if it be cut according
to the length, oblique, transverse, or any other way, whatsoever, may
be seene the shape and forme of a crosse, with a man fastened thereto.
My selfe have seene the fruit, and cut it in pieces, which was brought
me from Aleppo, in pickle: the crosse, I might perceive, as the form
of a spred-Egle in the root of Ferne; but the man I leave to be sought
for by those which have better eies and judgement than my selfe.”----A
certain sect of Brahmans, called Yogis, place all their food in the
leaves of the Plantain, or Apple of Paradise, and other large leaves;
these they use dry, never green, for they say that the green leaves
have a soul in them; and so it would be sinful.
=BANYAN TREE.=--The Indian Fig-tree (_Ficus Indica_), of which one of
the Sanscrit names is _Bahupâda_, or the Tree of Many Feet, is one of
the sacred trees of India, and is remarkable for its vast size and
the singularity of its growth: it throws out from its lateral branches
shoots which, as soon as they reach the earth, take root, till, in
course of time, a single tree extends itself to a considerable grove.
Pliny described the Banyan with great accuracy, and Milton has rendered
his description almost literally:
“Branching so broad along, that in the ground
The bending twigs take root, and daughters grow
About the mother tree; a pillared shade,
High over-arched, with echoing walks between.
There oft the Indian herdsman, shunning heat,
Shelters in cool, and tends his pasturing herds
At loop-holes cut through thickest shade.”
The Banyan rarely vegetates on the ground, but usually in the crown
of Palms, where the seed has been deposited by birds. Roots are sent
down to the ground, which embrace, and eventually kill, the Nurse-Palm.
Hence, the Hindus have given the Banyan the name of _Vaibâdha_ (the
breaker), and invoke it in order that it may at the same time break
the heads of enemies.----In the Indian mythology, the Banyan is
often confounded with the Bo-tree, and hence it is given a place in
heaven, where an enormous tree is said to grow on the summit of the
mountain Supârsva, to the south of the celestial mountain Meru, where
it occupies a vast space. Beneath the pillared shade of the Banyan,
the god Vishnu was born. His mother had sought its shelter, but she
was sad and fearful lest the terrible Kansa should put to death her
seventh babe, Vishnu, as he had already done her first six. Yasodâ, to
console the weeping mother, gave up her own infant daughter, who was
at once killed by Kansa’s servants; but Vishnu was saved. It is, says
De Gubernatis, at the foot of a gigantic Banyan, a _Bhândîra_, near
Mount Govardhana, that the Buddhist Vishnu plays with his companions,
and, by his presence, illuminates everything around him. The Banyan of
the Vedas is represented as being peopled with Indian parroquets, who
eat its fruit, which, however, does not exceed a Hazel-nut in size.
The Chinese Buddhists represent that Buddha sits under a Banyan-tree,
turned towards the East, to receive the homage of the god Brahma. Like
the sacred Bo-tree, the Banyan is regarded not only as the Tree of
Knowledge, but also as the tree of Indian seers and ascetic devotees.
Wherever a Bo-tree or a Banyan has stood, the place where it formerly
flourished is always held sacred.----There is in India a Banyan-tree
that is the object of particular veneration. It grows on the banks
of the Nerbudda, not far from Surat, and is the largest and oldest
Banyan in the country. According to tradition, it was planted by the
Seer Kabira, and is supposed to be three thousand years old. It is
said to be the identical tree visited by Nearchus, one of the officers
of Alexander the Great. The Hindus never cut it or touch it with
steel, for fear of offending the god concealed in its sacred foliage.
De Gubernatis quotes the following description of this sacred tree
given by Pietro Della Valle at the commencement of the seventeenth
century:--“On one side of the town, on a large open space, one sees
towering a magnificent tree, similar to those which I had noticed near
Hormuz, and which were called _Lul_, but here were known as _Ber_.
The peasants of this country have a profound veneration for this
tree, both on account of its grandeur and its antiquity: they make
pilgrimages to it, and honour it with their superstitious ceremonies,
believing that the goddess Pârvatî, the wife of Mahâdeva, to whom it
is dedicated, has it under her protection. In the trunk of this tree,
at a little distance from the ground, they have roughly carved what
is supposed to be the head of an idol, but which no one can recognise
as bearing any semblance to a human being; however, like the Romans,
they paint the face of the idol red, and adorn it with flowers, and
with leaves of a tree which they call here _Pan_, but in other parts
of India _Betel_. These flowers and leaves ought to be always fresh,
and so they are often changed. The pilgrims who come to visit the
tree receive as a pious souvenir the dried leaves which have been
replaced by fresh ones. The idol has eyes of gold and silver, and is
decorated with jewellery offered by pious persons who have attributed
to it the miraculous cure of ophthalmic complaints they have suffered
from.... They take the greatest care of the tree, of every branch, nay,
of every leaf, and will not permit either man or beast to damage or
profane it. Other Banyan or Pagod trees have obtained great eminence.
One near Mangee, near Patna, spread over a diameter of three hundred
and seventy feet, and it required nine hundred and twenty feet to
surround the fifty or sixty stems by which the tree was supported.
Another covered an area of one thousand seven hundred square yards;
and many of almost equal dimensions are found in different parts of
India and Cochin-China.”----In the _Atharvaveda_ mention is made
of an all-powerful amulet, which is a reduction, on a small scale,
of a Banyan-tree, possessing a thousand stems, to each of which is
attributed a special magical property.
=BAOBAB.=--The leviathan Baobab (_Adansonia_) is an object of
reverential worship to the negroes of Senegal, where it is asserted
that some of these trees exist which are five thousand years old. It
is reputed to be the largest tree in the world, and may readily be
taken at a distance for a grove: its trunk is often one hundred feet
in circumference; but its height is not so wonderful as its enormous
lateral bulk. The central branch rises perpendicularly, the others
spread out in all directions, and attain a length of sixty feet,
touching the ground at their extremities, and equalling in bulk the
noblest trees. The wood is spongy and soon decays, leaving the trunks
hollow. In these hollow trunks the negroes suspend the dead bodies of
those who are refused the honour of burial; and in this position the
bodies are preserved without any process of embalming. The magnificent
snowy blossoms are regarded with peculiar reverence at the instant they
open into bloom. The leaves are used medicinally, and as a condiment;
dried and powdered, they constitute Lalo, a favourite article with
the Africans, who mix it daily with their food, to prevent undue
perspiration; a fibre is obtained from the bark that is so strong as
to have given rise in Bengal to the saying, “As secure as an elephant
bound with a Baobab rope.” The gourd-like fruit, called Monkey-bread
and Ethiopian Sour Gourd, is also eaten, and is prized for its
febrifugal qualities.
=BARBERRY.=--The Barberry (_Berberis vulgaris_) was formerly called
the Pipperidge-bush, and was regarded with superstitious dislike by
farmers, who believed that it injured Wheat crops, even if growing a
hundred yards off, by imparting to the Corn the fungus which causes
rust.----In Italy, the Barberry is looked upon as the Holy Thorn,
or the plant which furnished the crown of Thorns used at our Lord’s
crucifixion: it seems to be so regarded because its Thorns grow
together in sets of three at each joint of the branch.----The Barberry
is under the dominion of Venus.
=BARLEY.=--Barley is a symbol of riches and abundance. The God Indra
is called “He who ripens Barley,” and in many of their religious
ceremonies the Indians introduce this cereal, viz., at the birth of an
infant, at weddings, at funerals, and at certain of their sacrificial
rites.----Barley is claimed by astrologers as a notable plant of Saturn.
=BAROMETZ.=--The Barometz, or Scythian Lamb (_Polypodium Barometz_),
is a name given to a Fern growing in Tartary, the root of which, says
Prof. Martyn, from the variety of its form, is easily made by art to
take the form of a lamb (called by the Tartars _Borametz_), “or rather
that of a rufous dog, which the common names in China and Cochin-China
imply, namely, _Cau-tich_ and _Kew-tsie_.” The description given of
this strange Fern represents the root as rising above the ground in an
oblong form, covered all over with hairs: towards one end it frequently
becomes narrower and then thicker, so as to give somewhat of the
shape of a head and neck, and it has sometimes two pendulous hairy
excrescences resembling ears; at the other end a short shoot extends
out into a tail. Four fronds are chosen in a suitable position, and are
cut off to a proper length, to represent the legs: and thus a vegetable
lamb is produced. Loureiro affirms that the root, when fresh cut,
yields a juice closely resembling the blood of animals.----Kircher has
given a figure of the Tartarian Lamb, in which the lamb is represented
as the fruit of some plant on the top of a stalk.----Parkinson, in
the frontispiece to his _Paradisus Terrestris_, has depicted this
Lamb-plant as growing in the Garden of Eden, where it appears to be
browsing on the surrounding herbage.----Scaliger has given a detailed
account of the Barometz, which he calls “a wondrous plant indeed among
the Tartars.” After remarking that Zavolha is the most considerable of
the Tartar hordes, he proceeds:--“In that province they sow a seed not
unlike the seed of a Melon, except that it is not so long. There comes
from it a plant which they call Borametz, that is to say, a lamb; and,
indeed, the fruit of that plant has exactly the shape of a lamb. We
see distinctly all the exterior parts--the body, the feet, the hoofs,
the head, and the ears; there wants, indeed, nothing but the horns,
instead of which it has a sort of wool that imitates them not amiss.
The Tartars fleece it, and make themselves caps of the skin. The pulp
that is within the fruit is very much like the flesh of crabs. Cut it,
and the blood gushes out, as from a wounded animal. This lamb feeds
itself upon all the grass that grows around it, and when it has eaten
it all up, it dries and dies away. But what perfects the similitude
between the Borametz and a lamb is that the wolves are very greedy of
this fruit, which no other animals ever care for.”----The elder Darwin,
in his poem on ‘The Loves of the Plants,’ makes the following allusion
to the Barometz:--
“Cradled in snow and fanned by Arctic air,
Shines, gentle Barometz! thy golden hair;
Rooted in earth, each cloven hoof descends,
And round and round her flexile neck she bends;
Crops the gray coral Moss and hoary Thyme,
Or laps with rosy tongue the melting rime,
Eyes with mute tenderness her distant dam,
Or seems to bleat, a _vegetable Lamb_.”
=BASIL.=--The English name of the _Ocymum basilicum_ is derived from
the Greek _basilikon_, royal, probably from its having been used in
some royal unguent, bath, or medicine.----Holy Basil, or _Tulasî_
(_Ocymum sanctum_), is by the Hindus regarded as a most sacred herb,
and they have given one of its names to a sacred grove of their
Parnassus, on the banks of the Yamuna. This holy herb is grown in
pots near every temple and dwelling of devout Hindus. It is sacred
to Vishnu, Kushna, and Lakshmi, but all the gods are interested in
it. Narada, the celestial sage, has sung the praises of the immortal
plant, which is perfection itself, and which, whilst protecting from
every misfortune those who cultivate it, sanctifies and guides them
to heaven. For this double sanctity it is reared in every Hindu
house, where it is daily watered and worshipped by all the members
of the household. Perhaps, also, it was on account of its virtues
in disinfecting and vivifying malarious air that it first became
inseparable from Hindu houses in India as the protecting spirit or
Lar of the family. The pious Hindus invoke the divine herb for the
protection of every part of the body, for life and for death, and
in every action of life; but above all in its capacity of ensuring
children to those who desire to have them. Among the appellations
given to the _Tulasî_ are--“propitious,” “perfumed,” “multi-leaved,”
“devil-destroying,” &c. The root is made into beads, which are worn
round the neck and arms of the votaries of Vishnu, who carry also
a rosary made of the seeds of the Holy Basil or the Sacred Lotus.
De Gubernatis has given some interesting details of the _Tulasî_
cultus:--“Under the mystery of this herb,” he says, “created with
ambrosia, is shrouded without doubt the god-creator himself. The
worship of the herb _Tulasî_ is strongly recommended in the last part
of the _Padmapurâna_, consecrated to Vishnu; but it is, perhaps, no
less adored by the votaries of Siva; Krishna, the popular incarnation
of the god Vishnu, has also adopted this herb for his worship; from
thence its names of _Krishna_ and _Krishnatulasî_. Sîtâ, the epic
personification of the goddess Lakshmî, was transformed, according to
the _Râmâyana_, into the _Tulasî_, from whence the name of _Sitâhvayâ_
given to the herb.” Because of the belief that the Tulasî opens the
gates of heaven to the pious worshipper, Prof. De Gubernatis tells us
that “when an Indian dies, they place on his breast a leaf of _Tulasî_;
when he is dead, they wash the head of the corpse with water, in which
have been dropped, during the prayer of the priest, some Flax seeds
and _Tulasî_ leaves. According to the _Kriyâyogasâras_ (xxiii.), in
religiously planting and cultivating the _Tulasî_, the Hindu obtains
the privilege of ascending to the Palace of Vishnu, surrounded by ten
millions of parents. It is a good omen for a house if it has been
built on a spot where the _Tulasî_ grows well. Vishnu renders unhappy
for life and for eternity infidels who wilfully, or the imprudent who
inadvertently, uproot the herb _Tulasî_: no happiness, no health, no
children for such! This sacred plant cannot be gathered excepting with
a good and pious intention, and above all, for the worship of Vishnu
or of Krishna, at the same time offering up this prayer:--‘Mother
_Tulasî_, be thou propitious. If I gather you with care, be merciful
unto me, O _Tulasî_, mother of the world, I beseech you.’”----Like the
Lotus, the Basil is not only venerated as a plant sacred to the gods,
but it is also worshipped as a deity itself. Hence we find the herb
specially invoked, as the goddess Tulasî, for the protection of every
part of the human frame, from the head to the feet. It is also supposed
that the heart of Vishnu, the husband of the Tulasî, is profoundly
agitated and tormented whenever the least sprig is broken of a plant
of Tulasî, his wife.----In Malabar, sweet Basil is cultivated as a
sacred plant, under the name of Collo, and kept in a little shrine
placed before the house.----In the Deccan villages, the fair Brahminee
mother may be seen early every morning, after having first ground the
corn for the day’s bread and performed her simple toilet, walking with
glad steps and waving hands round and round the pot of Holy Basil,
planted on the four-horned altar built up before each house, invoking
the blessings of heaven on her husband and his children. The herb is
planted largely on the river banks, where the natives bathe, as well as
at the entrance to their temples. They believe that the deities love
this herb, and that the god Ganavedi abides in it continually. When
travelling, if they cannot obtain the herb, they draw the form of the
plant on the ground with its root.----It is difficult to understand
why so sacred and so fragrant a herb as Sweet Basil should have become
the symbol of Hatred, unless it be because the ancients sometimes
represented Poverty by the figure of a female clothed in rags, and
seated by a plant of Basil. The ancient Greeks thought that when Basil
was sown, the act should be accompanied by abuse, without which it
would not flourish. Pliny also records that it throve best when sown
with cursing and railing. This explains the French saying, “_Semer
le Basilic_,” equivalent to slandering.----The plant has a decided
funereal symbolism. In Persia, where it is called _Rayhan_,
“the Basil-tuft, that waves
Its fragrant blossom over graves,”
is usually found in cemeteries. In Egypt, the same plant is scattered
over the tombs by the women who go twice or oftener a week to pray and
weep at the sepulchres of the dead. In Crete, the Basil is considered
a symbol of the Evil One, although it is to be found on every
window-ledge. It is unfortunate to dream of Basil, for it is supposed
to betoken grief and misfortune. It was probably these sinister and
funereal associations of the plant that induced Boccaccio to make the
unhappy Isabella conceal her murdered lover’s head by planting Basil
in the pot that contained it; although it is surmised that the author
of the ‘Decameron’ obtained the idea from Grecian sources.----It is,
however, satisfactory to find that in Italy the Basil is utilised for
other than funereal purposes. De Gubernatis tells us that in some
districts pieces of Basil are worn by maidens in their bosoms or at
their waists, and by married women in their hair: they believe also
that the perfume of Basil engenders sympathy, from which comes its
familiar name, _Bacia-nicola_--Kiss me, Nicholas! Rarely does the young
peasant girl pay a visit to her sweetheart without affixing behind her
ear a sprig of Basil, which she takes special care not to part with, as
that would be a token of scorn. In Turkey, they call Basil, _Amorino_.
In Moldavia, the Basil is regarded as an enchanted flower, whose spells
can stop the wandering youth upon his way, and make him love the maiden
from whose hand he shall accept a sprig.----In the East, Basil seeds
are employed to counteract the poison of serpents: in India the leaves
are used for the same purpose, as well as for the cure of several
diseases. Gerarde says that “they of Africke do also affirme that they
who are stung of the scorpion, and have eaten of it, shall feele no
paine at all.” Orisabius likewise asserts that the plant is an antidote
to the sting of those insects; but, on the other hand, Hollerius
declares that it propagates scorpions, and that to his knowledge an
acquaintance of his, through only smelling it, had a scorpion bred
in his brain.----Lord Bacon, in his Natural History, states that if
Basil is exposed too much to the sun, it changes into Wild Thyme,
although the two herbs seem to have small affinity. Culpeper quaintly
remarks: “Something is the matter; this herb and Rue will never grow
together--no, nor near one another; and we know the Rue is as great an
enemy to poison as any that grows.” Gerarde, however, tells us that
the smell of Basil is good for the heart and for the head.----The
plant is a paradox:--sacred and revered, yet dedicated to the Evil
One; of happy augury, yet funereal; dear to women and lovers, yet
emblem of hatred; propagator of scorpions, yet the antidote to their
stings.----Astrologers rule that Basil is a herb of Mars, and under the
Scorpion, and therefore called Basilicon.
=BAUHINIA.=--The leaves of the Bauhinia or Ebony-tree are two-lobed,
or twin--a character, which suggested to Plumier the happy idea of
naming the genus after the two famous brothers, John and Caspar Bauhin,
botanists of the sixteenth century.
=BEANS.=--Among the ancients, there appears to have been a
superstitious aversion to Beans as an article of food, arising from the
resemblance of the fruit to a portion of the human body. The Egyptians,
among whom the Sacred Bean was an object of actual worship, would
not partake of it as food, probably on that account; because by so
doing they would be fearful of eating what they considered was human,
and of consuming a soul. By some nations the seed was consecrated to
the gods.----The eating of Beans was interdicted to the Jewish High
Priest on the Day of Atonement from its decided tendency to bring on
sleep.----The goddess Ceres, when bestowing her gifts upon mankind,
expressly excluded Beans. The unhappy Orpheus refused to eat them;
Amphiaraus, the diviner, in order to preserve a clear vision, always
abstained from them; the Flamines, Roman priests, instituted by Numa,
would neither touch nor mention them; and the Grecian philosopher
Pythagoras, who lived only on the purest and most innocuous food,
invariably declined to partake of Beans of any description, giving as
his reason that, in the Bean, he recognised blood, and consequently
an animal, which, as a vegetarian, he could not consume. According to
tradition, the great philosopher, being pursued by his enemies, was
overtaken and killed, solely because, having in his flight reached a
field of Beans, he would not cross it for fear of trampling upon living
beings, the souls of the dead, who had entered temporarily, into the
vegetable existence. Cicero considered that the antipathy to Beans as
an article of food arose from their being considered impure, inasmuch
as they corrupted the blood, distended the stomach, and excited the
passions. Hippocrates considered them unwholesome and injurious to the
eyesight. They were also believed to cause bad dreams, and, moreover,
if seen in dreams, were deemed to portend evil.----One of the Greek
words for Bean is _Puanos_, and at the festival of Puanepsia, held in
the month of October, at Athens, in honour of Apollo, Beans and Pulse,
we are told, were sodden. The Romans offered Beans to their goddess
Carna on the occasion of her festival in the month of June.----The
Lemures, or evil spirits of those who had lived bad lives, according
to a Roman superstition, were in the habit, during the night-time,
of approaching houses, and then throwing Beans against them. The
Romans celebrated festivals in their honour in the month of May,
when the people were accustomed to throw black Beans on the graves
of the deceased, or to burn them, as the smell was supposed to be
disagreeable to the manes. This association of Beans with the dead is
still preserved in some parts of Italy, where, on the anniversary of a
death, it is customary to eat Beans and to distribute them to the poor.
Black Beans were considered to be male, and white female, the latter
being the inferior.----De Gubernatis relates several curious customs
connected with Beans. In Tuscany, the fire of St. John is lighted in
a Bean-field, so that it shall burn quickly. In Sicily, on Midsummer
Eve, Beans are eaten with some little ceremony, and the good St. John
is thanked for having obtained the blessings of a bountiful harvest
from God. At Modica, in Sicily, on October 1st, a maiden in love will
sow two Beans in the same pot. The one represents herself, the other
the youth she loves. If both Beans shoot forth before the feast of
St. Raphael, then marriage will come to pass; but if only one of the
Beans sprouts, there will be betrayal on the part of the other. In
Sicily and Tuscany, girls who desire a husband learn their fate by
means of Beans, in this fashion:--They put into a bag three Beans--one
whole, another without the eye, a third without the rind. Then, after
shaking them up, they draw one from the bag. The whole Bean signifies
a rich husband; the Bean without an eye signifies a sickly husband;
and the Bean without rind a husband without a penny.----The French
have a legend, of one Pipette, who, like our Jack, reaches the sky by
means of a Bean-stalk. In France, some parts of Italy, and Russia, on
Twelfth Night, children eat a cake in which has been baked a white Bean
and a black Bean. The children to whose lot fall the portions of cake
containing the Beans become the King and Queen of the evening.----An
old English charm to cure warts is to take the shell of a broad Bean,
and rub the affected part with the inside thereof; the shell is then
to be buried, and no one is to be told about the matter; then, as the
shell withers away, so will the wart gradually disappear. It is a
popular tradition that during the flowering of the Bean more cases of
lunacy occur than at any other season. In Leap Year, it is a common
notion that broad Beans grow the wrong way, _i.e._, the seed is set in
the pods in quite the contrary way to what it is in other years. The
reason given is that, because it is the ladies’ year, the Beans always
lie the wrong way--in reference to the privilege possessed by the fair
sex of courting in Leap Year. There is a saying in Leicestershire, that
if you wish for awful dreams or desire to go crazy, you have only to
sleep in a Bean-field all night.----Beans are under the dominion of
Venus. To dream of them under any circumstances means trouble of some
kind.
=BEDSTRAW.=--Our Lady’s Bedstraw (_Galium verum_) filled the manger
on which the infant Jesus was laid. In a painting of the Nativity
by N. Poussin, this straw is introduced. From its soft puffy stems
and golden flowers, this grass was in bygone times used for bedding,
even by ladies of rank,--whence the expression of their being “in
the straw.”----_Galium_ was formerly employed to curdle the milk in
cheese-making, and was also used before the introduction of Annatto,
to give a rich colour to Cheshire cheese. The old herbalists affirmed
that the root stirred up amorous desires, if drunk in wine, and that
the flowers would produce the same effect if smelt long enough. Robert
Turner says: “It challenges the preheminence above Maywort, for
preventing the sore weariness of travellers: the decoction of the herb
and flowers, used warm, is excellent good to bath the surbated feet of
footmen and lackies in hot weather, and also to lissome and mollifie
the stiffness and weariness of their joynts and sinews.”----In France,
_Galium_ is considered to be a remedy in cases of epilepsy.----Lady’s
Bedstraw is under the dominion of Venus.
=BEECH.=--Vieing with the Ash in stateliness and grandeur of outline,
the Beech (_Fagus_) is worthily given by Rapin the second place among
trees.
“Mixt with huge Oaks, as next in rank and state,
Their kindred Beech and Cerris claim a seat.”
According to Lucian, the oracles of Jupiter at Dodona were delivered
not only through the medium of the sacred Oaks in the prophetic grove
surrounding the temple, but also by Beeches which grew there. A large
part, if not the whole, of the Greek ship _Argo_ was built of _Fagus_,
or Beech timber, and as certain beams in the vessel gave oracles to
the Argonauts, and warned them against the approach of calamities, it
is probable that some, at least, of these prophetic beams were hewn
from the Dodonæan Beeches. It was from the top of two Beech-trees that
Minerva and Apollo, in the form of vultures, selected to watch the
fight between the Greeks and the Trojans.----The connection of the tree
with the god Bacchus appears to have been confined to its employment in
the manufacture of bowls for wine in the happy time when “No wars did
men molest, and only Beechen bowls were in request.” Cowley alludes to
this in the words--
“He sings the Bacchus, patron of the Vine,
The Beechen bowl foams with a flood of wine.”
Virgil notices the use of its smooth and green bark for receiving
inscriptions from the “sylvan pen of lovers;” and Ovid, in his epistle
from Œnone to Paris, refers to the same custom, gracefully noting that
the name of the fair one would grow and spread with the growth of the
tree:--
“The Beeches, faithful guardians of your flame,
Bear on their wounded trunks Œnone’s name,
And as their trunks, so still the letters grow;
Spread on, and fair aloft my titles show.”
According to a French tradition, a blacksmith, who was one day beating
a bar of red-hot iron on his anvil, raised such a shower of sparks,
that some of them reached the eyes of God himself, who forthwith, in
His wrath, condemned the man to become a bear, with the condition that
he might climb at his pleasure all the trees excepting the Beech.
Changed into a bear, the man was for ever afterwards cogitating how
to uproot the tree. In this legend, the Beech, which is generally
considered a tree of good augury, becomes a specially favoured or
privileged tree. Pliny wrote that it should not be cut for fuel.
Gerarde says of it: “The wood is hard and firme, which being brought
into the house there follows hard travail of child and miserable
deaths, as it is reported; and therefore it is to be forborne, and not
used as fire wood.” The Beech-tree is believed to be exempt from the
action of lightning, and it is well known that Indians will seek its
shelter during a thunderstorm. It is the Danish symbol.--Astrologers
rule the Beech to be under the dominion of Saturn.
=BELINUNCIA.=--Under the appellation of Kêd, or Ceridwen, the Druids
worshipped the Moon, who was believed to exercise a peculiar influence
on storms, diseases, and certain plants. They consecrated a herb to
her, called _Belinuncia_, in the poisonous sap of which they dipped
their arrows, to render them as deadly as those malignant rays of the
Moon which were deemed to shed both death and madness upon men.
=BEL-TREE.=--The _Ægle Marmelos_, _Bilva_ (Sanscrit), or Bel-tree,
is held sacred in India. Belonging to the same natural order as the
Orange, its leaves, which are divided into three separate leaflets,
are dedicated to the Hindu Trinity, and Indians are accustomed to
carry one of them folded in the turban or sash, in order to propitiate
Siva, and ensure safety from accidents. The wood is used to form the
sacrificial pillars.----The Hindu women of the Punjab throw flowers
into a sacred river, by means of which they can foretell whether or not
they are to survive their husbands: but a much more ingenious rite is
practised by the Newars of Nepaul. To obviate the terrible hardships to
a young Hindu girl of becoming a widow, she is, in the first instance,
married to a Bel-fruit, which is then cast into a sacred river. Should
her future husband prove distasteful to her, this rite enables her to
obtain a divorce; and should the husband die, she can still claim the
title of wife to the sacred Bel-fruit, which is immortal; so that she
is always a wife and never a widow.
BELL-FLOWER.--See Blue-bell, and Campanula.
=BETEL.=--According to Indian traditions, the Betel was brought from
heaven by Arjuna, who, during his journey to Paradise, stole a little
bough of the sacred tree, which, upon his return to earth, he carefully
planted. In remembrance of this celestial origin of the tree, and
of the manner of its introduction to earth, Indians who desire to
plant the Betel invariably steal a few young shoots.----The Betel, or
Pepper-tree (_Piper betle_), is most highly esteemed by the Indian
races, who attribute to its leaves no less than thirty properties or
virtues, the possession of which, even by a plant of heavenly origin,
can scarcely be credited. It is the leaf of the Betel which serves to
enclose a few slices of the Areca Nut (sometimes erroneously called the
Betel Nut); and these, together with a little Chunam or shell-lime, are
what the natives universally chew to sweeten the breath and strengthen
the stomach. The poor, indeed, employ it to keep off the pangs of
hunger. In certain parts of the East, it is not considered polite to
speak to a superior without some of the Betel and Areca compound in
the mouth. At Indian marriage ceremonies, the bride and bridegroom
exchange between themselves the same Areca Nut, with its accompanying
Betel-leaf.----In Borneo, a favoured lover may enter the house of the
loved one’s parents, at night, and awaken her, to sit and eat Betel Nut
and the finest of Sirih-leaves from his garden.
=BETONY.=--The ‘Medicinal Betony,’ as Clare calls it, is _Betonica
officinalis_, and of all the simples praised by old herbalists, both
English and foreign, none (the Vervain excepted) was awarded a higher
place than Wood Betony. Turner, in his ‘Brittish Physician’ (1687),
writes:--“It would seem a miracle to tell what experience I have had
of it. This herb is hot and dry, almost to the second degree, a plant
of Jupiter in Aries, and is appropriated to the head and eyes, for the
infirmities whereof it is excellent, as also for the breast and lungs;
being boiled in milk, and drunk, it takes away pains in the head and
eyes. _Probatum._ Some write it will cure those that are possessed
with devils, or frantic, being stamped and applied to the forehead.”
He gives a list of between twenty or thirty complaints which Betony
will cure, and then says, “I shall conclude with the words I found
in an old manuscript under the virtues of it: ‘More than all this
have been proved of Betony.’” Gerarde gives a similar list, and adds,
that Betony is “a remedy against the bitings of mad dogs and venomous
serpents, being drunk, and also applied to the hurts, and is most
singular against poyson.” There is an old saying that, when a person is
ill, he should sell his coat, and buy Betony.----The Romans were well
acquainted with the medicinal properties of this herb. Pliny wrote of
the marvellous results obtained from its use, and also affirmed that
serpents would kill one another if surrounded by a ring composed of
_Betonica_. Antonius Musa, physician to Augustus, wrote a treatise
on the excellencies of _Betonica_, which he affirmed would cure
forty-seven different ailments. Franzius went so far as to assert that
the wild beasts of the forest, aware of its surpassing virtues, availed
themselves of its efficacy when they were wounded.----At a time when a
belief in witchcraft was rife in England, it was generally understood
that the house where _Herba Betonica_ was sown, was free from all
mischief. In Yorkshire, the Water Betony was formerly called Bishop’s
Leaves. In Italy, at the present day, there are several proverbs
relating to the virtues of Betony, one of which is, “May you have more
virtues than Betony;” and another, “Known as well as Betony.”
=BIGNONIA.=--One of the native names of the _Bignonia Indica_, or
Indian Trumpet-flower, is _Kâmadûti_, or the Messenger of Love.
Under the name of _Patala_, the _Bignonia suaveolens_ is specially
consecrated by the Indians to the god Brahma. The name of _Patala_,
however, is given in the Sanscrit to Durgâ, the wife of Siva, probably
on account of the colour of her idols, which assimilate to the colour
of the flowers of the Bignonia.
=BILBERRY.=--The origin of the Bilberry or Whortleberry (_Vaccinium
Myrtillus_), according to the mythology of the ancients, is as
follows:--Œnomaüs, father of the lovely Hippodamia, chose for his
attendant the young Myrtillus, son of Mercury. Proud of his skill,
he stipulated that all his daughter’s suitors should compete for the
prize in a chariot race with him. Pelops, who was eager to obtain the
beautiful Hippodamia, promised Myrtillus a large reward if he would
take out the linch-pin of his master’s chariot. Myrtillus was not
proof againt the offer: in consequence, the chariot was overturned,
and Œnomaüs mortally injured; but as he expired, he implored Pelops to
avenge him, which he did by throwing the treacherous attendant into
the sea. The waters having borne back his body to the shore, Mercury
changed it to the shrub called after his name, _Myrtillus_, a name
formerly given to the plant producing the Myrtle-berry, a fruit largely
imported in the middle ages, and used in medicine and cookery--of the
same genus as the English Bilberry, which is often found growing on the
sea-shore. The Scotch name of this shrub is Blaeberry, the praises of
which are often sung in Northern ballads.
“Will ye go, lassie, go to the braes of Balquhidder,
Whare the Blaeberries grow ’mong the bonny blooming Heather?”
Bilberries are held by the astrologers to be under Jupiter. (See also
WHORTLEBERRY.)
=BIRCH.=--According to Scandinavian mythology, the Birch (_Betula
alba_) was consecrated to the god Thor, and symbolised the return of
Spring. The Greeks and Romans had not much knowledge of the tree,
but the latter seem to have regarded it with a feeling of dread in
consequence of the _fasces_ of the magistracy being composed of it, as
now, says Evelyn, “are the gentler rods of our tyrannical pedagogues
for lighter faults.” According to Pliny, the celebrated books which
Numa Pompilius composed seven hundred years before Christ, and which
were buried with him, were written on the bark of the Birch-tree.----It
is in the northern countries of Europe that the Birch flourishes, and
it is there the tree is held in the highest esteem. The Russians have
a proverb that the Birch excels in four qualities:--It gives light
to the world (with Birch-boughs torches are made); it stifles cries
(from Birch they extract a lubricant which they apply to the wheels of
carriages); it cleanses (in Russian baths, to promote perspiration,
they scourge the body with branches of Birch); it cures diseases (by
incision they obtain a liquor stated to have all the virtues of the
spirit of salt, and from which a wine is distilled, excellent as a
cordial and useful in cases of consumption). Moreover, in Russia,
the oil of the Birch is used as a vermifuge and a balsam in the cure
of wounds. In fact, to the peasants of the North, the Birch is as
beneficent as is the Palm to the Indians. No wonder, then, that the
Russians are very fond of the Birch, and surround their dwellings
with it; believing, as they do, that this tree is never struck by
lightning.----On the Day of Pentecost, it is a custom among young
Russian maidens to suspend garlands on the trees they love best, and
they are careful to tie round the stems of the Birch-trees a little
red ribbon as a charm to cause them to flourish and to protect them
from the Evil Eye. De Gubernatis quotes from a Russian author named
Afanassief, who tells us of a Birch that showed its appreciation
of the kindly attentions of a young girl in decking its stem, by
protecting her from the persecutions of a witch, who had become her
step-mother; and the same author makes mention of a certain white
Birch, which grew in the island of Buian, on the topmost of whose
branches it was currently believed the Mother of God might be seen
sitting.----Grohmann, a German writer, recounts the legend of a young
shepherdess, who was spinning in the midst of a forest of Birch-trees,
when suddenly the Wild Woman of the forest accosted her. The Wild Woman
was dressed in white, and had a garland of flowers upon her head:
she persuaded the shepherdess to dance with her, and for three days
kept up the dance until sunset, but so lightly that the grass under
her feet was neither trampled upon nor bent. At the conclusion of the
dance, all the yarn was spun, and the Wild Woman was so satisfied, that
she filled the pocket of the little shepherdess with Birch-leaves,
which soon turned into golden money.----Professor Mannhardt, says De
Gubernatis, divulges to us the means employed by the Russian peasants
to evoke the Lieschi, or Geni of the forest. They cut down some very
young Birch-trees, and arrange them in a circle in such a manner
that the points shall be turned towards the middle: they enter this
circle, and then they call up the spirit, who forthwith makes his
appearance. They place him on the stump of one of the felled trees,
with his face turned towards the East. They kiss his hand, and, whilst
looking between his legs, they utter these words:--“Uncle Lieschi,
show yourself to us, not as a grey wolf, not as a fierce fire, but as
I myself appear.” Then the leaves of the Aspen quiver and tremble,
and the Lieschi shows himself in human form, and is quite disposed to
render no matter what service to him who has conjured him--provided
only that he will promise him his soul.----De Gubernatis relates one
other anecdote respecting the Birch, which he says to the Esthonian
is the living personification of his country. It is related that an
Esthonian peasant noticed a stranger asleep beneath a tree at the
moment when it was struck by lightning. He awoke him. The stranger,
thanking him for his good offices, said: “When, far from your native
country, and feeling sorrowful and home-sick, you shall see a crooked
Birch, strike and ask of it: ‘Is the crooked one at home?’” One day the
peasant, who had become a soldier, and was serving in Finland, felt
dispirited and unhappy, for he could not help thinking of his home and
the little ones he had left behind. Suddenly he sees the crooked Birch!
He strikes it, and asks: “Is the crooked one at home?” Forthwith the
mysterious stranger appears, and, calling to one of his spirits, bids
him instantly transport the soldier to his native country, with his
knapsack full of silver.----The Swedes have a superstition that our
Saviour was scourged with a rod of the dwarf Birch, which was formerly
a well-grown tree, but has ever since that day been doomed to hide
its miserable and stunted head. It is called _Láng Fredags Ris_, or
Good Friday rod.----In France, it was in mediæval times the custom
to preserve a bough of the Birch as a sacred object. In the country
districts around Valenciennes, it is an old custom for lovers to hang
a bough of Birch or Hornbeam over the doorway of his lady-love. In
Haute Bretagne, as a charm to strengthen a weakly infant, they place
in its cot Birch-leaves, which have been previously dried in an oven.
There is an old English proverb, “Birchen twigs break no bones,” which
has reference to the exceedingly slender branches of the tree.----In
former days, churches were decked with boughs of the Birch, and
Gerarde tell us that “it serveth well to the decking up of houses
and banqueting-rooms, for places of pleasure, and for beautifying of
streets in the crosse and gang [procession] weeke, and such like.”
According to Herrick, it was customary to use Birch and fresh flowers
for decorative purposes at Whitsuntide:--
“When Yew is out, then Birch comes in,
And many flowers besides;
Both of a fresh and fragrant kinne,
To honour Whitsontide.”
The Scotch Highlanders think very highly of the Birch, and turn it to
all sorts of uses. With Burns, the budding Birch was a prime favourite
in the Spring-time. The Scotch proverb, which says of a very poor man
that he is “Bare as a Birk at Yule e’en,” probably refers to an old
custom of stripping the bark of the tree prior to converting it into
the yule log. The tree known in the Highlands as the Drooping Birk is
often grown in churchyards, where, as Scott says, “Weeps the Birch of
silver bark with long dishevell’d hair.” In Scottish ballads, the Birch
is associated with the dead, and more especially with the wraiths or
spirits of those who appear to be living after death. The following is
a good example:--
“I dreamed a dreary dream last nicht;
God keep us a’ frae sorrow!
I dreamed I pu’d the Birk sae green
Wi’ my true love on Yarrow.
“I’ll redde your dream, my sister dear,
I’ll tell you a’ your sorrow;
You pu’d the Birk wi’ your true love;
He’s killed, he’s killed on Yarrow.”
The Birch-tree is held to be under the dominion of Venus.
BITTER-SWEET.--See Solanum.
=BITTER VETCH.=--The Orobus, or Bitter Vetch, is supposed to represent
the herb mentioned in a passage in Pulci, which relates how an
enchanter preserves two knights from starvation, during a long journey,
by giving them a herb which, being held in the mouth, answers all the
purposes of food.----The Scotch Highlanders have a great esteem for the
tubercles of the Orobus root (which they call Corr or Cormeille); they
use them as masticatories, to flavour their liquor. They also affirm
that by the use of them they are enabled to repel hunger and thirst
for a considerable time. In times of scarcity, the roots have served
as a substitute for bread, and many think that the Bitter Vetch is the
_Chara_, mentioned by Cæsar, as affording food to his famished soldiers
at the siege of Dyrrhachium. The seeds, ground and tempered with wine,
were applied to heal the bitings of dogs and venomous beasts.
BLACK-THORN.--See Thorn.
BLAEBERRY.--See Bilberry and Whortleberry.
=BLUE-BELL.=--The Blue-bells of Scotland have long since become
household words. The flower (_Campanula latifolia_) is the finest and
most stately of the species, and although common enough on its native
hills, is scarce in England. It is associated with the feast of St.
George. (See CAMPANULA.)
BLUE-BOTTLE and BLUET.--See Centaury.
BO-TREE.--See Peepul.
=BORAGE.=--In former days, Borage (_Borago officinalis_) was noted as
one of the four “cordial flowers” most deserving of esteem for cheering
the spirits--the other three being the Rose, Violet, and Alkanet. Pliny
called Borage _Euphrosynum_, because it made men merry and joyful: and
to the same purport is the old Latin rhyme, “_Ego Borago gaudia semper
ago_.” All the old herbalists praise the plant for its exhilarating
effects, and agree with Pliny that when put into wine the leaves and
flowers of Borage make men and women glad and merry, driving away all
sadness, dulness, and melancholy. The “cool tankard” of our forefathers
was a beverage composed of the young shoots and blossoms of Borage
mingled with wine, water, lemon, and sugar. Lord Bacon was of opinion
that “if in the must of wine or wort of beer, while it worketh, before
it be tunned, the Burrage stay a short time, and be changed with fresh,
it will make a sovereign drink for melancholy passion.”----Borage,
astrologers tell us, is one of Jupiter’s cordials.
=BOX.=--The evergreen Box (_Buxus semperviva_) was specially
consecrated by the Greeks to Pluto, the protector of all evergreen
trees, as being symbolical of the life which continues through the
winter in the infernal regions, and in the other world.----A curious
superstition existed among the ancients in regard to the Box: although
it very much resembles the Myrtle, which was held sacred to Venus,
yet they carefully refrained from dedicating the Box to that goddess,
because they were afraid that through such an offering they would lose
their virility. They also, according to Bacon, entertained the belief
that the Box produced honey, and that in Trebizonde the honey issuing
from this tree was so noxious, that it drove men mad. Corsican honey
was supposed to owe its ill repute to the fact that the bees fed upon
Box. The Box is referred to by the Prophet Isaiah in his description of
the glory of the latter days of the Church: “The glory of Lebanon shall
come unto thee, the Fir-tree, the Pine-tree, and the Box-tree together,
to beautify the place of my sanctuary.” It is thought, also, to be the
Ashur-wood of the Scriptures, and to be referred to by Ezekiel when,
in describing the splendour of Tyre, he alludes to the benches of the
rowers as made of Ashur wood, inlaid with ivory. That the ancients were
accustomed to inlay Box-wood with ivory we know from Virgil and other
writers, who allude to this practice.----The Jews employ branches of
Box in erecting their tents at the Feast of Tabernacles.----Boughs of
Box were used formerly for decorative purposes, instead of the Willow,
on Palm Sundays. According to Herrick, it was once a time-honoured
custom on Candlemas Day to replace the Christmas evergreens with sprigs
of Box, which were kept up till Easter Eve, when they gave place to Yew.
“Down with the Rosemary and Bays,
Down with the Mistletoe;
Instead of Holly now upraise
The greener Box for show.”
Box-boughs were also in olden times regularly gathered at Whitsuntide
for decking the large open fire-places then in vogue.----In several
parts of the North of England, when a funeral takes place, a basin
full of sprigs of Box is placed at the door of the house from which
the coffin is taken up, and each mourner is expected to take a sprig,
and afterwards cast it on the grave of the deceased.----In Turkey, it
is a practice with widows, who go weekly to pray at their husbands’
tomb, to plant a sprig of Box at the head of the grave. The monastery
of St. Christine, in the Pyrenees, assumes the arms of the Knights of
St. Christine, viz., a white pigeon with a cross in its beak, to which
is attached the following legend:--The workmen who were employed to
build the monastery had the greatest difficulty in finding a suitable
foundation. After several ineffectual attempts, they one morning
perceived a white pigeon flying with a cross in its beak. They pursued
the bird, which perched on a Box-tree, but though it flew away on their
near approach, they found in the branches the cross which it had left:
this they took as a good omen, and proceeded successfully to lay the
foundation on the spot where the Box-tree had stood, and completed the
edifice.----To dream of Box denotes long life and prosperity, also a
happy marriage.
=BRACKEN FERN.=--There was formerly a proverb respecting the _Pteris
aquilina_, or common Brake Fern, popular in the country:--
“When the Fern is as high as a spoon,
You may sleep an hour at noon;
When the Fern is as high as a ladle,
You may sleep as long as you’re able;
When the Fern begins to look red,
Then milk is good with brown bread.”
In Ireland, the Bracken Fern is called the Fern of God, from an old
belief that if the stem be cut into three pieces, there will be seen on
the first slice the letter G, on the second O, and on the third D,--the
whole forming the sacred word God. There is still a superstition in
England, probably derived from some holy father, that in the cut
stem of the Bracken Fern may be traced the sacred letters I.H.S. In
Kent, and some other counties, these letters are deciphered as J.C.
In other parts of the country, the marks are supposed to delineate
an Oak, and to have first grown there in memory of the tree in which
King Charles sought shelter during his flight.----An old legend is yet
told, that James, the unfortunate Duke of Monmouth, after the battle
of Sedgemoor, was able to lie concealed for some days beneath the
dense Bracken Ferns; but one day, emerging from his retreat, he sat
down and began cutting some of the Fern-stems which had sheltered him.
Whilst doing this, he was seen by some peasants, who noticed the flash
of a diamond ring on one of his fingers. When, therefore, a reward
was offered soon afterwards for the Duke’s capture, they recalled the
circumstance, and sought for him where he lay concealed among the
Brakes.----Connected with this figure of an Oak in the Bracken-stem,
there is a saying, that if you cut the Bracken slantwise, you’ll see
a picture of an Oak-tree; the more perfect, the luckier your chance
will be. In Germany, the figure portrayed in the stem is popularly
recognised as the Russian Double Eagle. Of still more ancient origin,
however, is the opinion that the figure in the Brake Fern-stem is
that of an eagle, from whence it derived its name of Eagle Fern. In
Henderson’s ‘Folk Lore of the Northern Counties,’ we read that witches
detest the Bracken Fern because it bears on its root the letter C,
the initial of the holy name of Christ, which may be plainly seen
on cutting the root horizontally. It has, however, been suggested
that the letter intended is not the English C, but the Greek Χ,
the initial letter of the word Christos, which resembles closely the
marks on the root of the Bracken. These marks, however, have been also
stated to represent Adam and Eve standing on either side of the Tree of
Knowledge, and King Charles in the Oak. In some parts, lads and lasses
try to discover in the Bracken-stem the initials of their future wife
or husband.----Astrologers state that the Bracken Fern is under the
dominion of Mercury.
=BRAMBLE, or BLACKBERRY.=--The Bramble or Blackberry-bush (_Rubus
fruticosus_) is said to be the burning bush, in the midst of which
Jehovah appeared to Moses. It is the subject of the oldest apologue
extant. We read in Judges ix., 8-15, how Jotham, when bitterly
reproaching the men of Shechem for their ingratitude to his father’s
house, narrated to them, after the Oriental fashion, the parable of
the trees choosing a king, in which their choice eventually fell upon
the Bramble. According to some accounts, it was the Bramble that
supplied the Thorns which were plaited into a crown, and worn by our
Saviour just prior to the Crucifixion.----On St. Simon and St. Jude’s
Day (October 28th) tradition avers that Satan sets his foot on the
Bramble, after which day not a single edible Blackberry can be found.
In Sussex, they say that, after Old Michaelmas Day (10th October), the
Devil goes round the county and spits on the Blackberries. In Scotland,
it is thought that, late in the Autumn, the Devil throws his cloak
over the Blackberries, and renders them unwholesome. In Ireland, there
is an old saying, that “at Michaelmas the Devil put his foot on the
Blackberries;” and in some parts of that country the peasants will tell
their children, after Michaelmas Day, not to eat the _Grian-mhuine_
(Blackberries); and they attribute the decay in them, which about that
time commences, to the operation of the Phooka, a mischievous goblin,
sometimes assuming the form of a bat or bird, at other times appearing
as a horse or goat.----The ancients deemed both the fruit and flowers
of the Bramble efficacious against the bites of serpents; and it was
at one time believed that so astringent were the qualities of this
bush, that even its young shoots, when eaten as a salad, would fasten
teeth that were loose. Gerarde, however, for that purpose recommends
a decoction of the leaves, mixed with honey, alum, and a little
wine, and adds that the leaves “heale the eies that hang out.”----In
Cornwall, Bramble-leaves, wetted with spring water, are employed as a
charm for a scald or burn. The moistened leaves are applied to the burn
whilst the patient repeats the following formula:--
“There came three angels out of the East,
One brought fire, and two brought frost;
Out fire and in frost;
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
Amen.”
A similar incantation to the above is used as a charm for inflammatory
disease. The formula is repeated three times to each one of nine
Bramble-leaves immersed in spring water, passes being meanwhile made
with the leaves _from_ the diseased part. A cure for rheumatism is to
crawl under a Bramble, which has formed a second root in the ground;
and to charm away boils, the sufferer should pass nine times, against
the Sun, under a Bramble-bush growing at both ends. In Devonshire,
a curious charm for the cure of blackhead or pinsoles consisted
in creeping under an arched Bramble. The person affected by this
troublesome malady has to creep on hands and knees under or through
a Bramble three times, with the Sun--that is, from east to west. The
Bramble must be of peculiar growth, forming an arch rooting at both
ends, and if possible reaching into two proprietors’ lands; so that
a Bramble is by preference selected, of which the original root is
in the hedge of one owner, and the end of the branch forming the
arch is rooted in the meadow of another.----The Bramble has funereal
associations, and its young shoots have long been used to bind down the
sods on newly-made graves in village churchyards. Jeremy Taylor, when
commenting on mortality, says, referring to this custom: “The Summer
gives green turf and Brambles to bind upon our graves.”----The Moat
of Moybolgue, in the County of Cavan, is a sacred place in Ireland,
where St. Patrick ministered. According to a legend, Honor Garrigan,
one Sunday during the saint’s lifetime, rode up the hill to church;
but espying a bunch of ripe Blackberries, she dismounted in order to
gather them. Her servant lad remonstrated upon the wickedness of her
breaking her fast before receiving the Holy Communion, but in vain;
his mistress ate the Blackberries, and then her hunger increased to
famine pitch, and she ate the boy and then the horse. St. Patrick,
alarmed by the cries of his congregation, who were afraid the wicked
woman would devour them also, shot her with his bow and arrow--her body
separating into four sections, which were buried in a field outside the
churchyard; St. Patrick prophesying to the terrified crowd that she
would lie quiet till nine times nine of the name of Garrigan should
cross the stream which separated the roads from the churchyard. When
that took place, she would rise again, and devour all before her; and
that would be the way she would be destroyed. The water of the stream
has ever since been held sacred, and effects miraculous cures.----The
Bramble is said to be a plant of Mars. To dream of passing through
places covered with Brambles, portends troubles; if they prick you,
secret enemies will do you an injury with your friends; if they draw
blood, expect heavy losses in trade. To dream of passing through
Brambles unhurt, denotes a triumph over enemies.
BREAKSTONE.--See Saxifrage.
=BROOM.=--The English royal line of Plantagenet undoubtedly derived
its name from the Broom (_Planta genista_), the _Gen_ of the Celts,
the _Genêt_ of the French, and from time immemorial the badge of
Brittany. According to Skinner, the house of Anjou derived the name
of Plantagenet from Fulke, the first earl of that name, who, it is
said, having killed his brother in order that he might enjoy his
principality, afterwards, touched by remorse, undertook a pilgrimage
to Jerusalem as a work of atonement; and being there soundly scourged
with Broom-twigs, which grew plentifully on the spot, he ever after
took the surname of Plantagenet, and bore the _Genêt_ as his personal
cognisance, which was retained by his noble posterity. Another legend,
however, relates that this badge was first adopted by Gefroi, Earl
of Anjou, the father of Henry II., and husband of Matilda, Empress
of Germany. Passing on his way to the battle-field through a rocky
pathway, on either side of which bushes of yellow Broom clung firmly
to the boulders, or upheld the crumbling earth, Gefroi broke off a
branch and fixed it as a plume in his cap, saying, “Thus shall this
golden plant ever be my cognisance--rooted firmly among rocks, and yet
upholding that which is ready to fall.” He afterwards took the name
of Plantagenet (_Planta genista_) and transmitted it to his princely
posterity. His son Henry was called the Royal Sprig of Genista, and
the Broom continued to be the family device down to the last of the
Plantagenets, Richard III. It may be seen on the great seal of Richard
I., its first official heraldic appearance.----In 1234, St. Louis
of France established a new order of Knighthood, called _l’Ordre du
Genest_, on the occasion of his marriage with Queen Marguerite. The
Knights of the Genest wore a chain composed of blossoms of the _Genêt_
(Broom) in gold alternately with white enamelled Fleurs de Lis, from
which was suspended, a gold cross with the motto “_Deus exaltat
humiles_.” One hundred Knights of the Order of the Genest acted as a
body-guard to the King. The order was long held in high esteem, and one
of its recipients was Richard II.----The Broom may well be symbolic
of humility, for, according to a Sicilian legend, it was accursed for
having made such a noise in the garden of Gethsemane during the time
that Jesus Christ was praying there, that His persecutors were thus
enabled to surprise Him. Hemmed in by His enemies, Jesus, turning
towards the traitorous shrub, pronounced on it this malediction:
“May you always make as much noise when you are being burnt.”----In
England, the Broom has always been held as one of the plants beloved by
witches. In Germany, the Broom is the plant selected for decorations
on Whit-Sunday: it is also used as a charm. When a limb has been
amputated, the charmer takes a twig from a Broom, and after pressing
the wound together with it, wraps it in the bloody linen, and lays it
in a dry place, saying:
“The wounds of our Lord Christ
They are not bound;
But these wounds they are bound
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.”
In Tuscany, on the day of the _Fête-Dieu_, it is often employed. In
England, it is considered that if the Broom has plenty of blossoms, it
is the sign of a plentiful grain harvest. In Suffolk and Sussex, there
is a saying that--
“If you sweep the house with blossomed Broom in May,
You are sure to sweep the head of the house away.”
By the old herbalists the Broom was considered a panacea for a
multiplicity of disorders, and Gerarde tells us that no less a
personage than “that worthy Prince of famous memory, Henry VIII., of
England, was wont to drink the distilled water of Broome-floures,
against surfets and diseases thereof arising.”----Broom is under the
planetary influence of Mars.
=BRIONY.=--The poisonous fruit or berries of the Black Briony (_Tamus_)
are supposed to remove sunburns, freckles, bruises, black eyes, and
other blemishes of the skin. Another name of this wild Vine is Our
Lady’s Seal. The root of the White Briony may be made to grow in any
shape by placing it when young in an earthenware mould. In olden times,
designing people by this means obtained roots of frightful forms, which
they exhibited as curiosities, or sold as charms. The anodyne necklace,
which was a profitable affair for one Doctor Turner in the early part
of the present century, consisted of beads made of white Briony-root:
it was believed to assist in cutting the teeth of infants, around whose
neck it was hung.----Briony is under the dominion of Mars.
=BUCKTHORN.=--Of one variety of Buckthorn (_Rhamnus palinurus_) it is
said that Christ’s Crown of Thorns was composed. Of another variety
(_R. Frangula_) the Mongols make their idols, selecting the wood on
account of its rich hue.----The Buckthorn is under the dominion of
Saturn.
=BUGLOSS.=--The Bugloss (_Anchusa_) has been made the emblem of
Falsehood, because the roots of one of its species (_A. tinctoria_) are
used in making rouge for the face. In the wilds of America, the Indians
paint their bodies red with the root of a Bugloss (_Anchusa Virginica_)
indigenous to their country. Galen notices the use of the Bugloss as
a cosmetic in his time, and the rouge made from the roots of this
plant is said to be the most ancient of all the paints prepared for
the face.----Pliny says that the _Anchusa_ was used by the Romans for
colouring and dyeing; and adds, that if a person who has chewed this
plant should spit in the mouth of a venomous creature, he would kill
it.----The Viper’s Bugloss (_Echium vulgare_) derives its name from its
seed being like the head of a viper, and, according to Matthiolus, was
celebrated for curing its bites. Nicander also speaks of the Viper’s
Bugloss as one of those plants which cure the biting of serpents, and
especially of the viper, and that drive serpents away. Dioscorides, as
quoted by Gerarde, writes, “The root drunk with wine is good for those
that be bitten with serpents, and it keepeth such from being stung as
have drunk of it before: the leaves and seeds do the same.”----Bugloss
is reputed to be under the dominion of Jupiter.
=BULRUSH.=--King Midas, having preferred the singing of Marsyas, the
satyr, to that of Apollo, the god clapped upon him a pair of ass’s
ears. The king’s barber saw them, and, unable to keep the secret,
buried it at the foot of a cluster of Bulrushes. These Reeds, shaken by
the wind, continually murmured, “King Midas has ass’s ears.” Both the
_Scirpus lacustris_ and _Typha latifolia_ (the Reed Mace) are popularly
known as the Bulrush (a corruption of Pole Rush or Pool Rush). The
_Typha_ is depicted by Rubens, and the earlier Italian painters, as
the Reed put into the hands of Jesus Christ upon His crucifixion.
The same Reed is, on certain days, put into the hands of the Roman
Catholic statues of our Saviour. Gerarde calls this Reed Cat’s-tail,
and points out that Aristophanes makes mention of it in his ‘Comedy
of Frogs,’ “where he bringeth them forth, one talking with another,
being very glad that they had spent the whole day in skipping and
leaping among Galingale and Cat’s-tail.”----The Bulrushes, among which
the infant Moses was placed on the banks of the Nile, were Reeds not
unlike the _Typha_. The ark in which he was laid was probably a small
canoe constructed with the same Reed--the _Papyrus Nilotica_, which,
according to Egyptian belief, was a protection from crocodiles. Gerarde
says: “It is thought by men of great learning and understanding in
the Scriptures, and set downe by them for truth, that this plant is
the same Reed mentioned in the second chapter of Exodus, whereof was
made that basket or cradle, which was daubed within and without with
slime of that country, called _Bitumen Judaicum_, wherein Moses was
put, being committed to the water, when Pharaoh gave commandment that
all the male children of the Hebrews should be drowned.”----Boats and
canoes formed of the Papyrus are common in Abyssinia. In South America,
a similar kind of Bulrush is used for a like purpose.----The Bulrush is
under the dominion of Saturn.
=BURDOCK.=--Everyone is acquainted with the prickly burs of the
_Arctium Lappa_, or Burdock, which, by means of their hooks, are
apt to cling so tenaciously to the passer-by. There exists an old
belief among country lads, that they can catch bats by throwing these
burs at them. The plant is also known by the names of Great-bur,
Hur-bur, and Clot-bur, and has an ancient reputation for curing
rheumatism.----It was under the great leaf of a Burdock that the
original Hop-o’-my-Thumb, of nursery-rhyme celebrity, sought refuge
from a storm, and was, unfortunately, swallowed, enclosed in the leaf,
by a passing hungry cow.----In Albania, there is a superstitious belief
that, if a man has been influenced by the demons of the forest, the
evil spirit must be exorcised by the priest; a portion of the ceremony
consisting of the steeping of bread in wine, and spreading it on the
broad leaves of a Burdock.----Venus is the planet under whose rule
astrologers place Burdock.
=BURITI.=--The Buriti Palm (_Mauritia vinifera_) attains, in Brazil,
gigantic proportions, and its rich red and yellow fruit, “like quilted
cannon balls,” hang in bunches five feet long. From it flour, wine, and
butter are made, whilst the fibre of the leaves supplies thread for
weaving, &c. Another species, _M. flexuosa_, flourishes in the valleys
and swamps of South America, where the native Indians regard it with
great reverence, living almost entirely on its products; and, what is
very remarkable, building their houses high up amongst its leaves,
where they live during the floods.
=BURNET.=--The Burnet Saxifrage (_Pimpinella Saxifraga_) appears to be
considered a magical plant in Hungary, where it is called _Châbairje_,
or Chaba’s Salve, from an old tradition that King Chaba discovered
it, and cured the wounds of fifteen thousand of his soldiers after
a sanguinary battle fought against his brother.----In a work on
astrology, purported to be written by King Solomon, and translated
from the Hebrew by Iroé Grego, it is stated that the magician’s
sword ought to be steeped in the blood of a mole and in the juice of
Pimpinella.----In Piedmont, the Pimpinella is thought to possess the
property of increasing the beauty of women.----Burnet is a herb of the
Sun.
=BUTCHER’S BROOM.=--A species of Butcher’s Broom, _Ruscus hypoglossum_,
was the Alexandrian Laurel of the Romans, who formed of this shrub the
so-called Laurel crowns worn by distinguished personages. It is the
Laurel generally depicted on busts, coins, &c.----The name of Butcher’s
Broom was given to this plant because in olden times butchers were in
the habit of sweeping their blocks with hand brooms made of its green
shoots. In Italy, branches of the plant, tied together, are commonly
employed as besoms for sweeping houses; and hucksters place boughs of
it round bacon and cheese to defend them from the mice. The _Ruscus
aculeatus_, besides its ordinary name of Butcher’s Broom, is called
Knee-holme, Knee-pulver, Knee-holly, Pettigree, and sometimes Jews’
Myrtle, because it is sold to the Jews for use during the Feast of the
Tabernacles. In combination with Horse-radish, the plant, boiled for a
decoction, is said to be serviceable in cases of dropsy; and its boughs
are often used in this country for flogging chilblains.----Butcher’s
Broom has been used and claimed by the Earls of Sutherland as the
distinguishing badge of their followers and clan. The present Duke
retains it, and every Sutherland volunteer still wears a sprig of
Butcher’s Broom in his bonnet on field days.----Butcher’s Broom is
under the dominion of Mars.
BUTTERCUPS.--See Ranunculus.
=CABBAGE.=--A Grecian legend recounts that the Cabbage (_Brassica_)
sprang from the tears of Lycurgus, Prince of Thrace, whom Dionysus had
bound to a Vine-stock as a punishment for the destruction of Vines
of which the Prince had been guilty. Perhaps this ancient legend may
account for the belief that the Cabbage, like the Laurel, is inimical
to the Vine; and it may also have given rise to the employment by the
Egyptians and the Greeks of this vegetable as a most powerful remedy
for the intoxication produced by the fruit of the Vine. Bacon, in his
_Sylva Sylvarum_, says: “So the Colewort (Cabbage) is not an enemy
(though that were anciently received) to the Vine onely; but it is an
enemy to any other plant, because it draweth strongly the fattest juyce
of the earth.” He also tells us that “it is reported that the shrub
called Our Ladie’s Seal (which is a kinde of Briony) and Coleworts, set
neare together, one or both will die.” Gerarde says that the Greeks
called the Cabbage _Amethustos_, “not onely because it driveth away
drunkennesse, but also for that it is like in colour to the pretious
stone called the Amethyst.”----The ancient Ionians, in their oaths,
invoked the Cabbage. Nicander calls the Cabbage a sacred plant.----In
Scotland, young women determine the figure and size of their future
husbands by drawing Cabbages, blindfolded, on Hallowe’en.----In some
country places, the housewife considers it a lucky omen if her Cabbages
grow “double,” _i.e._, with two shoots from one root; or “lucker,” that
is, with the leaves spreading open.----A Cabbage stalk or stump is a
favourite steed upon which the “good people,” or fairies, are wont
to travel in the air. Mr. Croker, in his ‘Fairy Legends of Ireland,’
relates that at Dundaniel, a village near Cork, in a pleasant outlet
called Blackrock, there lived not many years ago a gardener named
Crowley, who was considered by his neighbours as under fairy control,
and suffered from what they termed “the falling sickness” resulting
from the fatigue attendant on the journeys which he was compelled to
take; being forced to travel night after night with the good people
on one of his own Cabbage-stumps.----The Italian expressions, “Go
among the Cabbages,” and “Go hide among the Cabbages,” mean to die. In
the North, however, children are told that “Baby was fetched out of
the Cabbage-bed.”----In Jersey, the Palm Cabbage is much cultivated,
and reaches a considerable height. In La Vendée, the Cæsarean Cow
Cabbage grows sixteen feet high. Possibly these gigantic Cabbages
may have given rise to the nursery tales of some of the continental
states, in which the young hero emulates the exploits of the English
Jack and his Bean-stalk, by means of a little Cabbage, which grows
larger and larger, and finally, becoming colossal, reaches the
skies.----In England, there is a nursery legend which relates how the
three daughters of a widow were one day sent into the kitchen garden
to protect the Cabbages from the ravages of a grey horse which was
continually stealing them. Watching their opportunity, they caught him
by the mane and would not be shaken off; so the grey horse trotted away
to a neighbouring hill, dragging the three girls after him. Arrived
at the hill, he commanded it to open, and the widows’ daughters found
themselves in an enchanted palace.----A tradition in the Havel country,
North Germany, relates that one Christmas Eve a peasant felt a great
desire to eat Cabbage, and having none himself, he slipped into a
neighbour’s garden to cut some. Just as he had filled his basket, the
Christ Child rode past on his white horse, and said: “Because thou hast
stolen on the holy night, thou shalt immediately sit in the moon with
thy basket of Cabbage.” The culprit was immediately wafted up to the
moon, and there, as the man in the moon, he is still undergoing his
penalty for stealing Cabbages on Christmas Eve.----To dream of cutting
Cabbages denotes jealousy on the part of wife, husband, or lover, as
the case may be. To dream of anyone else cutting them portends an
attempt by some person to create jealousy in the loved one’s mind. To
dream of eating Cabbage implies sickness to loved ones and loss of
money.----Cabbages are plants of the Moon.
=CACTUS.=--The Cacti are for the most part natives of South America,
where their weird and grotesque columns or stems, devoid of leaves,
dot with green the arid plains of New Barcelona or the dark hillsides
of Mexico and California. They often attain the height of fifty feet,
and live to such an age as to have gained the name of “imperishable
statues.” Standing for centuries, they have been selected to mark
national boundaries, as for instance, between the English and French
possessions in the Island of St. Christopher, West Indies, and they
are also employed as hedges to lanes and roadways. In the arid plains
of Mexico and Brazil, the Cacti serve as reservoirs of moisture, and
not only the natives, by probing the fleshy stems with their long
forest knives, supply themselves with a cool and refreshing juice, but
even the parched cattle contrive to break through the skin with their
hoofs, and then to suck the liquid they contain. The splendid colours
of the Cactus flowers are in vivid contrast with the ugly and ungainly
stems.----There are sundry local legends and superstitions about these
plants of the desert. A certain one poisons every white spot on a
horse, but not one of any other colour. Another, eaten by horses, makes
them lazy and imbecile.----The number of known genera is eighteen, and
there are six hundred species, two of which are specially cultivated,
viz., _Opuntia Cochinellifera_ (Nopal plant), largely grown in Mexico,
as the food plant of the Cochineal insect (_Coccus Cacti_), which
produces a beautiful crimson dye; and _C. vulgaris_, or Prickly Pear,
which is cultivated for its grateful Gooseberry-like fruits in barren
rocky parts of North Africa and Southern Europe.----Peruvian sorcerers
make rag dolls, and stick the thorns of Cactus in them, or hide these
thorns in holes under or about houses, or in the wool of beds and
cushions, that those they wish to harm may be crippled, maddened, or
suffocated.
CALF’S-SNOUT.--See Antirrhinum.
=CAMELLIA.=--The flower of the beauteous Rose of Japan (_Camellia
Japonica_) has been well described as--
“The chaste Camellia’s pure and spotless bloom,
That boasts no fragrance and conceals no Thorn.”
The tree was introduced into Europe in 1639, and is named after G. J.
Kamel, or Camellus, a Moravian Jesuit, and traveller in Asia, who,
returning to Spain from the Isle of Luzon, sought an audience of
Queen Maria Theresa, and presented her with a mother-o’-pearl vase,
in which grew a small shrub with glossy green leaves, bearing two
flowers of dazzling whiteness. Plucking the fair bloom, she ran to the
king’s chamber, which he was pacing in one of his periodical fits of
melancholy. “Behold the new flower of the Philippines,” she cried, as
her husband welcomed her with a fond embrace; “I have kept the best
for you; the other you shall present to-night to Rosalez, who plays
so well in Cinna, at the Theatre del Principe.” Ferdinand pronounced
the flower of which his wife was so enraptured to be “beautiful but
scentless,” but spite of the latter defect, the plant was assiduously
cultivated in the hothouses of El Buen Retiro, and called after the
giver, the Camellia.----In Japan, the Camellia is a large and lofty
tree, greatly esteemed by the natives for the beauty of its flowers and
evergreen foliage, and grown everywhere in their groves and gardens: it
is also a native of China, and figures frequently in Chinese paintings.
The _Camellia Sasanqua_, the _Cha-Hwa_ of the Chinese, has fragrant
flowers, and its dried leaves are prized for the scent obtained from
them; a decoction is used by the ladies of China and Japan as a
hair-wash.----This shrub so resembles the Tea-plant, both in leaf and
blossom, that they are not readily distinguished: the leaves are mixed
with Tea to render its odour more grateful.
=CAMPANULA.=--One of the chief favourites in the family of
Campanulaceæ, or Bell-flowers, is _Campanula Speculum_, or Venus’s
Looking-glass. The English name was given to this little plant
probably because its brilliant corollas appear to reflect the sun’s
rays, although some authorities state that it is so called from the
glossiness of the seeds. Still another derivation is the resemblance
of the flower’s round-shaped bloom to the form of the mirror of the
ancients, which was always circular; and the plant being graceful
and extremely pretty, it was appropriated to the Goddess of Beauty.
The classics, however, ignore all these derivations, and give us the
following account of the origin of the
“Floral bough that swingeth
And tolls its perfume on the passing air.”
In one of her rambles on earth, Venus accidentally dropped a certain
mirror which she was carrying, and which possessed the quality of
beautifying whatever it reflected. A shepherd picked it up; but no
sooner had he gazed upon its wondrous reflecting surface, than he
forgot forthwith his favourite nymph, and it is to be presumed himself
as well; for, like another Narcissus, he became enamoured of his own
visage, and could do nothing but admire his own charms. Cupid, who had
discovered his mother’s loss, and found out how matters stood with
the foolish shepherd, became fearful of the consequences of such a
silly error; he, therefore, broke the magic mirror, and transformed
the glittering fragments into those bright little flowers, which have
ever since been called Venus’s Looking-glass.----Miller mentions
seventy-eight kinds of Campanula, the best known of which are the
Canterbury-bells, Coventry-bells, the Heath-bell, and the Giant
Throat-wort, a flower mentioned by Sir Walter Scott in his poem of
‘Rokeby’:--
“He laid him down,
Where purple Heath profusely strown,
And Throat-wort, with its azure bell,
And Moss, and Thyme, his cushion swell.”
(See also CANTERBURY BELLS).
=CAMPHOR.=--The Camphire or Camphor-tree (_Laurus Camphora_) is
principally found in China and Japan. Camphor is obtained by boiling
the wood of this tree, in which the gum exists, ready formed. The
Arabians at a very early period were acquainted with the virtues of the
Camphor-trees of Sumatra and Borneo, the produce of which is known as
Native Camphor.
CAMPION.--See Lychnis, and Ragged Robin.
=CANDY-TUFT.=--The Iberis, or, as we call it in English, Candy-tuft
(from Candia, whence we first received the plant), is singularly devoid
of any poetical or traditional lore. Old Gerarde tells us that Lord
Edward Zouche sent him some seeds which he sowed in his garden, and
reared in due course. He calls it Candie Mustard, _Thlaspi Candiæ_,
the latter being one of the names by which the plant was known in
France. In that country, more importance seems to have been attached
to the flower, or, at any rate, more notice was taken of it by poets
and literati, for we find that one of the species was distinguished
as being the emblem of architecture, from the fact that its flowers
are disposed in stories from the base to the summit of the stalk,
resembling in some little degree the open columns of one of the most
delicate orders of architecture. Rapin, the French Jesuit poet, alludes
to this flower in his poem on Gardens, and briefly gives the mythology
of _Thlaspis_ in the following lines:--
“Now, on high stems will Matricaria rear
Her silver blooms, and with her will appear
Thlaspis, a Cretan youth, who won the fair:
Happy if more auspicious Hymen’s rites
Had with pure flames adorned their nuptial lights.”
=CANNA.=--The Burmese esteem as sacred the _Bohdda Tharanat_ (_Canna
Indica_, or Indian Shot), so named from its seeds, which are used for
the beads of the rosary. The flowers are red, or sometimes white. The
Burman believes that it sprang from Buddha’s blood; and the legend
relates that his evil-minded brother-in-law and cousin Dewadat, enraged
that he was not allowed to have a separate assembly of his own, went to
the top of a hill, and rolled down a huge stone, intending to destroy
the most excellent payah. But the boulder burst into a thousand pieces,
and only one little piece bruised Buddha’s toe, and drew a few drops
of blood, whence sprang the sacred flower, the _Bohdda Tharanat_. The
renowned physician Zaywaku healed the great teacher’s wound in a single
day. The earth soon afterwards opened and swallowed up the sacrilegious
Dewadat.
=CANTERBURY BELLS.=--The Nettle-leaved Bell-flower, _Campanula
Trachelium_, was so called by Gerarde from growing plentifully in the
low woods about Canterbury, and possibly in allusion to its resemblance
to the hand-bells which were placed on poles, and rung by pilgrims when
proceeding to the shrine of Thomas à Becket--St. Thomas, of England.
There is, however, a tradition extant that the name of Canterbury Bells
was given to the _Campanula_ in memory of St. Augustine.
=CARDAMINE.=--The faint sweet Cuckoo-flower, common in meadows and
by brook sides, is the _Cardamine pratensis_. It was so called, says
Gerarde, because it flowers in April and May, “when the cuckoo doth
begin to sing her pleasant notes without stammering.” The flower is
also called Lady’s Smock, and Our Lady’s Smock, from the resemblance
of its pale flowers to little smocks hung out to dry, as they used to
be once a year, at that season especially. Shakspeare alludes to it in
these lines:--
“When Daisies pied and Violets blue,
And Lady-smocks all silver white,
And Cuckoo-buds of yellow hue,
Do paint the meadows with delight.
When shepherd’s pipe on oaten straws,
And maidens bleach their Summer smocks,” &c.
The Cuckoo-buds here alluded to are supposed to be a species of
Ranunculus; and, perhaps, as the _Cardamine pratensis_ is rather a pale
blue than a silver-white flower, Shakspeare alluded in these lines
to _C. amara_, whose brilliantly-white blossoms might well be taken
for linen laid out to bleach. The plant derives its name _Cardamine_
from its taste of Cardamoms. It is also called Meadow Cress. For some
reason, if this flower was found introduced into a May-day garland,
it was torn to pieces immediately on discovery. Our Lady’s Smock is
associated by the Catholics with the Day of the Annunciation.----The
Cardamine is a herb of the Moon.
=CARDINAL-FLOWER.=--Of the extensive _Lobelia_ family the _L.
Cardinalis_, or Cardinal’s Flower, is, perhaps, the most beautiful.
Its blossoms are of so brilliant a scarlet, as to have reminded the
originator of its name of the scarlet cloth of Rome, while its shape is
not altogether dissimilar to the hat of the Romish dignitary. Alphonse
Karr, remarking on the vivid hue of the Cardinal’s Flower, says that
even the Verbena will pale before it.
=CARLINE THISTLE.=--The white and red Carline Thistles (_Carlina
vulgaris_) derive their name from Charlemagne, regarding whom the
legend relates that once--“a horrible pestilence broke out in his army,
and carried off many thousand men, which greatly troubled the pious
Emperor. Wherefore, he prayed earnestly to God; and in his sleep there
appeared to him an angel, who shot an arrow from the cross-bow, telling
him to mark the plant upon which it fell, for that with that plant he
might cure his army of the pestilence. And so it really happened.” The
plant upon which the arrow alighted was the Carline Thistle, and, as
Gerarde tells us, Charlemagne’s army was, through the benefit of the
root delivered and preserved from the plague.--The Carline Thistle is
under the dominion of Mars.
=CARNATION.=--The Carnation (_Dianthus caryophyllus_) is generally
supposed to have obtained its name from the flesh-colour of its
flowers; but it was more correctly spelt by old writers, Coronation, as
representing the _Vetonica coronaria_ of the early herbalists, and so
called from its flowers being used in the classic _coronæ_ or chaplets.
Thus Spenser, in his ‘Shepherd’s Calendar’ says: “Bring Coronations and
Sops-in-wine, worn of paramours.” From Chaucer we learn that the flower
was formerly called the Clove Gilliflower, and that it was cultivated
in English gardens in Edward the Third’s reign. In those days, it was
used to give a spicy flavour to wine and ale, and from hence obtained
its name of Sop-in-wine:--
“Her springen herbes, grete and smale,
The Licoris and the Setewales,
And many a Clove Gilofre,
--------to put in ale,
Whether it be moist or stale.”
The name Gilliflower (formerly spelt Gyllofer and Gilofre)
is a corruption of the Latin _Caryophyllum_, a Clove (Greek,
_Karuophullon_); and has reference to the spicy odour of the flower,
which was used as a substitute for the costly Indian Cloves in
flavouring dainty dishes as well as liquors. The Gilliflower was also
thought to possess medicinal properties. Gerarde assures us, that “The
conserve made of the flowers of the Clove Gilloflower and sugar is
exceeding cordiall, and woonderfully above measure doth comfort the
heart, being eaten now and then.” It was, also, thought good against
pestilential fevers.----A red Carnation distinguishes several of the
Italian painters. Benvenuto Tisio was called “Il Garofalo,” from his
having painted a Gilliflower in the corner of his pictures.----The
Carnation is under the dominion of Jupiter. (See also GILLIFLOWER).
=CAROB.=--The Carob-tree, or St. John’s Bread (_Ceratonia Siliqua_)
flourishes in the East, and in Palestine (to quote from Gerarde) there
is “such plenty of it, that it is left unto swine and other wilde
beasts to feed upon, as our Acorns and Beech-mast.” Hence it has long
been supposed by many that the shells of the Carob-pod were the husks
which the Prodigal Son was fain to feed upon, although they were what
“the swine did eat; and no man gave unto him’ (Luke xv., 16).----In
Germany, as in England, the Carob obtained the name of St. John’s
Bread, from the popular belief that the Baptist fed upon it whilst in
the wilderness. Gerarde says: “This is of some called Saint John’s
Bread, and thought to be that which is translated Locusts, whereon
Saint John did feed when he was in the wildernesse, besides the wilde
honey whereof he did also eat; but there is small certainty of this;
but it is most certain that the people of that country doe feed on
these pods.” By others it has been supposed that the Locusts on which
John the Baptist fed were the tender shoots of plants, and that the
wild honey was the pulp in the pod of the Carob, whence it derived
the name of St. John’s Bread.----According to a Sicilian tradition,
the Carob is a tree of ill-repute, because it was on one of this
species that the traitor Judas Iscariot hung himself.----In Syria and
Asia Minor, the Carob, venerated alike by Christian and Mussulman, is
dedicated to St. George, whose shrines are always erected beneath the
shadow of its boughs.
=CARROT.=--The wild Carrot (_Daucus Carota_) is also called Bird’s-nest
or Bee’s-nest, because, in its seeding state, the umbel resembles
a nest.----In the reign of James the First, ladies adorned their
head-dresses with Carrot-leaves, the light feathery verdure of which
was considered a pleasing substitute for the plumage of birds.----The
ancient Greeks called the Carrot _Phileon_, because of its connection
with amatory affairs. We read in Gerarde in what this consisted. He
remarks that the Carrot “serveth for love matters; and Orpheus, as
Pliny writeth, said that the use hereof winneth love; which things
be written of wilde Carrot, the root whereof is more effectual
than that of the garden.” According to Galen, the root of the wild
Carrot possessed the power of exciting the passions. The seed was
administered to women under the belief that it induced and helped
conception.----To dream of Carrots signifies profit and strength to
them that are at law for an inheritance, for we pluck them out of the
ground with our hand, branches, strings, and veins.----Carrots are held
to be under Mercury.
=CASHEW.=--The nuts of the Cashew (_Anacardium occidentale_) are
supposed by the Indians to excite the passions. The negroes of the West
Indies say a branch of the Cashew-tree supplied the crown of Thorns
used at our Saviour’s crucifixion, and that, in consequence, one of the
bright golden petals of the flower became black and blood-stained.
=CASSAVA.=--The South American Cassava (_Jatropha Manihot_) is also
known as the edible-rooted physic-nut, and in Brazil it bears the name
of Mandioc. There are two kinds of Cassavas--the bitter and the sweet.
From the roots of both bread is made, the tubers being first peeled and
then ground into farina, and a poisonous juice expressed. Should this
juice be drunk by cattle or poultry, they will become speedily much
swollen, and die in convulsions; but if the same liquid is boiled with
meat, and seasoned, it forms a favourite soup, called by the Brazilians
_Casserepo_. The juice is used by the Indians for the poisoning of
arrows: it is sometimes fermented, and converted into an intoxicating
liquor in great favour with the Indians and negroes. Tapioca is a kind
of starch prepared from the farina of Cassava roots.
=CASSIA.=--The Cassia mentioned by Moses in Exodus xxx., 24 (called in
Hebrew _Kidda_, the bark), was a sweet spice commanded to be used in
the composition of the holy oil employed in the consecration of the
sacred vessels of the Tabernacle. It is supposed to have been the bark
of an aromatic tree, known by the ancients as _Costus_, preparations of
the bark and root of which were sometimes burnt on the pagan altars.
There were three sorts of Costus--the Arabian, the Indian, and the
Syrian; the root of the first of these was most esteemed for its
aromatic properties: it had a fragrant smell similar to the perfume of
Orris or Violets, and was called _Costus dulcis_ or _odoratus_.
=CASSIA-TREE.=--The Cassia, or Senna-tree, belongs to a genus numerous
in species, which are generally diffused in warm countries: among them
is the Moon-tree of the Chinese, and this Cassia is considered by them
to be the first of all medicaments. They have a saying, “The Cassia
can be eaten, therefore it is cut down,” which probably explains their
belief that in the middle of the Moon there grows a Cassia-tree, at
the foot of which is a man who is endeavouring continually to fell it.
This man is one Kang Wou, a native of Si-ho. Whilst under the tuition
of a Geni, he committed a grave fault, for which he was condemned from
henceforth to cut down the Cassia-tree. They call the Moon, therefore,
the _Kueïlan_, or the disk of the Cassia. The Chinese give other
reasons for associating the Cassia with the Moon. They say that it is
the only tree producing flowers with four petals which are yellow--the
colour of a metal, an element appertaining to the West, the region
where the Moon appears to rise. Then the Cassia-flower opens in Autumn,
a period when sacrifices are offered to the Moon; and it has, like the
Moon, four phases of existence. During the seventh Moon (August) it
blossoms. At the fourth Moon (May) its inflorescence ceases. During
the fifth and sixth Moon (June and July) its buds are put forth, and
after these have opened into leaf, the tree again bears flowers.
Anglo-Indians call the _Cassia Fistula_, or Umultuss-tree, the Indian
Laburnum: its long cylindrical pods are imported into England, and a
sugary substance extracted from the pulp between the seeds is commonly
used as a laxative. Gerarde says this pulp of _Cassia Fistula_, when
extracted with Violet water, is a most sweet and pleasant medicine,
and may be given without danger to all weak people of what age and sex
soever. Lord Bacon writes in his Natural History:--“It is reported by
one of the ancients, that Cassia, when it is gathered, is put into
the skins of beasts, newly flayed, and that the skins corrupting, and
breeding wormes, the wormes doe devoure the pith and marrow it, and so
make of it hollow; but meddle not with the barke, because to them it is
bitter.”
=CATCH-FLY.=--The _Silene_, or Catch-fly, received its English name
from its glutinous stalk, from which flies, happening to light upon it,
cannot disengage themselves. Gerarde gives the plant the additional
name of Limewort, and adds, that in his time they were grown in London
gardens, “rather for toies of pleasure than any virtues they are
possessed with.”
=CAT MINT.=--Gerarde, probably copying from Dodoens, says of Cat Mint
or Cat Nep, that “cats are very much delighted herewith, for the smell
of it is so pleasant unto them, that they rub themselves upon it, and
swallow or tumble in it, and also feed on the branches very greedily.”
There is an old proverb respecting this herb--
“If you set it, the cats will eat it;
If you sow it, the cats won’t know it.”
According to Hoffman, the root of the Cat Mint, if chewed, will make
the most gentle person fierce and quarrelsome; and there is a legend
of a certain hangman who could never find courage to execute his task
until he had chewed this aromatic root. Nep or Cat Mint is considered a
herb of Venus.
=CEDAR.=--Numerous are the allusions made in the Bible to the Cedars
of Lebanon (_Cedrus Libani_), the tree which Josephus says was first
planted in Judea by Solomon, who greatly admired this noble tree, and
built himself a palace of Cedar on Lebanon itself. The celebrated
Temple of Solomon was built of hewn stone, lined with Cedar, which
was “carved with knops and open flowers; all was Cedar, there was no
stone seen.” Since King Solomon’s time, the Cedar forest of Lebanon has
become terribly reduced, but Dr. Hooker, in 1860, counted some four
hundred trees, and Mr. Tristram, a more recent traveller in the Holy
Land, discovered a new locality in the mountains of Lebanon, where
the Cedar was more abundant. Twelve of the oldest of these Cedars
of Lebanon bear the title of “Friends of Solomon,” or the “Twelve
Apostles.” The Arabs call all the older trees, saints, and believe an
evil fate will overtake anyone who injures them. Every year, at the
feast of the Transfiguration, the Maronites, Greeks, and Armenians
go up to the Cedars, and celebrate mass on a rough stone altar at
their feet.----The Cedar is made the emblem of the righteous in the
92nd Psalm, and is likened to the countenance of the Son of God in
the inspired Canticles of Solomon. Ezekiel (xxxi., 3-9) compares the
mighty King of Assyria to a Cedar in Lebanon, with fair branches, and
says, as a proof of his greatness and power, that “the Cedars in the
garden of God could not hide him.” In the Romish Church, the Cedar
of Lebanon, because of its height, its incorruptible substance, and
the healing virtues attributed to it in the East, is a symbol of the
Virgin, expressing her greatness, her beauty, and her goodness.----The
Jews evidently regarded the Cedar as a sacred tree: hence it was used
in the making of idols. According to a very old tradition, the Cedar
was the tree from which Adam obtained the forbidden fruit in the Garden
of Eden. The ancient legend relating how the Cross of Christ was formed
of a tree combining in itself the wood of the Cypress, Cedar, and Pine,
will be found under the heading CYPRESS. Another tradition states
that of the three woods of which the Cross was composed, and which
symbolised the three persons of the Holy Trinity, the Cedar symbolised
God the Father.----Pythagoras recommended the Cedar, the Laurel, the
Cypress, the Oak, and the Myrtle, as the woods most befitting to honour
the Divinity.----The Shittim wood of the Scriptures is considered
by some to have been a species of Cedar, of which the most precious
utensils were made: hence the expression _Cedro digna_ signified
“worthy of eternity.”----The Cedar is the emblem of immortality.----The
ancients called the Cedar “life from the dead,” because the perfume of
its wood drove away the insects and never-dying worms of the tombs.
According to Evelyn, in the temple of Apollo at Utica, there was found
Cedar-wood nearly two thousand years old; “and in Sagunti, of Spain, a
beam, in a certain oratory consecrated to Diana, which had been brought
from Zant two hundred years before the destruction of Troy. The statue
of that goddess in the famous Ephesian Temple was of this material
also, as was most of the timber-work in all their sacred edifices.” In
a temple at Rome there was a statue of Apollo Sosianus in Cedar-wood
originally brought from Seleucia. Virgil states that Cedar-wood was
considered to be so durable, that it was employed for making images
of the gods, and that the effigies of the ancestors of Latinus were
carved out of an old Cedar. He also informs us that Cedar-wood was
used for fragrant torches.----Sesostris, King of Egypt, is reported to
have built a ship of Cedar timber, which, according to Evelyn, was “of
280 cubits, all gilded without and within.”----Gerarde says that the
Egyptians used Cedar for the coffins of their dead, and Cedar-pitch in
the process of embalming the bodies.----The books of Numa, recovered in
Rome after a lapse of 535 years, are stated to have been perfumed with
Cedar.----The Chinese have a legend which tells how a husband and wife
were transformed into two Cedars, in order that their mutual love might
be perpetuated. A certain King Kang, in the time of the Soungs, had
as secretary one Hanpang, whose young and beautiful wife Ho the King
unfortunately coveted. Both husband and wife were tenderly attached to
one another, so the King threw Hanpang into prison, where he shortly
died of grief. His wife, to escape the odious attentions of the King,
threw herself from the summit of a high terrace. After her death, a
letter was discovered in her bosom, addressed to the King, in which
she asked, as a last favour, to be buried beside her dear husband.
The King, however, terribly angered, would not accede to poor Ho’s
request, but ordered her to be interred separately. The will of heaven
was not long being revealed. That same night two Cedars sprang from the
two graves, and in ten days had become so tall and vigorous in their
growth, that they were able to interlace their branches and roots,
although separated from one another. The people henceforth called
these Cedars “The trees of faithful love.”----Tchihatcheff, a Russian
traveller, speaks of vast Cedar forests on Mount Taurus in Asia Minor:
the tree was not introduced into England till about Evelyn’s time, nor
into France till 1737, when Bernard de Jussieu brought over from the
Holy Land a little seedling of the plant from the forests of Mount
Lebanon. A romantic account is given of the difficulty this naturalist
experienced in conveying it to France, owing to the tempestuous weather
and contrary winds he experienced, which drove his vessel out of its
course, and so prolonged the voyage, that the water began to fail. All
on board were consequently put on short allowance; the crew having to
work, being allowed one glass of water a day, the passenger only half
that quantity. Jussieu, from his attachment to botany, was reduced
to abridge even this small daily allowance, by sharing it with his
cherished plant, and by this act of self-sacrifice succeeded in keeping
it alive till they reached Marseilles. Here, however, all his pains
seemed likely to be thrown away, for as he had been driven, by want of
a flower-pot, to plant his seedling in his hat, he excited on landing
the suspicions of the Custom-house officers, who at first insisted on
emptying the strange pot, to see whether any contraband goods were
concealed therein. With much difficulty he prevailed upon them to spare
his treasure, and succeeded in carrying it in triumph to Paris, where
it flourished in the Jardin des Plantes, and grew until it reached one
hundred years of age, and eighty feet in height. In 1837 it was cut
down, to make room for a railway.----According to the ancient Chaldean
magicians, the Cedar is a tree of good omen--protecting the good and
overthrowing the machinations of evil spirits.----M. Lenormant has
published an Egyptian legend concerning the Cedar, which De Gubernatis
has quoted. This legend recites that Batou having consented to
incorporate his heart with the Cedar, if the tree were cut the life
of Batou would at the same time be jeopardised; but if he died his
brother would seek his heart for seven years, and when he had found
it, he would place it in a vase filled with divine essence, which was
to impart to it animation, and so restore Batou to life.... Anpou, in
a fit of rage, one day enters Batou’s house, and slays the shameless
woman who had separated him from his brother. Meanwhile Batou proceeds
to the valley of Cedars, and places, as he had announced, his heart
in the fruit of the tree at the foot of which he fixes his abode. The
gods, not desiring to leave him solitary, create a woman, endowed with
extraordinary beauty, but carrying evil with her. Falling madly in love
with her, Batou reveals to the woman the secret of his life being bound
up with that of the Cedar. Meantime the river becomes enamoured of
Batou’s wife; the tree, to pacify it, gives it a lock of the beauty’s
hair. The river continues its course, carrying on the surface of its
waters the tress, which diffuses a delicious odour. It reaches at
last the king’s laundress, who carries it to his majesty. At the mere
sight and perfume of the tress, the king falls in love with the woman
to whom it belongs. He sends men to the vale of Cedars to carry her
off; but Batou kills them all. Then the king despatches an army, who
at last bring him the woman whom the gods themselves had fashioned.
But while Batou lives she cannot become the wife of the king; so she
reveals to him the secret of her husband’s twofold life. Immediately
workmen are despatched, who cut down the Cedar. Batou expires directly.
Soon Anpou, who had come to visit his brother, finds him stretched
out dead beside the felled Cedar. Instantly he sets out to search for
Batou’s heart; but for four years his search is fruitless. At the end
of that period the soul of Batou yearns to be resuscitated: the time
has arrived when, in its transmigrations, it should rejoin his body.
Anpou discovers the heart of his brother in one of the cones of the
tree. Taking the vase which contains the sacred fluid, he places the
heart in it; and, during the day, it remains unaffected, but so soon as
night arrives, the heart becomes imbued with the elixir. Batou regains
all his members; but he is without vigour. Then Anpou gives to him the
sacred fluid in which he had steeped the heart of his young brother,
and bids him drink. The heart returns to its place, and Batou becomes
himself again. The two brothers set out to punish the unfaithful one.
Batou takes the form of a sacred bull. Arrived at the Court, Batou,
metamorphosed into the bull, is welcomed and fêted. Egypt has found
a new god. During one of the festivals he takes the opportunity of
whispering into the ear of her who had formerly been his wife: “Behold,
I am again alive--I am Batou! You plotted and persuaded the king to
fell the Cedar, so that he might occupy my place at your side when I
was dead. Behold, I am again alive--I have taken the form of a bull!”
The queen faints away at hearing these words; but speedily recovering
herself, she seeks the king and asks him to grant her a favour--that
of eating the bull’s liver. After some hesitation, the king consents,
and orders that a sacrifice shall be offered to the bull, and that
then he shall be killed; but at the moment the bull’s throat is cut,
two drops of blood spirt out: one falls to the ground, and forthwith
two grand Perseas (the Egyptians’ tree of life) shoot forth. The king,
accompanied by his wife, hastens to inspect the new prodigy, and one
of the trees whispers in the queen’s ear that he is Batou, once more
transformed. The queen, relying on the doting affection which the king
entertains for her, asks him to have this tree cut down for the sake of
the excellent timber it will afford. The king consents, and she hastens
to superintend the execution of his orders. A chip struck from the tree
whilst being felled, falls into the mouth of the queen. Shortly she
perceives that she has become _enceinte_. In due course she gives birth
to a male infant. It is Batou, once more entering the world by a novel
incarnation!”
=CELANDINE.=--The Great or Major Celandine (_Chelidonium major_)
is also called Swallow-wort and Tetter-wort, and is thought to be
efficacious in the cure of warts and cutaneous disorders. It derives
its name from the Greek _Chelidon_, a swallow--not, says Gerarde,
“because it first springeth at the coming in of the swallowes, or dieth
when they go away, for as we have saide, it may be founde all the
yeare, but because some holde opinion that with this herbe the dams
restore sight to their young ones, when their eies be put out.” This
magical property of the Celandine was first propounded by Aristotle,
and afterwards repeated by Pliny, Dodoens, Albert le Grand, Macer, and
most of the old botanical writers. Coles fully believed the wonderful
fact, and remarks: “It is known to such as have skill of nature, what
wonderful care she hath of the smallest creatures, giving to them a
knowledge of medicine to help themselves, if haply diseases annoy them.
The swallow cureth her dim eyes with Celandine; the wesell knoweth well
the virtue of Herb Grace; the dove the Verven; the dogge dischargeth
his mawe with a kinde of grasse,” &c. Lyte also, in his ‘Herbal,’
fully supported the ancient rustic belief that the old swallows used
Celandine to restore sight to their young. He says the plant was called
Swallow-herb, because “it was the first found out by swallowes, and
hath healed the eyes and restored sight to their young ones that have
had harme in their eyes or have been blinde.” Celandine has long
been popular among village simplers as a remedy when diluted with
milk against thick spots in the eye.----It is said that the lack of
medical knowledge among the ancients induced the belief in the magical
properties of Celandine. They saw in the _Chelidonium a Cœli donum_,
and hence were anxious to endow it with celestial properties.----The
red and violet Celandines, or Horned Poppies, are mentioned by Ben
Jonson among the plants used by witches in their incantations.
The Lesser Celandine (_Ranunculus Ficaria_) is perhaps better known as
the Pile-wort, a name given to it in allusion to the small tubers on
the roots, which, on the doctrine of plant signatures, indicated that
the plant was a remedial agent in this complaint.----Astrologers assign
Celandine to the Sun, and the Pile-wort to Mars.
=CENTAURY.=--This flower, the well known Blue-bottle of the cornfields,
is fabled to have derived its name from Chiron, a centaur, who is
stated to have taught mankind the use of plants and medicinal herbs.
According to Pliny, Chiron cured himself with this plant from a wound
he had accidentally received from an arrow poisoned with the blood of
the hydra. M. Barthelemy writes how, when Anacharsis visited the cave
of Chiron, the centaur, on Mount Pelion, he was shown a plant which
grew near it, of which he was informed that the leaves were good for
the eyes, but that the secret of preparing them was in the hands of
only one family, to whom it had been lineally transmitted from Chiron
himself.----Mythology has another origin for the _Centaurea Cyanus_.
According to this account, the flower was called Cyanus, after a youth
so named, who was so enamoured of Corn-flowers, that his favourite
occupation was that of making garlands of them; and he would scarcely
ever leave the fields, whilst his favourite blue flowers continued to
bloom. So devoted was his admiration, that he always dressed himself in
clothes of the same brilliant hue as the flower he loved best. Flora
was his goddess, and of all the varied gifts, her Corn-flower was the
one he most appreciated. At length he was one day found lying dead in
a cornfield, surrounded with the blue Corn-flowers he had gathered:
and soon after the catastrophe, the goddess Flora, out of gratitude
for the veneration he had for her divinity, transformed his body into
the _Centaurea Cyanus_, the Blue-bottle of English cornfields.----In
Lucan’s ‘Pharsalia,’ the Centaury is one of the plants named as being
burned with the object of driving away serpents.
“Beyond the farthest tents rich fires they build,
That healthy medicinal odours yield:
There foreign Galbanum dissolving fries,
And crackling flames from humble Wallwort rise;
There Tamarisk, which no green leaf adorns,
And there the spicy Syrian Costos burns:
There Centaury supplies the wholesome flame,
That from Thessalian Chiron takes its name;
The gummy Larch-tree, and the Thapsos there,
Woundwort and Maidenweed perfume the air:
There the long branches of the long-lived Hart,
With Southernwood their odours strong impart,
The monsters of the land, the serpents fell,
Fly far away, and shun the hostile swell.”
The Corn-flower is called in Russia _Basilek_ (the flower of Basil),
and attached to it is a legend that a handsome young man of this name
was enticed away by a nymph named Russalka, allured into the fields,
and transformed into the Corn-flower.----Plants have always been a
favourite means of testing the faith of lovers; and the Centaury or
Bluet of the cornfields was the flower selected by Margaret as the
floral oracle from which to learn the truth respecting Faust.
“There is a flower, a purple flower,
Sown by the wind, nursed by the shower,
O’er which love breathed a powerful spell,
The truth of whispering hope to tell.
Now, gentle flower, I pray thee tell,
If my lover loves me, and loves me well:
So may the fall of the morning dew
Keep the sun from fading thy tender blue.”
The Centaury is known as the Hurt-sickle, because it turns the edges
of the reapers’ sickles: its other familiar names are Blue-bottle,
Blue-blow, Bluet, and Corn-flower.----It is held by astrologers to be
under Saturn.
=CEREUS.=--The crimson-flowered _Cereus_ (_Cereus speciosissimus_),
belonging to the natural order _Cactaceæ_, is generally known in
England as the Torch Thistle, and is fabled to have been the torch
borne by Ceres in the daytime. _Cereus flagelliformis_ is the
pink-flowered creeping Cereus, the long round stems of which hang
down like cords. _Cereus grandiflorus_ is the night-blowing Cereus,
which begins to open its sweet-scented flowers about eight o’clock in
the evening; they are fully blown by eleven, and by four o’clock next
morning they are faded and droop quite decayed. The Old Man’s Head, or
Monkey Cactus, _Cereus senilis_, is another member of this family.
=CHAMELÆA.=--The Spurge-Olive or Chamelæa (_Cneorum tricoccum_) is a
humble shrub, whose three-leaved pale-yellow flowers were consecrated
to the god Janus. The month of January, placed under the protection
of Janus, was represented in the guise of an old man, who held in his
hand a flower of the Chamelæa. After flowering, the shrub produces
three-cornered berries, which are at first green, then red, and finally
brown. The plant in England was formerly called the Widow-wail, for
what reason we know not, but Gerarde says, “_quia facit viduas_.”
=CHAMOMILE.=--According to Galen, the Egyptians held the Chamomile
(_Anthemis nobilis_) in such reverence, that they consecrated it
to their deities: they had great faith in the plant as a remedy
for agues. Gerarde tells us that Chamomile is a special help
against wearisomeness, and that it derives its name from the Greek
_Chamaimelon_, Earth-Apple, because the flowers have the smell of an
Apple.----In Germany, Chamomile-flowers are called _Heermännchen_, and
they are traditionally supposed to have once been soldiers, who for
their sins died accursed.----The Romans supposed the _Anthemis_ to be
possessed of properties to cure the bites of serpents.----Chamomile is
considered to be a herb of the Sun.
=CHAMPAK.=--The Champa or Champak (_Michelia Champaca_) is one of the
sacred plants of India. The blue Champak-flower is of the greatest
rarity, and is regarded as being the principal ornament of Brahma’s
heaven. It is, in fact,
“That blue flower which Brahmins say
Blooms nowhere but in Paradise,”
for the earthly sort has yellow blossoms with which the Hindu maidens
are fond of ornamenting their raven hair. The tree is sacred to Vishnu,
and is, therefore, an object of reverential regard on the part of the
Hindus, who cultivate it for the fragrance of its flowers, which is so
strong that the bees, fearful of being overcome, will scarcely ever
alight upon them. The Hindus apply to the Champak-flowers the most
flattering appellations, which celebrate its wondrous delicacy and
form, its glittering golden hue, and its voluptuous perfume.
=CHERRY.=--About the year 70 B.C., Lucullus, after his victory over
Mithridates, brought from Cerasus, in Pontus, the Cherry-tree, and
introduced it into Italy. It was planted in Britain a century later,
but the cultivated sorts disappeared during the Saxon period. “Cherries
on the ryse,” or on the twigs, was, however, one of the street cries
of London in the fifteenth century. These Cherries were, perhaps,
the fruit of the native wild Cherry, or Gean-tree, as the cultivated
Cherry was not re-introduced till the reign of Henry VIII., whose
fruiterer brought it from Flanders, and planted a Cherry orchard at
Teynham.----An ancient legend records that, before the birth of our
Saviour, the Virgin Mary longed extremely to taste of some tempting
Cherries which hung upon a tree high above her head; so she requested
Joseph to pluck them. Joseph, however, not caring to take the trouble,
refused to gather the Cherries, saying sullenly, “Let the father of
thy child present thee with the Cherries if he will!” No sooner had
these words escaped his lips, than, as if in reproof, the branch of the
Cherry-tree bowed spontaneously to the Virgin’s hand, and she gathered
its fruit and ate it. Hence the Cherry is dedicated to the Virgin Mary.
There is a tradition that our Saviour gave a Cherry to St. Peter,
cautioning him at the same time not to despise little things.----The
ancient Lithuanians believed that the demon Kirnis was the guardian
of the Cherry. In Germany and Denmark there is a tradition that evil
spirits often hide themselves in old Cherry-trees, and delight in
doing harm to anyone who approaches them. The Albanians burn branches
of the Cherry-tree on the nights of the 23rd and 24th of December,
and the nights of the 1st and 6th of January--that is to say on the
three nights consecrated to the new sun; and they preserve the ashes
of these branches to fertilise their Vines. They say that in so doing
they burn the evil spirits hidden in the trees, who are destructive
to vegetation.----At Hamburg, there is an annual festival called the
Feast of the Cherries, when children parade the streets, carrying
boughs laden with the fruit. This observance dates from the year 1432,
when the Hussites threatened the immediate destruction of Hamburg.
The inhabitants, in despair, dressed all the children in black, and
despatched them to the Hussite leader, P. Rasus, to plead with him.
The warrior, touched at the sight of so many little helpless ones,
promised that he would spare the city, and after feasting the children
with Cherries, sent them back rejoicing and waving in their hands the
Cherry-boughs.----There is an old proverb current in Germany, France,
and Italy, that you should never eat Cherries with the rich, because
they always choose the ripest, or, even worse, eat the luscious fruit,
and throw the stones and stalks to their companions.----The gum which
exudes from the Cherry-tree is considered equal in value to gum-arabic.
Hasselquist relates that during a siege upwards of one hundred men were
kept alive for nearly two months, without any other nutriment than that
obtained by sucking this gum.----The Cherry is held by astrologers
to be under the dominion of Venus.----To dream of Cherries denotes
inconstancy and disappointment in life.
=CHESNUT.=--The Chesnut (_Fagus Castanea_) was classed by Pliny among
the fruit trees, on account of the value of the nut as an article of
food. He states that the tree was introduced from Sardis in Pontus, and
hence was called the Sardian Acorn. The Chesnuts of Asia Minor supplied
Xenophon’s whole army with food in their retreat along the borders of
the Euxine. Once planted in Europe, the Chesnut soon spread all over
the warm parts. It flourished in the mountains of Calabria, and is the
tree with which Salvator Rosa delighted to adorn his bold and rugged
landscapes.----The _Castagno dei cento cavalli_ (Chesnut of the hundred
horses) upon Mount Etna is probably the largest tree in Europe, being
more than 200 feet in circumference.----Chesnuts are included in the
list of funereal trees. In Tuscany, the fruit is eaten with solemnity
on St. Simon’s Day. In Piedmont, they constitute the appointed food
on the eve of All Souls’ Day, and in some houses they are left on the
table under the belief that the dead poor will come during the night
and feast on them. In Venice, it is customary to eat Chesnuts on St.
Martin’s Day, and the poor women assemble beneath the windows and sing
a long ballad, or, after expressing their good wishes towards the
inmates of the house, ask for Chesnuts to appease their hunger. (See
also HORSE-CHESNUT.)
=CHOHOBBA.=--The Mexicans regard with peculiar sanctity and reverence
a herb which grows in their country, and which they call Chohobba.
If they wish an abundant crop of Yucca or Maize, if they wish to
know whether a sick chief will recover or die, if they desire to
learn whether a war is likely to occur, or, in fact, if they desire
any important information, one of their chiefs enters the building
consecrated to their idols, where he prepares a liquid obtained from
the herb Chohobba, which can be absorbed through the nose: this
fluid has an intoxicating effect, and he soon loses all control over
himself. After awhile, he partly recovers, and sits himself on the
ground, with head abased, and hands beneath his knees, and so remains
for some little time. Then he raises his eyes, as if awaking from a
long sleep, and gazes upwards at the sky, at the same time muttering
between his teeth some unintelligible words. No one but his relatives
approaches the chief, for the people are not allowed to assist at the
rite. When the relatives perceive that the chief is beginning to regain
consciousness, they return thanks to the god for his recovery, and ask
that he may be permitted to tell them what he has seen whilst in his
trance. Then the half-dazed chief relates what the god has told him
regarding the particular matters he had wished to enquire about.
=CHOKE PEAR.=--The fruit of the Wild Pear, _Pyrus communis_, is so hard
and austere as to choke: hence the tree has been called the Choke Pear.
It is supposed to have been a Pear of this description that caused the
death of Drusus, a son of the Emperor Claudius. He caught in his mouth,
and swallowed, a Pear thrown into the air, but owing to its extreme
hardness, it stuck in his throat and choked him.
CHRISTMAS ROSE.--See Hellebore.
=CHRIST’S HERB.=--The Black Hellebore is called Christ’s Herb or
Christmas Herb (_Christwurz_), says Gerarde, “because it floureth about
the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (See HELLEBORE.)
=CHRIST’S LADDER.=--In the fourteenth century, the _Erythræa
Centaurium_ was called Christ’s Ladder (_Christi scala_), from the name
having been mistaken for Christ’s Cup (_Christi schale_), in allusion
to the bitter draught offered to our Lord upon the Cross.
=CHRIST’S PALM.=--The _Ricinus communis_ is commonly known as _Palma
Christi_, or Christ’s Palm. The same plant is also reputed to have been
Jonah’s Gourd.
=CHRIST’S THORN.=--Gerarde, in his Herbal, calls the _Paliurus_,
Christ’s Thorn or Ram of Libya; and he writes: “Petrus Bellonius,
who travelled over the Holy Land, saith, that this shrubby Thorne
_Paliurus_, was the Thorne wherewith they crowned our Saviour Christ,
his reason for the proofe hereof is this, That in Judea, there was
not any Thorne so common, so pliant, or so fit for to make a crown
or garland of, nor any so full of cruell sharpe prickles. It groweth
throughout the whole countrey in such abundance, that it is there
common fuell to burn; yea, so common with them there as our Gorse,
Brakes, and Broome is here with us. Josephus (_lib._ 1, _cap._ 2 of his
_Antiquities_) saith, That this Thorne hath the most sharp prickles of
any other; wherefore that Christ might bee the more tormented, the Jews
rather tooke this than any other.” The shrub still abounds in Judea,
and has pliable branches armed with sharp spines. (See THORN.)
=CHRYSANTHEMUM.=--The leaf and flower of the _Chrysanthemum Indicum_
were long ago adopted as, and are still, the special emblem and blazon
of Mikados of Japan. One of the most popular of the Japanese festivals
is that held in honour of the golden Chrysanthemum, or _Kiku_. The
Japanese florists display their Chrysanthemums built up into the forms
of their gods or heroes; thus, in their exhibitions, are to be seen
effigies of Benkei, the Hercules of Japan, gorgeously apparelled in
white, purple, and yellow Pompons; the Sun Goddess, decked in golden
blooms; Jimmu Tenno, a popular hero, and endless groups of gods and
goddesses, and mythological heroes and heroines.----The Chrysanthemum
was first introduced into England in 1764 by Miller, who received
a _Kok fa_, or _Chrysanthemum Indicum_ from Nîmpu, and cultivated
it at the botanical garden at Chelsea. In the seventeenth century
a Chrysanthemum was grown in Dantsic.----Three Chrysanthemums (the
Corn Marigold, the Ox-eyed Daisy, and the Fever-few) are natives of
England, but as they bloom in summer when flowers are plentiful, and
not in November, as our garden varieties do, it has not been so well
worth while to bestow care in raising and improving them. The Autumn
Chrysanthemums are descended from either the Chinese or the Indian
varieties, the former of which have white flowers and the latter
yellow. The Pompon varieties are derived from the Chusan Daisy,
introduced into England from China by Mr. Fortune in 1846. In their
wild state they are all, indeed, even the Japanese forms of the Chinese
flowers, much like Daisies, with a yellow disc surrounded by rays of
florets, but by cultivation the disc-florets are assimilated to those
of the ray, and the flower assumes a homogeneous appearance only
faintly suffused with yellow towards the centre.
=CINCHONA.=--The Cinchona, or Jesuit’s Bark-tree (_Cinchona
officinalis_), is a native of Peru. The famous bark was introduced
into Europe through the medium of Ana de Osorio, Countess Cinchon, and
Vice-Queen of Peru, after whom the powdered bark was called “Countess’s
Powder.” The use of the bark was first learned from the following
circumstances:--Some Cinchona-trees being thrown by the winds into a
pool, lay there until the water became so bitter that everyone refused
to drink it, till one of the inhabitants of the district being seized
with violent fever, and finding no water wherewith to quench his
thirst, was forced to drink of this, by which means he became perfectly
cured; and afterwards, relating his cure to others, they made use of
the same remedy.
=CINNAMON.=--Bacon, in his ‘Natural History,’ speaks thus of the
Cinnamon (_Laurus Cinnamomum_):--“The ancient Cinnamon was of all
other plants, while it grew, the dryest; and those things which are
knowne to comfort other plants did make that more sterill: for, in
showers, it prospered worst: it grew also amongst bushes of other
kindes, where commonly plants doe not thrive; neither did it love
the Sunne.” Solomon, in his Canticles, mentions Cinnamon among the
precious spices; and Moses was commanded to use “sweet Cinnamon” in
the preparation of the holy oil used to anoint the Tabernacle and the
sacred vessels, and to consecrate Aaron and his sons to the priesthood.
The Emperor Vespasian was the first to take chaplets of Cinnamon to
Rome, wherewith to decorate the temples of the Capitol and of Peace. It
is related, that Alexander the Great, whilst at sea, perceived he was
near the coast of Arabia, from the scent of Cinnamon wafted from the
still distant shore.----The Mahometans of India used to have a curious
belief that the Cinnamon-tree is the bark, the Clove the flower, and
the Nutmeg the fruit, of one and the same tree; and most of the writers
of the Middle Ages thought that Cinnamon, Ginger, Cloves, and Nutmegs
were the produce of one tree.----Gerarde tells us, that there was
formerly much controversy concerning the true Cinnamon and Cassia of
the ancients, but he considered the tree whose bark is Cassia to be a
bastard kind of Cinnamon. The Cinnamon, he says, has pleasant leaves
and fair white flowers, which turn into round black berries, the size
of an Olive, “out of which is pressed an oile that hath no smell at all
untill it be rubbed and chafed between the hands: the trunk or body,
with the greater arms or boughs of the tree, are covered with a double
or twofold barke, like that of the Corke-tree, the innermost whereof
is the true and pleasant Cinnamon, which is taken from this tree and
cast upon the ground in the heate of the sun, through whose heate it
turneth and foldeth itselfe round together.” The tree thus peeled,
recovered itself in three years, and was then ready to be disbarked
again.----Tradition states that the ancient Arabian priests alone
possessed the right of collecting the Cinnamon. The most patriarchal
of them would then divide the precious bark, reserving the first
bundle for the Sun. After the division had taken place, the priests
left to the Sun itself the task of lighting the sacred fire on the
altar where the high priest was to offer a sacrifice.----Theophrastus
narrates that the Cinnamon flourished in the valleys frequented by
venomous serpents; and that those who repaired thither to collect it
were compelled to wear bandages on their hands and feet. After the
Cinnamon was collected, it was divided into three portions, of which
one was reserved for the Sun, which, with glowing rays, quickly came
and carried it off.----Herodotus says, that Cinnamon was gathered from
the nest of the Phœnix.----An old writer affirms that the distilled
water of the flowers of the Cinnamon-tree excelled far in sweetness all
the waters whatsoever. The leaves yield oil of Cloves; the fruit also
yields an oil, which was formerly, in Ceylon, made into candles, for
the sole use of the king; the root exudes an abundance of Camphor; and
the bark of the root affords oil of Camphor, as well as a particularly
pure species of Camphor.
=CINQUEFOIL.=--In former days, Cinquefoil (_Potentilla_) much prevailed
as an heraldic device; the number of the leaves answering to the
five senses of man. The right to bear Cinquefoil was considered an
honourable distinction to him who had worthily conquered his affections
and mastered his senses. In wet weather the leaves of the Cinquefoil
contract and bend over the flower, forming, as it were, a little tent
to cover it--an apt emblem of an affectionate mother protecting her
child. Cinquefoil was formerly believed to be a cure for agues; four
branches being prescribed for a quartan, three for a tertian, and one
for a quotidian.----Cinquefoil is deemed a herb of Jupiter.
=CISTUS.=--The Cistus, according to Cassianus Bassus, derives its
name from a Grecian youth named Kistos. Under this title is embraced
a most extensive genus of plants celebrated all over the world for
their beauty and fragility. Gerarde and Parkinson call them Holly
Roses, a name which has become changed into Rock Roses.----From the
_Cistus Creticus_ (frequently called the _Ladaniferous Cistus_) is
obtained the balsam called Ladanum, a kind of resin, prized for its
tonic and stomachic properties, but more highly valued as a perfume,
and extensively used in oriental countries in fumigations. This resin,
which is secreted from the leaves and other parts of the shrub, is
collected by means of a kind of rake, to which numerous leather
thongs are appended instead of teeth. In olden times this resin was
believed to have been gathered from the shrubs by goats who rubbed
their beards against the leaves, and so collected the liquid gum; but
Gerarde affirms this to have been a monkish tradition--a fable of the
“Calohieros, that is to say, Greekish monkes, who, of very mockery,
have foisted that fable among others extant in their workes.” Be this
as it may, Bacon records the fact in his ‘Natural History,’ remarking:
“There are some teares of trees, which are kembed from the beards
of goats; for when the goats bite and crop them, especially in the
morning, the dew being on, the teare cometh forth, and hangeth upon
their beards: of this sort is some kinde of Ladanum.”
=CITRON.=--A native of all the warm regions of Asia, the Citron was
introduced into Europe from Media, and hence obtained the name of
_Malus Medica_. During the feast of the Tabernacles, the Jews in their
synagogues carry a Citron in their left hand; and a conserve made of
a particular variety of the fruit is in great demand by the Jews, who
use it during the same feast. According to Athenæus, certain notorious
criminals, who had been condemned to be destroyed by serpents, were
miraculously preserved, and kept in health and safety by eating
Citrons. Theophrastus says that Citrons were considered an antidote to
poisons, for which purpose Virgil recommended them in his Georgics.
Gerarde thus translates the passage:--
“The countrey Media beareth juices sad,
And dulling tastes of happy Citron fruit,
Than which no helpe more present can be had,
If any time stepmothers, worse than brute,
Have poyson’d pots, and mingled herbs of sute
With hurtful charmes: this Citron fruit doth chase
Black venome from the body in every place.
The tree itselfe in growth is large and big,
And very like in show to th’ Laurell-tree;
And would be thought a Laurell leafe and twig,
But that the smell it casts doth disagree:
The floure it holds as fast as floure may be:
Therewith the Medes a remedie do finde
For stinking breaths and mouthes, a cure most kinde,
And helpe old men which hardly fetch their winde.”
Della Valle, an Italian traveller of the seventeenth century, relates
how, at Ikkeri, he saw an Indian widow, on her way to the funeral
pyre, riding on horseback through the town, holding in one hand a
mirror, in the other a Citron, and whilst gazing into the mirror she
uttered loud lamentations. De Gubernatis thinks that perhaps the
Citron was the symbol of the life become bitter since the death of her
husband.----Rapin recommends the Citron for heart affections:--
“Into an oval form the Citrons rolled
Beneath thick coats their juicy pulp unfold:
From some the palate feels a poignant smart,
Which though they wound the tongue, yet heal the heart.”
=CLAPPEDEPOUCH.=--The _Capsella Bursa pastoris_, or Shepherd’s
Purse, was so called from the resemblance of its numerous flat
seed-pouches to a common leather purse. Dr. Prior says that the Irish
name of Clappedepouch was applied to the plant in allusion to the
licensed begging of lepers, who stood at the crossways with a bell
and a clapper. Hoffmann von Fallersleben, in his _Niederländische
Volkslieder_, says of them: “Separated from all the world, without
house or home, the lepers were obliged to dwell in a solitary, wretched
hut by the roadside; their clothing so scanty that they often had
nothing to wear but a hat and a cloak, and a begging wallet. They would
call the attention of the passers-by with a bell or a clapper, and
received their alms in a cup or a bason at the end of a long pole. The
bell was usually of brass. The clapper is described as an instrument
made of two or three boards, by rattling which they excited people to
relieve them.” The lepers, Dr. Prior thinks, would get the name of
Rattle-pouches, and this be extended to the plant, in allusion to the
little purses which it hangs out by the wayside. The plant was also
known by the names of Poor Man’s Parmacetie, and St. James’s Weed--the
former in allusion to its medicinal virtues. (See SHEPHERD’S PURSE). It
is considered a herb of Saturn.
=CLEMATIS.=--The _Clematis vitalba_, Gerarde informs us, was called
Travellers’ Joy, “as decking and adorning waies and hedges when
people travell.” It was also termed “Old Man’s Beard,” from the hoary
appearance of its seeds; and Virgin’s Bower, out of compliment to Queen
Elizabeth, and in allusion to its climbing habits. It became the emblem
of Artifice because beggars, in order to excite compassion, were in
the habit of making false ulcers in their flesh by means of its twigs,
the result often being a real sore.----The _Clematis flammula_, or
upright Virgin’s Bower, is an acrid plant, that inflames the skin.
Miller says of it that if one leaf be cropped in a hot day in the
summer season, and bruised, and presently put to the nostrils, it will
cause a smell and pain like a flame.----_Clematis integrifolia_, or
Hungarian Climber, is known in Little Russia as _Tziganka_ (the Gipsy
Plant). Prof. De Gubernatis has given in his _Mythologie des Plantes_
the following legend connected with this plant:--The Cossacks were once
at war with the Tartars. The latter having obtained the advantage, the
Cossacks commenced to retreat. The Cossack hetman, indignant at the
sight, struck his forehead with the handle of his lance. Instantly
there arose a tempest, which whirled away the Cossack traitors and
fugitives into the air, pounded them into a thousand fragments, and
mingled their dust with the earth of the Tartars. From that earth
springs the plant _Tziganka_. But the souls of the Cossacks, tormented
by the thought of their bones being mixed with the accursed earth of
the stranger, prayed to God that he would vouchsafe to disseminate
it in the Ukraine, where the maidens were wont to pluck _Clematis
integrifolia_ to weave into garlands. God hearkened to their Christian
prayers, and granted their patriotic desires. It is an old belief in
Little Russia that if everybody would suspend Briony from his waistbelt
behind, these unfortunate Cossacks would come to life again.
=CLOVE.=--The aromatic Clove-tree (_Caryophyllatus aromaticus_)
is a native of the Moluccas, where its cultivation is carefully
guarded by the Dutch. The islanders wear its white flowers as a mark
of distinction. These flowers grow in bunches at the end of the
branches, and are succeeded by oval berries, which are crowned with
the calyx. It is these berries, beaten from the trees before they are
half grown, and allowed to dry in the sun, which are the Cloves of
commerce. The Clove is considered to be one of the hottest and most
acrid of aromatics; its pungent oil (which is specifically heavier
than water) has been administered in paralytic cases. Gerarde says,
that the Portuguese women, resident in the East Indies, distilled from
the Cloves, when still green, a certain liquor “of a most fragrant
smell, which comforteth the heart, and is of all cordials the most
effectual.”----There is an old superstition, still extant, that
children can be preserved from evil influences and infantile disorders,
by having a necklace of Cloves suspended as an amulet round the neck.
=CLOVER.=--The old English names for Clover were Trefoil and
Honey-suckles.----The word Clover is derived from the Anglo-Saxon
_Clœfre_. The club of Hercules was called by the Latins _clava
trinodis_; and the “club” of our playing cards is so named from
its resemblance to a Clover-leaf--a leaf with three leaflets
(_tria folia_). Hence the herb’s generic name of _Trifolium_, or
Trefoil.----Hope was depicted by the ancients as a little child
standing on tiptoe, and holding a Clover-flower in his hand. Summer
is also represented with the Trefoil.----In the Christian Church,
the Trefoil is held to be the symbol of the Trinity; hence Clover is
used for decorations on Trinity Sunday. It is often employed as an
architectural emblem: the limbs of crosses are sometimes made to end in
Trefoils, and church windows are frequently in the same form.----Clover
possesses the power of vegetating after having existed in a dormant
state for many years. If lime is powdered and thrown upon the soil,
a crop of white Clover will sometimes arise where it had never been
known to exist; this spontaneous coming-up of the flower is deemed
an infallible indication of good soil.----Clover-grass is reputed
always to feel rough to the touch when stormy weather is at hand;
and its leaves are said to start and rise up, as if it were afraid
of an assault.----The Druids held the Clover, or Trefoil, in great
repute, and it is believed that they considered it a charm against
evil spirits. Formerly the Clover was thought to be not only good for
cattle, but noisome to witches, and so “the holy Trefoil’s charm,” was
very generally prized as a protective.----A sprig of Clover with only
two leaves on it is employed by the lads and lasses of Cambridgeshire,
Norfolk, and Suffolk, as a charm to enable them to ascertain the names
of their future wives and husbands:--
“A Clover, a Clover of two,
Put it on your right shoe;
The first young man [or woman] you meet,
In field street, or lane,
You’ll have him [or her] or one of his [or her] name.”
Gerarde says that the meadow Trefoil (especially that with the black
half-moon upon the leaf), pounded with a little honey, “takes away the
pin and web in the eies, ceasing the pain and inflammation thereof
if it be strained and dropped therein.” The finding of a four-leaved
Clover is considered especially fortunate, not only in England, but
in France, Switzerland, and Italy. It is believed to almost ensure
happiness, and in the case of young girls a husband very speedily.
There is old couplet which records that--
“If you find an even Ash-leaf or a four-leaved Clover,
You’ll be bound to see your true love ere the day be over.”
In Scotland, the possessor of a piece of four-bladed Clover is reputed
to have a prescience when witchcraft is attempted to be practised upon
him; and in the North of England this lucky leaf is placed in dairies
and stables, to preserve them from the spells of witches.----There is a
Cornish fairy tale which is intimately associated with the four-leaved
Clover:--One evening a maiden set out to milk the cows later than
usual: indeed, the stars had begun to shine before she completed her
task. “Daisy” (an enchanted cow), was the last to be milked, and the
pail was so full that the milk-maid could hardly lift it to her head.
So to relieve herself, she gathered some handfuls of Grass and Clover,
and spread it on her head in order to carry the milk-pail more easily.
But no sooner had the Clover touched her head, than suddenly hundreds
of little people appeared surrounding Daisy, dipping their tiny hands
into the milk, and gathering it with Clover-flowers, which they sucked
with gusto. Daisy was standing in the long Grass and Clover, so some of
these little creatures climbed up the stalks and held out Buttercups,
Convolvuluses, and Foxgloves, to catch the milk which dropped from
the cow’s udder. When the astonished milk-maid, upon reaching home,
recounted her wonderful experiences to her mistress, the goodwife at
once cried out: “Ah! you put a four-leaved Clover on your head.”----To
dream of seeing a field of Clover is of happy augury, indicating
health, prosperity, and much happiness. To the lover it foretells
success, and that his intended wife will have great wealth.----Clover
is under the dominion of Venus.
=CLUB-MOSS.=--The Stag’s-horn, Fox’s-tail, or Club-Moss (_Lycopodium
clavatum_), is used in the North of England, Sweden, and Germany, in
wreaths worn on festive occasions. The powder or dust which issues
from its spore cases, is highly inflammable, and is collected for
fireworks and for producing stage lightning. It is the _Blitz-mehl_, or
lightning-meal of the Germans. The Fir Club-Moss (_L. Selago_) is made
by the Highlanders into an eye ointment. In Cornwall, the Club-Moss is
considered good against all diseases of the eyes, provided only it is
gathered in the following manner:--On the third day of the moon, when
it is seen for the first time, show it the knife with which the Moss is
to be cut, repeating the while--
“As Christ healed the issue of blood,
Do thou cut what thou cuttest for good.”
Then, at sundown, the Club-Moss may be cut by the operator kneeling,
and with carefully washed hands. The Moss is to be tenderly wrapped
in a fair white cloth, and afterwards boiled in water procured from
the spring nearest the spot where it grew. The liquor is to be applied
as a fomentation. The Club-Moss may also be made into an ointment,
with butter made from the milk of a new cow. These superstitious
customs have probably a Druidic origin, and tend to identify the
Selago or Golden Herb of the Druids with the Club-Moss, as the Selago
was held sacred by them, and gathered with many mystic observances.
(See SELAGO.)----In many parts of Germany, certain Fairy-folk, called
Moss-women, are popularly believed to frequent the forests. In
Thuringia, these little women of the wood are called _Holzfrala_, and
in one of the legends of the Fichtelgebirge (a mountain-chain near
the junction of Saxony, Bavaria, and Bohemia), we find it stated that
there was a poor child whose mother lay sick of a fever. Going into the
forest to gather Strawberries, the child saw a little woman entirely
clothed with golden Moss--presumably Selago. The Moss-woman asked
the child for some of the fruit, and her request having been readily
acceded to, the Moss-woman ate her Strawberries and tripped away. When
the child reached home, she found the fruit which she had carried in
a jug was transformed to gold. The Moss dress of the little woman is
described as being of a golden colour, which shone, when seen at a
distance, like pure gold, but on close inspection lost all its lustre.
It is thought that many of the stories about hidden treasure which are
rife on the Fichtelgebirge are to be attributed to the presence there
of this curious species of vegetation.
=COCOA-NUT PALM.=--The _Cocos Nucifera_ (Sanscrit _Nârikera_), or
Cocoa-Nut Palm is the most extensively-cultivated tree in the world,
and its importance to myriads of the human race is almost beyond
conception. George Herbert wrote truly of this Palm:--
“The Indian Nut alone
Is clothing, meat and trencher, drink and can,
Boat, cable, sail, mast, needle, all in one.”
A vigorous tree will grow one hundred feet high, and produce annually
one hundred Nuts.----The Chinese call the Cocoa-Nut _Yüe-wang-t’ou_
(head of Prince of Yüe) from a tradition that a certain Prince Lin-yi,
who was at enmity with the Prince of Yüe, sent an assassin to cut
off the head of his enemy. The deed was executed, and the severed
head being caught in the branches of a Palm, it remained suspended
there, and was transformed into a Cocoa-Nut, with two eyes in its
shell.----The Portuguese are said to have given the name of Coco to
the Nut because at one end of the Nut are three holes, resembling the
head of a cat when mewing (_Coca_).----The Indians, when unable to
recover the corpse of one of their people who has been slain, but whom
they wish to honour, form an effigy of Reeds, and surmount it with a
Cocoa-Nut, which is supposed to represent the head of the deceased.
This sham corpse they cover with Dhak wood, after which they offer up
prayers, and then burn it. The Cocoa-Nut is regarded by the natives of
India as an oracle in cases of sickness. Thus, if an Indian has fallen
ill, they spin a Cocoa-Nut on its end; if the Nut falls towards the
west, he will die; if to the east, he will recover. The Deccan Indians
never commence any building without first offering Cocoa-Nuts to their
gods.----When a Fijian child is sick, and its friends want to know
if it will live or die, they shake a bunch of dry Cocoa-Nuts: if all
fall off, the little one will recover; if one remains, it will die.
The Fijians also spin Cocoa-Nuts, and then prophecy of future events
according to the direction in which the eye of the Nut lies when it
rests still.
=COCKLE.=--The Corn Cockle, or Gith (_Agrostemma Githago_) is a
troublesome weed, of which Gerarde says: “What hurt it doth among
Corne, the spoile of bread, as well as in colour, taste, and
unwholesomenesse, is better knowne than desired.” In the Book of Job,
the Cockle coming up instead of the Barley is spoken of as a great
misfortune; but it could not have been the Corn Cockle, which is
unknown in Palestine and Arabia.----The plant is alluded to in an old
English nursery rhyme, in which a garden allowed to run wild is said to
be
“Full of weeds and Cockle seeds.”
=COFFEE.=--The Coffee-plant (_Coffea Arabica_) derives its name from
the Kingdom of Caffa, in Africa, where it grows abundantly. The bloom
of this tree is similar to the Jasmine in figure and fragrance, while
its fruit has the appearance of a Cherry; the liquor prepared from
the fruit or berry is said to have been drunk, in Ethiopia, from
time immemorial. The Galla, a wandering nation of Africa, in their
incursions in Abyssinia, being obliged to traverse immense deserts,
and to travel swiftly, were accustomed to carry nothing with them to
eat but Coffee roasted till it could be pulverised, and then mixed
with butter into balls, and put into a leather bag. One of these, the
size of a billiard ball, was said to keep them in strength and spirits
during a whole day’s fatigue, better than bread or meat.----To dream of
drinking coffee is a favourable omen, betokening riches and honour. To
the lover it foretells a happy marriage.
_COLCHICUM._--The Meadow Saffron, or Colchicum, derives its name from
Colchis, a country on the eastern shore of the Euxine, where it once
grew in such abundance as to have led Horace thus to allude to it:--
“Or tempered every baleful juice
Which poisonous Colchian glebes produce.”
Colchicum was one of the herbs highly prized and made use of by the
enchantress Medea. It is poisonous, and, according to Dioscorides,
kills by choking, as do poisonous Mushrooms. Gerarde recommends anyone
who has eaten Colchicum, to “drinke the milke of a cow, or else death
presently ensueth.”----Colchicum is a herb of the Sun.
=COLTSFOOT.=--The shape of its leaves has given the _Tussilago Farfara_
its English name of Colt’s-foot, although, as Gerarde points out, it
might more appropriately be termed Cough-wort. The plant has its Latin
name from _tussis_, a cough, and for many centuries has been used in
pulmonary complaints. It formed the basis of Coltsfoot lozenges, long
celebrated as a cure for coughs.----The Bavarian peasants make garlands
of the sweet-scented Colt’s-foot on Easter Day, and cast them into the
fire.----Colt’s-foot, or Foal’s-foot, is a herb of Venus.
=COLUMBINE.=--The English name of the _Aquilegia_ is derived from
the Latin _columba_, a pigeon, from the resemblance of its nectaries
to the heads of pigeons in a ring round a dish, a favourite device
of ancient artists. The generic name comes from _aquila_, an eagle,
from the fancied resemblance of the same parts of the flower to the
claw of the king of birds.----The plant was formerly sometimes called
_Herba leonis_, from a belief that it was the favourite herb of the
lion.----The Columbine is held to be under the dominion of Venus.
=CONJUGALIS HERBA.=--This herb, De Gubernatis considers to be, in all
probability, the same as is known in Piedmont as _Concordia_ (according
to Gerarde, a kind of wild Tansy), concerning which M. Bernadotti had
sent him the following particulars:--“In the valleys of Lanzo, when
two lovers wish to assure themselves that their marriage will take
place, they proceed to search for the plant called _Concordia_. They
say that this plant is exceedingly scarce, and hence very difficult to
find. Its root is divided into two parts, each representing a hand with
five fingers. On finding this plant, it is necessary to uproot it in
order to see if the two hands are united--a certain sign that the union
will take place. If, on the contrary, the two hands are separated, the
marriage will be broken off.” (See CONCORDIA.)
=CORIANDER.=--From a passage in the Book of Numbers, where Manna is
likened to Coriander-seed, it would seem that “Coriander’s spicy seed”
was commonly used by the Israelites. The bitter Coriander is one of
the five plants mentioned by the Mishna as one of the “bitter herbs”
ordained by God to be eaten by the Jews at the Feast of the Passover.
It was esteemed as a spice by the Arabs, Egyptians, and Hindus. The
plant’s foliage has a strong and offensive odour, but its little round
fruit is pleasantly aromatic, and its seeds, when covered with sugar,
form the well-known Coriander comfits. Robert Turner, in the ‘Brittish
Physician,’ says that the powder of the seeds taken in wine, stimulate
the passions; and Gerarde affirms that the juice of the green leaves,
“taken in the quantity of four dragmes, killeth and poisoneth the
body.”----Coriander is held to be under the planetary influence of
Saturn.
=CORN.=--The generic name of Corn, which is applied to all kinds
of grain, is one of several words, which being common to the
widely-separated branches of the Indo-European race, prove the practice
of tillage among our ancestors before they left their first home in
Central Asia.----The Greeks worshipped Demeter, and the Romans Ceres,
as the goddess of Corn, and she is supposed to have been the same
deity as Rhea and Tellus, and the Cybele, Bona Dea, Berecynthia of
the Phrygians, the Isis of the Egyptians, Atergates of the Syrians,
and the Hera of the Arcadians. Ceres was generally represented as
a beautiful woman, with a garland of ears of Corn on her head, a
wheatsheaf by her side, and the cornucopia, or horn of plenty, in
her hand. To commemorate the abduction of her daughter Proserpine
by Pluto, a festival was held about the beginning of harvest, and
another festival, lasting six days, was held in remembrance of the
goddess’s search for her daughter, at the time that Corn is sown in the
earth. During the quest for Proserpine, the earth was left untilled
and became barren; but upon the return of Ceres, she instructed
Triptolemus of Eleusis in all the arts appertaining to agriculture
and the cultivation of Corn, and gave him her chariot, drawn by two
dragons, wherein he might travel over the whole earth and distribute
Corn to all its inhabitants. On his return to Eleusis, Triptolemus
restored the chariot to Ceres, and established the famed Eleusinian
festivals and mysteries in her honour. This festival, observed every
fourth year, and dedicated to Demeter (Ceres) and Proserpine, was the
most solemn of all the sacred feasts of Greece, and was so religiously
observed, that anyone revealing its secret mysteries, or improperly
taking part in the ceremonials, was put to an ignominious death. During
the festival, the votaries walked in a solemn procession, in which
the holy basket of Ceres was carried about in a consecrated cart, the
people on all sides shouting Hail, Demeter!----In their sacrifices,
the ancients usually offered Ceres a pregnant sow, as that animal
often destroys the Corn and other crops. While the Corn was yet in
grass they offered her a ram, after the victim had been thrice led
round the fields.----Among the Romans, twelve priests named Arvales,
supposed to have been descended from the nurse of Romulus, celebrated
in April and July the festivals called Ambarvalia. These priests, who
wore crowns composed of ears of Corn, conducted processions round
the ploughed fields in honour of Ceres, and offered as sacrifices at
her shrine a sow, a sheep, and a bull. The rites of the Arvales were
founded specially on the worship of Corn.----It is believed that among
the Greeks, the story of Proserpine brought back from the infernal
regions by her mother Ceres, and finally adjudged to pass six months
on earth, and six months in Hades, symbolises Corn as the seed of
Wheat, and its condition during Winter and Summer.----De Gubernatis
considers that the story of Proserpine has its Indian equivalent in
the myth of the birth of Sîtâ, daughter of King Janaka, the Fecundator.
Sîtâ was not born of a woman, but issued either from a furrow in the
earth, or from the middle of an altar.----The _Vishnupurâna_ mentions
several species of grain which have been specially created by the
gods; amongst them being Rice, Barley, Millet, and Sesamum. In the
sacrifices of the Hindoos, they offer several sorts of Corn to ensure
abundant harvests. Indra is the great husbandman of the heavens, which
he renders fertile: he is also the divinity of the fields, and, like
the Scandinavian god Thor, the presiding deity of Corn. It is he who
fertilises the earth in his capacity of god of tempests and rain. The
employment of Corn in sacrificial rites, was common in India of the
Vedic period, in Greece, and in Rome; and in the same countries we
find Corn used during nuptial ceremonies. Thus in Vedic India, it was
customary to scatter two handfuls of Corn over the clasped hands of
the bride and bridegroom, and a similar proceeding still takes place
amongst the Parsees. An analogous custom existed amongst the Romans. At
an Indian wedding, after the first night, the mother of the husband,
with all the female relatives, come to the young bride, and place on
her head a measure of Corn--emblem of fertility. The husband then
comes forward and takes from his bride’s head some handfuls of the
grain, which he scatters over himself. Similar usages exist at the
present day in many parts of Italy, relics of the old Roman custom of
offering Corn to the bride. In Gwalior, at one part of the marriage
ceremony, the priests shout vociferously, only stopping now and then to
cast over the bride and bridegroom showers of Corn, Millet, and Rice.
In some parts of Central India, at the end of the rainy season, the
people congregate on the banks of the lakes, and launch on the water,
as an offering, pots of earth, containing sprouting Wheat.----On the
banks of the Indus, there is believed to grow some miraculous Corn on
the spot where formerly were burnt the remains of the Buddhist King
Sivika, who sacrificed his life for a pigeon. The Chinese Buddhists
made pilgrimages, during the middle ages, to the place where Sivika
had lived and died; and here it was that the miraculous Wheat grew,
which the sun had no power to scorch. A single grain of this Wheat
kept its happy possessor from all ills proceeding from cold as well
as from fever.----The Chinese, regarding Corn as a gift from heaven,
celebrate with sacrifices, prayers, and religious rites, both seedtime
and harvest. They also think that in the heavens there is a special
constellation for Corn, composed of eight black stars, each of which
has under its special protection one of the eight varieties of Corn,
viz., Rice, Millet, Barley, Wheat, Beans, Peas, Maize, and Hemp. When
this cereal constellation is clear, it is a sign that the eight kinds
of Corn will ripen; but when, on the contrary, it is dim and obscured,
a bad harvest is looked for. The Emperor Ven-ti, who reigned 179 years
before Christ, is said to have incited his subjects to the more
zealous cultivation of Corn, by ploughing with his own hands the land
surrounding his palace.----The Chaldeans recognised a god of grain,
called Sérakh; the Assyrians, a god of harvests, named Nirba; the
Romans, a goddess, Segetia or Segesta, who was invoked by husbandmen,
that their harvests might be plentiful. Among the Romans, indeed, the
growth of Corn was under the special protection of different deities;
hence the worship they paid to Seia, who protected Corn before it
sprang up above the earth; to Occator, the god of harrowing; to
Sarritor, the god of weeding; to Nodotus, the god who watched over the
blade when it became knotty; and to Robigus, the god who protected the
Corn from blights.----In the sepulchres of the Egyptian kings, which
have of late years been opened, was discovered, carefully preserved in
closed vessels, Corn, the grains of which retained both their pristine
form and colour; when tested, this Corn was found, after several
thousand years, still to retain its vitality. The matchless wealth of
ancient Egypt was probably in great measure due to its Corn. The Bible
history of Joseph, and the narrative of the ten plagues, set forth how
famed the land of Egypt was in those days for its Wheat. The mode of
culture in that country now is exceedingly simple: when the inundations
of the Nile have subsided, the grain is thrown upon the mud; and if by
chance it should be considered too hard, the seed is lightly ploughed
in. No further care is bestowed until the ripening of the produce in
the following April.----Corn was unknown among the Mexicans when their
country was first visited by Europeans; the foundation of the vast
Wheat harvests of Mexico is said to have been three or four grains,
which a slave of Cortez discovered in 1530, accidentally mixed with
some Rice.----Peru was indebted for the introduction of Corn to a
Spanish lady, Maria de Escobar, who conveyed a few grains to Lima,
cultivated them, and distributed the seed among the farmers. The
first grains of Corn which reached Quito, were conveyed thither by
Father Josse Rixi, a Fleming, who sowed them near the Monastery of St.
Francis, where the monks still preserve and show, as a precious relic,
the rude earthen vessel wherein the seeds first reached them.----Among
the Arabs there is a tradition that when Adam was driven out of
Paradise he took with him three plants,--an ear of Corn, chief of all
kinds of food; a bunch of Dates, chief of fruits; and a slip of Myrtle,
chief of sweet-scented flowers.----There is a curious custom which
still survives in a few districts of Brittany, by which the good faith
of lovers is sought to be proved. On St. John’s Eve, the men, wearing
branches of green Wheat-ears, the women with Flax-blossoms, come to one
of the pillar stones, or dolmens, still standing, dance around it, and
then place their wreath upon it: if the wreath remain fresh for some
time after, the lover is to be trusted; but should it shrivel up within
a day or two, so will the love wither and fade away.----In some parts
of Italy, there is a belief that on the night of the third of May the
blessing of Heaven descends on the Corn in the form of a minute red
insect, which remains on the Wheat only for two or three days.----In
Piedmont, it is a custom in certain districts, on the last day of
February, for the children to roam the meadows, crying, “March, March,
arrive! and for every grain of Wheat let us receive a hundred.”----At
Venice, on Midsummer Eve, young girls sow some Corn in a pot, which
they then place in a position where the sun cannot enter; after eight
days they remove the pot: the Corn has then sprouted; and if it is
green and healthy, it is a token to the girl that she will have a rich
and handsome husband; but if the sprout is yellow or white, it is a
sign that the husband will be anything but a good one.----In Corsica,
after a wedding, just before the feast, the men and children retire,
and the women seat the bride on a measure full of Corn, from which
they have each previously taken a handful. The women then commence
saying an invocation, and during this each one scatters the handful of
Corn over the bride’s head.----In English harvest-fields the prettiest
girl present is chosen to cut the last handful of Corn.----In Sweden,
if a grain of Corn be found under the table when sweeping on a New
Year’s morn, it is believed to be a portent of an abundant crop that
year.----A tuft of Corn or Grass was given by Eugène and Marlborough
as a cockade to the German, Dutch, and English soldiers comprising
the army. The faction of the Fronde opposed to Cardinal Mazarin wore
stalks of Corn to distinguish them.----Corn and Grapes typify the
Blessed Eucharist. An ear of Corn is a prominent emblem in Freemasonry,
proving that the order did not originally confine their intellects or
their labours to building operations, but also devoted themselves to
agriculture.----Astrologers appear to be divided in their opinions
as to whether Corn is under the dominion of Venus or the Sun.----In
dreams, to pluck Corn-ears portends secret enemies; otherwise, dreams
of Corn betoken good fortune, prosperity, and happiness.
CORN-FLOWER. See Centaury.
CORN-MARIGOLD. See Chrysanthemum.
=CORNEL.=--After Romulus had marked out the bounds of his rising city,
he threw his javelin on the Mount Palatine. The weapon, made of the
wood of the Cornel (_Cornus mascula_), stuck fast in the ground, took
root, grew, threw out leaves and branches, and became a flourishing
tree. This prodigy was considered as the happy presage of the power
and duration of the infant empire.----According to some accounts, the
Cornel, or Cornelian Cherry, is the tree which sprang from the grave
of Prince Polydorus, who was assassinated by Polymnestor. The boughs
of this tree dropped blood when Æneas, journeying to Italy, attempted
to tear them from the tree.----The Greeks consecrated the Cornel to
Apollo; and when, in order to construct the famed wooden horse during
the siege of Troy, they felled, on Mount Ida, several Cornelian-trees
in a grove, called Carnea, dedicated to the god, they provoked his
anger and indignation: to expiate this sacrilege, the Greeks instituted
the festival called Carnea.----The Cornel is under Venus.
CORONATION-FLOWER.--See Carnation.
=COSTMARY.=--This plant, the _Balsamita vulgaris_, owes its name of
Costmary to the Greek Kostos, an unknown aromatic plant, and to the
fact of its being dedicated to St. Mary Magdalene. A variety of the
plant is also called, after her, Maudlein, either in allusion to her
box of scented ointment or to its use in the uterine affections over
which, as the special patroness of unchaste women, she presided. In old
times, the plant was known as _Herba Sanctæ_ or _Divæ Mariæ_.----The
Costmary is held to be under Jupiter.
=COSTUS.=--The _Costus speciosus_, an Indian swamp tree, celebrated for
its sweet fruit, is a sacred tree, and in the Hindu mythology figures
as Kushtha, one of the trees of heaven. It is a magical tree, curing
fevers, and is looked upon as the first of medicinal plants. It is
represented as the friend and companion of Soma, the god of Ambrosia.
It is called the Revealer of Ambrosia, inasmuch as its fruit grew on
the summit of Mount Himavant at the moment when the golden boat of the
gods touched its summit, and by its illuminating powers enabled them to
find the Ambrosia.
=COTTON-PLANT.=--The Cotton-plant (_Gossypium_) was first cultivated
in the East, whence were procured the finest muslins (so named from
Mosul, in Mesopotamia, where it was first made), calico (from Calicut,
in India), and Nankeen (from Nankin, in China, where the yellow
Cotton-plants grow). Now the Cotton-plant gives employment to millions
of people, sends thousands of ships across the sea, and binds together
the two great Anglo-Saxon nations. Although so useful, the Cotton is
not one of the sacred plants of India: in an Indian poem, however,
the plant is noticed favourably:--“We love the fruits of the Cotton
because, although tasteless, they have the property of concealing
that which ought to be concealed” (in allusion to the use of cotton
as clothing). The Khonds, whenever founding a new settlement, always
plant first a Cotton-plant, which they hold sacred and religiously
preserve.----M. Agassiz, in his work on Brazil, recounts a strange
legend respecting the _Gossypium Brazilianum_. Caro Sacaibu, the first
of men, was a demi-god. His son, Rairu, an inferior being, obeyed the
instructions of his father, who, however, did not love him. To get rid
of him, Sacaibu constructed an armadillo, and buried it in the earth,
leaving visible only the tail, rubbed with Mistletoe. Then he ordered
his son to bring him the armadillo. Rairu obeyed, but scarcely had
he touched the tail, when, aided by Sacaibu, it dragged Rairu to the
bottom of the earth. But thanks to his wit, Rairu contrived to make his
way to the surface again, and told Sacaibu that in the subterranean
regions lived a race of men and women, who, if transported to earth,
would cultivate it. Sacaibu allowed himself to be convinced of this,
and accordingly descended in his turn to the bottom of the earth by the
aid of a rope composed of Cotton, which he had sown for the first time
on the occasion. The first men brought to earth by means of Sacaibu’s
rope were small and ugly, but the more rope he pulled up, the handsomer
became the men, until just as he was about to pull out the handsomest
the Cotton rope broke, and the brightest specimens of humanity were
doomed for ever to remain in the bowels of mother earth. That is the
reason why, in this earth of ours, beauty is so scarce.
COVENTRY BELLS.--See Campanula.
=COWSLIP.=--The familiar name, Cowslip, is presumed to be derived
from the Anglo-Saxon _Cú-slyppe_: Skeat thinks because the plant was
supposed to spring up where a patch of cow-dung had fallen. The flowers
of the common Cowslip, Petty Mullein, or Paigle (_Primula veris_), are,
in some parts of Kent, called Fairy Cups. The odour of Cowslips is said
to calm the heart. A pleasant and wholesome wine is made from them,
resembling Muscadel. It is said to induce sleep. Says Pope:--
“For want of rest,
Lettuce and Cowslip wine--_probatum est_.”
Cowslip-balls are made in the following manner:--The umbels or heads
are picked off as close as possible to the top of the main stalks. From
fifty to sixty of these are hung across a string stretched between the
backs of two chairs. The flowers are then pressed carefully together,
and the string tied tightly, so as to collect them into a ball. Care
should be taken to have all the flowers open, so as to make the surface
of the ball even.----Culpeper, the astrological herbalist, says that
the Greeks gave the name of Paralysis to the Cowslip because the
flowers strengthened the brain and nerves, and were a remedy for palsy.
He adds, that Venus lays claims to this herb, and it is under the sign
Aries.
=COWSLIP OF JERUSALEM.=--The Virginian Cowslip or Lungwort (_Pulmonaria
officinalis_), is called Cowslip of Jerusalem, Sage of Jerusalem, Sage
of Bethlehem, Wild Comfrey and Lung-wort, being supposed, from its
spotted leaves, to be a remedy for diseased lungs. Linnæus christened
the plant _Dodecatheon_, or Twelve Divinities, because, in April, it
is crowned with twelve pink flowers reversed.----The Lung-wort is
considered to be a herb of Jupiter.
=COW-TREE.=--The ancient inhabitants of Venezuela regarded as sacred
the _Chichiuhalquehuill_, Tree of Milk, or Celestial Tree, that
distilled milk from the extremity of its branches, and around which
were seated infants who had expired a few days after their birth. A
Mexican drawing of this Celestial Tree is preserved in the Vatican,
and is noticed by Humboldt, who first heard of the _Palo de Vaca_,
or Cow-tree, in the year 1800, and supposed it to be peculiar to
the Cordillera of the coast. It was also found by Mr. Bridemeyer, a
botanist, at a distance of three days’ journey to the east of Caraccas,
in the valley of Caucagua, where it is known by the name of _Arbol
de Leche_, or the Milk-tree; and where the inhabitants profess to
recognise, from the thickness and colour of the foliage, the trunks
that yield the most juice,--as the herdsman distinguishes, from
external signs, a good milch cow. At Barbula, this vegetable fountain
is more aptly termed the _Palo de Vaca_, or Cow-tree. It rises, as
Humboldt informs us, like the broad-leaved Star-apple (_Chrysophyllum
Cainito_), to a height of from thirty to forty feet, and is furnished
with round branches, which, while young, are angular, and clothed
with a fine heavy down. The trunk, on being wounded, yields its
agreeable and nutritious fluid in the greatest profusion. Humboldt
remarks that “a few drops of vegetable juice recall to our minds all
the powerfulness and the fecundity of nature. On the barren flank of
a rock grows a tree with coriaceous and dry leaves. Its large woody
roots can scarcely penetrate into the stone. For several months of the
year, not a single shower moistens its foliage. Its branches appear
dead and dried; but when the trunk is pierced, there flows from it a
sweet and nourishing milk. It is at the rising of the sun that this
vegetable fountain is most abundant. The blacks and natives are then
seen hastening from all quarters, furnished with large bowls to receive
the milk, which grows yellow, and thickens at its surface. Some empty
their bowls under the tree itself, others carry the juice home to their
children. We seem to see the family of a shepherd who distributes the
milk of his flock.”
=CRANE’S BILL.=--The Crane’s Bill, or English Geranium, derived its
name from a fancied resemblance of the fruit to the beak of that bird.
Another name for the plant is Dove’s Foot.----Astrologers say that it
is under the dominion of Mars.
=CRANBERRY.=--The Cranberry (_Vaccinium Oxycoccus_) was formerly known
as the Marsh-wort or Fen-berry. The Druids called the plant _Samolus_,
and used great ceremonies in gathering it; these consisted in a
previous fast, in not looking back during the time of their plucking
it, and lastly in using their left hand only. This plant was considered
to be particularly efficacious in curing the diseases incident to swine
and cattle.
=CRESS.=--Chaucer calls the Cress by its old Saxon name of _Kers_,
which may possibly have been the origin of the vulgar saying of not
caring a “curse” for anything--meaning a Cress. Gerarde tells us that
the Spartans were in the habit of eating Cresses with their bread; this
they did no doubt on account of an opinion held very generally among
the ancients that those who ate Cress became firm and decided, for
which reason the plant was in great request. Water-Cresses, according
to astrologers, are herbs of the Moon.
CROSS-FLOWER.--See Milkwort.
=CROCUS.=--Legendary lore derives the name of this flower from a
beautiful youth named Crocus, who was consumed by the ardency of his
love for the shepherdess Smilax, and was afterwards metamorphosed
into the flower which still preserves his name; Smilax being also
transformed, some accounts say into a flower, others into a Yew.
“Crocus and Smilax may be turned to flowers,
And the Curetes spring from bounteous showers.”--_Ovid._
Rapin says:--
“Crocus and Smilax, once a loving pair,
But now transformed, delightful blossoms bear.”
According to a Grecian legend, the Crocus sprang from the blood of
the infant Crocus, who was accidentally struck by a metal disc thrown
by Mercury whilst playing a game.----One of the Sanscrit names of the
Crocus, or Saffron, is _asrig_, which signifies “blood.” The dawn
is sometimes called by the classic poets, on account of its colour,
_crocea_.----The ancients often used to adorn the nuptial couch with
Crocus-flowers, perhaps because it is one of the flowers of which,
according to Homer, the couch of Jove and Juno was composed.
“And sudden Hyacinths the turf bestrow,
And flowery Crocus made the mountains glow.”
The Egyptians, at their banquets, encircled their wine cups with
garlands of Crocus and Saffron, and in their religious processions
these flowers were carried with other blooms and aromatics.----The Jews
made use of the Saffron Crocus (_Crocus sativus_) as an aromatic, and
in the Song of Solomon it is referred to as highly appreciated:--“Thy
plants are an orchard of Pomegranates, with pleasant fruits; Camphire,
with Spikenard; Spikenard and Saffron,” &c.----The Greeks employed the
Crocus in the composition of their perfumes. Thus Hipponax says:--
“I then my nose with baccaris anointed
Redolent of Crocus.”
The Romans were so fond of the Crocus, that they not only had their
apartments and banqueting halls strewed with this plant, but they
also composed with it unguents and essences which were highly prized.
Some of the latter were often made to flow in small streams at their
entertainments, or to descend in dewy showers over the audience. Lucan,
in his ‘Pharsalia,’ describing how the blood runs out of the veins
of a person bitten by a serpent, says that it spouts out in the same
manner as the sweet-smelling essence of Saffron issues from the limbs
of a statue. In both Greece and Rome, as in later years in this land,
Crocus was a favourite addition to dishes of luxury, and Shakspeare
speaks of Saffron to colour the warden pies.----In olden times, Crocus
was held to be a great cordial and strengthener of the heart and lungs;
it was also considered useful in the plague and similar pestilences;
and was said to excite amatory passions.----Robert Turner states that
the plant was sometimes called _Filias ante Patrem_, because it puts
forth flowers before the leaves. This old herbalist, who lived in the
reign of Charles II., would seem to have been a thorough Royalist,
for after remarking that large crops of Saffron-flowers were grown at
Saffron-Walden, he adds that the crop “must be gathered as soon as it
is blown, or else it is lost; so that Jack Presbyter for covetousness
of the profit can reach his Sabbatarian conscience to gather it on
Sunday; and so he can do anything else that redounds to his profit,
tho’ it destroy his brother.”----The Crocus or Saffron is a herb of the
Sun, and under the Lion.
=CUCKOO FLOWERS.=--Various flowers are called after the “harbinger
of Spring.” In old works, the name “Cuckoo Flower” was given to the
_Lychnis flos cuculi_, but is now generally applied to the Lady’s Smock
(_Cardamine pratensis_). Cuckoo Gilliflower was a name also given to
the _Lychnis flos cuculi_, on account of its blooming at the time the
Cuckoo’s song was heard. “Cuckoo’s Bread,” or “Cuckoo’s Meat” is the
Wood Sorrel, _Oxalis Acetosella_. Shakspeare’s “Cuckoo Buds of yellow
hue” are probably the buds of the Crowfoot. “Cuckoo Grass” is the
_Luzula Campestris_, a grass-like Rush, flowering at the time of the
Cuckoo. “Cuckoo Pint,” or “Pintle” is the _Arum maculatum_.
=CUCUMBER.=--In the East, the Cucumber (_Cucumis sativa_) has been
cultivated from the earliest periods. When the Israelites complained
to Moses in the wilderness, comparing their old Egyptian luxuries with
the Manna of the wilderness, they exclaimed: “We remember the fish
which we did eat in Egypt freely, the Cucumbers, and the Melons.”
Isaiah, depicting the desolation of Judah, said: “The daughter of
Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard--as a lodge in a garden of
Cucumbers”--in allusion to the practise of cultivating Cucumbers in
open fields.----Although, says De Gubernatis, the Buddhists derive
the name of _Ikshvâku_ from _Ikshi_ (Sugar-cane), we must not forget
that the wife of Sagara, to whom was promised sixty thousand children,
first gave birth to an Ikshvâku, that is to say, to a Cucumber. Just
as the Cucumber and the Pumpkin or Gourd are gifted with fecundity and
the desire to climb, so Trisanku, one of the descendants of Ikshvâku,
had the ambition to ascend to heaven, and he obtained that favour
by the assistance of the sage Visvamitra.----There was formerly a
superstitious belief in England that Cucumbers had the power of killing
by their natural coldness. Gerarde says “they yield to the body a
cold and moist nourishment, and that very little, and the same not
good.”----To dream of Cucumbers denotes recovery to the sick, and that
you will speedily fall in love; or if you are in love, that you will
marry the object of your affection. It also denotes moderate success
in trade; to a sailor a pleasant voyage.----Cucumbers are under the
influence of the Moon.
=CUMIN.=--According to Theophrastus, the ancients were accustomed to
sow the seed of Cumin (_Cuminum Cyminum_), with an accompaniment of
oaths and maledictions, just as they were wont to do in the case of
Basil: this singular custom was probably some form of incantation,
to preserve this highly-reverenced plant from the dreaded effects of
the Evil Eye, and to cause it to flourish well. Among the Greeks,
Cumin symbolised meanness and cupidity: the people nicknamed Marcus
Antoninus, _Cumin_, on account of his avarice; and misers were jokingly
spoken of as persons who had eaten Cumin.----The plant appears to have
been regarded as specially possessing the power of retention. Thus in
Germany, in order to prevent newly-made bread from being stolen by
Wood-demons, the loaves had Cumin put in them. In Italy, a similar
custom prevails; and in some places it is supposed that the Cumin
possesses the power of keeping the thief in the house along with the
bread which he wished to steal. In some parts of Italy they give Cumin
to pigeons in order to make them tame and fond of their home; and Cumin
mixed with flour and water is given to fowls with the same object.
Country lasses also endeavour to make their lovers swallow it, in order
to ensure their continued attachment and fidelity. Or, if the lover is
going to serve as a soldier, or has obtained work in a distant part of
the country, his sweetheart gives him a newly-made loaf seasoned with
Cumin, or, perhaps, a cup of wine in which Cumin has been previously
powdered and mixed.----The ancients were acquainted with the power
of Cumin to cause the human countenance to become pallid, and Pliny
mentions two cases in which the herb was so employed.
=CURRANT.=--According to the Iranian legend of the Creation, the first
human couple, Maschia and Maschiäna, issued from a Currant-bush. At
first there was only one Currant-bush, but in process of time the one
bush became separated into two. To these two plants Ormuzd, the Iranian
supreme deity, imparted a soul, and thus from the Currant-bushes issued
the first two human beings.----To dream of Currants denotes happiness
in life, success in your undertakings, constancy in your sweetheart,
and to the farmer and tradesman riches.----The Currant-tree is under
the influence of Venus.
=CYCLAMEN.=--The Greeks had several names for the Cyclamen, and the
Romans also distinguished it by a variety of titles, as _Tuber terræ_
and _Terræ rapum_, from its Turnip-like root, _Panis Porcinus_,
_Orbicularis_, _Arthanita_, and _Cyclamen_, on account of the roundness
of its root. It was called Sow-bread and Swine-bread because, in
countries where it is abundant, it forms the chief food of herds of
swine.----This plant was formerly regarded as a most potent assistant
by midwives, and it was recommended to them by the surgeons of the
day. The peculiar shape of its root was in itself suggestive of its
employment by these good women, and the virtues of the plant were
regarded with superstitious reverence. Thus we find Gerarde stating,
that the mere wearing of the root, “hanged about women,” had a
salutary effect; and that he himself had instructed his wife to employ
its leaves when tending divers women in their confinement. The old
herbalist also tells us that he had Cyclamens growing in his garden,
but that for fear any matrons should, accidentally, step over them, and
by this means bring on miscarriage, he fenced them in with sticks, and
laid others crossways over them, “lest any woman should, by lamentable
experiment, find my words to be true, by their stepping over the same.”
He further warns those who are about to become mothers not to touch or
take this herb, or to come near unto it, on account of “the naturale
attractive vertue therein contained.” According to Theophrastus,
Cyclamen was employed by the ancients to excite love and voluptuous
desires.----Placed in a dormitory, this plant was supposed to protect
the inmate:--
“St. John’s Wort and fresh Cyclamen she in his chamber kept,
From the power of evil angels to guard him while he slept.”
The old English names of Cyclamen were Sow-bread and Swine-bread.----It
was considered under the dominion of Mars.
=CYPRESS.=--Ovid tells us of the “taper Cypress,” that it is sacred to
Apollo, and was once a fair youth, Cyparissus by name, who was a great
favourite of the god. Cyparissus became much attached to a “mighty
stag,” which grazed on the fertile fields of Cæa and was held sacred
to Carthæan nymphs. His constant companion, this gentle stag was one
day unwittingly pierced to the heart by a dart thrown by the luckless
youth. Overcome with remorse, Cyparissus would fain have killed himself
but for the intervention of Apollo, who bade him not mourn more than
the loss of the animal required. Unable, however, to conquer his grief,
Cyparissus at length prayed the superior powers, that as an expiation,
he should be doomed to mourn to all succeeding time: the gods therefore
turned him into a Cypress-tree. Ovid thus relates the tale:--
“And now of blood exhausted he appears,
Drained by a torrent of continual tears;
The fleshy colour in his body fades,
And a green tincture all his limbs invades;
From his fair head, where curling locks late hung,
A horrid bush with bristled branches sprung,
Which, stiff’ning by degrees, its stem extends,
Till to the starry skies the spire ascends.
Apollo sad looked on, and sighing cried,
Then be for ever what thy prayer implied;
Bemoaned by me, in others grief excite,
And still preside at every funeral rite.”--_Congreve._
According to another account, Silvanus, god of the woods (who is
sometimes represented holding a branch of Cypress in his hand), became
enamoured of a handsome youth named Cyparissus, who was changed into
the tree bearing his name. Rapin gives the following version of the
story:--
“A lovely fawn there was--Sylvanus’ joy,
Nor less the fav’rite of the sportive boy,
Which on soft grass was in a secret shade,
Beneath a tree’s thick branches cooly laid;
A luckless dart rash Cyparissus threw,
And undesignedly the darling slew.
But soon he to his grief the error found,
Lamenting, when too late, the fatal wound:
Nor yet Sylvanus spared the guiltless child,
But the mischance with bitter words reviled,
This struck so deep in his relenting breast,
With grief and shame, and indignation prest,
That tired of life he melted down in tears,
From whence th’ impregnate earth a Cypress rears;
Ensigns of sorrow these at first were born,
Now their fair race the rural scenes adorn.”
In a legend current among the Greeks, the Cypress owes its origin
to the daughters of Eteocles, King of Thebes. Carried away by the
goddesses in a whirlwind, which kept revolving them in endless
circles, they were at length precipitated into a pond, upon which
Gæa took compassion on the young girls, and changed them into
Cypress-trees.----Perhaps owing to its funereal and sorrowful
character, the Cypress has been named as the tree which furnished
the wood of the Saviour’s Cross.----An ancient legend referred to in
the ‘Gospel of Nicodemus,’ Curzon’s ‘Monasteries of the Levant,’ and
other works, carries the history of the Cross back as far as the time
of Adam. In substance it is as follows:--Adam, one day, fell sick,
and sent his son Seth to the Garden of Eden to ask the guardian angel
for some drops of the oil of mercy, distilled from the Tree of Life.
The angel replied that none could have that till five thousand years
had passed, but gave him a slip of the tree, which was afterwards
planted on Adam’s grave, and grew into a goodly tree with three
branches. Another version states that the Angel in Paradise gave Seth
three seeds, which he placed under Adam’s tongue before burial, from
which they grew into the Cypress, the Cedar, and the Pine. These were
subsequently carried away by Moses, who cut his rod from them, and King
David transplanted them near a fountain at Jerusalem, where the three
saplings combined and grew into one grand tree. Under its umbrageous
shade he composed his Psalms and lamented his sins. His son Solomon
afterwards cut it down for a pillar in his Temple, but no one was able
to fix it there. Some say it was preserved in the Temple, while others
aver that it formed a bridge across a marsh, which the Queen of Sheba
refused to pass, being deterred by a vision of its future burden. It
was afterwards buried in the Pool of Bethesda, thereby accounting for
the healing properties possessed by its waters. At the Passion, it
floated and was taken for the Cross, or, as some say, for the upright
beam. Henry Maundrell speaks of a Greek convent, about half an hour’s
distance from Jerusalem, where they showed him a hole in the ground
under the high altar, where the stump of the tree stood. Sir John
Maundevile also says that the spot where the tree grew at Jerusalem was
pointed out to him; the wood, he states, formed a bridge over the brook
Cedron.----Some versions of the legend of the wood of the Cross state
it was made of Cypress, Cedar, Pine, and Box: one names Cypress for
the body, Palm for the hands, Cedar for the support of the feet, and
Olive for the superscription.----Another version states that the cross
beam was of Cypress; the upright beam of “immortal Cedar;” the title of
Olive; and the foot-rest of Palm: hence the line--
“_Ligna crucis Palma, Cedrus, Cupressus, Oliva._”
In all countries, and from the earliest times, the Cypress has been
deemed the emblem of woe. Gerarde tells us, that it had the reputation
of being deadly, and that its shadow was unfortunate. Horace, Virgil,
and Ovid all refer to it as a tree both gloomy and funereal. By the
Greeks and Romans alike, the “sad” tree was consecrated to Pluto
and Proserpine, as well as to the Fates and the Furies. The Greeks
crowned with Cypress their tragic Muse Melpomene, and it became an
accompaniment of Venus in the annual processions in which she was
supposed to lament over Adonis.----The ancients planted the Cypress
around graves, and in the event of a death, placed it either before
the house or in the vestibule, so that no one about to perform a
sacred rite might enter a place polluted with a dead body. The Cypress
was probably selected for this purpose because of the belief that,
when once cut down, it never springs up again.----But, in connection
with its funereal associations, the Cypress has always been highly
esteemed as an undying tree, ever verdant, flourishing (_Cupressus
sempervirens_) and odorous, and a tree of which the wood, like the
Cedar, is incorruptible. Theophrastus attributes great honour to the
tree, and points out how the roofs of old temples became famous by
reason of its wood, and that the timber of which the rafters were made
was deemed everlasting, because it was unhurt by rotting, moth, worm,
or corruption. Martial describes the Cypress as deathless. Gerarde
identifies it with the _Thya_ of Pliny and Homer: “He showeth that
this is burned among the sweet smells which Circe was much delighted
withall.... The verse is extant in the fifth booke of Odysses,
where he mentioneth that Mercurie, by Jupiter’s commandment, went
to Calypsus’ den, and that he did smell the burnt trees, _Thya_ and
_Cedrus_, a great way off.” Theocritus and Virgil both allude to
the fragrance of the Cypress, and on account of the balsamic scent
of its timber, chips of it were sometimes employed to flavour wine
with. The Athenians buried their heroes in coffins of this wood, and
the Egyptians made of it those apparently indestructible chests that
contain the mummies of a bygone age.----Pausanias tells us, that the
Greeks guarded scrupulously the Cypresses which grew over the Tomb of
Alcmæon, and that these trees attained such a height, that they cast
their shadows on the neighbouring mountain. The same writer mentions
several groves of Cypress which were looked upon as sacred by the
Greeks; for instance, those which surrounded the Temples of Bellerophon
and Æsculapius, one of the shrines of Venus, the Tomb of Lais, near
Corinth, and a dense wood of Cypress, where were to be seen statues of
Apollo, Mercury, and Rhea. Diodorus Siculus, Plato, and Solinus speak
of groves of Cypress which were held sacred in Crete, near the ruins
of the reputed dwelling of Rhea, and in the vicinity of the Cavern of
Zeus. Solinus also remarks on the peculiarity of the Cretan Cypresses
in sprouting afresh after being cut down.----P. della Valla, a great
traveller of Evelyn’s time, tells of a wonderful Cypress, then extant,
near the tomb of Cyrus, to which pilgrimages were made. This tree was
hollowed within, and fitted for an oratory, and was noted for a gummy
transudation which it yielded, reputed by the Turks to turn, every
Friday, into drops of blood.----Plato desired to have the laws engraved
on tablets of Cypress, because he thought the wood more durable even
than brass: the antique idol of Vejovis (or Vedius), in Cypress-wood,
at the Capitol, corroborates this notion. Semiramis selected the
timber of the Cypress for his bridge across the Euphrates; the valves,
or doors, of the Ephesian temple were of this material, as were also
the original gates of St. Peter’s, Rome. It has been thought that the
_Gopher_, mentioned in Genesis (vi., 14), of which the Ark was built,
was really _Kupros_, _Cupar_, or _Cuper_, the Cypress. Epiphanius
relates that some relics of the Ark (_circa campos Sennaar_) lasted
even to his days, and was judged to have been of Cypress. Certain it
is that the Cretans employed it in ship-building, and that so frequent
was the Cypress in those parts of Assyria where the Ark was supposed
to have been built, that the vast armadas which Alexander the Great
sent forth from Babylon were constructed of it. Of Cypress-wood were
formed Cupid’s darts, Jove’s sceptre, and the club of Hercules used
in recovering the cows stolen by the robber Cacus. Either of Fig- or
Cypress-wood were fashioned the obscene statues of Priapus set up by
the Romans in their gardens and orchards, which were presided over by
this lascivious god, who exercised a peculiar faculty of detecting
and punishing thieves. The thunderbolts of Indra possessed the like
distinctive power. In Northern mythology, the club of Hercules and
the thunderbolts of Indra are replaced by the mallet of Thor, which
it is not difficult to recognise in the mallet of Cypress-wood that,
in Germany, was formerly believed to impart the power of discovering
thieves.----From its qualities, the Cypress acquired throughout the
East a sacred character. This was more particularly the case in Persia.
In the Zend-Avesta, it is accounted divine--consecrated to the pure
light of Ormuzd, whose word was first carved on this noble tree. Parsi
traditions tell of a Cypress planted by Zoroaster himself, which grew
to wondrous dimensions, and beneath the branches of which he built
himself a summer-house, forty yards high and forty yards broad. This
tree is celebrated in the songs of Firdusi as having had its origin in
Paradise. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Cypress, a tree of
Paradise, rising in a pyramidal form, with its taper summit pointing
to the skies, like the generating flame, should be planted at the
gates of the most sacred fire-temples, and, bearing the law inscribed
by Zoroaster, should stand in the forecourt of the royal palace and
in the middle of pleasure gardens, as a reminiscence of the lost
Paradise. This is the reason why sculptured images of the Cypress are
found in the temples and palaces of Persepolis; for the Persian kings
were servants of Ormuzd. Sacred Cypresses were also found in the very
ancient temple of Armavir, in Atropatene, the home of Zoroaster and
his light-worship. The Cypress, indeed, reverenced all over Persia,
was transmitted as a sacred tree down from the ancient Magi to the
Mussulmans of modern times.----From Asia, the Cypress passed to the
island of Cyprus (which derived its name from the tree), and here the
primitive inhabitants worshipped, under the Phœnician name Beroth, a
goddess personified by the Cypress-tree.----According to Claudian, the
Cypress was employed by the goddess Ceres as a torch, which she cast
into the crater of Etna, in order to stay the eruption of the volcano,
and to imprison there Vulcan himself.----An Italian tradition affirms
that the Devil comes at midnight to carry off three Cypresses confided
to the care of three brothers--a superstitious notion evidently
derived from the fact that the tree was by the ancients consecrated to
Pluto.----Like all the trees connected with the Phallica, the Cypress
is at once a symbol of generation, of death, and of the immortal
soul.----In Eastern legends, the Cypress often represents a young
lover, and the Rose, his beloved. In a wedding song of the Isle of
Crete, the bridegroom is compared to the Cypress, the bride to the
scented Narcissus. In Miller’s _Chrestomathie_ is a popular Russian
song, in which a young girl tells her master that she has dreamed of
a Cypress and of a Sugar-tree. The master tells her that the Cypress
typifies a husband, and the Sugar-tree a wife; and that the branches
are the children, who will gather around them.----At Rome, according to
Pliny, they used to plant a Cypress at the birth of a girl, and called
it the _dotem_ of the daughter.----The oldest tree on record is the
Cypress of Somma, in Lombardy. An ancient chronicle at Milan proves it
was a tree in Julius Cæsar’s time, B.C. 42. It is 121 feet high, and
23 feet in circumference at one foot from the ground. Napoleon, when
laying down the plan for his great road over the Simplon, diverged
from a straight line to avoid injuring this tree.----To dream of a
Cypress-tree denotes affliction and obstruction in business.
DAFFODIL, DAFFODILLY, or DAFFADOWNDILLY.--See Narcissus.
=DAHLIA.=--The Dahlia (_Dahlia variabilis_) is first mentioned in
a History of Mexico, by Hernandez (1651): it was next noticed by
Menonville, who was employed by the French Minister to steal the
cochineal insect from the Spaniards in 1790. The Abbé Cavanilles first
described the flower scientifically from a specimen which had bloomed
in the Royal Garden of Madrid the previous year, and he named the plant
after his friend Andrew Dahl, the Swedish botanist.----The Dahlia was
introduced into England in 1789 by Lady Bute from Madrid, but this
single plant speedily perished. Cavanilles sent specimens of the three
varieties then known to the Jardin des Plantes in 1802, and the flower
was very successfully cultivated in France, so that in 1814, on the
return of peace, the improved varieties of the Dahlia created quite a
sensation among English visitors to Paris. Meanwhile, Lady Holland had
in July, 1804, sent Dahlia-seeds to England from Madrid, and ten years
after we find her husband thus writing to her:--
“The Dahlia you brought to our isle
Your praises for ever shall speak;
Mid gardens as sweet as your smile,
And in colour as bright as your cheek.”
It is singular that this favourite flower should have been twice
introduced to England through the ladies of two of her most noted
statesmen, and that the first introduction should mark the year when
France became revolutionized, and the second that which saw Napoleon
made Emperor of the French nation: it is from these incidents that
the Dahlia in floral language has been selected as the symbol of
“instability.”----In Germany and Russia, the flower is called Georgina,
after a St. Petersburg professor.
=DAISY.=--The legend connected with the Daisy, or _Bellis_, runs that
this favourite little flower owes its origin to one of the Belides, who
were grand-daughters of Danaus, and belonged to the race of Nymphs,
called Dryads, presiding over woodlands, pastures, and meadows: she is
said to have encouraged the suit of the rural divinity, Ephigeus, but
whilst dancing on the sward with him, chanced to attract the admiration
of Vertumnus, the guardian deity of orchards, and to enable her to
escape from his amorous embrace, she was transformed into the humble
flower named _Bellis_. Thus Rapin says:--
“When the bright ram, bedecked with stars and gold,
Displays his fleece, the Daisy will unfold
To nymphs a chaplet, and to beds a grace,
Who once herself had borne a virgin’s face.”
Chaucer, however, who appears to have been passionately fond of the
Daisy, and never tired of singing its praises, tells us that the Queen
Alceste was changed into the flower, and that she had as many virtues
as there were florets in it.
“Hast thou not a book in thy cheste,
The great goodnesse of the Queene Alceste
That turned was into a Daisie?
She that for her husband chose to die,
And eke to gone to hell rather than lie.
And Hercules rescued her, parde,
And brought her out of hell again to bliss?
And I answered againe, and said ‘Yes,’
Now I knowe her, and this is good Alceste,
The Daisie, and mine own hertes rest?”
Ossian gives another origin. Malvina, weeping beside the tomb of
Fingal, for Oscar and his infant son, is comforted by the maids of
Morven, who narrate how they have seen the innocent infant borne on a
light mist, pouring upon the fields a fresh harvest of flowers, amongst
which rises one with golden disc, encircled with rays of silver, tipped
with a delicate tint of crimson. “Dry thy tears, O Malvina,” cried the
maidens; “the flower of thy bosom has given a new flower to the hills
of Cromla.”----The ancient English name of the flower was Day’s Eye,
in which way it was written by Ben Jonson; and Chaucer calls it the
“ee of the daie.” Probably it received this designation from its habit
of closing its petals at night and during rainy weather.----There is a
popular superstition, that if you omit to put your foot on the first
Daisy you see in Spring, Daisies will grow over you or someone dear to
you ere the year be out; and in some English counties an old saying is
current that Spring has not arrived until you can plant your foot upon
twelve Daisies.----Alphonse Karr, speaking of the Paquerette, or Easter
Daisy, says, “There is a plant that no insect, no animal attacks--that
ornament of the field, with golden disc and rays of silver, spread in
such profusion at our feet: nothing is so humble, nothing is so much
respected.” (See Marguerite).----Daisy-roots worn about the person were
formerly deemed to prove efficacious in the cure of certain maladies;
and Bacon, in his _Sylva Sylvarum_, tells us “There is also a received
tale, that boiling of Daisy-roots in milk (which it is certain are
great driers) will make dogs little.”----An old writer (1696) says
that they who wish to have pleasant dreams of the loved and absent
should put Daisy-roots under their pillow.----It is considered lucky to
dream of Daisies in Spring or Summer, but bad in the Autumn or Winter.
Daisies are herbs of Venus, under Cancer.
=DAMES’ VIOLET.=--The species of Rocket called _Hesperis matronalis_,
the Night-smelling Rocket, is much cultivated for the evening
fragrance of its flowers: hence the ladies of Germany keep it in pots
in their apartments, from which circumstance the flower is said to
have obtained the name of Dames’ Violet. It is also called Damask
Violet, a name derived from the Latin _Viola Damascena_, the Damascus
Violet. In French this is _Violette de Damas_, which has probably
been misunderstood as _Violette des Dames_, and has hence become, in
English, Dames’ Violet. (See ROCKET.)
=DANDELION.=--The Dandelion (_Taraxacum officinale_) derives its name
from the French _Dent de lion_, lion’s tooth. (Latin, _Dens leonis_).
In nearly every European language the flower bears a similar name,
given to it presumably either from the whiteness of its root, the
auriferous hue of its flower, which recalls the golden teeth of the
heraldic lion, or its jagged leaf, which was supposed to resemble a
lion’s tooth. De Gubernatis connects the name with the Sun (_Helios_),
and states that a lion was the animal-symbol of the Sun, and that all
plants named after him are essentially plants of the Sun. Certainly the
appearance of the Dandelion-flower is very suggestive of the ancient
representations of the Sun.----In German Switzerland, the children form
chains of the stalks of Dandelions, and holding the garland in their
hands, they dance round and round in a circle.----The Dandelion is
called the rustic oracle: its flowers always open about five a.m. and
shut at eight p.m., serving the shepherd for a clock--
“Leontodons unfold
On the swart turf their ray-encircled gold,
With Sol’s expanding beam the flowers unclose,
And rising Hesper lights them to repose.”--_Darwin._
As the flower is the shepherd’s clock, so are the feathery seed-tufts
his barometer, predicting calm or storm. These downy seed-balls,
which children blow off to find out the hour of the day, serve for
other oracular purposes. Are you separated from the object of your
love?--carefully pluck one of the feathery heads, charge each of the
little feathers composing it with a tender thought; turn towards the
spot where the loved one dwells; blow, and the seed-ball will convey
your message faithfully. Do you wish to know if that dear one is
thinking of you, blow again; and if there be left upon the stalk a
single aigrette, it is a proof you are not forgotten. Similarly the
Dandelion is consulted as to whether the lover lives east, west, north,
or south, and whether he is coming or not.
“Will he come? I pluck the flower leaves off,
And at each, cry, yes--no--yes;
I blow the down from the dry Hawkweed,
Once, twice--hah! it flies amiss!”--_Scott._
Old herbalists had great faith in the Dandelion as a wonderful help to
consumptive people. More recently, in the county of Donegal, an old
woman skilled in simples has treated her patients for “heart fever,”
or dyspepsia, as follows:--She measures the sufferer three times round
the waist with a ribbon, to the outer edge of which is fastened a green
thread. If the patient be mistaken in supposing himself affected with
heart fever, this green thread will remain in its place, but should
he really have the disorder, it is found that the green thread has
left the edge of the ribbon and lies curled up in the centre. At the
third measuring, the simpler prays for a blessing. She next hands the
patient nine leaves of “heart fever grass,” or Dandelion, gathered
by herself, directing him to cut three leaves on three successive
mornings.----Hurdis, in his poem of ‘The Village Curate,’ fantastically
compares the sparkling undergraduate and the staid divine to the
Dandelion in the two stages of its existence:--
“Dandelion this,
A college youth, that flashes for a day
All gold: anon he doffs his gaudy suit,
Touched by the magic hand of some grave bishop,
And all at once becomes a reverend divine--how sleek.
* * * * *
But let me tell you, in the pompous globe
Which rounds the Dandelion’s head, is couched
Divinity most rare.”
To dream of Dandelions betokens misfortune, enemies, and deceit on
the part of loved ones. Astrologers claim the Dandelion as a plant of
Jupiter.
=DANEWORT.=--The Dwarf Elder (_Sambucus Ebulus_) is said only to grow
where blood has been shed, either in battle or in murder. A patch of
it thrives on ground in Worcestershire, where the first blood was
drawn in the civil war between the Royalists and the Parliament. The
Welsh call it _Llysan gwaed gwyr_, or “Plant of the blood of men.”
A name of similar import is its English one of Death-wort. It is
chiefly in connection with the history of the Danes in England, that
the superstition holds; wherever the Danes fought and bled, there did
the Dwarf Elder, or Dane’s Wood, spring up and flourish. According
to Aubrey, the plant obtained the name of Danewort, Daneweed, or
Dane’s blood, because it grew plentifully in the neighbourhood of
Slaughterford, Wilts, where there was once a stout battle fought with
the Danes. Parkinson, however, thinks the plant obtained the name of
Danewort because it would cause a flux called the Danes.
=DAPHNE.=--The generic name of Daphne has been given to a race of
beautiful low shrubs, after the Nymph Daphne, who was changed by the
gods into a Laurel, in order that she might escape the solicitations
of Apollo (see LAUREL); because many of the species have Laurel-like
leaves. The sweet-scented Daphne Mezereon is very generally known
as the Lady Laurel, and is also called Spurge Olive, Spurge Flax,
Flowering Spurge, and Dwarf Bay. The name of Mezereon is probably
derived from its Persian name, _Madzaryoun_, which signifies “destroyer
of life,” in allusion to the poisonous nature of its bright red
berries. Gerarde says, “If a drunkard doe eat one graine or berrie of
it, he cannot be allowed to drinke at that time; such will be the heate
of his mouth, and choking in the throte.” A decoction of this plant,
mixed with other ingredients, is the Lisbon diet-drink, a well-known
alterative.----The Russian ladies are reputed to rub their cheeks
with the fruit of the Mezereon, in order, by the slight irritation,
to heighten their colour.----The Spurge Laurel (_Daphne Laureola_)
possess similar properties to the Mezereon. It is called _Ty-ved_ in
Denmark, and is sacred to Tyr, the Scandinavian god of war. It is the
badge of the Highland Grahams.----The Flax-leaved Daphne, called by
Gerarde the Mountain Widow-Wayle, is supposed to be the herb Casia,
mentioned by Virgil and other Roman writers; the _Cneoron_ of the
Greeks.
=DATE.=--The Date Palm (_Phœnix dactylifera_) is the Palm of the Oases,
and supplies not only food for man and beast, but a variety of useful
commodities. This Palm has plume-like leaves, and grows from sixty to
eighty feet high, living to a great age, and providing yearly a large
crop of fruit. The male and female flowers are borne on separate trees,
and it is remarkable that there is a difference in the fructification
of the wild Date and the cultivated, though both are the same species.
The wild Dates impregnate themselves, but the cultivated trees do
not, without the assistance of art. Pontanus, an Italian poet of the
fifteenth century, gives a glowing description of a female Date-tree
which had stood lonely and barren, near Otranto, until at length a
favouring wind wafted towards it the pollen of a male that grew at a
distance of fifteen leagues. Father Labat has told of a Date-tree that
grew in the island of Martinico, and produced fruit which was much
esteemed; but when an increase of the number of Date-trees was wanted,
not one could be reared from the seed, and they had to send to Africa
for Dates, the stones of which grew readily and produced abundantly.
The Date Palm is so abundant in the country between the States of
Barbary and the desert (which produces no other kind of tree), that
this region is designated as the Land of Dates (_Biledulgerid_).----The
Palm of Palestine is the Date Palm. When the sacred writers wished to
describe the majesty and beauty of rectitude, they appealed to the
Palm as the fittest emblem which they could select. “He shall grow up
and flourish like the Palm-tree” is the promise of David to the just.
Mahomet, like the Psalmist of Israel, was wont to compare the virtuous
and generous man to the Date-tree:--“He stands erect before his Lord;
in every action he follows the impulse received from above; and his
whole life is devoted to the welfare of his fellow-creatures.”----The
inhabitants of Medina, who possess the most extensive plantations of
Date-trees, say that their prophet caused a tree at once to spring
from the kernel at his command, and to stand before his admiring
followers in mature fruitfulness and beauty.----The Tamanaquas of South
America have a tradition that the human race sprang again from the
fruits of the Date Palm after the Mexican age of water.----The Arabs
say that when Adam was driven out of Paradise, the Date, the chief of
all fruits, was one of the three things which he took with him; the
other two being the Myrtle and an ear of Wheat.----A popular legend
concerning the flight of the Holy Family into Egypt, narrates how a
Date Palm, at the command of the child Jesus, bowed down its branches
to shade and refresh His mother. Sozomenos relates that, when the Holy
Family reached the end of their journey, and approached the city of
Heliopolis, in Egypt, a tree which grew before the gates of the city,
and was regarded with great veneration as the seat of a god, bowed
down its branches at the approach of the infant Christ.----Judæa was
typified by the Date Palm upon the coins of Vespasian and Titus. With
the Jews, the Date Palm has always been the symbol of triumph, and they
carry branches of it in their right hands, in their synagogues, at the
Feast of the Tabernacles, in commemoration of their forefathers having
gained possession of the Promised Land. In the Christian Church, the
remembrance of the Saviour’s ride into Jerusalem amid the hosannas of
the people, is associated with the waving of the branches of the Date
Palm by the joyous multitude.----An ardent spirit, distilled from Dates
and water, is much used by Mahommedans, as it does not come within
the prohibition of the Koran against wine. Palm wine is also made
from the Date; it is the sap or juice of the tree, and can only be
obtained by its destruction.----A curious folk-lore tale of the Chinese
records how Wang Chih, a patriarch of the Taouist sect, when one day
gathering fire-wood in the mountains of Ku Chow, entered a grotto where
some old men were playing at chess. One of the old men handed him a
Date-stone, telling him to put it into his mouth. This done, he ceased
to feel hunger or thirst. By-and-bye, one of the players said: “It is
long since you came here--return at once.” Wang Chih went to take up
his axe, and found the handle had mouldered into dust. He went home,
but found that centuries had elapsed since the day he set out to cut
wood: thereupon he retired to a mountain cell, and devoting himself to
religious exercises, finally attained immortality.
=DEAD TONGUE.=--The Water Hemlock (_Œnanthe crocata_) has received the
name of Dead Tongue from its paralysing effects on the organs of voice.
Threlkeld tells of eight lads who had eaten it, and of whom “five died
before morning, not one of them having spoken a word.” Gerarde relates,
that this plant having by mistake been eaten in a salad, “it did well
nigh poyson those that ate of it, making them giddie in their heads,
waxing very pale, staggering, and reeling like drunken men.”----The
plant is described as “one of Saturn’s nosegays.”
DEADLY NIGHTSHADE, or DEATH’S HERB.--See Nightshade.
=DEODAR.=--The sacred Indian Cedar (_Cedrus Deodara_) forms vast
forests in the mountains of Northern India, where it grows to a height
varying from fifty to a hundred feet and upwards. It is the _Devadâru_,
or tree-god of the _Shastras_, which, in many of the ancient hymns
of the Hindus, is the symbol of power and majesty. The tree is often
mentioned by the Indian poets. It was introduced into this country in
1822.
=DHAK.=--The Dhak, or Bastard Teak (_Butea frondosa_), is one of the
sacred trees of India, and one of the most striking of the Indian
arboreous _Leguminosæ_. Both its wood and leaves are highly reverenced,
and used in religious ceremonies. The natives, also, are fond of
offering the beautiful scarlet flowers in their temples, and the
females intertwine the blossoms in their hair.----The flowers yield a
superb dye.
=DILL.=--The aromatic plant Dill (_Anethum graveolens_) is by some
supposed to have derived its name from the old Norse word _dilla_,
dull; the seeds being used as a carminative to cause infants to
sleep. Boiled in wine, and drunk, the plant was reputed to excite
the passions. Dill was formerly highly appreciated as a plant that
counteracted the powers of witches and sorcerers:--
“The Vervain and the Dill,
That hindereth witches of their will.”
Astrologers assign Dill to the domination of Mercury.
=DITTANY.=--The ancients consecrated the Dittany of Crete (_Origanum
Dictamnus_) to the goddess Lucina, who presided over the birth of
children; and she was often represented wearing a crown of this
Dittany. The root was particularly recommended by the oracle of
Phthas. The Grecian and Roman women attributed to this plant the most
extraordinary properties during childbirth, which, it was believed
greatly to facilitate. It is reported, says Gerarde, “that the wilde
goats or deere in Candy, when they be wounded with arrowes, do shake
them out by eating of this plant, and heal their wounds.” According to
Virgil, Venus healed the wounded Æneas with Dittany. Plutarch says that
the women of Crete, seeing how the goats, by eating Dittany, cause the
arrows to fall from their wounds, learnt to make use of the plant to
aid them in childbirth. Gerarde recounts that the plant is most useful
in drawing forth splinters of wood, bones, &c., and in the healing of
wounds, “especially those made with invenomed weapons, arrowes shot out
of guns, or such like.” The juice, he says, is so powerful, that by its
mere smell it “drives away venomous beasts, and doth astonish them.”
When mixed with wine, the juice was also considered a remedy for the
bites of serpents. According to Apuleius, however, the plant possessed
the property of killing serpents.
The Dittany of Crete, it should be noted, is not to be confounded
with the Dittany, Dittander, or Pepper-wort of the English Herbals.
This plant, the _Lepidium latifolium_, from its being used by thrifty
housewives to season dishes with, obtained the name of Poor Man’s
Pepper. It was held to be under Mars.
=DOCK.=--In Cornwall, as a charm, the leaves of the common Dock, wetted
with spring water, are applied to burns, and three angels are invoked
to come out of the East. It is a common practice, in many parts of
England, for anyone suffering from the stings of a Nettle to apply a
cold Dock-leaf to the inflamed spot, the following well-known rhyme
being thrice repeated:--
“Out Nettle, in Dock:
Dock shall have a new smock.”
Docks are said by astrologers to be under the dominion of Jupiter.
=DRACÆNA.=--The Dracæna, or Dragon-tree (_Dracæna Draco_), derives its
name from the Greek _Drakaina_, a female dragon. This tree is found in
the East India Islands, the Canaries, Cape Verde, and Sierra Leone.
Gerarde thus describes it:--“This strange and admirable tree groweth
very great, resembling the Pine-tree.” Among its leaves “come forth
little mossie floures, of small moment, and turn into berries of the
bignesse of Cherries, of a yellowish colour, round, light, and bitter,
covered with a threefold skin, or film, wherein is to be seen, as
Monardus and divers others report, the form of a dragon, having a long
neck and gaping mouth, the ridge, or back, armed with sharp prickles
like the porcupine, with a long taile and foure feet, very easie to be
discerned.... The trunk, or body of the tree, is covered with a tough
bark, very thin and easie to be opened or wounded with any small toole
or instrument; which being so wounded in the dog days, bruised or
bored, yields forth drops of a thick red liquor of the name of the tree
called Dragon’s Tears, or _Sanguis Draconis_, Dragon’s Bloud.”----This
Dragon’s Blood, or Gum Dragon, is well known in medicine as an
astringent.----The tooth-brushes called Dragon’s-root, are made from
the root of the Dragon-tree, cut into pieces about four inches long,
each of which is beaten at one end with a wooden mallet to split it
into fibres.----The venerable Dragon-tree of Orotava was for many
centuries worshipped as a most sacred tree by the Guanches, or original
inhabitants of the Canary Islands. It was considered the twin wonder of
the Island of Teneriffe, dividing its interest with the mighty Peak.
Humboldt saw it in 1799, when it was considered the oldest and largest
of living trees (the giant trees of California being then unknown).
The great traveller writes concerning it:--“Its trunk is divided into
a great number of branches, which rise in the form of candelabra, and
are terminated by tufts of leaves like the Yucca: it still bears every
year both leaves and fruit: its aspect feelingly recalls to mind that
‘eternal youth of Nature,’ which is an inexhaustible source of motion
and of life.” Since then this sacred tree has been entirely shattered
and destroyed by successive storms.
DREAM PLANT.--See Pulsatilla.
=DRYAS.=--The pretty evergreen, Dryas, which blooms on the mountain
summits, was so named by Linnæus after the Dryades, or nymphs of the
Oaks,--the leaves bearing some resemblance to those of the Oak.
=DURIAN.=--The Durian (_Durio Zibethinus_) is a native of the East
Indies. The fruit of this tree, which is about the size of a man’s
head, is regarded by the Malays as the king of fruit, and is reputed
to be the most delicious of all the fruits of India. The custard-like
pulp in which the large seeds are imbedded, is the part eaten fresh,
and resembles cream; yet it is accompanied by such an intolerable
stench that, according to Rumphius and Valentyn, it is by law forbidden
to throw them out near any public path in Amboyna. The smell is said
to resemble certain putrid animal substances, yet all agree that if
the first repugnance is once overcome, the fruit is most enjoyable.
This fruit is employed as a bait to catch the civet cat; the outer
covering is boiled down, and used as a wash for the skin. The seeds are
converted into flour, and also used as vegetable ivory.
=DURVA.=--According to Wilson, Durva is the Sanscrit name of the
_Agrostis linearis_, but Carey applies the name to _Panicum Dactylon_.
This species of Millet, like the sacred Kusa grass, is held in much
reverence by the Hindus. In De Gubernatis’ _Mythologie des Plantes_,
the author states that in the _Atharvaveda_, they implore the Durva,
which grows in the water (_i.e._, in marshy places), and which has a
hundred roots and a hundred stems, to give absolution for a hundred
faults, and to prolong for a hundred years the life of him who invokes
it. The fact that this herb is the tenderest, the freshest, and the
most substantial food for cattle, added to its beauty, has gained
it respect; but the Indians think, besides, that a nymph is hidden
in the plant. When they celebrate, in India, the festival of the
god Indra, on the 14th day of the lunar month Bhadra, they sing and
dance, and offer fourteen different kinds of fruit to the god. In that
ceremony, the devotees wear, attached to the right arm, leaves of the
Durva. At Indian weddings, the women bind together the right arm of
the husband and the left arm of his bride with the leaves of Durva.
In the Vedic age (and the custom still exists in certain parts of
India), before building a house, it was customary to place on the four
corner foundation stones some Durva. This plant figures, also, among
the eight ingredients which compose the _Arghya_, that is to say, the
symbolic offering of Indian hospitality. According to a stanza of the
_Panchatantra_, the Durva sprang from the hair of the cow, as the blue
Lotus arose from the cow’s evacuations. The leaf of the Durva is so
highly esteemed, that it has passed into a proverb or familiar saying.
This leaf is especially attractive to gazelles. The preceding stanza
proclaims how happy are those gazelles who eat the herb Durva, for they
will never gaze on the face of a man whom riches have made false.
=EBONY.=--The _Diospyros Ebenaster_ is generally considered to be the
true Ebony-tree. This Date-Plum is a native of Ceylon, Cochin China,
and the East Indies. Bishop Heber describes the Ebony-tree of Ceylon as
a magnificent forest tree, with a tall, black, slender stem, spotted
with white. Some judges, however, consider that the real Ebony-tree
is the _Diospyrus Ebenus_, a native of Jamaica.----In ancient times it
was much more in use and esteem. Pluto, the sovereign of the infernal
regions, is represented as seated on a throne of Ebony; the statues of
the Egyptian gods were wrought in Ebony. According to Pausanias, the
statue of the Pythian Apollo was formed of this wood; and that writer
recounts that a Cyprian, well versed in plant lore, had told him that
the true and veritable Ebony was a plant that produced neither leaf,
flower, nor fruit; and, moreover, that it grew entirely underground in
certain places known to the Æthiopians, who periodically visited those
spots, and took away the wood.----Pulverised Ebony, mixed with the
charcoal of a burnt snail, is recommended by Sidrach as an application
to lessen the white of the eye.----There is an old saying, that a bad
man’s heart is as black as Ebony. This, probably, originated from the
fact, that while the alburnum of the Ebony-tree is white, its foliage
soft and silvery, and its flowers brilliant, the heart alone is really
black.----Among the many wonders described by Sir John Maundevile, as
having been seen by him when on his Eastern travels, in the fourteenth
century, was a certain table of Ebony, or black wood, “that once used
to turn into flesh on certain occasions, but whence now drips only oil,
which, if kept above a year, becomes good flesh and bone.”
=EDELWEISS.=--The Edelweiss, or Alpine Cudweed (_Leontopodium Alpinum_
or _Gnaphalium_), grows on the Swiss mountains on the line of perpetual
snow, and from thence is brought down by travellers as a proof that
they reached this altitude. As in many cantons it only grows in nearly
inaccessible places, it is considered an act of daring to gather it,
and the flower is therefore much valued by the Swiss maidens as a proof
of the devotion of their lovers. Although hardy, this plant is delicate
and fragile, enveloping itself in soft down, and only blooming on
rocks exposed in full midday. Its bloom is surrounded by white velvety
leaves; even the stem has a down upon it.----With the exception of
the _Alpenrose_, no other mountain flower is so characteristic of the
Alpine districts, so dear to the native heart, so celebrated by Alpine
poets, or so popular among Swiss tourists. Indeed, its very popularity
has threatened to lead to its extinction in the districts most
frequented by visitors; and to prevent this, the German and Tyrolese
Alpine Clubs have imposed fines for plucking the Edelweiss, and the
Austrian Alpine Club has forbidden its members to continue the custom
of wearing a sprig of Edelweiss in their hats.----The worst persecutors
of the plant are the picturesque Bergano herdsmen and herdboys, who
come up from the Italian side of the Alps at the beginning of the
season, and remain on the mountains with their flocks until the snow
begins to fall. They pluck up the Edelweiss mercilessly by the roots,
which they endeavour to dispose of to passing travellers. The Communes
of the Upper Engadine have taken the plant under their protection,
and sellers of the plant in its living condition are subject to a
fine. The Edelweiss, however, is plentiful still in tracts a little
out of the orthodox tourists’ routes, and at Pontresina grows in such
profusion as to be used as food for cattle. The Edelweiss is also known
by the name of the _Cotonnier_, and is sometimes called Lion’s-foot,
because of the resemblance of its woolly hairy flower to the foot of a
lion.
=EGG PLANT.=--The _Solanum Melongena_ has derived the name of Egg
Plant from the shape of its fruit, which is formed like a hen’s egg,
and varies in colour from white to pale yellow, pale red, and purple.
In the East Indies, they broil this fruit, and eat it with pepper and
salt, and the fruit is also relished in Batavia, Greece, Barbary, and
Turkey. The inhabitants of the British isles in the West Indies call it
Brown-John or Brown-jolly. Miller calls the plant the larger-fruited
Nightshade, and says that in his time it was cultivated in the
gardens of Spain by the title of _Barenkeena_. The Italians call it
_Melanzana_, a corruption of the plant’s ancient Latin name of _Mala
insana_, from whence also came its old English name of Raging Apple or
Mad Apple. There does not appear to be any reason for these strange
names, although Gerarde cautiously remarks that “doubtless these
Apples have a mischievous qualitie, the use whereof is utterly to bee
forsaken.”
=EGLANTINE.=--The Sweet Briar (_Rosa rubiginosa_) is generally
understood to be the Eglantine of old English poets, although the name
has given rise to much discussion, both as to its meaning, and as to
the shrub to which it applies. Chaucer and more ancient poets spelt the
word “Eglatere.”
“The hegge also, that yede in compas,
And closed in all the greene herbere,
With Sicamour was set and Eglatere.”
But it seems doubtful whether by Eglatere was meant the Yellow Rose
(_Eglanteria_), the Sweetbriar, the Dog Rose, or some other species.
According to Gerarde, it was a shrub with a white flower. Shakspeare,
Spenser, Shenstone, Sir W. Scott, Keats, and other poets identify
Eglantine with Sweetbriar; but Milton mistook it for the Honeysuckle or
Woodbine, for he speaks of
“Sweetbriar or the Vine,
Or the twisted Eglantine.”
According to a superstition current in Schleswig, when Satan fell
from heaven, he endeavoured, in order to reascend to the celestial
regions, to make himself a ladder with the thorns of the Eglantine.
God, however, would not permit the Eglantine to grow upwards, but only
to extend itself as a bush. Then, out of spite, Satan turned its thorns
downwards, pointing towards the earth.----Another legend records that
Judas Iscariot hung himself on the Eglantine, and that since then it
has been an accursed tree: hence to this day its berries are called
_Judas beeren_ (Judas berries).----The five graceful fringed leaflets,
which form the special beauty of the Eglantine flower and bud, have
given rise to the following rhymed riddle:--
“Of us five brothers at the same time born,
Two from our birthday ever beards have worn;
On other two none ever have appeared,
While the fifth brother wears but half a beard.”
=ELDER.=--The Elder or Ellan-tree (_Sambucus_), in Scandinavian
mythology, was consecrated to Hulda, the goddess of love, and to
Thor, the god of Thunder, and is connected with many ancient Northern
superstitions.
The Danes believe that in the Elder there dwells a being known as
the Hylde-moer (Elder-mother) or Hylde-qvinde (Elder-woman), by whom
all injuries done to the Elder are avenged. In a small court in the
Nybonder, a district of Copenhagen, there stands a weird tree, which at
dusk is reputed to move up and down the passage, and sometimes to peep
through the windows at the children. It is not deemed advisable to have
furniture made of Elder-wood. Tradition says that a child having been
laid in a cradle made of Elder-wood, the Hylde-moer came and pulled it
by the legs, nor would she let it have any rest until it was taken out
of the cradle. A peasant once heard his children crying in the night,
and on inquiring the cause, was told that some one had been there and
sucked them; and their breasts were found to be swollen. This annoyance
was believed to have arisen, from the fact that the room was boarded
with Elder. The Elder branches may not be cut until permission has
been asked in the words, “Hylde-moer, Hylde-moer, allow me to cut thy
branches.” Then, if no objection be made by the spirit of the tree, the
hewer proceeds, taking care first to spit three times, as a precaution
against molestation. In Denmark, it is believed that he who stands
under an Elder-bush at twelve o’clock on Midsummer Eve, will see Toly,
the king of the elves, go by with all his train. Perhaps on account
of the supernatural halo surrounding it, the Elder was regarded as a
cure for various diseases. A Danish formula prescribes the taking of an
Elder-twig by a person afflicted with toothache, who must first put it
in his mouth, and then stick it in the wall, saying, “Depart thou evil
spirit.” Ague may be cured by taking a twig of Elder, and sticking it
in the ground, without speaking a word; the disease will then pass into
the twig, and attach itself to the first person who approaches the spot.
In Russia, there is a belief that Elder-trees drive away bad and
malignant spirits, out of compassion to humanity, and that they promote
long life.
In Sweden, women about to become mothers kiss the Elder; and it is
thought that no one can damage the tree with impunity.
In Germany, the Elder is regarded with great respect. From its leaves
a febrifuge is made: from its berries a sort of sour preserve, and a
wonder-working electuary; the moon-shaped clusters of flowers are
narcotic, and are used in baking small cakes. The smell of the leaves
and blossoms has the reputation of causing giddiness, whence arises the
saying that “he who goes to sleep under an Elder-tree will never wake.”
The cross which is affixed to the rod on which the Easter Palms are
fastened is made of Elder-wood, as well as the cross which is carried
before the coffin in the funeral procession. Although essentially a
tree of shade and of death, yet it and the funeral cross just mentioned
are known by the name of “Livelong.” It is a favourite hiding-place for
children when playing at “hide-and-seek.” The pith of the branches,
when cut in round flat shapes, is dipped in oil, lighted, and then put
to float in a glass of water; its light on Christmas Eve is thought to
reveal to the owner all the witches and sorcerers in the neighbourhood.
Since this tree drives away spirits, it is often planted by the side
of manure sheds, keeping them damp by its shade, and also protecting
from evil influences the cattle in the adjoining shed. It is commonly
believed that he who injures an Elder-tree will suffer from its
vengeance. “Holderstock” (Elderstock) is a name of endearment given by
a lover to his beloved, and is derived from Hulda, the old goddess of
love.
In Lower Saxony, it was customary to ask permission of the Elder-tree
before cutting it, in the words, “Lady Elder, give me some of thy wood;
then will I also give thee some of mine when it grows in the forest.”
This was repeated three times, with folded hands and bended knees.
Pusch Kait, the ancient Prussian god of the earth, was supposed to live
under the Elder-tree.
In the Tyrol, an Elder-bush, trimmed into the form of a cross, is often
planted on the new-made grave; and if it blooms, it is a sign that
the soul of the dead person is in Paradise. The Tyroleans have such a
regard for the tree, that, in passing it, they always raise their hat.
In Bohemia, three spoonfuls of the water which has been used to bathe
an invalid are poured under an Elder, with “Elder, God sends me to
thee, that thou may’st take my fever upon thee.” This must be repeated
on three successive days, and if the patient has not meanwhile passed
over water, he will recover.----The Serbs introduce a stick of Elder,
to ensure good luck, during their wedding festivities.
In Savoy, branches of Elder are carried about on May-day. In Sicily, it
is thought a bough of Elder will kill serpents, and drive away robbers
better than any other stick. In Labruguière, France, if an animal is
ill, or has a wound infested by vermin, they lead it to the foot of an
Elder-tree, and twirling a bough in their hands, they bow to the tree,
and address it as follows:--“Good-day, Mons. Yèble; if you do not drive
away the vermin, I shall be compelled to cut both your limbs and your
trunk.” This ceremony performed, a certain cure is confidently looked
for. In the country districts round Valenciennes, if an Elder-bough is
hung outside the door, it is indicative of a coquette inhabiting the
house.
In England, the Elder has been regarded with superstition from very
early times, and is looked upon as a tree of bad omen. Branches of
Elder were formerly considered to be typical of disgrace and woe. In
the _Canones editi sub Edgaro Rege_ it is enacted that every priest
forbid the vain practices that are carried on with Elder-sticks, and
also with various other trees.
In Gloucestershire, and some other counties, the peasantry will on
no account burn Elder or Ellan-wood, the reason being, that it was
supposed to be one of the trees from which the wood of the Cross was
formed. In a rare tract on Gloucestershire superstitions, a figure
is given of an Elder-wood cross borne constantly about the person
as a cure for rheumatism. This cross consisted of a small piece cut
from a young shoot just above and below a joint, so as to leave the
bud projecting at each end of it, after the fashion of a rude cross.
To be efficient, the Elder must have grown in consecrated ground. In
Tortworth and other Gloucestershire churchyards are to be found such
trees, and applications for pieces of them are still made.
In Sussex, an Elder-stick, with three, four, or more knots upon it, is
carried in the pocket as a charm against rheumatism.
In the Eastern counties, the Elder is popularly considered to be the
tree of whose wood the Cross was made: it is therefore an unlucky tree,
and one that should never be bound up in faggots. On this account,
also, the Elder is considered safe from the effects of lightning. In
some parts there is a vulgar prejudice that if boys be beaten with an
Elder-stick, their growth is sure to be checked.
In Huntingdonshire, there exists the Danish belief in a being called
the Elder-mother, so that it is not always safe to pluck the flowers.
No household furniture should be made of Elder-wood, least of all a
cradle, for some evil will certainly befall the child sleeping in it.
The Elder-tree has been credited with possessing a peculiar fascination
for witches and elves, who love to lurk beneath the shadow of its
branches, and who are wont to bury their offspring at its foot. On the
other hand, the tree has been said to exercise a protective influence
against the attacks of witches and wizards, and similar evil-disposed
persons; and it has been suggested that this is the reason why the tree
is so often found in the neighbourhood of cottages. It was thought that
the tree was obnoxious to witches because their enemies use the green
juice of its inner bark for anointing the eyes. Any baptised person
whose eyes are touched with it can see what the witches are about in
any part of the world. It was possible by magic art to render witches
sensible of blows given to them with an Elder-stick, but this has to
be managed by someone versed in the habits of witches. A cross made of
the Elder, affixed to cow-houses and stables, was supposed to protect
cattle from all possible harm.
Shakspeare, in ‘Love’s Labour Lost,’ says “Judas was hanged on an
Elder,” and this belief was general among early writers, and is
constantly alluded to by authors of the Elizabethan period; but the
name Judas-tree was applied to the _Cercis siliquastrum_ (which is the
tree which still bears it), about the same period. Gerarde, indeed,
definitely tells us of the Cercis, “This is the tree whereon Judas did
hang himselfe, and not upon the Elder-tree, as is stated.” On the other
hand, that old Eastern traveller, Sir John Maundevile, tells us that
the very Elder-tree upon which Judas hanged himself was to be seen in
his day close to the Pool of Siloe; whilst the legend which connects
Judas with the Elder-tree is alluded to by Ben Jonson, and is thus
referred to in ‘Piers Plowman’:--
“Judas, he japed
With Jewen silver
And sithen on an Eller
Hanged hymselve.”
But not only is the ill-omened Elder credited with being connected with
the death of Judas, but there is a wide-spread belief that it was the
“accursed tree” on which the Redeemer’s life was given up; therefore,
although fuel may be scarce and these sticks plentiful, in some places
the superstitious poor will not burn them.----In Scotland, according
to a writer in the ‘Dublin Magazine,’ it is called the Bour-tree, and
the following rhyme is indicative of the belief entertained in that
country:--
“Bour-tree, Bour-tree, crooked rung,
Never straight and never strong,
Ever bush and never tree,
Since our Lord was nailed on thee.”
In Chambers’s ‘Book of Days’ is an instance of the belief that a
person is perfectly safe under the shelter of an Elder-tree during a
thunderstorm, as the lightning never strikes the tree of which the
Cross was made. Experience has taught that this is a fallacy, although
many curious exceptional instances are recorded. In Napier’s Folk-lore
of the Northern Counties we read of a peculiar custom:--the Elder is
planted in the form of a cross upon a newly-made grave, and if it
blooms they take it as a sure sign that the soul of the dead person is
happy.
It is not considered prudent to sleep under an Elder. Evelyn describes
the narcotic smell of the tree as very noxious to the air, and narrates
that a certain house in Spain, seated among Elder-trees, diseased and
killed almost all the inhabitants, “which, when at last they were
grubbed up, became a very wholesome and healthy place.” As regards
the medical virtues of the tree, Evelyn exclaims:--“If the medicinal
properties of the leaves, bark, berries, &c., were thoroughly known, I
cannot tell what our countryman could ail for which he might not fetch
a remedy from every hedge, either for sickness or wound.” And he goes
on to describe a variety of medicinal uses for the bark, buds, berries,
leaves, and flowers; summing up the virtues of the Elder with the
remark that “every part of the tree is useful, as may be seen at large
in Blockwitzius’s anatomie thereof.” In this work is the following
description of an amulet for the use of an epileptic subject, which
is to be made of the Elder growing on a Sallow:--“If in the month of
October, a little before the full moon, you pluck a twig of the Elder,
and cut the cane that is betwixt two of its knees, or knots, in nine
pieces, and these pieces, being bound in a piece of linen, be in a
thread so hung about the neck that they touch the spoon of the heart,
or the sword-formed cartilage; and, that they may stay more firmly in
that place, they are to be bound thereon with a linen or leather roller
wrapt about the body, till the thread break of itself. The thread being
broken, and the roller removed, the amulet is not at all to be touched
with bare hands, but it ought to be taken hold on by some instrument,
and buried in a place that nobody may touch it.”
One mode of charming warts away is to take an Elder-shoot, and rub it
on the part, then cut as many notches on the twig as you have warts,
bury it in a place where it will soon decay, and as it rots away the
warts will disappear. Another plan is to obtain a green Elder-stick,
and rub the warts well with it, after which bury the stick to rot away
in muck.
The black berries of the Elder are full of a deep violet-coloured
juice, which, according to Virgil, the god Pan had his face smeared
with, in compliance with the old Roman custom of painting their gods on
solemn occasions.
To dream of Elder-berries denotes sickness. The tree is under the
dominion of Venus.
=ELECAMPANE.=--Of the Elecampane (_Inula Helenium_), Rapin writes:--
“Elecampane, the beauteous Helen’s flower,
Mingles among the rest her silver store;
Helen, whose charms could royal breasts inspire
With such fierce flames as set the world on fire.”
When Paris carried off the celebrated Helen, the lovely wife of
Menelaus was said to have had in her hand a nosegay of the bright
yellow flowers of the Elecampane, which was thenceforth named Helenium,
in her honour. The Romans employed the roots of Elecampane as an edible
vegetable; the monks, who knew it as _Inula campana_, considered it
capable of restoring health to the heart; and the herbalists deemed
it marvellously good for many disorders, and admirable as a pectoral
medicine. Elecampane lozenges have long been popular. Turner, in his
‘Brittish Physician,’ calls the _Inula campana_, the Sun-flower, and
says that the root chewed fastens loose teeth, and preserves them from
rotting, and that the distilled water of the green leaves makes the
face fair. From its broad leaves, the Elecampane is sometimes called
the Elf-dock.----It is held to be under Mercury.
=ELICHRYSUM.=--This species of everlasting flower derived its name,
according to Themistagoras, from the nymph Elichrysa, who having
adorned the goddess Diana with its blossoms, the plant was called after
her, Elichryson. Its old English name was Golden Flower, or Golden
Moth-wort, and Gerarde tells us that the blossoms, if cut before they
are quite ripe, will remain beautiful a long time after. “For which
cause of long lasting the images and carved gods were wont to weare
garlands thereof: whereupon some have called it ‘God’s floure.’ For
which purpose Ptolemy, King of Ægypt, did most diligently observe them,
as Pliny writeth.”
=ELM.=--The ancients had a tradition that, at the first sound of the
plaintive strains which proceeded from the lyre of Orpheus, when he was
lamenting the death of Eurydice, there sprang up a forest of Elms; and
it was beneath an Elm that the Thracian bard sought repose after his
unavailing expedition to the infernal regions to recover his lost love.
Rapin thus tells the tale:--
“When wretched Orpheus left the Stygian coast,
Now hopeless since again his spouse was lost,
Beneath the preferable shade he sate
Of a tall Elm, and mourned his cruel fate:
Where Rhodope rears high her steepy brow,
While Heber’s gentle current strays below.
On his sweet lyre the skilful artist played,
Whose all-commanding strings the woods obeyed;
And crowding round him formed a hasty shade.
There Cypress, Ilex, Willows, Planes unite,
And th’ Elm, ambitious of a greater height,
Presents before his view a married Vine,
Which round her husband, Elm, did circling twine,
And warned him to indulge a second flame;
But he neglects th’ advice, and slights the dame:
By fatal coldness still condemned to prove
A victim to the rage of female love.”
The “wedding of the Elm to the Vine,” alluded to in the above lines,
was a very favourite topic among the old Roman poets; Virgil, indeed,
selects the junction of the Elm and the Vine as the subject of one
whole book of his ‘Georgics.’ The ancients twined their Vines round
the trunks of the Elm; and the owner of a Vineyard tended his Elms
as carefully as his Vines.----When Achilles killed the father of
Andromache, he erected in his honour a tomb, around which nymphs came
and planted Elms.----Perhaps on account of its longevity, or because
it produces no fruit, the Greeks and Romans considered the Elm a
funereal tree: in our own times, it is connected with burials, inasmuch
as coffins are generally made of its wood.----The ancients called
the Elm, the tree of Oneiros, or of Morpheus, the god of sleep. As a
widespreading shady tree, it is selected by Virgil (Æn. vi.) as the
roosting-place of dreams in gloomy Orcus:--
“Full in the midst a spreading Elm displayed
His aged arms, and cast a mighty shade;
Each trembling leaf with some light visions teems,
And heaves impregnated with airy dreams.”
It was in connection with the title of Tree of Dreams (_Ulmus
Somnorum_), that the Elm became, like the Oak, a prophetic tree.----On
the Continent, an Elm is often found on the village-green, beneath
whose boughs justice used formerly to be administered, and meetings
held: there was one at Gisors, on the frontier of Normandy, where the
kings of France and Dukes of Normandy used to hold conference together,
and which was large enough to shelter both their trains; this tree
was upwards of two hundred years old when cut down by order of King
Philippe Auguste, out of hatred to our Plantagenet kings. One of the
oldest Elms in England is a stump at Richmond, now fenced in, and
covered with Ivy, which was planted by Queen Elizabeth herself, and has
on that account always been known as the Queen’s Elm.----Formerly the
leafing of the Elm was made to regulate both field and garden work, as
seen in the following rustic rhyme:--
“When the Elmen leaf is as big as a mouse’s ear,
Then to sow Barley never fear.
When the Elmen leaf is as big as an ox’s eye,
Then say I, ‘Hie, boys, hie!’”
In olden times, the falling of the leaves of an Elm was thought to
prognosticate a murrain. In Sicily, they have a custom of binding the
trunk of a Fig-tree with branches of Elm, from a belief that they would
prevent the young Figs from falling before they became thoroughly
ripe.----The Elm is held to be under the influence of Saturn.----“The
Seven Sisters” was the name bestowed on seven Elm-trees at Tottenham,
which gave the name to the road from thence to Upper Holloway. In
Bedwell’s History of Tottenham, written in the year 1631, he describes
Page Green by the side of the high road at that village, and a group
of Elms in a circle, with a Walnut in the centre. He says: “This tree
hath this many yeares stod there, and it is observed yearely to live
and beare leavs, and yet to stand at a stay, that is, to growe neither
greater or higher. This people do commonly tell the reason to bee, for
that there was one burnt upon that place for the profession of the
Gospell.” There was also a connecting link between the Walnut-tree and
the Seven Sisters, by which it was surrounded. There were seven Elms
planted by seven sisters respectively. The tree planted by the smallest
of the sisters was always irregular and stunted in growth. There was an
eighth sister who planted an Elm in the midst of the other seven, and
the legend relates that it withered and died when she died, and that
then a Walnut-tree grew in its place. The Walnut-tree has long since
gone, and probably the Elms have now disappeared.
=ENCHANTER’S NIGHTSHADE.=--Formerly the _Atropa Mandragora_ used to
bear this name, but by some mistake it has been transferred to the
_Circæa Lutetiana_, an insignificant plant named after Circe, the
famed enchantress, probably because its fruit, being covered with
hooked prickles, lays hold of the unwary passers-by, as Circe is said
to have done by means of her enchantments. The Mandrake was called
“Nightshade,” from having been classed with the _Solanum_ tribe, and
“Enchanter’s” from its Latin name Circæa, a name which it obtained,
according to Dioscorides, because Circe, who was expert in herbal lore,
used it as a tempting powder in amorous concerns.
=ENDIVE.=--The Endive or Succory (_Cichorium_) is, according to the
oldest Greek Alexandrian translations of the Bible, one of the “bitter
herbs” which the Almighty commanded the Israelites to eat with the lamb
at the institution of the Feast of the Passover. The garden Endive
(_C. Endivia_) is probably the plant celebrated by Horace as forming a
part of his simple diet: its leaves are used in salads, and its root,
under the name of Chicory, is extensively used to mingle with Coffee.
Immense quantities of Endive were used by the ancient Egyptians, who
called it _Chicouryeh_, and from this word is derived the generic name
_Cichorium_.----The wild Succory (_C. Intybus_) opens its petals at 8
a.m., and closes them at 4 p.m.
“On upland slopes the shepherds mark
The hour when, to the dial true,
_Cichorium_ to the towering lark
Lifts her soft eye, serenely blue.”
The Germans say that once upon a time the Endives were men under a
ban. The blue flowers, which are plentiful, were good men; the white
flowers, much rarer, were evil-doers.----The blue star-like blossom
is a most popular flower in Germany: it is the _Wegewarte_--the
watcher of the roads; the _Wegeleuchte_, or lighter of the road;
the _Sonnenwende_, or Solstice; the _Sonnenkraut_, or herb of the
sun; and the _Verfluchte Jungfer_, or accursed maiden. An ancient
ballad of Austrian Silesia recounts the history of a young girl who
for seven years mourned for her lover, fallen in the wars. When her
friends wished to console her, and to procure for her another lover,
she replied: “I shall cease to weep only when I become a wild flower
by the wayside.”----Another version of the German legend is that a
loving maiden anxiously expected the return of her betrothed from
a voyage upon which he had long since set out. Every morning she
paced the road where she had last bade adieu to him; every evening
she returned. Thus she wearily passed her time during many a long
month. At last, utterly worn out with watching and waiting, she sank
exhausted by the wayside, and, broken-hearted, expired. On the spot
where she breathed her last sigh sprang up a little pale flower which
was the _Wegewarte_, the watcher of the road.----In Bavaria, the same
legend is met with, differing only in details. A young and beautiful
princess was abandoned by her husband, a young prince of extraordinary
beauty. Grief exhausted her strength, and finding herself on the
point of death, she exclaimed: “Ah, how willingly would I die if I
could only be sure of seeing my loved one, wherever I may be. Her
ladies-in-waiting, hearing her desire, solemnly added: “And we also
would willingly die if only we were assured that he would always see us
on every roadside.” The merciful God heard from heaven their heart-felt
desires, and granted them. “Happily,” said He, “your wishes can be
fulfilled; I will change you into flowers. You, Princess, you shall
remain with your white mantle on every road traversed by your husband;
you, young women, shall remain by the roadside, habited in blue, so
that the prince must see you everywhere.” Hence the Germans call the
wild Succory, _Wegewarten_.----Gerarde tells us that Placentinus and
Crescentius termed the Endive, _Sponsa solis_, Spouse of the Sun (a
name applied by Porta to the Heliotrope), and we find in De Gubernatis’
_Mythologie des Plantes_, the following passage:--“Professor Mannhardt
quotes the charming Roumanian ballad, in which is recounted how the
Sun asked in marriage a beautiful woman known as _Domna Florilor_,
or the Lady of the Flowers; she refused him, whereupon the Sun, in
revenge, transformed her into the Endive, condemned for ever to gaze
on the Sun as soon as he appears on the horizon, and to close her
petals in sadness as the luminary disappears. The name of _Domna
Florilor_, a kind of Flora, given by the Roumanians to the woman loved
by the Sun, reminds us somewhat of the name of Fioraliso, given in
Italy to the Cornflower, and which I supposed to have represented the
Sun. The Roumanian legend has, without doubt, been derived from an
Italian source, in its turn a development of a Grecian myth--to wit,
the amour of the Sun, Phœbus, with the lovely nymph Clytie.” (See
HELIOTROPE).----There is a Silesian fairy tale which has reference
to the Endive:--The magician Batu had a daughter named Czekanka, who
loved the youthful Wrawanec; but a cruel rival slew the beloved one. In
despair, Czekanka sought her lover’s tomb, and killed herself beside
it. Whilst in her death throes, she was changed into the blue Succory,
and gave the flower its Silesian name _Czekanka_. Wrawanec’s murderer,
jealous of poor Czekanka, even after her death, threw on the plant a
swarm of ants, in the hope that the little insects might destroy the
Succory, but the ants, on the contrary, in their rage, set off in
pursuit of the murderer, and so vigorously attacked him, that he was
precipitated into a crevasse on the mountain Kotancz.----In Germany and
in Rome, where a variety of estimable qualities are ascribed to the
plant, they sell Endive-seed as a panacea, but especially as a love
philtre. They would not uproot it with the hand, but with a bit of
gold or a stag’s horn (which symbolise the disk and the rays of the
Sun), on one of the days of the Apostles (June 29th and July 25th).
A girl thus uprooting an Endive will be assured of the constancy of
her lover.----Endive, carried on the person, is supposed to enable a
lover to inspire the object of his affections with a belief that he
possesses all the good qualities she could wish for. Endive-root breaks
all bonds, removes thorns from the flesh, and even renders the owner
invisible.----The herb is held to be under the rule of Venus.
=ERAGROSTIS.=--Among the Hindus, the _Eragrostis cynosuroides_ is
considered a sacred Grass, and is employed by them for strewing the
floors of their temples. In England, it is known as Love Grass.
=ERYSIMUM.=--The Hedge Mustard, Bank Cress, or Jack-by-the-Hedge
(_Erysimum Barbarea_) is called by the French St. Barbara’s Hedge
Mustard and the Singer’s Plant (_herbe au chantre_), and up to the time
of Louis XIV. was considered an infallible remedy in cases of loss of
voice. Racine, writing to Boileau, recommended the syrup of Erysimum
to him when visiting the waters of Bourbonne, in order to be cured of
loss of voice. Boileau replied that he had heard the best accounts of
the Erysimum, and that he meant to use it the following summer.----The
plant is held to be under Mercury.
=ERYNGO.=--The Sea Eryngo (_Eryngium maritimum_) is, perhaps, better
known by the name of Sea Holly, which has been given it on account of
the striking resemblance of its foliage to the Holly. According to
Rapin, Eryngo possessed magical properties, inasmuch as, if worn by
young married women, it ensured the fidelity of their husbands. On this
account, Sappho employed it to secure the love of Phaon, the handsome
boatman of Mitylene, for whom the poetess had conceived so violent a
passion, that at length, mortified at his coldness, she threw herself
into the sea. Rapin says:--
“Grecian Eryngoes now commence their fame,
Which, worn by brides, will fix their husband’s flame,
And check the conquests of a rival dame.
Thus Sappho charmed her Phaon, and did prove
(If there be truth in verse) his faith in love.”
Plutarch records that, if one goat took the herb Sea Holly into
her mouth, “it caused her first to stand still, and afterwards
the whole flock, until such time as the shepherd took it from her
mouth.” Eryngo-root was formerly much prized as a tonic, and in Queen
Elizabeth’s time, when prepared with sugar, was called Kissing Comfits.
Lord Bacon, recommending the yolks of eggs as very nourishing, when
taken with Malmsey or sweet wine, says: “You shall doe well to put in
some few slices of Eringium-roots, and a little Amber-grice, for by
this meanes, besides the immediate facultie of nourishment, such drinke
will strengthen the back.”
=EUGENIA.=--In Burmah, the _Eugenia_ is regarded as a sacred plant.
When a spray is cut, prayers and supplications for absent friends and
relatives are offered up before it, and twigs and leaves of it are
kept in consecrated water in almost every house, and occasionally the
different apartments are sprinkled with it as a protective against
ghosts, ogres, and evil spirits. The twigs of _Eugenia_ are sometimes
hung about the eaves, and in many cases a small plant is kept growing
in a pot in the house, so that its benign influence may keep harm
away.----In cases of cholera epidemic, the natives of the affected
district betake themselves to a Buddhist monastery, carrying presents
and a small pot partly filled with water, and containing leaves of a
species of _Eugenia_ (Tha-byay-bin), and some coarse yellow string
wound round a small stick. These pots are blessed by the Buddhist
abbot, and are then taken away by the people, who either hang up the
yellow string in little bags round the eaves of their houses, or else
wear it coiled round the left wrist. The pots of water and sprigs of
_Eugenia_ are kept in the house to guard it from infection.
=EUPATORIUM.=--Agrimony has derived its name of _Eupatorium_ from
Mithridates Eupator, King of Pontus, who was skilled in botany and
physic, and used this plant as an antidote against the poison with
which his enemies at court attempted to destroy him. _E. Ayapana_, a
native of Brazil, has long been famed for curing the bites of serpents,
and its leaves, when fresh bruised, are useful when applied to the face
of ulcers.----In Italy and Russia, magical properties are attributed to
this plant.
=EUPHORBIA.=--The Euphorbia or Medusa Head possesses the peculiar
property of blooming in warm water after apparent death. The milky
juice of _Euphorbia Canariensis_, and some other species of Spurge,
produces the drug Euphorbium. The juice of _E. heptagona_ furnishes the
Ethiopians with a deadly poison for their arrows. At Bodo, in India,
before the doorway of every house is cultivated a plant of the sacred
Sidj, a species of Euphorbia, which is looked upon both as the domestic
and national divinity, and to this plant the natives address their
prayers and offer up hogs as sacrifices.
=EVERLASTING FLOWERS.=--Writing of the _Gnaphalium Alpinum_, Gerarde
tells us that in his day English women called it “Live-long,” or
“Live-for-ever.” From hence has originated the name Everlasting,
applied to the genus _Gnaphalium_. The ancients crowned the images
of their gods with garlands made of these flowers, and from this
circumstance they were frequently called God’s flowers. In Spain and
Portugal, they are still used to decorate the altars and the images of
the saints. The French have named the Gnaphalium, _Immortelle_, and
employ it in the manufacture of the garlands and devices which they
place on their coffins and graves. Old writers call the plant Cudweed,
Cottonweed, Gold-flower, Goldilocks, Golden Stœchas, and Golden-flower
Gentle. One species has obtained the name of _Herba Impia_, because the
later flowers grow higher, and, as Gerarde says, “overtop those that
come first, as many wicked children do unto their parents.”
=EYEBRIGHT.=--The Eyebright or Euphrasy (_Euphrasia officinalis_)
was formerly called Euphrosyne, after one of the Graces. This name
became subsequently corrupted to Euphrasy. The plant was also known
as Ocularis and Ophthalmica, on account of its use in the treatment
of disorders of the eye. According to Coles, it obtained the name of
Eyebright from its being employed by the linnet to clear its sight;
other old authors also say that birds made use of it to repair their
vision. Arnoldus affirms that the plant restored sight to people who
had been blind a long while; and Gerarde says that, taken either alone
or in any other way, it preserves the sight, and, “being feeble and
lost, it restores the same: it is given most fitly being beaten into
pouder; oftentimes a like quantitie of Fennell-seed is added thereto,
and a little Mace, to the which is put so much sugar as the weight of
them all commeth to.” It was also believed to comfort the memory, and
assist a weak brain. Milton, Drayton, Shenstone, and other poets have
celebrated the powers of Euphrasy, and we find Spenser writing:--
“Yet Euphrasie may not be left unsung,
That gives dim eyes to wander leagues around.”
Astrologers state that the Eyebright is under the sign of the Lion, and
the Sun claims dominion over it.
=FAIR MAIDS.=--Fair Maids of February are Snowdrops, so called from
their delicate white blossoms opening about the second of that month,
when it was customary for maidens, dressed in white, to walk in
procession at the Feast of the Purification. Fair Maids of France are
double Crowfoots, or a particular variety, originally introduced from
France, viz., _Ranunculus aconitifolius_.
=FELDWODE.=--Medea, the enchantress, is said by Gower to have employed
a certain herb, Feldwode:--
“Tho toke she Feldwode and Verveine,
Of herbes ben nought better tweine.”
This herb is generally supposed to have been the yellow Gentian, or
Baldmoney, _Gentiana lutea_. (See GENTIAN.)
=FENNEL.=--Fenckle, or Fennel (_Fœniculum_), was employed by the
ancients in the composition of wreaths, to be worn by victors after the
games in the arena. The gladiators mixed this plant with their food
to increase their strength. The god Sylvanus was sometimes crowned
with Fennel.----In later times, Fennel was strewn across the pathway
of newly-married couples, and was generally liked for its odour; thus
Ophelia says: “There’s Fennel for you, and Columbine.”----Pliny records
that serpents are wonderfully fond of this plant, inasmuch as it
restores them to youth by causing them to cast their old skin, and by
its use they recover their sight if it becomes dim. Gerarde says, that
the seed “drunke for certaine daies together, fasting, preserveth the
eyesight, whereof was written this distichon following:--
_“Fœniculum, Rosa, Verbena, Chelidonia, Ruta,
Ex his fit aqua quæ lumina reddit acuta._
“Of Fennell, Roses, Vervain, Rue, and Celandine,
Is made a water, good to cheere the sight of eine.”
The ancients believed that the use of Fennel gave strength to the
constitution, and made fat people grow lean. The roots of Fennel,
pounded with honey, were considered a remedy for the bites of
mad dogs.----Fennel is one of the numerous plants dedicated to
St. John, and was formerly hung over doors and windows on his
vigil.----Astrologers state it is a herb of Mercury under Virgo.
=FERN.=--Among Celtic and Germanic nations the Fern was formerly
considered a sacred and auspicious plant. Its luck-bringing power was
not confined to one species, but belonged to the tribe in general,
dwelling, however, in the fullest perfection in the seed, the possessor
of which could wish what he would, and the Devil would be obliged to
bring it to him. In Swabia, they say that Fern-seed brought by the
Devil between eleven and twelve on Christmas night enables a man to do
as much work as twenty or thirty ordinary men.
In mediæval days, when sorcery flourished, it was thought the Fern-seed
imparted to its owner the power of resisting magical charms and
incantations. The ancients believed that the Fern had no seeds, but
our ancestors thought it had seed which was invisible. Hence, after
the fantastic doctrine of signatures, they concluded that those who
possessed the secret of wearing this seed about them would become
invisible. Thus, we find that, in Shakspeare’s ‘Henry IV.,’ Gadshill
says: “We steal as in a castle, cock-sure: we have the receipt of
Fern-seed, we walk invisible.”
The people of Westphalia are wont to relate how one of their countrymen
chanced one Midsummer night to be looking for a foal he had lost, and
passing through a meadow just as the Fern-seed was ripening, some of
it fell into his shoes. In the morning he went home, walked into the
sitting-room, and sat down, but thought it strange that neither his
wife, nor indeed any of his family, took the slightest notice of him.
“I have not found the foal,” said he. Everybody in the room started and
gazed around with scared looks, for they had heard the man’s voice,
but saw no one. Thinking that he was joking, and had hid himself, his
wife called him by his name. Thereupon he stood up, planted himself
in the middle of the floor, and said, “Why do you call me? Here I am
right before you.” Then they were more frightened than ever, for they
had heard him stand up and walk, and still they could not see him. The
man now became aware that he was invisible, and a thought struck him
that possibly he might have got Fern-seed in his shoes, for he felt
as if there was sand in them. So he took them off, and shook out the
Fern-seed, and as he did so he became visible again to everybody.
A belief in the mystic power of Fern-seed to make the gatherer walk
invisible is still extant. The English tradition is, that the Fern
blooms and seeds only at twelve o’clock on Midsummer night--St. John’s
Eve--just at the precise moment at which the Saint was born--
“But on St. John’s mysterious night,
Sacred to many a wizard spell,
The hour when first to human sight
Confest, the mystic Fern-seed fell.”
In Dr. Jackson’s Works (1673) we read that he once questioned one of
his parishioners as to what he saw or heard when he watched the falling
of the Fern-seed, whereupon the man informed him that this good seed
is in the keeping of Oberon (or Elberich), King of the Fairies, who
would never harm anyone watching it. He then said to the worthy doctor,
“Sir, you are a scholar, and I am none. Tell me, what said the angel to
our Lady; or what conference had our Lady with her cousin Elizabeth,
concerning the birth of St. John the Baptist?” Finding Doctor Jackson
unable to answer him, he told him that “the angel did foretell John
Baptist should be born at that very instant in which the Fern-seed--at
other times invisible--did fall: intimating further that this saint of
God had some extraordinary vertue from the time or circumstance of his
birth.”
To catch the wonder-working seed, twelve pewter plates must be taken
to the spot where the Fern grows: the seed, it is affirmed, will pass
through eleven of the plates, and rest upon the twelfth. This is one
account: another says that Midsummer night is the most propitious
time to procure the mystic Fern-seed, but that the seeker must go
bare-footed, and in his shirt, and be in a religious state of mind.
In ancient days it was thought the demons watched to convey away the
Fern-seed as it fell ere anyone could possess themselves of it. A
writer on Brittany states that he remembers to have heard recounted
by one who had gathered Fern-seed, that whilst he was prosecuting his
search the spirits grazed his ears, whistling past them like bullets,
knocking off his hat, and hitting him with it all over his body. At
last, when he thought that he had gathered enough of the mystic seed,
he opened the case he had been putting it into, and lo! it was empty.
The Devil had evidently had the best of it.
M. Marmier, in his _Légendes des Plantes_, writes:--“It is on Midsummer
night that you should go and seek the Fern-seed: he who is fortunate
enough to find it will indeed be happy. He will have the strength
of twenty men, he will discover precious metals in the bowels of the
earth, he will comprehend the present and the future. Up to the present
time, however, no one has been able to secure this precious seed.
It ripens but for a minute, and the Devil guards it with ferocious
vigilance.”
De Gubernatis, in his _Mythologie des Plantes_, publishes a
communication sent him by the Princess Marie Galitzin Prazorovskaïa,
on the subject of the flowering of the Fern, the details of which she
obtained from a Russian peasant. “On Midsummer night, before twelve
o’clock, with a white napkin, a cross, a Testament, a glass of water,
and a watch, one seeks in the forest the spot where the Fern grows; one
traces with the cross a large circle; one spreads the napkin, placing
on the cross the Testament and the glass of water. Then one attentively
looks at one’s watch: at the precise midnight hour the Fern will bloom:
one watches attentively; for he who shall see the Fern-seed drop shall
at the same time see many other marvels; for example, three suns, and a
full moon, which reveals every object, even the most hidden. One hears
laughter; one is conscious of being called; if one remains quiet one
will hear all that is happening in the world, and all that is going to
happen.”
In a work by Markevic, the author says:--“The Fern flowers on Midsummer
night at twelve o’clock, and drives away all unclean spirits. First
of all it put forth buds, which afterwards expand, then open, and
finally change into flowers of a dark red hue. At midnight, the flower
opens to its fullest extent, and illuminates everything around. But at
that precise moment a demon plucks it from its stalk. Whoever wishes
to procure this flower must be in the forest before midnight, locate
himself near the Fern, and trace a circle around it. When the Devil
approaches and calls, feigning the voice of a parent, sweetheart,
&c., no attention must be paid, nor must the head be turned, for if
it is, it will remain so. Whoever becomes the happy possessor of the
flower has nothing to fear: by its means he can recover lost treasure,
become invisible, rule on earth and under water, and defy the Devil.
To discover hidden treasure, it is only necessary to throw the flower
in the air: if it turns like a star above the Sun, so that it falls
perpendicularly in the same spot, it is a sure indication that treasure
is concealed there.”
A very ancient method prescribed for obtaining the mystic Fern-seed is
given by Dr. Kuhn. At the Summer solstice, if you shoot at the Sun when
it has attained its mid-day height, three drops of blood will fall:
they must be gathered up and preserved, for that is the Fern-seed.
The Franche-Comté peasantry talk of a mysterious plant that misleads
travellers. According to a German authority, this plant is no other
than the Fern on Midsummer night. As we have seen, on that night the
Fern is reputed to flower, and to let fall its seed: he who secures
this seed, becomes invisible; but if the unsuspecting traveller passes
by the Fern without noticing it, he will be assuredly misled, even
although well acquainted with the road. This is the reason why, in
Thuringia, they call the Fern _Irrkraut_, the misleading plant.
In Poland, there is a popular notion that the plucking of Fern produces
a violent thunderstorm.
In Germany, they call the Fern _Walpurgiskraut_, the superstition being
that, on the _Walpurgisnacht_, the witches procure this plant in order
to render themselves invisible. In Lombardy, there exists a popular
superstition akin to this. The witches, they say, are particularly fond
of the Fern; they gathered it to rub in their hands during a hailstorm,
turning it from the side where the hail falls the thickest.
The root of the common Male Fern (_Filix mas_), was an important
ingredient in the love-philtres of former days. An old Gaelic bard
sings:--
“’Twas the maiden’s matchless beauty
That drew my heart anigh;
Not the Fern-root potion,
But the glance of her blue eye.”
In olden times the young scroll-like fronds of this Fern were called
Lucky Hands, or St. John’s Hands, and were believed to protect the
possessor from sorcery, witches’ spells, and the Evil Eye. In Germany,
the Male Fern was formerly called _Johanniswurtzel_; and both on the
Continent, and in England, it was the custom, on Midsummer Eve, to
gather this Fern, which was sold to the credulous, who wore it about
their persons, and mingled it with the water drunk by their cows, as
a protection against all evil spirits, and to ensure good luck. It is
believed, in Thuringia, that if anyone carries Fern about him, he will
be pursued by serpents until he throws it away. In Sweden, the plant is
called Snake-bane.
An ancient notion prevailed, that the Male Fern had an antipathy to
the Reed; and that where one grew, the other was sure to be absent.
According to Dioscorides, “the root hereof is reported to be good for
those that have ill spleens; and being stamped with swine’s grease and
applied, it is a remedy against the pricking of the Reed.” Other old
herbalists state, that the roots of the Male Fern, and the Lady Fern
(_Filix fœmina_), boiled in oil, produced “very profitable ointments to
heal wounds.” The _Ophioglossum_ had, in olden times, the reputation of
being a cure for the bite of serpents. (See also BRACKEN).
According to Cornish fairy mythology, the Fern was connected with
the Small Folk, who are believed to be the spirits of the people who
inhabited Cornwall thousands of years ago--long before the birth of
Christ. In the legend of the Fairy Widower, a pretty girl, Jenny
Permuen, a village coquette, one day set off to “look for a place.”
At the junction of four cross roads, she sat down on a boulder of
granite, and thoughtlessly began to break off the beautiful fronds of
Ferns which grew all around. Suddenly a young man appeared before her,
and addressing her by name, enquired what brought her there. Jenny
replied that she wished to obtain a situation, and was on her road to
the market town. The young man said he was a widower, and in want of
a young woman to take care of his little son; and that as he liked
Jenny’s good looks, he would engage her there and then for a year
and a day, and pay her well; but that he should require her to swear
his oath, which consisted in kissing a Fern-leaf, and repeating the
formula:--
“For a year and a day,
I promise to stay.”
Jenny was charmed and flattered; all sorts of visions rose before her
eyes, and, without hesitation, she took the oath and followed the
stranger eastward. In silence the pair walked on, until the girl was
quite weary; then they sat down on a bank, and the young man taking a
bunch of leaves passed them rapidly over Jenny’s eyes: her weariness
departed as if by magic, and she found herself in fairy-land, with her
mysterious master. He led her to a splendid mansion, and introduced her
to his little boy, who was so beautiful that he instantly won her love.
The girl continued at her duties in fairy-land for the allotted time;
then, one morning, upon awaking, she found herself sleeping in her own
bed in her mother’s cottage; and the old gossips of the village, upon
hearing her story, knew that she had been carried by the Small People
to some of their countries under the hills.
=FIG.=--There are several mythological accounts of the origin of the
Fig. According to one, Lyceus, one of the Titans, pursued by Jupiter,
was metamorphosed into a Fig-tree by the goddess Rhea. Another story
attributes to her husband, Saturn, the origin of the Fig-tree, and
on this account the inhabitants of Cyrene deck the statue of the god
with crowns of Figs. A third myth relates that the Fig-tree is the
offspring of the loves of Oxylus, King of Elis, with a Hamadryad.
Bacchus, however, was generally considered to have introduced the
Fig to mortals: hence the tree was sacred to him, and he is often
represented as crowned with Fig-leaves. On this account, also, it was
customary to make an offering of the first Figs to the jovial god. At
the Canephoria festivals at Athens, in honour of Bacchus, the female
votaries wore round their necks collars composed of dried Figs; and at
the Dionysian festivals, a basket of Figs formed a prominent feature
in the procession.----At Rome, the Fig was carried next to the Vine in
the processions in honour of Bacchus, as the patron of plenty and joy;
and Bacchus was supposed to have derived his corpulence and vigour,
not from the Vine, but from the Fig. Under the name of the _Ficus
ruminalis_, the Romans jealously guarded the sacred wild Fig-tree,
upon the roots of which stranded the cradle containing the infants
Romulus and Remus, when the Tiber bore it to the foot of the Palatine.
Fig-trees are seldom affected by lightning, but this celebrated Ruminal
Fig-tree of Rome was once struck during a thunderstorm, and was ever
afterwards held doubly sacred; the ancients considering that lightning
purified every object it touched. The Romans bestowed upon Jupiter
the surname of Ruminus, because he presided over the nourishment of
mankind, and they had a goddess Rumina, who presided over the female
breasts, and whose oblations were of milk only. These words are both
derived from _ruma_, a teat; and hence the tree under which Romulus
and Remus had been suckled by the she-wolf was the _Rumina Ficus_, a
name most appropriate, because the Fig was the symbol of generation and
fecundity. The Fig was consecrated to Juno, as the goddess presiding
over marriages and at nuptial festivities. Figs were always carried
in a mystic vase. The statues of Priapus, god of orchards, were often
made of the wood of the Fig, and the tree was also dedicated to
Mercury. Notwithstanding this reverence for the _Ficus ruminalis_,
the Romans considered the Fig a tree at once impure and ill-omened.
This is shown by the actions of the Arvales (twelve priests of Rome,
descended from the nurse of Romulus), who made special expiations
when the Fig-tree--the impure tree--sprang up by chance on the roof
of the temple of the goddess Dia, where Vestals officiated. After
they had uprooted the desecrating tree, they destroyed the temple as
being defiled.----Pausanias relates that, according to an oracle, the
Messenians were to be abandoned by heaven in their struggles with
the Spartans, so soon as a goat (_tragos_) should drink the water of
the Neda: the Messenians, therefore, drove out of their country all
the goats. But in Messenia grew the wild Fig, which was also called
_tragos_. One of these wild Figs having sprung up on the banks of the
Neda, its branches soon dipped into the flowing waters of the river
beneath it. The oracle was fulfilled--a _tragos_ had drunk the water
of the Neda: soon afterwards the Messenians were defeated.----The
soothsayer Calchas, according to tradition, owed his death in a
measure to the Fig-tree. Challenged by the seer Mopsus, of whom he
was jealous, to a trial of their skill in divination, Calchas first
asked his antagonist how many Figs a neighbouring tree bore. “Ten
thousand except one,” was the reply of his rival, “and one single
vessel can contain them all.” The Figs were carefully gathered, and his
predictions were literally true. It was then the turn of Mopsus to try
his adversary. Calchas failed to answer the question put to him, and
Mopsus was adjudged victor. So mortified was Calchas at the result of
this trial, that he pined away and died.----The ancient Egyptians held
the Fig-leaf sacred to the goddess Isis.----The Fig is supposed to have
been the first cultivated fruit tasted by man: beneath the boughs of
the Fig-tree Adam hid himself after having eaten the forbidden fruit;
with its leaves he endeavoured to hide his nakedness. Cakes of Figs
were included in the presents of provisions by which the wife of Nabal
appeased the wrath of David (1 Sam. XXV., 18). The want of blossom on
the Fig-tree was considered as one of the most grievous calamities by
the Jews; for, growing as it did in Palestine on the Vine, the tree
became with the Israelites an emblem of peace and plenty, and that
security which, in ancient times, was thought to be enjoyed by “every
man under his own Fig-tree.” Near the city of On, there was shown
for many centuries the sacred Fig-tree under which the Holy Family
rested during the flight into Egypt.----St. Augustine tells us, in his
Confessions, that while still unconverted and in deep communion with
his friend Alypius on the subject of the Scriptures, the contest within
his mind was so sharp, that he hastened from the presence of his friend
and threw himself down beneath a Fig-tree, weeping and lamenting.
Then he heard what seemed the voice of a child proceeding apparently
from the tree, repeating again and again “_Tolle, lege_,” (Take and
read); and returning to his friend, he took up the sacred volume, and
opened it at St. Paul’s words: “Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ.” He
was struck with the coincidence; and considering it a Divine call, he
then and there resolved to take up the religious profession.----In
India, the Fig-tree is greatly esteemed; one species, _Ficus
glomerata_, is held sacred by the Hindus; and the _Ficus Indica_, or
Banyan-tree, is one of the most highly venerated trees on the earth
(see BANYAN).----The Andalusians have a saying, “On this life depends,”
in connection with the Fig-tree, the fruit of which they eat, fasting,
in the morning. The Germans have a proverb, “Figs will not grow either
on Brambles or Thistles.” Another proverb tells us that “He who has
Figs has riches.”----In Sicily, the Fig-tree is looked upon as a tree
of ill-omen. It is there thought to be the tree on which Judas hung
himself, and never to have thrived well since that occurrance. There
is an old superstition that in each leaf of a Fig-tree lurks an evil
spirit; and certain blood-thirsty spectres, called _Fauni Ficarii_,
are mentioned in legends.----At Avola, it is popularly believed to be
unwise to sleep beneath the shade of a Fig-tree during the warmth of
Summer; should, however, anyone be foolhardy enough to do so, there
will appear before him the figure of a nun, holding a knife in her
hand, who will compel him to say whether he will take it by the blade
or by the handle; if he answer, by the blade, he will be forthwith
slain; but should he select the handle, he will have all manner of
good fortune in store for him.----In Palermo, they deck the Fig-tree
with branches of the wild Fig woven into garlands, in order to ensure
the fruit ripening.----A Fig-tree has something to do in the way of
preventing hydrophobia, if we may believe the following ancient English
superstition:--“For tear of mad hound, take the worms which be under a
mad hound’s tongue, snip them away, lead them round about a Fig-tree,
give them to him who hath been rent; he will soon be healed.”----To
dream of Figs implies an accession of wealth, prosperity, and
happiness, the realisation of wishes, and a happy old age.
=FILBERT.=--John Gower, in his _Confessio Amantis_, suggests that the
origin of the word Filbert is to be sought in the metamorphosis of
the Thracian princess Phyllis into a Nut-tree, or, more precisely,
into the Almond; this view is strengthened by the fact that the
old English names for both tree and nut was Fylberde, or Filberd;
although another explanation of this word is that the tree was so
called after a King Philibert. In olden times the distinction drawn
between nuts of a good and those of the best quality, was by terming
the former the short-bearded, and the latter the long-bearded, or
full-bearded--whence, according to a popular belief, by corruption,
Filbert.----Authorities in dream lore tell us that to dream of Filberts
is a happy augury, a sign of good health and happy old age. It also
denotes success in love, and happiness in the married state, with
a numerous family, who will marry well, and occupy a high place in
society.----Filbert-trees are held to be under the dominion of Mercury.
=FIR.=--The ancient Egyptians adopted the Fir-cone as the symbol of
their goddess Isis.----The Fir is the Fire-tree, the most inflammable
of woods. Gerarde writes of Firs in Cheshire, Staffordshire, and
Lancashire, “where they grew in great plenty, as is reputed, before
Noah’s floud; but then being overturned and overwhelmed, have lien
since in the woods and waterie moorish grounds, very fresh and sound,
untill this day; and so full of a resinous substance, that they burne
like a torch or linke, and the inhabitants of those countries do call
it Fir-wood and Fire-wood unto this day.”----In the traditions of
northern countries, the Fir occupies a similar position to the Pine.
He is king of the forest; and so, in Switzerland and the Tyrol, the
Geni of the Forest is always represented with an uprooted Fir-tree in
his hand. This Geni dwells by preference in the Fir, and especially
loves old trees. When one of these trees is cut down, the Geni grieves,
and pleads for its life. Old Firs, like old Oaks and Birches, are
especially respected when standing solitary.----De Gubernatis relates
an anecdote of a colossal Fir-tree which grew by itself, at Tarssok,
in Russia. This tree had withstood several lightning-blasts, and was
supposed to be several hundred years old, as shown by its barkless
trunk and its bare branches. At last, in a gale of wind, it fell;
but so great a respect had the country-people for the old tree, that
they would not make any profit from the sale of the huge trunk, but
presented the proceeds to the Church.----In Denmark, Sweden, Russia,
and Germany, they use the Fir as the Christmas-tree, and this custom
has now taken firm root in England.----Just as in many parts of
Germany, on Christmas-night, they beat trees, so that they may bear
fruit, so at Hildesheim in Hanover, at Shrove-tide, the peasantry
solicit gifts from the women, whipping them meanwhile with branches
of Fir or Rosemary. This curious custom is supposed to signify their
desire to have children. In Northern Germany, newly-married couples
often carry in their hands branches of Fir, with lighted candles
affixed, perhaps in imitation of the Roman _fasces_. At Weimar, and
other places, they plant Fir-trees before the house where a wedding has
taken place. In Austrian Silesia, the May-pole is always of Fir. In
the Harz, on Midsummer night, they decorate Fir-trees with flowers and
coloured eggs, or, more generally, branches of Fir, which they stick in
the ground, and dance around, singing the while some verses appropriate
to the occasion. In Northern Germany, when they drive the cattle to
pasture for the first time, they often decorate the last cow with small
boughs of Firs, as showing their wish for a pasturage favourable to
the fecundity of the cattle.----From wounds made in the Balm of Gilead
Fir (_Abies Balsamea_), a very fine turpentine is obtained, which is
sometimes sold as the true Balm of Gilead.----To dream you are in a
forest of Fir-trees is a sign of suffering.----A Moldavian legend
relates that, out of envy, the elder sister of a queen changed the
two beautiful twin princes she had just given birth to, for two ugly
black children, which she placed in their cradle instead. She then
buried the young princes alive in the garden, and as soon as possible
went to the king, and told him his queen had given birth to two odious
black babies. The king in revenge shut up his wife in a dungeon, and
made the elder sister his queen. Suddenly, among the flowers of the
garden, there spring up two Fir-trees, who, in the evening, talk and
confide to each other that they cannot rest whilst their mother is
weeping in her lonely dungeon. Then they make themselves known to the
poor ex-queen as her children, and tell her how much they love and pity
her. Meanwhile the wicked queen awakes one night and listens. She is
filled with dread, and makes the king promise that the two Fir-trees
shall be cut down. Accordingly, the young trees are felled and thrown
into the fire; when, immediately, two bright sparks fly out, and fall
far away among the flowers: they are the two young princes, who have
again escaped, and who are now determined to bring to light the crime
of their detestable aunt. Some time after there is a grand festival at
the king’s palace; and a great “claca” (assembly) is gathered there
to string pearls for the queen. Among the guests appear two beautiful
children, with golden hair, who seem to be twin brothers. Whilst the
pearl-stringing goes on, stories are told by the guests, and at last it
comes to the turn of the twin brothers, who relate the sad story of the
imprisoned queen, and reveal the crime of her sister. As they speak,
their pearls continue to string themselves in a miraculous manner,
so that the king, observing this, knows that they are telling the
truth. When their story is finished, he acknowledges them as his sons,
restores their mother to her position as queen, and orders her wicked
sister to be torn asunder by wild horses.
FLAG.--See Acorus and Iris.
=FLAME TREE.=--The _Nuytsia floribunda_, called the Flame or Fire-tree,
is a native of West Australia. This tree is most remarkable in many
respects: it belongs to the same Natural Order as the Mistletoe--an
order numerous in species, most of those inhabiting warm countries
having brilliantly-coloured flowers, and, with two exceptions, strictly
parasitical on the branches of other trees. One of these exceptions
is the Flame-tree; but although _Nuytsia floribunda_ is terrestrial,
and has all the aspect of an independent tree, it is thought to be
parasitical on the roots of some neighbouring tree or shrub, because
all attempts to rear seedlings have proved unsuccessful. Its trunk is
soft, like pith, yet it has a massive appearance. Its gorgeous fiery
flowers are more brilliant than flames, for they are undimmed by smoke.
=FLAX.=--There are certain plants which, having been cultivated from
time immemorial, are not now to be found in a wild state, and have
no particular history. The common Flax (_Linum usitatissimum_) has
been thought to be one of these. Flax is mentioned both in Genesis
and Exodus: at least Joseph was clothed in _linen_, and the Flax was
blighted in the fields. But modern research has shown that the Flax
of the ancients was _Linum angustifolium_, the narrow-leaved Flax;
and the same fact has been developed in regard to the Flax of the
Lake-dwellers in Switzerland.----The fine linen of Egypt is frequently
referred to in Scripture, and specimens of this fabric are to be seen
in the linen in which the Egyptian mummies are enfolded. That Flax
was also grown in ancient times in Palestine, may be inferred from
the fact that Rahab hid the Hebrew spies among the Flax spread on her
roof.----In the mythology of the North, Flax is supposed to be under
the protection of the goddess Hulda, but the plant’s blue blossom is
more especially the flower of Bertha, whose blue eyes shine in its
calyx, and whose distaff is filled by its fibres.----Indian mysticism
likens the grey dawn and the brightening daybreak to luminous linen
and its weavers. The celestial bride, Aurora, weaves the nuptial
garment--the robe of the celestial bridegroom, the Sun.----The gods
attire themselves in luminous robes--white or red, silver or gold.
Earthly priests have adopted the white robe in India, Egypt, Asia
Minor, Rome, and in all Christian countries. The offspring of the
Flax, according to a tradition, represent the rays of the Sun, and
clothe the great luminary.----In Sicily, to cure headache produced by
exposure to the Sun, they burn, with certain incantations, flaxen tow
in a glass, from which they have poured out the water it contained:
they then place the glass on a white plate, and the plate on the head
of the patient: they contend that by this means they extract from his
head, and impart to the Flax, all the virtue of the Sun.----Flax is
the symbol of life and of prolific vegetation: on this account, in
Germany, when an infant thrives but badly, or does not learn to walk,
they place it naked, either in the Spring or on Midsummer-day, upon
the turf, and scatter some Flax-seed on this turf and on the infant
itself: then, as soon as the Flax commences to grow, the infant should
also begin to thrive and to walk.----To dream of Flax is reputed to
augur a good and happy marriage; to dream of spinning Flax, however,
betokens coming troubles.----There is an old superstition that Flax
will only flower at the time of day at which it was originally sown.
He who sows it must first seat himself thrice on the sack, turning
to the east. Stolen seeds mingled with the rest cause the crop to
thrive.----Flax when in bloom acts as a talisman against witchcraft,
and sorcery can be practised even with the dry stalks. When the shreds
are spun or woven into shirts, under certain incantations, the wearer
is secure from accidents or wounds.----It was the goddess Hulda who
first taught mortals the art of growing Flax, of spinning, and of
weaving it. According to the legendary belief in South Tyrol, she is
the especial patroness of the Flax culture in that district. Hulda is
also the sovereign of the Selige Fräulein, the happy fairy maidens
who keep watch and guard over the Flax-plants. Between Kroppbühl and
Unterlassen, is a cave which is believed by the country people to have
been the entrance to Queen Hulda’s mountain palace. Twice a year she
passed through the valley, scattering blessings around her path--once
in Summer, when the blue flowers of the Flax were brightening the
fields, and again during the mysterious “twelve nights” immediately
preceding our feast of the Epiphany, when, in ancient days, the gods
and goddesses were believed to visit the earth. Hulda visited the
cottagers’ homes in the Winter nights to examine the distaff. If the
Flax was duly spun off, prosperity attended the family; but laziness
was punished by trouble and blighted crops. Hulda’s fairy people, the
Selige Fräulein, would sometimes visit deserving folks and aid the
Flax-spinning: there is a legend that a peasant woman at Vulpera,
near Tarash, thinking that she ought to reward her fairy assistants,
set before them a sumptuous meal, but they shook their heads sadly,
and, giving the poor woman a never-failing ball of cotton, they said,
“This is the recompense for thy goodwill--payment for payment,”--and
immediately vanished.
=FLEA-BANE.=--The star-shaped yellow Flea-bane, or wild Marigold
(_Inula dysenterica_), received its name from the belief that its odour
was repulsive to fleas, gnats, and other insects. On the flowers of
this plant, as well as on those of _Agnus Castus_, the Grecian women
were made to sleep during the feast of Thesmophoria. The Arabs extol
this plant highly as a remedy for wounds. One of their traditions
records that flowers of the _Inula_, bruised, were used by the
patriarch Job as an application to those grievous sores which he so
pathetically laments. Hence the Flea-bane is called by the men of the
desert “Job’s Tears.”
=FLOS ADONIS.=--In most European countries the Flos Adonis (the
dark-crimsoned _Adonis autumnalis_) still retains in its nomenclature
a legendary connection with the blood of the unfortunate Adonis, and
is called by the Germans _Blutströpfchen_ to the present day.----Just
as from the tears of the sorrowing Venus, which fell as she gazed on
the bleeding corpse of the beautiful Adonis, there sprang the Anemone,
or Wind-flower, so from the blood of the lamented boy which poured
forth from the death-wound inflicted by the boar, there proceeded the
Adonis-flower, or Flos Adonis. Referring to this, Rapin writes--
“Th’ unhappy fair Adonis likewise flowers,
Whom (once a youth) the Cyprian Queen deplores;
He, though transformed, has beauty still to move
Her admiration, and secure her love;
Since the same crimson blush the flower adorns
Which graced the youth, whose loss the goddess mourns.”
And Shakspeare, in his poem on Venus and Adonis, says--
“By this the boy that by her side lay killed
Was melted like a vapour from her sight;
And in his blood that on the ground lay spilled
A purple flower sprang up, chequered with white,
Resembling well his pale cheeks and the blood
Which in round drops upon their whiteness stood.”
=FLOWER DE LUCE.=--The Iris has obtained this name, which is derived
from the French _Fleur de Louis_, from its having been assumed as his
device by Louis VII., of France. This title of _Fleur de Louis_ has
been changed to Fleur de Luce, _Fleur de Lys_, and _Fleur de Lis_. (See
IRIS).----A curious superstition exists in the district around Orleans,
where a seventh son without a daughter intervening is called a Marcon.
It is believed that the Marcon’s body is marked somewhere with a _Fleur
de Lis_, and that if a patient suffering under King’s Evil touch this
_Fleur de Lis_, or if the Marcon breathe upon him, the malady will be
sure to disappear.
FLOWER GENTLE, or FLORAMOR.--See Amaranth.
=FLOWERS OF HEAVEN.=--Under the names of Rain Tremella and Star Jelly
is known a strange gelatinous substance, of no precise form, but of a
greenish hue, which creeps over gravelly soils, and is found mixed up
with wet Mosses on rocks besides waterfalls: when moist, it is soft
and pulpy, but in dry weather it becomes thin, brittle, and black in
colour. Linnæus called it _Tremella Nostoc_, but it is now classed with
the _Algæ Gloiocladeæ_ under the name of _Nostoc commune_, a name first
used by the alchymist Paracelsus, but the meaning of which is unknown.
During the middle ages, some extraordinary superstitions were afloat
concerning this plant, which was called Cœlifolium, or Flowers of
Heaven. By the alchemists it was considered a universal menstruum. The
country people in Germany use it to make their hair grow. In England,
the country folk of many parts, firmly believed it to be the remains of
a falling star, for after a wet, stormy night, these Flowers of Heaven
will often be found growing where they were not to be seen the previous
evening.
=FLOWERING ROD.=--There is a legend in the Apocryphal Gospel of Mary,
according to which Joseph was chosen for Mary’s husband because his
rod budded into flower, and a dove settled upon the top of it. In
pictures of the marriage of Joseph and Mary, the former generally holds
the flowering rod. The rod by which the Lord demonstrated that He had
chosen Aaron to be His priest, blossomed with Almond-flowers, and was
laid up in the Ark (see ALMOND).
=FORGET-ME-NOT.=--The Forget-me-not is a name which, like the
Gilliflower, has been applied to a variety of plants. For more than two
hundred years it was given, in England, France, and the Netherlands, to
the ground Pine, _Ajuga Chamæpitys_. From the middle of the fifteenth
century until 1821, this plant was in all the botanical books called
Forget-me-not, on account of the nauseous taste which it leaves in the
mouth. Some of the old German botanists gave the name _Vergiss mein
nicht_ to the _Chamædrys vera fœmina_, or _Teucrium Botrys_. _Forglemm
mig icke_, the corresponding Danish name, was given to the _Veronica
chamædrys_. This plant was in English called the Speedwell, from its
blossoms falling off and flying away, and “Speedwell” being an old form
of leave-taking, equivalent to “Farewell” or “Good-bye.” In the days
of chivalry, a plant, whose identity has not been ascertained, was
called “_Souveigne vous de moy_,” and was woven into collars. In 1465,
one of these collars was the prize at a famous joust, fought between
Lord Scales, brother to Elizabeth Woodville, wife of Edward IV., and a
French knight of Burgundy. Certain German botanists, as far back as the
sixteenth century, seem, however, to have given the name Forget-me-not
to the _Myosotis palustris_; and this name has become inseparably
connected with the flower, borne on the wings of the following poetic
legend:--A knight and his lady-love, who were on the eve of being
united, whilst strolling on the bank of the blue Danube, saw a spray
of these pretty flowers floating on the waters, which seemed ready
to carry it away. The affianced bride admired the delicate beauty of
the blossoms, and regretted their fatal destiny. At this hint, the
lover did not hesitate to plunge into the stream. He soon secured the
flowers, but the current was too strong for him, and as it bore him
past his despairing mistress, he flung the fatal flowers on the bank,
exclaiming, as he was swept to his doom, “_Vergiss mich nicht!_”
“And the lady fair of the knight so true,
Aye remembered his hapless lot;
And she cherished the flower of brilliant hue,
And braided her hair with the blossoms blue,
And she called it Forget-me-not.”
According to Grimm, the original Forget-me-not was a certain
Luck-flower, concerning which there is a favourite legend in Germany
(see KEY-FLOWER). And there is another traditional origin of the
flower, which for antiquity should have the precedence of all others.
According to this version, Adam, when he named the plants in Paradise,
cautioned them not to forget what he called them. One little flower,
however, was heedless, and forgot its name. Ashamed of its inattention
and forgetfulness, the flower asked the father of men, “By what name
dost thou call me?” “Forget-me-not,” was the reply; and ever since
that humble flower has drooped its head in shame and ignominy.----A
fourth origin of the name “Forget-me-not” is given by Miss Strickland
in her work on the Queens of England. Writing of Henry of Lancaster
(afterwards Henry IV.), she says:--“This royal adventurer, the banished
and aspiring Lancaster, appears to have been the person who gave to the
_Myosotis_ its emblematical and poetical meaning, by writing it, at the
period of his exile, on his collar of S.S., with the initial letter of
his _mot_ or watchword, _Souveigne vous de moy_, thus rendering it the
symbol of remembrance.” It was with his hostess, at the time wife of
the Duke of Bretagne, that Henry exchanged this token of goodwill and
remembrance.----The Italians call the _Myosotis, Nontiscordar di me_,
and in one of their ballads represent the flower as the embodiment of
the spirit of a young girl who was drowned, and transformed into the
_Myosotis_ growing by the river’s banks.----The ancient English name
of the _Myosotis palustris_ was Mouse-Ear-Scorpion-Grass; “Mouse-Ear”
describing the oval leaves, and “Scorpion” the curve of the one-sided
raceme, like a scorpion’s tail.----According to some investigators,
the Forget-me-not is the Sun-flower of the classics--the flower into
which poor Clytie was metamorphosed--the pale blossom which, says
Ovid, held firmly by the root, still turns to the sun she loves.
Cæsalpinus called it _Heliotropium_, and Gerarde figured it as such.
(See HELIOTROPE).----The Germans are fond of planting the Forget-me-not
upon their graves, probably on account of its name; for the beauty of
the flower is lost if taken far from the water.----It is said that
after the battle of Waterloo, an immense quantity of Forget-me-nots
sprung up upon different parts of that sanguinary field, the soil of
which had been enriched by the blood of heroes.----A writer in ‘All
the Year Round’ remarks, that possibly the story of the origin of the
Forget-me-not’s sentimental designation may have been in the mind of
the Princess Marie of Baden, that Winter day, when, strolling along
the banks of the Rhine with her cousin, Louis Napoleon, she inveighed
against the degeneracy of modern gallants, vowing they were incapable
of emulating the devotion to beauty that characterised the cavaliers
of olden times. As they lingered on the causeway-dykes, where the
Neckar joins the Rhine, a sudden gust of wind carried away a flower
from the hair of the princess, and sent it into the rushing waters.
“There!” she exclaimed, “that would be an opportunity for a cavalier
of the olden days to show his devotion.” “That’s a challenge, cousin,”
retorted Louis Napoleon, and in a second he was battling with the rough
waters. He disappeared and reappeared to disappear and reappear again
and again, but at length reached the shore safe and sound with his
cousin’s flower in his hand. “Take it, Marie,” said he, as he shook
himself; “but never again talk to me of your cavalier of the olden
time.”
=FOXGLOVE.=--The name of _Digitalis_ (from _digitale_, a thimble or
finger-stall) was given to the Foxglove in 1542, by Fuchs, who remarks
that hitherto the flower had remained unnamed by the Greeks and Romans.
Our forefathers sometimes called it the Finger-flower, the Germans
named it _Fingerhut_, and the French _Gantelée_--names all bestowed on
account of the form of the flower, regarding which Cowley fancifully
wrote--
“The Foxglove on fair Flora’s hand is worn,
Lest while she gather flowers, she meet a thorn.”
The French also term the Foxglove _Gants de Notre Dame_ and _Doigts de
la Vierge_. Various explanations have been given as to the apparently
inappropriate English name of Foxglove, which is, however, derived from
the Anglo-Saxon _Foxes-glof_; and was presumably applied to the flower
from some bygone connection it had with the fox, and its resemblance to
a glove-finger. Dr. Prior’s explanation is worth quoting, however, if
only for its ingenuity. He says: “Its Norwegian names, _Rev-bielde_,
Fox-bell, and _Reveleika_, Fox-Music, are the only foreign ones that
allude to that animal; and they explain our own, as having been, in the
first place, _foxes-glew_, or music (Anglo-Saxon _gliew_), in reference
to a favourite instrument of earlier times, a ring of bells hung on an
arched support--a tintinnabulum--which this plant, with its hanging
bell-shaped flowers, so exactly represents.”----The Foxglove is the
special fairy flower: in its spotted bells the “good folk” delight to
nestle. It is called in Ireland, Lusmore, or the Great Herb, and also
Fairy-cap--a retreat in which the merry little elves are said to hide
themselves when a human foot approaches to disturb their dances. The
bending of the plant’s tall stalks is believed to denote the presence
of supernatural beings, to whom the flower is making its obeisance. In
the Irish legend of Knockgrafton, the hero, a poor hunchback, reputed
to have a great knowledge of herbs and charms, always wears a sprig
of the Fairy-cap, or Lusmore, in his little straw hat, and hence is
nicknamed Lusmore. The Shefro, or gregarious fairy, is represented as
wearing the corolla of the Foxglove on his head. Browne describes Pan
as seeking these flowers as gloves for his mistress:--
“To keep her slender fingers from the sunne,
Pan through the pastures oftentimes hath runne,
To pluck the speckled Foxgloves from their stem,
And on those fingers neatly placed them.”
In Wales, the bells of the Foxglove are termed _Menyg Ellyllon_,
or goblins’ gloves. No doubt on account of its connection with the
fairies, its name has been fancifully thought to have originally been
the Fairy Folks’ Glove. The witches are popularly supposed to have
held the Foxglove in high favour, and to have decorated their fingers
with its largest bells, thence called “Witches’ Bells.”----Beautiful
as it is, the _Digitalis_ is a dangerous plant; no animal will touch
it, and it exercises a singular influence over mankind: it impedes
the circulation of the blood. We read in ‘Time’s Telescope’ for 1822,
that the women of the poorer class in Derbyshire indulged in copious
draughts of Foxglove-tea, as a cheap means of obtaining the pleasures
of intoxication. It produces a great exhilaration of spirits, and has
some singular effects on the system.----Robert Turner tells us that
the Foxglove is under Venus, and that, in Hampshire, it is “very well
known by the name of Poppers, because if you hold the broad end of
the flower close between your finger and thumb, and blow at the small
head, as into a bladder, till it be full of wind, and then suddenly
strike it with your other hand, it will give a great crack or pop.” The
Italians call the plant _Aralda_, and have this proverb concerning it:
“_Aralda tutte piaghe salda_”--“Aralda salveth all sores.” Although
containing a poison, the Foxglove yields a medicine valuable in cases
of heart-disease, inflammatory fevers, dropsy, &c.
“The Foxglove leaves, with caution given,
Another proof of favouring Heaven
Will happily display.”
=FRANGIPANNI.=--The _Plumieria acuminata_, or Frangipanni plant,
bears immense clusters of waxy flowers which exhale a most delicious
odour: these flowers are white, with a yellow centre, and are flushed
with purple behind. The plant is common throughout Malaya, where Mr.
Burbidge says it is esteemed by the natives as a suitable decoration
for the graves of their friends. Its Malay name, _Bunga orang sudah
mati_, is eminently suggestive of the funereal use to which it is
put, and means literally “Dead Man’s Flower.”----Frangipanni powder
(spices, Orris-roots, and Musk or Civet) was compounded by one of the
Roman nobles, named Frangipanni, an alchymist of some repute, who
invented a stomachic, which he named Rosolis, _ros-solis_, sun-dew. The
Frangipanni tart was the invention of the same noble.
=FRANKINCENSE.=--Leucothea, the daughter of the Persian king Orchamus,
attracted the notice of Apollo, who, to woo her, assumed the form
and features of her mother. Unable to withstand the god’s “impetuous
storm,” Leucothea indulged his love; but Clytia, maddened with
jealousy, discovered the intrigue to Orchamus, who, to avenge his
stained honour, immured his daughter alive. Apollo, unable to save
her from death, sprinkled nectar and ambrosia over her grave, which,
penetrating to the lifeless body, changed it into the beautiful
tree that bears the Frankincense. Ovid thus describes the nymph’s
transformation:--
“What Phœbus could do was by Phœbus done.
Full on her grave with pointed beams he shone.
To pointed beams the gaping earth gave way;
Had the nymph eyes, her eyes had seen the day;
But lifeless now, yet lovely, still she lay.
Not more the god wept when the world was fired,
And in the wreck his blooming boy expired;
The vital flame he strives to light again,
And warm the frozen blood in every vein.
But since resistless fates denied that power,
On the cold nymph he rained a nectar shower.
Ah! undeserving thus, he said, to die,
Yet still in odours thou shalt reach the sky.
The body soon dissolved, and all around
Perfumed with heavenly fragrances the ground.
A sacrifice for gods uprose from thence--
A sweet, delightful tree of Frankincense.”--_Eusden._
The tree which thus sprang from poor Leucothea’s remains was a
description of Terebinth, now called _Boswellia thurifera_, which
is principally found in Yemen, a part of Arabia. Frankincense is
an exudation from this tree, and Pliny tells some marvellous tales
respecting its mode of collection, and the difficulties in obtaining
it. Frankincense was one of the ingredients with which Moses was
instructed to compound the holy incense (Exodus xxx.). The Egyptians
made great use of it as a principal ingredient in the perfumes which
they so lavishly consumed for religious rites and funeral honours.
As an oblation, it was burned on the altars by the priests of Isis,
Osiris, and Pasht. At the festivals of Isis an ox was sacrificed filled
with Frankincense, Myrrh, and other aromatics. On all the altars
erected to the Assyrian gods Baal, Astarte, and Dagon, incense and
aromatic gums were burnt in profusion; and we learn from Herodotus that
the Arabians alone had to furnish a yearly tribute of one thousand
talents of Frankincense.---Ovid recommends Frankincense as an excellent
cosmetic, and says that if it is agreeable to gods, it is no less
useful to mortals.----Rapin writes that “Phrygian Frankincense is held
divine.”
“In sacred services alone consumed,
And every Temple’s with the smoke perfumed.”
Dr. Birdwood states that there are many varieties of the
Frankincense-tree, yielding different qualities of the “lubân” or milky
gum which, from time immemorial, has sent up the smoke of sacrifice
from high places.----Distinct records have been found of the traffic
carried on between Egypt and Arabia in the seventeenth century B.C. In
the paintings at Dayr al Báhri, in Upper Egypt, are representations
both of bags of Olibanum and of Olibanum-trees in tubs, being conveyed
by ships from Arabia to Egypt; and among the inscriptions deciphered
by Professor Dümichen are many describing shipments of precious
woods, incense, and “verdant incense trees brought among the precious
things from the land of Arabia for the majesty of their god Ammon, the
lord of the terrestrial thrones.”----The Philistines reverently burnt
Frankincense before the fish-god Dagon. In ancient days it was accepted
as tribute. Darius, for instance, received from the Arabians an annual
tribute of one thousand talents of Frankincense.----When the Magi, or
wise men of the East, following the guidance of the miraculous star,
reached Bethlehem and paid their homage to the infant Saviour, they
made an offering of gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh, by which symbolical
oblation they acknowledged Him as King (gold), God (incense), and Man
(Myrrh).----The Roman Catholic and Greek churches, especially the
churches of South America, consume an immense quantity of Olibanum, as
do the Chinese in their joss-houses.
=FRAXINELLA.=--The Fraxinella (_Dictamnus_) is deemed a most sacred
plant by the fire-worshippers of India, and is highly reverenced
by them on account of its singular powers of luminosity. The plant
is covered with minute glands which excrete volatile oil: this
is continually evaporating from its surface, and forms a highly
inflammable atmosphere round the plant. If a light be brought near it,
the plant is enveloped by a transient flame, but without sustaining any
injury. When gently rubbed, the plant emits a delicious scent, like
lemon-peel.
FRIAR’S CAP.--See Monkshood.
=FRITILLARY.=--The origin of the _Fritillaria_, or Crown Imperial, is
given by Rapin in the following lines:--
“Then her gay gilded front th’ Imperial Crown
Erects aloft, and with a scornful frown
O’erlooks the subject plants, while humbly they
Wait round, and homage to her highness pay;
High on the summit of her stem arise
Leaves in a verdant tuft of largest size;
Below this tuft the gilded blossoms bent,
Like golden cups reversed, are downwards sent;
But in one view collected they compose
A crown-like form, from whence her name arose.
No flower aspires in pomp and state more high,
Nor, could her odour with her beauty vie,
Would lay a juster claim to majesty.
A _Queen_ she was whom ill report belied,
And a rash husband’s jealousy destroyed;
Driv’n from his bed and court the fields she ranged,
Till spent with grief was to a blossom changed,
Yet only changed as to her human frame:
She kept th’ Imperial beauty and the name;
But the report destroyed her former sweets:
Scandal, though false, the fair thus rudely treats,
And always the most fair with most injustice meets.”
This flower is a native of Persia, and was for some time known as
_Lilium Persicum_. According to Madame de Genlis, it derived its
majestic name of Crown Imperial from the celebrated _Guirlande de
Julie_. The Duke de Montausier, on New Year’s Day, 1634, presented his
bride, Julie de Rambouillet, with a magnificent album, on the vellum
leaves of which were painted a series of flowers, with appropriate
verses. The principal poem was by Chapelain, who chose this Persian
Lily as his theme, and, knowing the bride to be a great admirer of
Gustavus Adolphus, represented in his verses that the flower sprang
from the life-blood of the Swedish King when he fell mortally wounded
on the field of Lützen; adding that had this hero gained the imperial
crown, he would have offered it with his hand to Julie, but as the
Fates had metamorphosed him into this flower, it was presented to her
under the name of _La Couronne Impériale_. In later days the flower
received the name of _Fritillaria_ (from _Fritillus_, a dice box,
the usual companion of the chequer-board), because its blossoms are
chequered with purple and white or yellow.
=FUMITORY.=--This plant, which Shakspeare alludes to as Fumiter,
derived its name from the French _Fume-terre_, and Latin _Fumus terræ_,
earth-smoke. It was so named from a belief, very generally held in
olden times, that it was produced without seed from smoke or vapour
rising from the earth. Pliny (who calls it _Fumaria_) states that
the plant took its name from causing the eyes to water when applied
to them, as smoke does; but another opinion is that it was so called
because a bed of the common kind, when in flower, appears at a distance
like a dense smoke. Rapin has these lines on the plant:--
“With the first Spring the soft Fumaria shows
On stern Bavaria’s rocks her sev’ral hues;
But by report is struck by certain fate,
When dreadful thunders echo from their height;
And with the lightning’s sulph’rous fumes opprest,
Her drooping beauties languish on her breast.”
Dioscorides says that the juice dropped into the eyes clears the sight,
and also that the juice, having a little gum Arabic dissolved therein,
and applied to the eyelids when the hairs have been pulled out, will
keep them from growing again.----According to astrologers, Fumitory is
a herb of Saturn.
=GANG FLOWER.=--The Milk-wort, _Flos Ambarvalis_, Cross-, Procession-,
Gang-, or Rogation-Flower (_Polygala vulgaris_), was so called from its
blossoming in Gang-week or Rogation-week, when processions were made in
imitation of the ancient Roman Ambarvalia (see CORN), to perambulate
the parishes with the Holy Cross and Litanies, to mark boundaries,
and to invoke God’s blessing upon the crops; upon which occasions
Gerarde tells us “the maidens which use in the countries to walke the
procession do make themselves garlands and nosegaies” of the Milk-wort,
which the old herbalist likewise informs us is so called on account of
its “vertues in procuring milke in the breasts of nurses.”
=GARLIC.=--The tapering-leaved Garlic (_Allium sativum_) derives its
name from two Anglo-Saxon words, meaning the Spear-plant. The Egyptians
so appreciated Garlic, that they were accustomed to swear by it, and
even to worship it. Referring to this, Juvenal satirically remarks:
“Each clove of Garlic hath a sacred flower.” Nevertheless, no Egyptian
priest was permitted to eat Garlic. The Israelites, who had learnt in
Egypt to prize this vegetable, murmured at being deprived of its use,
and expressed their preference of it to Manna itself.----In Asia Minor,
Greece, Scandinavia, and Northern Germany, Garlic is popularly believed
to possess magical properties of a beneficent nature. According to the
‘Lay of Sigurdrîfa,’ protection from witchcraft may be ensured by the
addition of Garlic to a beverage. The Sanscrit name for Garlic means
the Slayer of Monsters. Galen relates that it was considered inimical
to all cold poisons, and to the bites of venomous beasts. Macer
Floridus affirms that the eating of Garlic fasting ensured immunity
from all ills attending change of climate or the drinking of unknown
water. The roots, hung round the necks of blind cattle, were supposed
to induce restoration of sight. Clusius relates that the German miners
found the roots very powerful in defending them from the assaults of
impure spirits which frequented mines.----In England, Garlic obtained
the name of Poor Man’s Treacle, or Triacle, from its being considered
an antidote to animal poison. Bacon tells us that, applied to the
wrists, and renewed, Garlic was considered a cure for long agues: in
Kent, and probably in other counties, it is placed in the stockings of
a child with the whooping-cough, in order to allay the complaint.----De
Gubernatis states that the Bolognese regard Garlic as the symbol of
abundance; at the festival of St. John, everyone buys it, to preserve
themselves from poverty during the year. In Sicily, they put Garlic
on the beds of women during confinement, and they make three signs of
the cross with it to charm away polypus. In Cuba, thirteen cloves of
Garlic at the end of a cord worn round the neck for thirteen days,
is considered to safeguard the wearer against the jaundice, provided
that, in the middle of the night of the thirteenth day, he proceeds to
the corner of two streets, takes off his Garlic necklet, and, flinging
it over his head, runs instantly home without turning round to see
what has become of it.----The broad-leaved Garlic was formerly called
Buckrams, Bear’s Garlic, Ramsies, and Ramsins, the last name being
referred to in the proverb--
“Eat Leekes in Lide, and Ramsins in May,
And all the year after physitians may play.”
We read that if a man dream of eating Garlic, it signifies that he will
discover hidden secrets, and meet with some domestic jar; yet to dream
he has it in the house is lucky.----Garlic is under the dominion of
Mars.
GEAN.--See Cherry.
=GENTIAN.=--The Gentian (_Gentiana_) was so called after Gentius, King
of Illyria, who first discovered the medicinal virtues of this bitter
plant. Gentius having imprisoned the ambassadors sent to his court by
the Romans, they invaded his kingdom, conquered it, and led the royal
botanist and his family in triumph through the streets of Rome. The old
name of this flower was _Gentiana cruciata_, and it was also called _S.
Ladislai Regis herba_, in regard to which latter appellation, there
is a curious legend:--During the reign of King Ladislas, the whole of
Hungary was afflicted with the plague. Compassionating his unfortunate
subjects who were dying by thousands, the pious king prayed that if
he shot an arrow into the air, the Almighty would vouchsafe to guide
it to the root of some herb that might be employed efficaciously in
arresting the terrible plague. The king discharged an arrow, and, in
falling, it cleft the root of the _Cruciata_ (Gentian), which was at
once tried, and found to possess the most astonishing curative powers
when administered to sufferers from the plague.----According to old
Robert Turner, the herbalist, Gentian, or Felwort, “resists poisons,
putrefaction, and the pestilence, and helps digestion; the powder of
the dry roots helps bitings of mad dogs and venomous beasts, opens
the liver, and procures an appetite. Wine, wherein the herb hath been
steept, being drunk, refreshes such as are over-wearied by travel,
or are lame in their joynts by cold or bad lodgings.” Gerarde states
that it is put into counterpoisons, “as into the composition named
_Theriaca diatessaron_, which Ætius calleth _Mysterium_, a mystery, or
hid secret.” Formerly the names of Baldmoney and Baldmoyne were applied
to the Felwort or Gentian. (See BALDMONEY and FELDWODE.)----Gentian is
under the dominion of Mars.
GERANIUM.--See Crane’s Bill.
GILL.--See Ivy.
=GILLIFLOWER.=--The appellation of Gilliflower has been applied,
apparently as a kind of pet name, to all manner of plants. Formerly the
word was spelt _gyllofer_ and _gilofre_, from the French _giroflée_
and Italian _garofalo_, words derived from the Latin _Caryophyllum_
and Greek _Karuophullon_, a Clove, in allusion to the flower’s spicy
odour. The name was originally given by the Italians to the Carnation
and plants of the Pink tribe, and was so used by Chaucer, Spenser,
and Shakspeare. Afterwards both writers and gardeners bestowed the
name on the _Matthiola_ and _Cheiranthus_. At the present time the
word has almost fallen out of use, but in books will be found to be
applied to the Clove Gilliflower, _Dianthus Caryophyllus_ (the true
Gilliflower); the Marsh Gilliflower, or Ragged Robin (_Lychnis flos
cuculi_); Queen’s, Rogue’s, or Winter Gilliflower, the Dame’s Violet
(_Hesperis matronalis_); Stock Gilliflower (_Matthiola incana_); Wall
Gilliflower (_Cheiranthus Cheiri_); and Water Gilliflower (_Hottonia
palustris_).----The Gilliflower is in old songs represented as one of
the flowers thought to grow in Paradise. Thus, in a ballad called ‘Dead
Men’s Songs,’ occurs the following verse:--
“The fields about the city faire
Were all with Roses set,
Gillyflowers and Carnations faire
Which canker could not fret.”
(See also CARNATION).
=GINSENG.=--The Chinese consider the far-famed Ginseng (_Panax
quinquefolia_) the most valuable production of nature. It is their
specific for all disorders of the lungs or of the stomach, curing
asthma, strengthening the eyesight, renewing a worn-out constitution,
delaying the approach of old age, and acting as a counterpoison. The
Dutch naturalists thus described the Ginseng:--“Its name is taken from
its shape, because its represents a man (in Chinese _Gin_) striding
with his legs. It is a larger and stronger species of our Mandrake. The
dried root is of a yellow colour, streaked round with blackish veins,
as if drawn with ink. It yields when chewed an unpleasant sweetness,
mixed with bitterness. The Chinese will give three pounds of gold
for one pound of it.” To the Chinese this shrub is in some measure a
foreign production, as it is found only in Manchoo Tartary; but it
does not owe all its reputation to its distant origin; the Tartars
also prize it, and give it a name (_Orhota_) expressive of its quality
as the chief of plants. They endeavour to procure it at the risk of
losing their lives or liberty, equally endangered by the nature of the
country where it is found, and by the policy of the Chinese Government,
which endeavours to monopolise this much-esteemed production. A large
extent of country to the north-east of Pekin, covered with inaccessible
mountains, and almost impassable forests infested with wild beasts, and
affording no means of subsistence, is separated from the province of
Leao Tong by a strong barrier of stakes, always carefully protected by
guards of Chinese soldiers who seize and punish unlicensed intruders:
this is the native country of Ginseng, and these precautions are
considered necessary to preserve the valued plant from depredation.
The Père Jartoux, who was employed in the survey of Tartary by order
of the Emperor Kam-he, describes the mode of gathering the Ginseng, as
it was practised at that time. He had frequently met with the party
of Tartars employed on the service, but on this occasion ten thousand
Tartars were commanded to gather all the Ginseng that could be found;
and after deducting two ounces from the quantity gathered by each man,
they were allowed for the remainder its weight in pure silver. This
army of botanists divided themselves into companies of a hundred men,
with a chief to each company. The whole territory was then apportioned
to the several divisions; each division formed a line, and, slowly
advancing, traversed that portion of country allotted to it; nearly six
months were spent in the occupation, and the whole territory was thus
searched through. Of the Ginseng thus collected the root is the only
part preserved.
=GLADIOLUS.=--The Corn-flag, or Sword-flag (_Gladiolus_), has been
thought by some to be the flower alluded to by Ovid as the blossom
which sprang from the blood of Hyacinthus when he was accidentally
slain by Apollo with a quoit--the flower which bears displayed upon
its petals the sad impression of the Sun-god’s sighs-_Ai, Ai!_ (See
HYACINTH). The upper root of the Sword-flag was supposed by the old
herbalists to provoke amatory passions, whilst the lower root was
thought to cause barrenness.----The Gladiolus is a plant of the Moon.
=GLASTONBURY THORN.=--In Loudon’s _Arboretum Britannicum_, the
Glastonbury Thorn is mentioned as the _Cratægus Oxyacantha præcox_.
This variety of the Hawthorn blossoms during the Winter, and was for
many years believed religiously to blow on Christmas-day. The Abbey
of Glastonbury, in Somersetshire, which is now a ruin, and of whose
origin only vague memorials exist, was said by the monks to have been
the residence of Joseph of Arimathea. The high ground on which the old
abbey was erected used in early days to be called the Isle of Avalon.
The Thorn-tree stood on an eminence to the south-west of the town of
Glastonbury, where a nunnery, dedicated to St. Peter, was in after
times erected. The eminence is called Weary-all Hill; and the same
monkish legend which accounts for the name of the hill, states also the
origin of the Thorn. It seems that when Joseph of Arimathea, to whom
the original conversion of this country is attributed, arrived at this
spot with his companions, they were weary with their journey, and sat
down. St. Joseph then stuck his stick in the ground, when, although
it was a dry Hawthorn staff, it took root and grew, and thenceforth
commemorated the birth of Christ in the manner above mentioned. This
rendered its blossoms of so much value in all Christian nations, that
the Bristol merchants exported them as things of price to foreign
lands. It had two trunks or bodies until the time of Queen Elizabeth,
when a Puritan cut down one of them, but left the other, which was
about the size of an ordinary man. This desecration of the tree brought
condign punishment upon the over-zealous Puritan, for, according to
James Howell, a writer of the period, “some of the prickles flew into
his eye, and made him monocular.” The reputation which the Glastonbury
Thorn still retained, notwithstanding the change of religion, may be
estimated by the fact that King James and his Queen, and other persons
of distinction, gave large sums for small cuttings from the original
tree. Until the time of Charles I., it was customary to carry a branch
of the Thorn in procession at Christmas time; but during the civil war,
in that reign, what remained of the tree was cut down; plants from its
branches are, however, still in existence, for a vintner of the place
secured a slip, and planted it in his garden, where it duly flowered
on the 25th December. When the new style was introduced in 1752, the
alteration (which consisted of omitting eleven days) seems to have been
very generally disliked by the mass of the people. The use which was
made of the Glastonbury Thorn to prove the impropriety of the change is
not a little curious. The alteration in the Christmas Day, which was
held that year and since on a day which would have been January 5th,
was particularly obnoxious, not only as disturbing old associations,
but as making an arbitrary change from what was considered the true
anniversary of the birth of Christ. In several places, where real or
supposed slips from the Glastonbury Thorn existed, the testimony of the
plant against the change was anxiously sought on the first Christmas
Day under the new style. As the special distinction of the Thorn arose
from its supposed connection with the great event commemorated on that
day, it was argued that it must indicate the true anniversary, and that
its evidence would be conclusive on the subject. The event of one of
these references (at Quainton, in Buckinghamshire) is thus recorded in
the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine’ for 1753:--“Above 2000 people came here this
night (December 24th, 1752, N.S., being the first Christmas Eve under
the new calendar), with lanthorns and candles, to view a Thorn-tree
which grows in this neighbourhood, and which was remembered (this year
only) to be a slip from the Glastonbury Thorn; that it always budded
on the 24th, was full-blown the next day, and went off at night. But
the people, finding no appearance of a bud, it was agreed that December
25th n.s. could not be the right Christmas Day, and accordingly they
refused going to Church, or treating their friends as usual. At length
the affair became so serious, that the ministers of the neighbouring
villages, in order to appease the people, thought it prudent to give
notice that the old Christmas Day should be kept holy as usual.” The
slips of the Thorn seem to have been everywhere unanimous in this
opposition to the new style. There still exist at Glastonbury, within
the precincts of the ruins of the Abbey, two distinct trees, which,
doubtless, sprang from the Thorn of Joseph of Arimathea, and which
continue to blossom during the winter months.
=GLOBE FLOWER.=--The botanical name of the Globe Flower, _Trollius
Europæus_, is supposed to be of Scandinavian origin, and to signify
a magic flower. The plant is also called Globe Ranunculus and Globe
Crow-foot, from the globular form of its calyx. The flower was formerly
known as the Troll-flower, and in Scotland as the Luckan Gowan (Cabbage
Daisy). Its name of Troll was probably derived from the Swedish word
_troll_, a malignant supernatural being,--a name corresponding to the
Scotch Witches’ Gowan, and given to the _Trollius_ on account of its
acrid poisonous qualities. It is a common flower on the Alps, and has
been employed from time immemorial by the Swiss peasantry to make
garlands of on rural festive celebrations. In the northern counties
of England, at the beginning of June, the Globe-flower is sought with
great festivity by the young people, who adorn their doors and cottages
with wreaths and garlands composed of its blossoms.
=GOAT’S BEARD.=--The yellow Goat’s Beard (_Tragopogon pratensis_) is
one of the best floral indices of the hour of the day, for it opens at
sunrise and closes at noon.
“And goodly now the noon-tide hour,
When from his high meridian tower
The sun looks down in majesty,
What time about the grassy lea
The Goat’s Beard, prompt his rise to hail
With broad expanded disk, in veil
Close mantling wraps its yellow head,
And goes, as peasants say, to bed.”--_Bp. Mant._
Other names of this plant are Noon-day Flower, Go-to-bed-at-noon, Star
of Jerusalem, and Joseph’s Flower. No satisfactory explanation has ever
been given with respect to the last two names, nor is it known whether
the Joseph referred to is the son of Jacob, the Virgin Mary’s husband,
or Joseph of Arimathea.
=GOLDEN ROD.=--The tall straight-stemmed Golden Rod (_Solidago virga
aurea_) was formerly called Wound-weed, and on account of its healing
powers received its scientific name _solidago_, from “_in solidum ago
vulnera_,” “I consolidate wounds.” It was brought from abroad in a
dried state, and sold in the London markets by the herb-women of Queen
Elizabeth’s days, and Gerarde tells us that it fetched half-a-crown
an ounce. About that time, however, it was found in Hampstead ponds,
and when it was seen to be a native plant, it became valueless and was
discarded from use; which, says Gerarde, “plainely setteth forth our
inconstancie and sudden mutabilitie, esteeming no longer of anything,
how pretious soever it be, than whilest it is strange and rare. This
verifieth our English proverbe, ‘Far fetcht and deare bought is best
for ladies.’”----According to tradition, the Golden Rod is also a
divining-rod, and points to hidden springs of water as well as to
treasures of gold and silver.----Astrologers say that Golden Rod is a
plant of Venus.
GOLD CUP and GOLD KNOBS.--See Ranunculus.
GOLD, GOLDING, and GOWAN.--See Marigold.
=GOLDILOCKS.=--This name is applied to _Ranunculus auricomus_,
_Chrysocoma Linosyris_, _Amaranthus luteus_ (Golden Flower Gentle),
and, by Gerarde, to _Muscus capillaris_ (Golden Maidenhair Moss).
_Camelina sativa_ is the Gold of Pleasure.
=GOLUBETZ.=--There is a popular belief in Russia, that anyone drinking
a draught of water in which this plant of the marshes has been steeped,
will be exempt from attacks by bears.
=GOOD HENRY.=--The Allgood, English Mercury, Good Henry, or Good King
Harry (_Chenopodium Bonus Henricus_) seems to have been given its name
of Good Henry to distinguish it from a poisonous plant called _Malus
Henricus_. Grimm explains that the name Henry has reference in this
case to elves and kobolds, which were called Heinz and Heinrich.
=GOOL-ACHIN.=--The _Plumeria acutifolia_, a tree of American origin,
is called by the Hindus Gool-achin, and is esteemed sacred by them. It
is commonly planted in Indian gardens, and particularly in cemeteries,
because it keeps the graves of the departed white with its daily fall
of fragrant flowers. The branches are stout, and, when wounded, exude a
milky juice, which is prized.
=GOOSEBERRY.=--The homely Gooseberry, which derives its name from the
Anglo-Saxon _crós_, a curl (German _kraus_, and old Dutch _kroes_), is
an old inhabitant of England, for Tusser, who lived in the reign of
Henry VIII., wrote of it--
“The Barberry, Respis, and Gooseberry, too,
Look now to be planted as other things do.”
It was formerly called Feaberry, Dewberry and Wineberry.----An
old-fashioned remedy for a wart consisted in pricking it with a sharp
Gooseberry-thorn passed through a wedding-ring.----To dream of ripe
Gooseberries is considered as a favourable omen. It predicts a fortune,
a lucrative post under Government, great fidelity in your sweetheart,
sweetness of temper and disposition, many children (chiefly sons),
and the accomplishment of your aims. To the sailor, to dream of
Gooseberries, indicates dangers in his next voyage; to the maiden, a
roving husband.----The Gooseberry is placed by astrologers under the
rule of Venus.
=GRAPES.=--The product of the Vine was the especial fruit of the god
Bacchus, who is sometimes represented like an infant, holding a thyrsus
and clusters of grapes with a horn. In the Catholic Church, Grapes and
Corn are symbolic of the Blessed Eucharist. According to Brocard, the
finest Grapes are those grown in the vales of Eshcol and Sorek. The
word _sorek_ signifies “fine Grapes.” Clusters of Grapes have been
found in Syria, weighing as much as forty pounds, worthy successors of
the cluster taken by the Israelitish spies from Eshcol, which “they
bare between two upon a staff.”----In some countries, the Grape is
believed to have been the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge in
the Garden of Eden.----To dream of Grapes foretells to the maiden that
her husband will be cheerful, and a great songster. If the dreamer
be in love, they augur a speedy union, and denote much happiness in
marriage and success in trade. According to another authority, to
dream that you see clusters of Grapes hanging round about you predicts
future advancement and honour. To the maid it implies marriage with an
ambitious man, who will arrive at great preferment, but die early.
=GORSE.=--The Whin Gorse, or Furze (_Ulex_)--“the never-bloomless
Furze”--caused Dillenius the greatest delight, and is said to have
so affected Linnæus, when he first came to England and saw a common
covered with its golden blossoms, that he fell down on his knees in a
rapture at the sight, and thanked God for its loveliness. He attempted
in vain to introduce it into Sweden; but although hardy enough in
England, yet it would not grow even in the garden in which Linnæus
planted it.----The old English names for this shrub were Fursbush,
Furrs, Whins, and Goss.----Gorse is held to be under the dominion of
Mars.
=GORY-DEW.=--A minute Alga bears the name of Gory-dew from its
resemblance to blood-drops. During the Middle Ages, it caused much
dismay by appearing like a sudden shower of blood, and it was thought
to portend battle, murder, and sudden death.
=GRASS.=--In India, several kinds of Grass, such as the _Kusa_, a
species of _Andropogon_, and _Eragrostis_, are held sacred by the
Hindus, and employed in their temples.----In Prussia, the northern Holy
Grass (_Holcus odoratus_) is used for strewing the floors of churches
at Whitsuntide. In some parts of Germany, Holy Grass (_Hierochloe
borealis_) is strewn before church doors on holidays.----Wheat would
appear to be only the cultivated form of the _Ægilops_, a Grass
infesting Barley-fields on the shores of the Mediterranean. Grip-grass
(_Galium Aparine_) is so called from its gripping or seizing with its
hooked prickles whatever comes in its way. The _Potentilla reptans_
is called Five-Finger Grass, on account of its five leaflets. The
only poisonous Grass (Darnel) is supposed to be the Tares of the
Scriptures: Linnæus says of this Grass (_Lolium temulentum_) that if
the seeds are baked in bread it is very hurtful, and if malted with
Barley it produces giddinness.----In Norfolk, coarse marshy Grass is
called Hassock, hence the application of this name to church hassocks,
which are often made of a large Sedge, the _Carex paniculata_.----In
connection with Tussack-grass (_Aira cæspitosa_), Mr. Sikes relates
the following tradition current in Wales:--The son of a farmer at Drws
Coed was permitted to marry a fairy-wife on condition that she should
never be touched by iron. They had several children, and lived happily
enough until one unfortunate day her horse sank in the deep mire, and
as her husband was helping her to remount, his stirrup struck her
knee. At once sweet singing was heard on the hill top, and she was
parted from him; but, though no longer allowed to walk the earth with
man, she used to haunt the turf lake (Llyn y dywarchen). This lake
has moving islands of Tussack-grass, like Derwentwater, so on one of
these islands she used to stand for hours and hold converse with her
bereaved husband.----“Fairy Rings” is the popular name for the circles
of dark-green Grass occasionally seen on grassy downs and old pastures,
round which, according to popular belief, the
“Elfe-queen, with her jolly compagnie,
Danced full oft in many a grene mede.”
On this dark Grass rustic superstition avers that no sheep or lamb will
browse. Disregarding the poetical charm which lingers around the fairy
superstition, and oblivious of the poet’s asseveration that--
“Of old the merry elves were seen
Pacing with printless feet the dewy green,”
some naturalists have ascribed the phenomenon of these rings to
lightning; others to the work of ants; and others, again, to the growth
of a small esculent Fungus called _Agaricus Orcades_. However, Edmund
Jones, a celebrated preacher, of Monmouth, who in 1813 wrote a book on
apparitions, declares that in St. Matthew xii., 43, is to be found an
authority for the popular belief. He says, “The fairy rings are found
in dry places, and the Scripture saith that the walk of evil spirits is
in dry places.”----In Sussex, elves and fairies are sometimes called
“Pharisees” by the country folk, and in Tarberry Hill, on Harting, are
Pharisees’ rings, where the simple people say the Pharisees dance on
Midsummer Eve.----To dream of Grass is a good omen; if the Grass be
fresh and green, the dream portends long life, good luck, and great
wealth; but if withered and decayed, misfortunes and sickness may be
expected, if not the death of loved ones. To dream of cutting Grass
betokens great troubles.
=GROUNDHEELE.=--This plant, known in Germany as _Grundheil_, and in
France as _Herbe aux Ladres_, is identified by Doctor Prior with
_Veronica officinalis_, which he says was so called from its having
cured a king of France of a leprosy, from which he had suffered some
eight years--a disease, called in Germany, _grind_. Quoting from
Brunschwygk, our author tells us that a shepherd had seen a stag, whose
hind quarter was covered with a scabby eruption from the bite of a
wolf, cure itself by eating of this plant, and rolling itself upon it;
and that thereupon he recommended the king to try it.
GROUND-IVY.--See Ivy.
=GROUNDSEL.=--The _Senecio vulgaris_ is called, in Scotland, Grundy
Swallow, a term derived from the Anglo-Saxon word _grundswelge_, ground
glutton, and of which Groundsel is evidently a corruption. _Senecio
Saracenicus_ is said to have been used by the Saracens in the cure
of wounds. Common Groundsel has the power of softening water if it
be poured while boiling on the plant. The Highland women often wear
a piece of its root as an amulet to guard them from the Evil Eye. A
bunch of Groundsel worn on the bare bosom was formerly reputed to be an
efficacious charm against the ague. Pliny prescribes Groundsel for the
toothache. A root must be pulled up, and a portion of it cut off with
a sharp razor; then the Groundsel must be immediately replanted, and
the excised portion applied three or four times to the ailing tooth.
A cure is probable, says Pliny, provided the mutilated and replanted
Groundsel should thrive: if otherwise, the tooth will ache more than
ever. In Cornwall, if Groundsel is to be used as an emetic, they strip
it upwards; if for a cathartic, downwards.----Groundsel is a herb of
Venus.
=GUABANA.=--The Guabana or Guarabana, which is presumed to be the wild
Pine Apple, _Ananas sativus_, first became known to Europeans in Peru
some three centuries ago. In the _Mythologie des Plantes_, we read that
the dead were, according to a ghastly popular tradition, believed to
rise and eat the Guabana fruit every night. This fruit of the dead is
described as tender and sweet as a Melon, of the shape of a Pine-apple,
and of a splendid appearance.
=GUELDER ROSE.=--The _Viburnum Opulus_ has been called the
Snowball-tree, but is more generally known as the Guelder Rose, from
its Rose-like balls of white blossom. The shrub is a variety of the
Water Elder, introduced from Gueldres. In England, its flowers are
dedicated to Whitsuntide.
=HÆMANTHUS.=--The _Hæmanthus_, or Blood-flower, is a native of Brazil,
where _H. multiflorus_ is the Imperial Flower--the especial flower and
blazon of the Emperor.
=HAG-TAPER.=--The _Verbascum Thapsus_ was called Hedge-taper,
High-taper, or Hig-taper, because it was used as a torch on funeral and
other occasions. These names became corrupted into Hag-taper during
the period when the belief in witchcraft existed, from a notion that
witches employed the plant in working their spells. Probably this
superstition was derived from the ancients, for we read in Gerarde’s
‘Herbal’--“Apuleius reporteth a tale of Ulysses, Mercurie, and the
inchauntresse Circe using these herbes in their incantations and
witchcrafts.” (See MULLEIN).
=HALLELUJAH.=--The Wood-Sorrel (_Oxalis Acetosella_) bears the name of
Hallelujah, not only in England, but in Germany, France, Spain, and
Italy, because it blossoms between Easter and Whitsuntide--the season
at which those Psalms are sung which end with that pious ejaculation,
viz., the 113th to the 117th inclusive.
=HAREBELL.=--Gerarde, in his ‘Herbal,’ Parkinson, in his ‘_Paradisus_,’
and other old herbalists, term the _Hyacinthus non scriptus_, or
English Jacinth, the Hare-bell or Hare’s-bell. This is probably the
“azure Harebell” alluded to by Shakspeare, and is the flower referred
to by Browne, in his ‘Pastorals,’ as only to be worn by faithful
lovers:--
“The Harebell, for her stainless azured hue,
Claims to be worn of none but who are true.”
The nodding Blue-bell of the heath-land (_Campanula rotundifolia_),
however, is the Hare-bell of modern poets; but both plants are called
by that name in different parts of England. The original word is said
to have been either Air-bell or Hair-bell, appellations which might
most appropriately be applied to the graceful and airy Campanulas,
whose slender stems have sufficient elasticity to rise again when
lightly trodden under foot. In some English counties the flower is
familiarly called Witches’ Thimble. In France, a little white Hare-bell
is common in the meadows, and from its modest and chaste appearance is
called the Nun of the Fields. (See BLUE-BELL and CAMPANULA).
HASSOCKS.--See Grass.
=HAWKWEED.=--The Hawk-weed or Hawk-bit (_Hieracium_) was a name
originally applied to several plants of the Dandelion and Mouse-ear
families, and in days when falconry was practised, these plants
derived some importance from the notion entertained by the ancients
that with them hawks were in the habit of clearing their eyesight--a
notion endorsed by the later herbalists, for we find Gerarde writing
that hawks are reported to clear their sight by conveying the juice
hereof into their eyes. The old tradition that the hawk feed upon
Hawkweed and led her young ones early to eat the plant, that by
its juices they might gain acuteness of vision, was believed some
centuries ago not only in England but throughout Europe. The Greeks
considered the Hawkweed a holy plant, inasmuch as it was dedicated to
the use of a bird they held sacred. One of these plants was, like the
Scabious, called the Devil’s-bit, on account of its root presenting
the appearance of having been bitten off short; another (_Hieracium
aurantiacum_) bore the familiar name of Grim the Collier, given it
from the black hairs which cover its stem and involucre. Hawkweeds
were considered good for strengthening the eyesight, and were deemed
efficacious against the bites of serpents and scorpions.----The plant
was adjudged to be under the rule of Saturn.
=HAWTHORN.=--The Hawthorn, according to ancient myths, originally
sprang from the lightning: it has been revered as a sacred tree from
the earliest times, and was accounted by the Greeks a tree of good
augury and a symbol of conjugal union. After the rape of the Sabines,
upon which occasion the shepherds carried Hawthorn-boughs, it was
considered propitious; its blossoming branches were borne by those
assisting at wedding festivities, and the newly-married couple were
lighted to the bridal chamber with torches of the wood. At the present
day, the Greeks garland their brides with wreaths of Hawthorn, and deck
the nuptial altar with its blossoms, whilst on May-day they suspend
boughs of the flowering shrub over their portals. The ancient Germans
composed their funeral-piles of Hawthorn wood, and consecrated it
with the mallet, the symbol of the god Thor. They believed that in
the sacred flame which shot upwards from the Thorn, the souls of the
deceased were carried to heaven.----In France, the Hawthorn is called
_l’Epine noble_, from the belief that it furnished the Crown of Thorns
worn by our Lord before the Crucifixion. Sir John Maundevile has given
the original tradition, which is as follows:--“Then was our Lord led
into a garden ... and the Jews scourged Him, and made Him a crown of
the branches of the _Albespyne_, that is, White Thorn, which grew in
the same garden, and set it on His head.... And therefore hath the
White Thorn many virtues. For he that beareth a branch thereof, no
thunder or manner of tempest may hurt him: and in the house that it
is in may no evil spirit enter.”----A Roman Catholic legend relates
that when the Holy Crown blossomed afresh, whilst the victorious
Charlemagne knelt before it, the scent of Hawthorn filled the air. The
Crown of Thorns was given up to St. Louis of France by the Venetians,
and placed by him in the Sainte Chapelle, which he built in Paris. The
Feast of the Susception of the Holy Crown is observed at the church
of Notre Dame, in Paris, in honour of this cherished relic. The Crown
of Thorns is enclosed within a glass circle, which a priest holds in
his hands; he passes before the kneeling devotees, who are ranged
outside the altar rail, and offers the crown to them to be kissed. The
Norman peasant constantly wears a sprig of Hawthorn in his cap, from
the belief that Christ’s crown was woven of it.----The French have a
curious tradition that when Christ was one day resting in a wood, after
having escaped from a pursuit by the Jews, the magpies came and covered
Him all over with Thorns, which the kindly swallows (_poules de Dieu_)
perceived, and hastened to remove. A swallow is also said to have taken
away the Crown of Thorns at the Crucifixion.----The Hawthorn is the
distinguishing badge of the royal house of Tudor. When Richard III. was
slain at Bosworth, his body was plundered of its armour and ornaments.
The crown was hidden by a soldier in a Hawthorn-bush, but was soon
found and carried back to Lord Stanley, who, placing it on the head
of his son-in-law, saluted him as King Henry VII. To commemorate this
picturesque incident, the house of Tudor assumed the device of a crown
in a bush of fruited Hawthorn. The proverb of “Cleave to the crown,
though it hang on a bush,” alludes to the same circumstance.----The
Hawthorn has for centuries borne in England the favourite name of
“May,” from its flowering in that month:
“Between the leaves the silver Whitethorn shows
Its dewy blossoms pure as mountain snows.”
In olden times, very early on May-day morning, lads and lasses repaired
to the woods and hedgerows, and returned, soon after sunrise, laden
with posies of flowers, and boughs of blooming Hawthorn, with which to
decorate the churches and houses: even in London boughs of May were
freely suspended over the citizens’ doorways. Chaucer tells us how:--
“Furth goth all the Courte, both most and lest,
To fetche the flouris freshe, and braunche, and blome,
And namely Hawthorne brought both page and grome,
With freshe garlandis partly blew and white,
And than rejoisin in their grete delighte.”
In Lancashire, at the present day, the Mayers still, in some districts,
go from door to door, and sing:--
“We have been rambling all this night,
And almost all this day;
And now returned back again,
We’ve brought you a branch of May.
“A branch of May we have brought you,
And at your door it stands;
It is but a sprout, but it’s well budded out
By the work of our Lord’s hands.”
Aubrey, writing in 1686, records that at Woodstock, in Oxfordshire,
the people were accustomed on May-eve to go into the park and procure
a number of Hawthorn-trees, which they set before their doors. In
Huntingdonshire, on May-day morn, the young men used formerly to place,
at sunrise, a branch of Hawthorn in blossom, before the door of anyone
they wished to honour.----A curious superstition survives in Suffolk,
where to sleep in a room, with the Hawthorn in bloom in it during the
month of May, is considered, by country folk, to be unlucky, and sure
to be followed by some great misfortune.----In some parts of Ireland,
it is thought unlucky to bring blossoming Hawthorn indoors, and unsafe
to gather even a leaf from certain old and solitary Thorns which grow
in sheltered hollows of the moorlands, and on the fairies’ trysting
places.----It is considered unlucky to cut down a Hawthorn-tree, and
in many parts the peasants refuse to do it: thus we read, in a legend
of county Donegal, that a fairy had tried to steal one Joe McDonough’s
baby, and, telling the story to her neighbours: “I never affronted
the gentry [fairies] to my knowledge,” sighed the poor mother; “but
Joe helped Mr. Todd’s gardener to cut down the old Hawthorn-tree on
the lawn Friday was eight days: an’ there’s them that says that’s a
very bad thing to do. I fleeched him not to touch it, but the master
he offered him six shillings if he’d help wi’ the job, for the other
men refused.” “That’s the way of it,” whispered the crones over their
pipes and poteen--“that’s just it. The gude man has had the ill luck
to displease the ‘gentry,’ an’ there will be trouble in this house
yet.”----Among the Pyrenean peasantry Hawthorn and Laurel are thought
to secure the wearer against thunder. The inhabitants of Biarritz
make Hawthorn wreaths on St. John’s Day: they then rush to the sea,
plunge in after a prayer, and consider themselves safe during the
ensuing twelve months from the temptation of evil spirits.----The old
herbalists prescribe the distilled water of the Haws of the Hawthorn
as an application suited to “any place where thorns or splinters doe
abide in the flesh,” the result being that the decoction “will notably
draw them out.” Lord Bacon tells us, that a “store of Haws portends
cold winters.”----Among the Turks, a branch of Hawthorn expresses
the wish of a lover to receive a kiss.----The Hawthorn attains to a
great age, and its wood is remarkably durable: there is a celebrated
tree enclosed in Cawdor Castle, near Inverness, which has stood from
time immemorial. Tradition relates that the Castle was built over the
tree in consequence of a dream, by which the original proprietor was
instructed to erect a castle on this particular spot. From the most
remote times it has been customary for guests to assemble themselves
around this venerable tree, and drink success to the House of
Cawdor.----The most remarkable of English Thorns is that known as the
Glastonbury Thorn, which is reputed to have sprung from the staff of
Joseph of Arimathea. (See GLASTONBURY THORN).----By astrologers the
Hawthorn is placed under the dominion of Mars. Turner remarks that,
should he “want weapons, he may make use of the prickles and let Saturn
take the fruit.”
HAYMAIDS, or HEDGEMAIDS, the Ground-Ivy.--See Ivy.
=HAZEL.=--The Hazel (_Corylus Avellana_) is the theme of many
traditions, reaching from the remotest ages, and in England the tree
would seem to have acquired almost a sacred character. In Scandinavian
mythology the Hazel was consecrated to the god Thor, and in the poetic
Edda a staff of Hazel is mentioned as a symbol of authority, and
hence employed for the sceptres of kings.----In classic mythology,
the Hazel rod becomes the _caduceus_ of the god Mercury. Taking pity
on the miserable, barbarous state of mankind, Apollo and Mercury
interchanged presents and descended to the earth. The god of Harmony
received from the son of Maia the shell of a tortoise, out of which
he had constructed a lyre, and gave him in exchange a Hazel stick,
which had the power of imparting a love of virtue and of calming the
passion and hatred of men. Armed with this Hazel wand, Mercury moved
among the people of earth, and touching them with it, he taught them
to express their thoughts in words, and awakened within them feelings
of patriotism, filial love, and reverence of the gods. Adorned with
two light wings, and entwined with serpents, the Hazel rod of Mercury
is still the emblem of peace and commerce.----An old tradition tells
us that God, when He banished Adam from the terrestrial Paradise, gave
him in His mercy the power of producing instantly the animals of which
he was in want, upon striking the sea with a Hazel rod. One day Adam
tried this, and produced the sheep. Eve was desirous of imitating him,
but her stroke of the Hazel rod brought forth the wolf, which at once
attacked the sheep. Adam hastened to regain his salutary instrument,
and produced the dog, which conquered the wolf.----A Hebrew legend
states that Eve, after eating the forbidden fruit, hid herself in
the foliage of a Hazel-bush.----It was a Hazel-tree which afforded
shelter to the Virgin Mary, surprised by a storm, whilst on her way to
visit St. Elizabeth. Under a Hazel-tree the Holy Family rested during
their flight into Egypt.----It was of wattled Hazel-hurdles that St.
Joseph, of Arimathea, raised the first English Christian church at
Glastonbury.----In Bohemia, a certain “chapel in the Hazel-tree,”
dedicated to the Virgin Mary, is regarded with much reverence: it was
erected in memory of a butcher to whom a statue of the Virgin, near
a Hazel-tree, had spoken. The butcher carried off the image to his
house, but during the night the statue returned to its former place
near the Hazel-tree.----For the ancient Germans, the Hazel-tree, which
re-blossoms towards the end of winter, was a type of immortality. It is
now considered a symbol of happy marriages, because the Nuts are seen
on its branches united in pairs.----In the Black Forest, the leader of
a marriage procession carries a Hazel wand in his hand. In some places,
during certain processions on Sunday, the Oats stored in stables for
horses are touched, in the name of God, with Hazel-branches.----It is
believed that this humble shrub frightens serpents. An Irish tradition
relates that St. Patrick held a rod of Hazel-wood in his hand when
he gathered on the promontory of Cruachan Phadraig all the venomous
reptiles of the island and cast them into the sea.----The Hazel rod
or staff appears in olden times to have had peculiar sanctity: it
was used by pilgrims, and often deposited in churches, or kept as a
precious relic, and buried with its owner. Several such Hazel staffs
have been found in Hereford Cathedral.----The Tyroleans consider that
a Hazel-bough is an excellent lightning conductor.----According to an
ancient Hebrew tradition, the wands of magicians were made of Hazel,
and of a virgin branch, that is, of a bough quite bare and destitute of
sprigs or secondary branches.----Nork says that by means of Hazel rods
witches can be compelled to restore to animals and plants the fecundity
which they had previously taken from them.----Pliny states that Hazel
wands assist the discovery of subterranean springs; and in Italy, to
the present day, they are believed to act as divining-rods for the
discovery of hidden treasure--a belief formerly held in England, if we
may judge from the following lines by S. Shepherd (1600):--
“Some sorcerers do boast they have a rod,
Gather’d with words and sacrifice,
And, borne aloft, will strangely nod
To hidden treasure where it lies.”
Extraordinary and special conditions are necessary to ensure success
in the cutting of a divining-rod. It must always be performed after
sunset and before sunrise, and only on certain nights, among which
are specified those of Good Friday, Epiphany, Shrove Friday, and St.
John’s Day, the first night of a new moon, or that preceding it. In
cutting it, one must face the east, so that the rod shall be one which
catches the first rays of the morning sun; or, as some say, the eastern
and western sun must shine through the fork of the rod, otherwise it
will be valueless. Both in France and England, the divining-rod is
much more commonly employed at the present time than is generally
supposed. In the eighteenth century its use was ably advocated by De
Thouvenel in France, and soon afterwards in our country by enthusiasts.
Pryce, in his _Mineralogia Cornubiensis_, states that many mines have
been discovered by means of the rod, and quotes several. Sir Thomas
Browne describes the divining-rod as “a forked Hazel, commonly called
Moses’ Rod, which, held freely forth, will stir and play if any mine
be under it.” He thinks, however, that the rod is of pagan origin,
and writes:--“the ground whereof were the magical rods in poets--that
of Pallas, in Homer; that of Mercury, that charmed Argus; and that
of Circe, which transformed the followers of Ulysses: too boldly
usurping the name of Moses’s rod; from which, notwithstanding, and
that of Aaron, were probably occasioned the fables of all the rest.
For that of Moses must needs be famous to the Egyptians, and that of
Aaron unto many other nations, as being preserved in the Ark until the
destruction of the Temple built by Solomon.” In the ‘Quarterly Review,’
No. 44, is a long account (vouched for by the editor), proving that
a Lady Noel possessed the faculty of using the divining-rod:--“She
took a thin forked Hazel-twig, about sixteen inches long, and held it
by the end, the joint pointing downwards. When she came to the place
where the water was under the ground, the Hazel-twig immediately bent,
and the motion was more or less rapid as she approached or withdrew
from the spring. When just over it, _the twig turned so quick as to
snap, breaking near the fingers_, which by pressing it were indented
and heated, and _almost blistered_; a degree of agitation was also
visible in her face. The exercise of the faculty is independent of any
volition.”----The use of the forked Hazel-twig as a divining-rod to
discover metals is said to have been known in this kingdom as early as
the days of Agricola: its derivation is probably to be sought in an
ancient custom of the Israelites, to which the Prophet Hosea alludes
when he says: “My people ask counsel at their stocks, and their staff
declareth unto them.”----In Sweden, Hazel-nuts are believed to have the
mystical power of making invisible.----An old-fashioned charm to cure
the bite of an adder was to cut a piece of Hazel-wood, fasten a long
bit and a short one together in the form of a cross, then to lay it
softly on the wound, and say thrice in a loud tone--
“Underneath this Hazelin mote,
There’s a Braggotty worm with a speckled throat,
Nine double is he.
Now from 9 double to 8 double,
And from 8 double to 7 double,
And from 7 double to 6 double,
And from 6 double to 5 double,
And from 5 double to 4 double,
And from 4 double to 3 double,
And from 3 double to 2 double,
And from 2 double to 1 double,
And from 1 double to no double,
No double hath he!”
To dream of Hazels, and of cracking and eating their Nuts, portends
riches and content as the reward of toil. To dream of finding hidden
Hazel-nuts predicts the finding of treasure.----Astrologers assign the
Hazel to the dominion of Mercury.
HEARTSEASE.--See Pansy.
=HEATHER.=--Included under the term Heather are the six English
species of Heath (_Erica_) and the Ling (_Calluna_). Although, in
the Scriptures, the Prophet Jeremiah exclaims, “And he shall be like
the Heath in the desert,” it is probable that the Juniper is really
referred to.----In Germany, the Heath is believed to owe its colour to
the blood of the slain heathen, for in that country the inhabitants of
the uncultivated fields, where the Heath (_heide_) grew, came in time
to be known as heathen, or _heiden_.----Heather was the badge of “Conn
of a hundred fights.” The Highlanders consider it exceedingly lucky
to find white Heather, the badge of the captain of Clanronald.----The
Picts made beer from Heather.
“For once thy mantling juice was seen to laugh
In pearly cups, which monarchs loved to quaff;
And frequent waked the wild inspired lay
On Teviot’s hills beneath the Pictish sway.”--_Leyden._
The secret of the manufacture of Heather beer was lost when the Picts
were exterminated, as they never divulged it to strangers. Tradition
says that after the slaughter by Kenneth, a father and son, the sole
survivors, were brought before the conqueror, who offered the father
his life, provided that he would divulge the secret of making this
liquor, and the son was put to death before the old man’s eyes, in
order to add emphasis to the request. Disgusted with such barbarity,
the old warrior said: “Your threats might, perhaps, have influenced my
son, but they have no effect on me.” Kenneth then suffered the Pict to
live, and he carried his secret with him to the grave. At the present
time, the inhabitants of Isla, Jura, and other outlying districts, brew
a very potable liquor by mixing two-thirds of the tops of Heath with
one of malt.
=HELENIUM.=--The flower of the Helenium resemble small suns of a
beautiful yellow. According to tradition, they sprang up from the
tears shed by Helen of Troy. On this point Gerarde writes in his
‘Herbal’:--“Some report that this plant tooke the name of _Helenium_
from Helena, wife to Menelaus, who had her hands full of it when Paris
stole her away into Phrygia.”
=HELIOTROPE.=--The nymph Clytie, enamoured of Phœbus (the Sun), was
forsaken by him for Leucothea. Maddened with jealousy, the discarded
and love-sick Clytie accused Leucothea of unchastity before her father,
who entombed his daughter, and thus killed her. Phœbus, enraged with
Clytie for causing the death of his beloved Leucothea, heeded not her
sighs and spurned her embraces. Abandoned thus by her inconstant lover,
the wretched and despairing Clytie wandered half distraught, until at
length--
“She with distracted passion pines away,
Detesteth company; all night, all day,
Disrobed, with her ruffled hair unbound
And wet with humour, sits upon the ground;
For nine long days all sustenance forbears;
Her hunger cloy’d with dew, her thirst with tears:
Nor rose; but rivets on the god her eyes,
And ever turns her face to him that flies.
At length to earth her stupid body cleaves;
Her wan complexion turns to bloodless leaves,
Yet streaked with red: her perished limbs beget
A flower resembling the pale Violet;
Which, with the Sun, though rooted fast, doth move;
And, being changed, yet changeth not her love.”--_Sandys’ Ovid._
Rapin, in error, alludes to the Sunflower (_Helianthus_) as owing its
origin to Clytie. He says:--
“But see where Clytie, pale with vain desires,
Bows her weak neck, and Phœbus still admires;
On rushy stems she lifts herself on high,
And courts a glance from his enliv’ning eye.”
The flower into which the hapless Clytie was metamorphosed was not
the scented Heliotrope, common to modern gardens, which does not turn
with the Sun, and, being of Peruvian origin, was of course unknown to
the ancients; neither was it the _Helianthus_, or Sunflower, for that
plant also came to us from the new world, and was therefore equally
unknown in the days when Ovid wrote the tragic story of Clytie’s love
and death. The _Herba Clytiæ_ is identified in an old German herbal
(_Hortus Medicus Camerarii_) with _Heliotropium Tricoccon_. Gerarde
figures four Heliotropiums, or “Tornesoles,” one of which he names
_Heliotropium Tricoccum_; and in his remarks on the Heliotrope or
Turnsole, he says: “Some think it to be _Herba Clytiæ_ into which
the poets feign Clytia to be metamorphosed; whence one writeth these
verses:--
‘_Herba velut Clitiæ semper petit obvia solem,
Sic pia mens Christum, quo prece spectet, habet._’”
Parkinson calls the same plant the Turnesole Scorpion Tayle.
Theophrastus alludes to the same Heliotropium under the name of _Herba
Solaris_. But we do not find that the flowers of this common European
species of Heliotrope answer the description given by Ovid--“A flower
most like a Violet”--or by Pliny, who says of it: “The Heliotrope
turns with the Sun, in cloudy weather even, so great is its sympathy
with that luminary: at night, as though in regret, it closes its
_blue_ flowers.” The insignificant Heliotropium or Turnsole, with its
diminutive whitish blossom, cannot be the flower depicted by Ovid, or
the plant with “blue flowers” referred to by Pliny. Moreover, Gerarde
tells us that the European Turnsole he figures “is named Heliotropium,
not because it is turned about at the daily motion of the sunne, _but
by reason it flowereth in the Summer solstice_, at which time the sunne
being farthest gone from the equinoctial circle, returneth to the
same.” In Mentzel’s ‘_Index Nominum Plantarum Multilinguis_’ (1682)
we find that the old Italian name of the Turnsole was _Verrucaria_
(Wart-wort), and Gerarde, in the index to his ‘Herbal,’ states that
_Verrucaria_ is _Tithymalus_ (Spurge), or _Heliotropium minus_.
Referring to his description of the Spurges, we note that he figures
twenty-three varieties, the first of which is called Wart-wort; and
the second, Sun Spurge, which is thus described:--“The second kinde
(called _Helioscopius_ or _Solisequius_, and in English, according
to his Greeke name, Sunne Spurge, or Time Tithymale, _of turning or
keeping time with the sunne_) hath sundry reddish stalkes of a foot
high; the leaves are like unto Purslane, not so great nor thicke,
but snipt about the edges: the flowers are yellowish, and growing in
little platters.” Here, then, we have perhaps a sufficiently near
approach to the pale flower of Ovid; but nothing like the blue flower
of Pliny. Among the Spurges described by Gerarde, however, is one
which he calls the Venetian Sea Spurge, and this plant is stated to
have bell-shaped flowers of a dark or blackish purple colour, so that
possibly this was the flower indicated by Pliny.----De Gubernatis,
in his _Mythologie des Plantes_, states that the flower into which
Clytia was transformed is the _Helianthemum roseum_ of Decandolle. The
author of ‘Flower Lore’ says, “The classic Sunflower is an annual of an
insignificant appearance, having many fabulous properties assigned to
it. The Heliotrope belongs to the natural order _Boraginæ_, and is a
native of the south-west of Europe.” The late Mr. H. A. Bright, in ‘A
Year in a Lancashire Garden,’ tells us that one of our very best living
authorities on such a subject sent him “the suggestion that the common
Salsafy, or possibly the Anagallis, may be the flower.” Turner, in his
‘Brittish Physician’ (1687), calls the yellow-flowered Elecampane, the
Sunflower. Other botanists suggest an Aster or Calendula (Marigold):
if this last suggestion be correct, the flower called by Parkinson, in
his ‘_Paradisus_,’ the Purple Marigold, and by Gerarde Italian Starwort
(_Aster Italorum_), comes nearest to Pliny’s description. This flower
is stated by Gerarde to have been called by some the Blue Marigold,
whose yellow European brother Shakspeare describes as
“The Marygold, that goes to bed with the sun,
And with it rises weeping.”
We may include the blue or purple Marigold among those flowers of which
Bacon writes: “For the bowing and inclining the head, it is found in
the great Flower of the Sunne, in Marigolds, Wart Wort, Mallow Flowers,
and others.”----Albertus Magnus accords to the Heliotrope the following
wonderful properties: “Gather in August the Heliotropon, wrap it in a
Bay-leaf with a wolf’s tooth, and it will, if placed under the pillow,
show a man who has been robbed where are his goods, and who has taken
them. Also, if placed in a church, it will keep fixed in their places
all the women present who have broken their marriage vow. This last is
most tried and most true.” According to another version, in order to
work this last charm, the Heliotrope-flower must be gathered in August
when the sun is in Leo, and be wrapped in a Laurel-leaf before being
deposited in the church.
=HELLEBORE.=--The Christmas Rose (_Helleborus niger_) has also been
called Black Hellebore, from the colour of its roots, and Melampodium,
in honour of Melampus, a learned physician who flourished at Pylos, in
Peloponnesus, 1530 years before the birth of Christ. Melampus travelled
into Egypt, then the seat of science, in order to study the healing
art, and there he became acquainted with the cathartic qualities of
the Hellebore, by noticing the effect it had upon some goats which
had fed upon the herb. He afterwards cured with Hellebore the mental
derangement of the daughters of Prœtus, King of Argos--ancient writers
affirm by causing the princesses to bathe in a cold fountain after
taking the drug; but according to Pliny, by prescribing the milk
of goats which had eaten this vegetable. From this circumstance,
Hellebore became celebrated as a medicine, and was speedily regarded
with superstitious reverence by the ignorant populace. Thus, Black
Hellebore was used to purify houses, and to hallow dwellings, and the
ancients entertained the belief that by strewing or perfuming their
apartments with this plant, they drove away evil spirits. This ceremony
was performed with great devotion, and accompanied with the singing
of solemn hymns. In similar manner, they blessed their cattle with
Hellebore, to keep them free from the spells of the wicked: for these
purposes it was dug up with certain attendant mystic rites; the devotee
first drawing a circle round the plant with a sword, and then, turning
to the east, offering a prayer to Apollo and Æsculapius, for leave to
dig up the root. The flight of the eagle was anxiously watched during
the performance of these rites, for if the bird approached the spot,
it was considered so ominous as to predict the certain death of the
persons who took up the plant, in the course of the year. In digging
up the roots of certain species of Hellebore, it was thought necessary
to eat Garlic previously, to counteract the poisonous effluvia of
the plant. Yet the root was eventually dried and pounded to dust, in
which state it was taken in the manner of snuff.----R. Turner, writing
in 1663, says that at that time Hellebore was thought to cure such
as seemed to be possessed with the Devil, and therefore was by some
called _Fuga Dæmonum_.----The ancient Gauls are said to have invariably
rubbed the points of their arrows with Hellebore, believing that it
rendered all the game killed with them more tender.----Hellebore in
ancient times was considered a certain antidote against madness. In
his ‘Anatomy of Melancholy,’ Burton introduces the Hellebore among the
emblematical figures of his frontispiece, with the following lines:--
“Borage and Hellebore fill two scenes,
Sovereign plants to purge the veins
Of melancholy, and cheer the heart
Of those black fumes which make it smart;
To clear the brain of misty fogs,
Which dull our senses, and soul clogs;
The best medicine that e’er God made
For this malady, if well assaid.”
Hellebore formerly grew in great abundance on the Island of Anticyra,
in the Gulf of Corinth: hence _Naviga ad Anticyram_ was a common
proverb applied to hypochondriacal persons.----Pausanias tells us
that when the Cirrhæans besieged Athens, Solon recommended that
Hellebore should be thrown in the river Plistus: this was done, and the
Cirrhæans, from drinking the water, were so powerfully attacked with
dysentery, that they were forced to abandon the siege.----The Hellebore
has long been considered a plant of evil omen, growing in dark and
lonely places. Thus Campbell says of it:--
“By the witches’ tower,
Where Hellebore and Hemlock seem to weave
Round its dark vaults a melancholy bower
For spirits of the dead at night’s enchanted hour.”
The plant, with certain accompanying exorcisms, was reputed to be
efficacious in cases of deafness caused by witchcraft. In Tuscany,
the peasantry divine the harvest from the appearance of the
Hellebore-plant. If it has four tufts, it will be good; if three,
mediocre; if two, bad.----Astrologers say that Hellebore is a herb of
Saturn.
=HELMET-FLOWER.=--The _Scutellaria_, or Skull-cap flower, is generally
known by the name of the Helmet-flower, the blossoms being shaped
similar to those of the Snap-Dragon. It is used in curing the tertian
ague.
=HEMLOCK.=--The common Hemlock (_Conium maculatum_) is described
by Dioscorides as a very evil, dangerous, hurtful, and poisonous
herb, “insomuch that whosoever taketh of it into his body dieth
remediless, except the party drank some wine before the venom hath
taken the heart.” It is the _Coneion_ of the ancients: that deadly
poison distilled from the juices of the Hemlock, that was drunk by
Socrates, Theramenes, and Phocion--the fatal drug given to him whom
the Areopagus had condemned to death--the unfailing potion gulped down
by ancient philosophers, who were weary of their lives, and dreaded
the infirmities of old age. Resolved on their fate, these men crowned
themselves with garlands, and with a smile upon their lips tossed off
the fatal _Coneion_--dying respected by their countrymen for their
fortitude and heroism.----The Hemlock is one of the deadly poisons
that kills by its cold quality. Hence Pliny tells us that serpents fly
from its leaves, because they also chill to the death: on this account
probably it has been called _Herba benedicta_, or Herb Bennett.----The
Eleusinian priests, who were required to remain chaste all their lives,
were wont to rub themselves with Hemlock.----In Russia, the Hemlock
under the name of _Beh_, is looked upon as a Satanic herb; and in
Germany, it is regarded as a funereal plant, and as a representative of
the vegetation of the infernal regions. In England, it was a favourite
plant of the witches, gathered by them for use in their potions and
hell-broths: it is still considered a plant of ill-omen, growing among
ruins and in waste places, and being unsavoury and offensive to the
senses.
“By the witches’ tower,
Where Hellebore and Hemlock seem to weave
Round its dark vaults a melancholy bower
For spirits of the dead at night’s enchanted hour.”
The Hebrew prophet Hosea says of this sinister plant: “Judgment
springeth up as Hemlock in the furrows of the field.”----At the end
of Summer the dead stalks of the Hemlock rattle in the wind, and are
called by country folk Kecksies, an old English word applied to the dry
hollow stalks of umbelliferous plants. Formerly the Hemlock was called
Kex.----Astrologers assign the plant to Saturn.
=HEMP.=--Herodotus speaks of Hemp (_Cannabis sativa_) as a novelty in
his time, lately introduced into Thrace from Scythia.----A curious
prophecy relating to English kings and queens, and the prosperity of
England, has been preserved by Lord Bacon, who heard of it when Queen
Elizabeth was “in the flower of her age”:--
“When Hempe is spun,
England’s done.”
“Whereby it was generally conceived that, after the princes had
reigned, which had the principal letters of that word Hempe (which
were Henry, Edward, Mary, Philip, and Elizabeth), England should come
to utter confusion, which is verified in the change of the name; for
that the king’s style is now no more of England, but of Britain.”----In
some parts of the country, on Midsummer Eve, but in Derbyshire on St.
Valentine’s Eve, as the clock strikes twelve, young women desirous
of knowing their future husbands go into a churchyard, and run round
the church, scattering Hemp-seed, and repeating the while, without
stopping, these lines:--
“I sow Hemp-seed: Hemp-seed I sow:
He that loves me the best
Come after me and mow.”
The sowing of Hemp-seed is performed by maidens, at midnight, on
Midsummer Eve in Cornwall, on St. Martin’s night in Norfolk, and on All
Hallow Eve in Scotland; the incantation being completed by the recital
of the following or similar lines:--
“Hemp-seed I sow thee,
Hemp-seed grow thee:
And he who will my true-love be
Come after me and show thee.”
The figure of the girl’s lover, it is then supposed, will appear and
run after her. In the poem of ‘The Cottage Girl,’ the rite of sowing
Hemp-seed is thus described:--
“To issue from beneath the thatch,
With trembling hand she lifts the latch,
And steps, as creaks the feeble door,
With cautious feet the threshold o’er;
Lest, stumbling on the horseshoe dim,
Dire spells unsinew ev’ry limb.
“Lo! shudd’ring at the solemn deed,
She scatters round the magic seed,
And _thrice repeats_, ‘The seed I sow,
My true-love’s scythe the crop shall mow.’
Straight, as her frame fresh horrors freeze,
Her true love with his scythe she sees.
“And next, she seeks the Yew-tree shade,
Where he who died for love is laid;
There binds, upon the verdant sod
By many a moonlight fairy trod,
The Cowslip and the Lily-wreath
She wove her Hawthorn hedge beneath;
And whisp’ring, ‘Ah! may Colin prove
As constant as thou wast to love!’
Kisses, with pale lip full of dread,
The turf that hides his clay-cold head!”
Perhaps the origin of this custom of Hemp-sowing is the fact that from
Hemp is made cord, which is used to bind, attach, or secure an object.
The Sicilians, indeed, employ Hemp as a charm to secure the affection
of those they love. De Gubernatis tells us that, on Friday (the day
consecrated to the remembrance of our Lord’s Passion), they take a
Hempen thread, and twenty-five needlefuls of coloured silk; and at
midnight they plait this, saying:
“_Chistu è cánnava di Christu,
Servi pi attaccari a chistu._”
Forthwith they go to the church with the plait in their hands, and
enter at the moment of the Consecration: then they tie three knots in
the plait, previously adding a little of the hair of the loved one;
after which they invoke all evil spirits to entice the person beloved
towards the person who craves his or her love.----In Piedmont, there
is a belief that Hemp spun on the last day of Carnival will bring bad
luck. On that day, in some districts, the following ceremony is gone
through to divine what sort of Hemp crop may be expected:--A bonfire
is lighted, and the direction of the flames is attentively watched: if
the flames mount straight upwards, the crop will be good; but if they
incline either way, it will be bad.----In the Côtes-du-Nord, France,
there is a belief that Hemp enrages those who have been bitten by dogs.
When fowls eat Hemp-seed, they cease to lay, and commence to sit. It is
customary to leave the finest sprig of Hemp, that the bird St. Martin
may be able to rest on it.----The Egyptians prepare an intoxicating
substance from Hemp, called _Hashîsh_. This they roll into balls the
size of a Chesnut, and after having swallowed a few of these, they
experience ecstatic visions.----The Arabians concoct a preparation of
Hemp, which produces the most varied hallucinations, so that those who
are intoxicated by it imagine that they are flying, or that they are
changed into a statue, that their head is cut off, that their limbs
stretch out to immense lengths, or that they can see, even through
stone walls, “the colour of the thoughts of others” and the words of
their neighbours.----In the Chinese _Liao chai chih ye_ (A.D. 60-70),
it is recorded that two friends wandering among the mountains culling
simples, find at a fairy bridge two lovely maidens guarding it; at
their invitation, the two friends cross this “azure bridge” and are
regaled with Huma (Hemp--the Chinese _Hashîsh_); forthwith they fall
deeply in love with their hostesses, and spend with them in the Jasper
City what appears to them a few blissful days: at length, becoming
home-sick, they return, to find that seven generations have passed,
and that they have become centenarians.----To dream of Hemp betokens
ill-luck.----Astrologers assign Hemp to the rule of Saturn.
=HENBANE.=--There are two species of Henbane (_Hyoscyamus_), the black
and the white: the black or common Henbane grows on waste land by
roadsides, and bears pale, woolly, clammy leaves, with venomous-looking
cream-coloured flowers, and has a fœtid smell. Pliny calls this black
Henbane a plant of ill omen, employed in funeral repasts, and scattered
on tombs. The ancients thought that sterility was the result of eating
this sinister plant, and that babes at the breast were seized with
convulsions if the mother had partaken of it.----Henbane was called
_Insana_, and was believed to render anyone eating it stupid and
drowsy: it was also known as _Alterculum_, because those that had
partaken of it became light-headed and quarrelsome.----According to
Plutarch, the dead were crowned with chaplets of Henbane, and their
tombs decorated with the baneful plant, which, for some unknown reason,
was also employed to form the chaplets of victors at the Olympic games.
Hercules is sometimes represented with a crown of Henbane. Priests
were forbidden to eat Henbane, but the horses of Juno fed on it; and
to this day, on the Continent, Henbane is prescribed for certain
equine disorders.----Albertus Magnus calls Henbane the sixth herb of
Jupiter, and recommends it especially for liver complaints.----In
Sanscrit, Henbane is called _Aj’amoda_, or Goat’s Joy. Both sheep and
goats will eat the plant sparingly, but swine are said really to like
it, and in England it is well known as Hog’s Bean.----In Piedmont,
there is a tradition that if a hare be sprinkled with Henbane juice,
all the hares in the neighbourhood will run away. They also have
a saying, when a mad dog dies, that he has tasted Henbane.----In
Germany, there is a superstitious belief that Henbane will attract
rain.----The English name of Henbane was given to the plant on account
of the baneful effects of its seed upon poultry, for, according to
Matthiolus, birds that have eaten the seeds perish soon after, as do
fishes also.----Anodyne necklaces, made of pieces of this root, are
sometimes worn by infants to facilitate teething, and the leaves are
smoked by country people to allay toothache. Gerarde says, “The root
boiled with vinegre, and the same holden hot in the mouth, easeth the
pain of the teeth. The seed is used by mountebank tooth-drawers, which
run about the country, to cause worms to come forth of the teeth, by
burning it in a chafing-dish of coles, the party holding his mouth over
the fume thereof; but some crafty companions, to gain money, convey
small lute-strings into the water, persuading the patient that those
small creepers came out of his mouth or other parts which he intended
to cure.”----The plant was one of those sought for by witches, and used
in their potions.
“And I ha’ been plucking plants among
Hemlock, Henbane, Adder’s-tongue.”--_Ben Jonson._
Astrologers place Henbane under the rule of Saturn.
=HENNA.=--In the Canticles, the royal poet says: “My beloved is unto
me as a cluster of Camphire in the vineyards of Engedi.” The Camphire
mentioned here, and in other parts of Scripture, is the same shrub
which the Arabs call Henna (_Lawsonia inermis_), the leaves of which
are still used by women in the East to impart a ruddy tint to the
palms of their hands and the soles of their feet. Throughout Egypt,
India, Persia, Arabia, and Greece, it is held in universal estimation
for its beauty and sweet perfume. Mohammed pronounced it the chief of
the sweet-scented flowers of this world and of the next. In Egypt,
the flowers are sold in the street, the vendor calling out as he
proceeds--“O, odours of Paradise! O flowers of the Henna!” The Egyptian
women obtain from the powdered leaves a paste, with which they stain
their fingers and feet an orange colour that will last for several
weeks. This they esteem an ornament. Gerarde describes the Henna, or
Henne-bush, as a kind of Privet, which in his day grew in Syria near
the city Ascalon, and he says “Bellonius writeth that not onely the
haire, but also the nether parts of man’s body, and nailes likewise,
are colored and died herewith, which is counted an ornament among the
Turks.”----The Hindus call the Henna-flower _Mindi_, and the females,
like the Egyptians, employ it to colour their nails, fingers, and the
soles of their feet an orange hue. The miraculous stone, which they
call _Gauri_, or _Parvati_, received its name and its ruddy colour
from being touched by the foot of the divine wife of Siva, which had
previously been stained with the juice of _Mindi_. Henna-flowers
are of a pale yellow tint, and emit a sweet perfume; they are made
into garlands by the Hindus, and offered to travellers in official
ceremonies; thus we read that at the reception of M. Rousselet by the
King of Gwalior, the ceremony concluded by the guests being decked with
garlands of Henna-flowers, placed around their necks and hands. An
extract prepared from these flowers is employed in religious ceremonies.
=HERB BENNETT.=--The Avens, Herb Bennett, or _Herba Benedicta_ (_Geum
urbanum_), occurs as an architectural decoration towards the end of the
thirteenth century, and is found associated with old church paintings.
The Holy Trinity and the five wounds of our Lord are thought to be
symbolised in its trefoiled leaf and the five golden petals of its
blossom. The flower has several rural names, such as Star of the Earth,
Goldy-flower, and Blessed Herb (a translation of the Latin _Herba
Benedicta_, of which Herb Bennett is simply a corruption). This last
name was given to it from an ancient belief that when the root is in
the house, the Devil is powerless and flies from it; wherefore it was
considered blessed above all herbs. Herb Bennett was also reported
to be hostile to all venomous beasts: if grown in a garden, no such
creature would approach within scent of it, and the root carried
about the person of any man ensured his immunity from the attacks of
monsters or reptiles.----Formerly, the appellation _Herba Benedicta_,
was applied not only to the Avens, but also to the Hemlock and the
Valerian. Dr. Prior remarks that “in point of fact the proper name of
these plants was not _Herba Benedicta_, but _Sti. Benedicti herba_, St.
Benedict’s herb (German, _Sanct Benedicten-kraut_), and was assigned to
such as were supposed to be antidotes, in allusion to a legend of St.
Benedict, which represents that, upon his blessing a cup of poisoned
wine which a monk had given to destroy him, the glass was shivered to
pieces.”----By astrologers, Avens is deemed a herb of Jupiter.
=HERB CARPENTER.=--The _Prunella vulgaris_, from its efficacy in
healing wounds inflicted by chisels, sickles, and other sharp
instruments used by working-men, was formerly known as Herb Carpenter,
Sickle-wood, and Hook-weed, as well as by the name it is still called
by--Self-heal.----It is a herb of Venus.
=HERB CHRISTOPHER.=--The name of Herb Christopher is applied by Gerarde
to a species of Aconite, and to the Osmund Fern. Parkinson gives the
Baneberry the same title.
=HERB GERARD.=--Aishweed, Gout-wort, or Herb Gerard (_Ægopodium
Podagraria_), was named after St. Gerard, who used to be invoked
against the gout, a disease for which this plant was highly esteemed as
a remedy.
HERB IMPIOUS.--See Everlasting Flower.
=HERB MARGARET.=--The Daisy (_Bellis perennis_) was also formerly
called _Herba Margarita_, Herb Margaret, or Marguerite (French).
The flower is erroneously supposed to have been named after the
virtuous St. Margaret of Antioch, “Maid Margarete, that was so meeke
and milde”--who was invoked because in her martyrdom she prayed for
lying-in women; whereas it derives its name from St. Margaret of
Cortona. (See MARGUERITE).
HERB OF GRACE.--See Rue.
=HERB OF THE CROSS.=--In Brittany, the Vervain (_Verbena officinalis_)
is called the Herb of the Cross, and is supposed to be endowed with
remarkable healing qualities. J. White (1624) writes thus of it:--
“Hallow’d be thou, Vervain, as thou growest in the ground,
For on the Mount of Calvary thou first was found.
Thou healedst our Saviour Jesus Christ,
And staunchedst His bleeding wound.
In the name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
I take thee from the ground.”
In the Flax-fields of Flanders, a plant is found called the
_Roodselken_, the crimson spots on the leaves of which betoken the
Divine blood which trickled on it from the Cross, and the stain of
which neither snow nor rain has ever been able to wash off.----In
Palestine, the red Anemone is called “Christ’s Blood-drops,” from
the belief that the flower grew on Mount Calvary. In Cheshire, the
_Orchis maculata_, which is there called Gethsemane, is supposed to
have sprung up at the foot of the Cross. The Milk-wort, Gang-flower,
or Rogation-flower (_Polygala vulgaris_) is called the Cross-flower
from its blooming in Passion week. The _Galium cruciatum_ is called
Cross-wort because its leaves are placed in the form of a cross.
The early Italian painters, in their paintings of the Crucifixion,
introduced the Wood-Sorrel (_Oxalis acetosella_), probably from its
triple leaf symbolising the Trinity. The four-leaved Clover is an
emblem of the Cross. All cruciform flowers are of good and happy
augury, having been marked with the sign of the Cross.
=HERB PARIS.=--The narcotic plant called One-berry, Herb True-love,
or Herb Paris (_Paris quadrifolia_), has obtained the latter name
from the Latin _Herba paris_ (Herb of a pair--of a betrothed couple),
in allusion to the four broad leaves which proceed from the top of
its stalk, and form a cross; being, as Gerarde says, “directly set
one against another in manner of a Burgundian Crosse or True-love
knot: for which cause among the antients it hath been called Herbe
True-love.” Herb Paris bears flowers of a palish green--a colour
always suggestive of lurking poison. Every part of the herb contains
a poisonous principle, but the leaves and berries were formerly used
to expel poisons, especially Aconite, as well as the plague and other
pestilential diseases. Matthiolus says that “the chymical oil of the
black berries is effectual for all diseases of the eyes, so that it is
called _Anima oculorum_.”----The herb is under the dominion of Venus.
=HERB PETER.=--The Cowslip (_Primula veris_), the _Schlüsselblume_ of
the Germans, has obtained the name of Herb Peter from its resemblance
to the badge of St. Peter--a bunch of keys.
=HERB ROBERT.=--The species of Crane’s Bill called Herb Robert
(_Geranium Robertianum_) is thought to have derived its name from
the fact that it was employed in Germany to cure a disease known as
_Ruprechts-Plage_, from Robert, Duke of Normandy: hence its old Dutch
names of _Ruprechts-kraut_ and _Robrechts-kraut_. The Church, however,
connects Herb Robert with St. Robert, Abbot of Molesme, in the eleventh
century.----In olden times, the plant was used as a vulnerary; in
Wales, it is believed to be a remedy for gout; and in most country
places, it is considered efficacious as an insecticide.----Herb Robert
is under the rule of Venus.
=HERB ST. BARBARA.=--Herb St. Barbara, or St. Barbara’s Cress
(_Barbarea vulgaris_), was so called from its growing and being eaten
in the Winter, about the time of St. Barbara’s Day--December 4th, old
style.
HERB TRINITY.--See Pansy.
=HERB TWOPENCE.=--The Money-wort, or Creeping Loosestrife (_Lysimachia
nummularia_), obtained the name of Two-penny Grass, or Herb Twopence,
from its circular leaves, which are arranged in pairs, resembling money
in their form. The plant was formerly also called _Serpentaria_, from
a belief that if serpents were hurt or wounded, they healed themselves
with this herb. It was highly esteemed as a vulnerary.----Astrologers
assign the herb to Venus.
=HERB WILLIAM.=--Bishop’s Weed, or Ameos (_Ammi majus_), is said by
Gerarde to be called by some Bull-wort (Pool-wort) and Herb William,
but he does not give any reason for the name. The plant, according
to the old herbalist, was noted for its efficacy, when applied with
honey, in removing “blacke and blewe spots which come of stripes.” Its
seed was good “to bee drunken in wine against the biting of all manner
of venomous beasts, and hath power against all manner of poyson and
pestilent fevers, or the plague.”----It is under the dominion of Venus.
=HOLLY.=--The Holly or Holme (_Ilex Aquifolium_) derives its name from
the Anglo-Saxon _Holegn_, whilst another ancient designation, Hulver,
or as Chaucer wrote it, Hulfeere, has been taken from the old Norse
_Hulfr_. From the use made of its branches in decorating churches at
Christmas time, the monks, by an easy corruption, bestowed on the Holly
the designation of the Holy-tree.----The disciples of Zoroaster, or
Fire Worshippers, believe that the Holly-tree casts no shadow, and
both in Persia and India they employ an infusion of its leaves for
several purposes connected with their religious observances. They
also sprinkle the face of a newly-born child with water impregnated
with Holly-bark.---Pliny states that if the Holly, or Hulver-tree,
be planted about a house, it will keep away all malign spells and
enchantments, and defend the house from lightning. He also, among other
marvels, relates that the flowers of the Holly would freeze water, and
would repel poison, and that if a staff of its wood were thrown to any
animal, even if it did not touch him, it would so influence the animal
as to cause him to lie down beside it.----The custom of decorating
houses and churches with Holly at Christmas is probably derived from
the Romans, who were wont to send boughs to their friends during the
festival of the Saturnalia, which occurred about the same period, and
the Oaks being then bare of leaves, the priests obliged the people to
bring in boughs of Holly and Evergreens. There is little doubt that
the early Roman Christians, disregarding the church’s interdiction,
introduced the heathen practice of decorating their houses with Holly,
and in course of time connected it with their own faith.----There is
an old English superstition that elves and fairies join the social
gatherings at Christmas, and this led to branches being hung up in hall
and bower in order that the fays might “hang in each leaf, and cling
on every bough during that sacred time when spirits have no power to
harm.”----This Evergreen “Christmas” should be taken down on Candlemas
Eve. Herrick says:--
“Down with the Holly and Ivy all
Wherewith ye deck the Christmas hall;
So that the superstitious find
No one least branch there left behind;
For look how many leaves there be
Neglected there--maids ’tend to me--
So many goblins ye shall see.”
De Gubernatis tells us, that in certain parts of France, in
Switzerland, at Bologna, and in other Continental countries, there is
an old custom extant of cutting branches of Holly on Christmas Eve,
and hanging them in houses and stables, in the hope of driving away
evil spirits and witchcraft. As the Holly-leaf is prickly, it repulses
and drives away enemies. An English mediæval ballad illustrates this
custom:--
“Her commys Holly, that is so gent,
To please all men is his intent. Alleluia!
But lord and lady of this hall,
Who so ever ageynst Holly call. Alleluia!
Who so ever ageynst Holly do crye,
In a lepe shall he hang full hie. Alleluia!
Who so ever ageynst Holly do syng,
He maye wepe and handys wryng. Alleluia!”
In Germany, Holly is _Christdorn_--the Thorn woven into the crown
placed on our Saviour’s head at the Crucifixion.----Witches are reputed
to detest Holly: in its name they see but another form of the word
“holy,” and its thorny foliage and blood-red berries are suggestive
of the most Christian associations.----In Northumberland, Holly is
employed in a form of divination. There the prickly variety is called
He-Holly, and the smooth, She-Holly. It is the leaves of the latter
only that are deemed proper for divining purposes. These smooth leaves
must be plucked late on a Friday, by persons careful to preserve an
unbroken silence from the time they go out to the dawn of the following
morn. The leaves must be collected in a three-cornered handkerchief,
and on being brought home, nine of them must be selected, tied with
nine knots into the handkerchief, and placed beneath the pillow. Then,
sleep being obtained, dreams worthy of all credit will attend this
rite. In another form of divination, a maiden places three pails of
water on her bedroom floor, then pins to her night-dress, opposite her
heart, three leaves of green Holly, and so retires to rest. She will
be aroused from her first sleep by three terrible yells, followed by
three horse-laughs, after which the form of her future husband will
appear. If he is deeply attached to her, he will change the position of
the water pails; if not, he will glide from the room without touching
them. This spell is only effectual when performed on All Hallowe’en,
Christmas Eve, New Year’s Eve, and Beltane, or Midsummer Eve.----Holly
is under the dominion of Saturn.
=HOLY PLANTS.=--In England, the _Angelica sylvestris_, for its
“angel-like properties,” was, says Parkinson, called Holy Ghost; the
Vervain is the Holy Herb, from its use on ancient altars; the Holly
was called by the monks of old Holy-tree; and the Hollyhock, Holy Hoke
or Hock (an old name for Mallow); the _Anastatica Hierochuntina_ is
the Holy Rose of Jericho; the Lucern (_Medicago sativa_) is Holy Hay;
the _Holcus odoratus_ is the Northern Holy Grass; the _Hierochloe
borealis_, the German Holy Grass; the Hemp Agrimony (_Eupatorium
cannabinum_) is Holy Rope, so called from its Hemp-like leaves
betokening the rope with which the Saviour was bound; the seed of
Wormwood is Holy Seed (_Semen sanctum_); and _Carduus benedictus_ is
the Holy Thistle.
=HOMA.=--Homa, or Haoma, is the sacred Vine of the Zoroastrians, the
first of the trees planted by Ormuzd in the fountain of life, and from
which one of their religious ceremonials takes its name. This consists
in the extraction of the juice of the Homa-plant by the priest during
the recital of prayers; the formal presentation of the liquid extracted
to the sacrificial fire; the consumption of a small portion of it by
one of the officiating priests; and the division of the remainder among
the worshippers.----The Iranians describe two kinds of Haoma or Homa,
the white and the yellow. The former is a fabulous plant, the latter,
which is used in religious rites, and is extolled for its yellow
colour, grows on mountains, and was known to Plutarch.----It has been
attempted to identify the Zoroastrian Homa with the Vedic Soma, but
the Parsees deny that their sacred plant is ever found in India, and
those dwelling in Bombay use the branch of a particular tree, having a
knotted stem and leaves like those of the Jasmine. To obtain supplies
of the Homa-plant for sacred purposes, a priest is despatched from time
to time to Kirman, in Persia, where he receives it in a dry state.
=HONESTY.=--Honesty (_Lunaria biennis_) has a variety of names. It
is called Lunary and Moonwort, from the disk-like form of its great
flat seed vessels, or their silvery and transparent brightness.
This peculiarity accounts for its nicknames of White Satin-flower,
Money-flower, and Silver Plate.----The _Lunaria biennis_ is mentioned
by Chaucer as one of the plants used in incantations:--
“And herbes coude I tell eke many on,
As Egremaine, Valerian, and Lunarie,
And other swiche, if that me list to tarie,
Our lampes brenning bothe night and day,
To bring about our craft if that we may,
Our fournies eke of calcination,
And of wateres albification.”
Drayton also refers to the virtues of the plant:--
“Enchanting Lunary here lies,
In sorceries excelling.”
The poet likewise tells us that this Lunary was considered efficacious
in the cure of madness.
“Then sprinkles she the juice of Rue
With nine drops of the midnight dew,
From Lunarie distilling.”
There is a popular superstition that wherever the purple Honesty is
found flourishing, the cultivators of the gardens are exceptionally
honest.
=HONEYSUCKLE.=--The Honeysuckle, or Woodbine (_Lonicera_), is so
called on account of the honey-dew found so plentifully on its
foliage. Originally, the word Honeysuckle was applied to the Meadow
Clover (_Trifolium pratense_), which is still so called in the Western
Counties. French Honeysuckle (_Hedysarum coronarium_) is a foreign
forage-plant. Chaucer makes the Woodbine an emblem of fidelity:
“And tho’ that were chapelets on his hede
Of fresh Wodebind be such as never were
To love untrue in word, ne thought, ne dede,
But ay, stedfast, ne for pleasaunce ne fere,
Tho’ that they shudde their hertis all to tere,
Would never flit, but ever were stedfast,
Till that ther livis there assunder brast.”
_Caprifolium_, a specific name of the Honeysuckle, was poetically used
by old botanists because the leaf, or rather the stem, climbs over high
places where goats fear not to tread: hence the plant is sometimes
called by country folks, Goat’s-leaf. One of its French names, also,
is _Chèvrefeuille_, which country _patois_ abbreviates to _Cherfeu_,
or Dear Flame: hence the plant is presented by ardent lovers to their
sweethearts as an intimation of the state of their affections.----The
French are fond of planting Honeysuckle in their cemeteries, and
Alphonse Karr describes it as a plant which seems to devote itself
to the tomb, the most magnificent bushes being found in cemeteries.
He further says: “There is a perfume more exciting, more religious,
even than that of incense; it is that of the Honeysuckles which grow
over tombs upon which Grass has sprung up thick and tufted with them,
as quickly as forgetfulness has taken possession of the hearts of
the survivors.”----In olden times, consumptive invalids, or children
suffering from hectic fever, were thrice passed through a circular
wreath of Woodbine, cut during the increase of the March moon, and
let down over the body from head to foot. We read of a sorceress, who
healed sundry women, by taking a garland of green Woodbine, and causing
the patient to pass thrice through it: afterwards the garland was cut
in nine pieces, and cast into the fire.----Woodbine appears to have
been a favourite remedy with Scotch witches, who, in effecting magical
cures passed their patients (generally) nine times through a girth or
garland of green Woodbine.----In Lower Germany, the Honeysuckle is
called _Albranke_, the witch snare.----Astrologers consider Woodbine to
be under the rule of Mercury.
=HOP.=--The Hop (_Humulus Lupulus_) is referred to in an old English
proverb:--
“Till St. James’s day be come and gone,
There may be Hops and there may be none.”
The cultivated Hop, however, was not brought into England until the
reign of Henry VIII., when it was imported from Flanders, as recorded
in the distich:--
“Hops and turkeys, mackerel and beer,
Came to England all in one year.”
The Hop-leaf has become in Russia proverbial as the best of leaves.
King Vladimir, in 985, when signing a peace with the Bulgars, swore to
keep it till stone swam on the water, or Hop-leaves sank to the bottom.
It is a very old custom in Russia to cover the head of a bride with
Hop-leaves--typifying joy, abundance, and intoxication.----Astrologers
place Hops under the rule of Mars.
=HOREHOUND.=--Horehound (_Marrubium_) is the Herb which the Egyptians
dedicated to their god Horus, and which the priests called the Seed of
Horus, or the Bull’s Blood, and the Eye of the Star. Strabo attributed
to the plant magical properties as a counter-poison. Horehound is one
of the five plants which are stated by the Mishna to be the “bitter
herbs” ordered to be taken by the Jews at the Feast of the Passover.
An infusion of its leaves has an ancient reputation as being valuable
in consumptive cases, coughs, and colds, and, according to Gerarde,
“is good for them that have drunke poyson, or that have been bitten of
serpents.” It is a herb of Mercury, hot in the second degree and dry
in the third.----To dream of Horehound indicates that you will suffer
imprisonment.
=HORNBEAM.=--Gerarde tells us that the Horn Beam (_Carpinus Betulus_)
was so called from its wood having been used to yoke horned cattle,
as well by the Romans in olden times as in his own time and country,
and growing so hard and tough with age as to be more like horn than
wood. Hence it was also called Hardbeam and Yoke-Elm. Evelyn says
the tree was called Horse-Beech; and in Essex it is known as the
Witch-Hazel.----In the country districts around Valenciennes, there
is a pleasant custom on May-day morning, when, over the doorway of
their sweethearts, rustic lovers hasten to suspend, as a sign of their
devotion, branches of Hornbeam or Birch.
=HORSE-CHESNUT.=--It has been suggested that the Horse-Chesnut
(_Æsculus Hippocastanum_) derived its name from the resemblance of
the cicatrix of its leaf to a horse-shoe, with all its nails evenly
placed. The old writers, however, seem to have considered that the
Horse-Chesnut was so called from the Nuts being used in Turkey (the
country from which we first received the tree) as food for horses
touched in the wind. Thus we read in Parkinson’s ‘_Paradisus_’:--“They
are usually in Turkey given to horses in their provender to cure them
of coughs, and help them being broken winded.”----Evlia Effendi, a
Moslem Dervish, who travelled over a large portion of the Turkish
empire in the beginning of the seventeenth century, says: “The Santon
Akyazli lived forty years under the shade of a wild Chesnut-tree, close
to which he is buried under a leaden-covered cupola. The Chesnuts,
which are as big as an egg, are wonderfully useful in the diseases
of horses.” Tradition says that this tree sprang from a stick which
the saint once thrust in the ground, that he might roast his meat
on it.----The Venetians entertain the belief that one of these Nuts
carried in the pocket is a sure charm against hemorrhoids.----When
Napoleon I. returned to France on March 20th, 1814, a Horse-Chesnut in
the Tuileries garden was found to be in full blossom. The Parisians
regarded this as an omen of welcome, and in succeeding years hailed
with interest the early flowering of the _Marronnier du Vingt
Mars_.----(See also CHESNUT).
=HORSE-KNOT.=--The flowers of the Horse-knot _Centaurea nigra_ are also
called Hard-heads and Iron-Heads, from the resemblance of the knotted
involucre to an old weapon called Loggerhead, which consisted of a ball
of iron fixed to a long handle, the precursor of the life-preserver,
and the origin of the expression “coming to loggerheads.”----In the
Northern Counties, the following rite is frequently observed by young
people as a divination:--Let a youth or maiden pull from its stalk the
flower of the Horse-Knot, cut the tops of the stamens with a pair of
scissors, and lay the flower by in a secret place, where no human eye
can see it. Let him (or her) think through the day, and dream through
the night, of the beloved one: then, on looking at the flower the next
day, if the stamens have shot out, the anxious sweetheart may expect
success in love; but if not, disappointment. (See CENTAURY).
=HORSERADISH.=--The Horseradish (_Cochlearia Armoracia_) is stated to
be one of the five plants referred to by the Mishna, as the “bitter
herbs” ordered to be partaken of by the Jews during the Feast of the
Passover; the other four being Coriander, Horehound, Lettuce, and
Nettle.----Horseradish is under the dominion of Mars.
=HORSE-SHOE PLANT.=--The Horse-shoe Vetch (_Hippocrepis_) derives
its scientific name from the Greek words, _hippos_, a horse, and
_crepis_, a shoe, in allusion to its singular pods, which resemble a
number of horse-shoes united at their extremities. Gerarde grew this
plant in his garden, but he tells us that it is a native of Italy and
Languedoc, where it flourishes in certain untilled and sunny places.
Its Italian name is _Sferracavallo_, and in De Gubernatis’ _Mythologie
des Plantes_, we find a letter to the author from Mdme. Valérie de
Gasparin, detailing the superstition current in Italy respecting this
plant. The Countess writes:--“In our infancy, certain old people of
the village spoke of the plant which pulls off horse-shoes. My brother
tells me that this superstition is to be found in all countries. It
takes its origin from the fact that the seed of the plant has the form
of a horse-shoe.”----The plant is also reputed by some people to open
locks. An identical superstition exists in England with regard to the
Moonwort (_Botrychium Lunaria_), which is known as Unshoe-the-Horse.
(See MOONWORT).
=HOUND’S TONGUE.=--The _Cynoglossum_ was probably so named on account
of the form and soft texture of the leaf. It is called Hound’s Tongue
not only in England, but all over the Continent, and the reason given
by an old writer is, that “it ties the tongues of hounds; whether true
or not, I never tried; yet I cured the biting of a mad dog with this
only medicine.” Miraldus said, that if a portion of the plant were laid
beneath the feet, it would prevent dogs from barking at the wearer.
Robert Turner states that Hound’s Tongue “cures the biting of dogs,
either mad or tame. I lay fourteen weeks once under a chyrurgeon’s hand
for cure of a dog’s biting; but, at last, I effected the cure myself,
by applying to the wound Hound’s Tongue leaves, changing them once in
four-and-twenty hours.” The plant has a strong and disagreeable odour,
which Gerarde tells us caused the Dutchmen to change the plant’s name,
substituting for “Tongue” an impolite word, expressive of the odour of
the foliage.----_Cynoglossum_ is a herb of Saturn.
=HOUSELEEK.=--The House-leek (_Sempervivum_) had, in olden times, the
names of Jupiter’s Beard, Jupiter’s Eye, Bullock’s Eye, and Sengreene
(a word derived from the Anglo-Saxon, and expressing the same idea
as the plant’s Latin name _Sempervivum_, evergreen). The old Dutch
name of the Houseleek, _Donderbloem_, Thunder-flower, refers to the
popular belief that the plant was a preservative against thunder.
Charlemagne ordered the Houseleek to be planted on the roof of every
house on this account. Miraldus is stated to have declared that this
lowly plant preserves what it grows upon from fire and lightning; and
Sir Thomas Browne has left on record his belief that Houseleek is a
“defensative from lightning.”----In olden times there existed a belief
that Houseleek would suppress in children fevers given to them by
witchcraft or sorcery. According to Albertus Magnus, he who rubbed his
hands with the juice of the Houseleek would be insensible to pain when
taking red-hot iron in his hands.----It is considered unlucky to uproot
the Houseleek; and there is a curious notion, still in existence, that
it is also unlucky to let it blow; the flower-stalk is, therefore,
carefully cut off directly it begins to shoot up.----In Italy, on
Midsummer Eve, rustic maidens employ Houseleek for divining purposes.
They gather buds to represent their various lovers, and on the
following morning the bud which has flowered the most freely indicates
the future husband. In Tuscany, they pound the Houseleek the first
Friday after the birth of an infant, and administer to it the expressed
juice, which is thought to preserve the babe from convulsions, and to
ensure it a long life.----According to astrologers, Houseleek is a herb
of Jupiter.
HURT-SICKLE.--See Centaury.
=HYACINTH.=--From the time of Homer to the present day the Hyacinth
has been celebrated in the lays of the poets. Mythology tells us that
the flower sprang from the blood of Hyacinthus, a comely Laconian
youth, much beloved both by Apollo and Zephyr: preferring, however,
the sun to the wind, he kindled in the breast of the latter god a
feeling of jealousy and desire for revenge. The opportunity soon
came. Unsuspecting Hyacinthus playing a game of quoits with Apollo,
Zephyr, unperceived, seized the opportunity basely to cause his rival
to become the innocent means of their common favourite’s death: for
whilst a quoit thrown by the sun-god whirled through the air, Zephyr
treacherously blew it from its course till it struck the head of the
ill-fated Hyacinthus, and killed him, to the great sorrow of his
innocent slayer. Unable to restore his favourite companion to life,
Apollo, as a memorial of him, caused the flower which has since borne
his name to spring from his blood. Rapin refers to the story as
follows:--
“If spring proves mild ’tis Hyacinthus’ time,
A flower which also rose from Phœbus’ crime;
Th’ unhappy quoit which rash Apollo threw,
Obliquely flying, smote his tender brow,
And pale alike he fell, and Phœbus stood,
One pale with guilt, and one with loss of blood;
Whence a new flower with sudden birth appears,
And still the mark of Phœbus’ sorrow wears;
Spring it adorns, and Summer’s scenes supplies
With blooms of various forms and various dyes.”
Ovid gives a slightly different version of the tragedy, which he
narrates in the following lines:--
“The mid-day sun now shone with equal light
Between the past and the succeeding night;
They strip, then, smoothed with suppling oil, essay
To pitch the rounded quoit, their wonted play:
A well-pois’d disk first hasty Phœbus threw;
It cleft the air, and whistled as it flew;
It reach’d the mark, a most surprising length,
Which spoke an equal share of art and strength.
Scarce was it fall’n, when with too eager hand
Young Hyacinth ran to snatch it from the sand;
But the curst orb, which met a stony soil,
Flew in his face with violent recoil.
Both faint, both pale and breathless now appear,
The boy with pain, the am’rous god with fear.
He ran, and rais’d him bleeding from the ground,
Chafes his cold limbs, and wipes the fatal wound:
Then herbs of noblest juice in vain applies;
The wound is mortal, and his skill defies.”
* * * * *
“While Phœbus thus the laws of fate reveal’d,
Behold the blood which stained the verdant field
Is blood no longer; but a flower full blown
Far brighter than the Tyrian scarlet shone.
A Lily’s form it took; its purple hue
Was all that made a diff’rence to the view.
Nor stopp’d he here; the god upon its leaves
The sad expression of his sorrow leaves;
And to this hour the mournful purple wears
_Ai_, _Ai_, inscribed in funeral characters.
Nor are the Spartans, who so much are famed
For virtue, of their Hyacinth ashamed;
But still with pompous woe and solemn state,
The Hyacinthian feasts they yearly celebrate.”--_Ozell._
The solemnities called _Hyacinthia_ lasted three days, during which the
people ate no bread, but subsisted on sweetmeats, and abstained from
decorating their hair with garlands, as on ordinary occasions. On the
second day, a troop of youths entertained spectators by playing upon
the harp and flute, and chanting choruses in honour of Apollo. Numbers
appeared mounted upon richly-caparisoned horses, who sang rustic songs,
and were accompanied by a throng dancing to vocal and instrumental
music. Females engaged in chariot races, and the most beautiful
maidens, sumptuously attired, drove about in splendidly adorned
vehicles, singing hymns. Hundreds of victims were offered on the altars
of Apollo; and the votaries with free-handed hospitality entertained
their friends and slaves.----Many allusions are made by the poets to
the mournful letters A I, supposed to be visible on the petals of
“The languid Hyacinth, who wears
His bitter sorrows painted on his bosom.”
Hunt, after entering into the vexed question as to the particular
flower alluded to by Ovid, quotes a passage from Moschus, which he thus
translates:--
“Now tell your story, Hyacinth, and show
_Ai_, _Ai_, the more amidst your sanguine woe.”
There has been much diversity of opinion expressed about the Hyacinth
of the ancient poets. The claims of the modern flower to be the purple
blossom that sprang from the blood of Hyacinthus are disputed, and the
general opinion is that the Martagon Lily was the plant referred to
by the poet. The Gladiolus and the Larkspur, however, have both been
named as the flower bearing the expression of grief A I, A I, on the
petals.----Homer mentions the Hyacinth among the flowers which formed
the couch of Jupiter and Juno.
“Thick new-born Violets a soft carpet spread
And clust’ring Lotus swelled the rising bed,
And sudden Hyacinths the turf bestrow
And flow’ry Crocus made the mountains glow.”
In allusion to the crisped and curled blossoms of the Hyacinth, poets
have been fond of describing curly hair as Hyacinthine locks. Milton
writes:--
“And Hyacinthine locks
Round from his parted forelock manly hung
Clustering.”
Byron makes the same comparison, and says the idea is common to both
Eastern and Grecian poets. Collins has the same simile in his ‘Ode to
Liberty.’
“The youths, whose locks divinely spreading,
Like vernal Hyacinths in sullen hue.”
The old English Jacinth, or Harebell, called by the French _Jacinthe
des bois_ (Wood Hyacinth) is botanically distinguished as _Hyacinthus
non scriptus_, because it has not the A I on the petals, and is not
therefore the poetical Hyacinth. (See HAREBELL).
HYPERICUM.--See St. John’s Wort.
=HYSSOP.=--In the Bible, the name of Hyssop has been given to some
plant that has not been identified, but is popularly associated at the
present day with _Hyssopus officinalis_. In many early representations
of the Crucifixion, wild Hyssop has been depicted, it is presumed in
mockery, as forming the crown worn by our Saviour. Parkinson, in his
‘_Paradisus_,’ says of the Golden Hyssop, that the leaves “provoke
many gentlewomen to wear them in their heads and on their armes,
with as much delight as many fine flowers can give.”----To dream of
Hyssop portends that friends will be instrumental to your peace and
happiness.----The plant is under Jupiter’s dominion.
=ILEX.=--The Ilex (_Quercus Ilex_) is, perhaps, better known in England
as the Evergreen or Holm Oak: in France, it is called _Chêne vert_.
On account of its dark and evergreen foliage, the Ilex is regarded as
a funereal tree, and a symbol of immortality, like the Cypress, the
Cedar, and other conifers. It was consecrated to Hecate, and the Fates
wore chaplets of its leaves. The drunken Silenus was wont, also, to
be crowned with its foliage.----Virgil associates the Ilex with the
raven, and tells us that from its dark foliage may be heard issuing
the mournful croakings of that funereal bird. Ovid, on the other
hand, informs us that, in the Golden Age, the bees, living emblems
of the immortal soul, sought the Ilex, to obtain material for their
honey.----Pliny speaks of a venerable Ilex which grew in the Vatican
at Rome, which bore an inscription, and was regarded as a sacred tree;
and of three of these trees at Tibur, which the inhabitants venerated
as being almost the founders of the people.----The Ilex being very
combustible, and attracting lightning, was thought to render thereby a
service to man, in drawing upon itself the effects of the anger of the
gods: hence it is somewhat remarkable that in Greece it is regarded as
a tree of bad omen, and has the following legend attached to it:--When
it was decided at Jerusalem to crucify Christ, all the trees held a
counsel, and unanimously agreed not to allow their wood to be defiled
by becoming the instrument of punishment. But there was a second Judas
among the trees. When the Jews arrived with axes to procure wood for
the cross destined for Jesus, every trunk and branch split itself into
a thousand fragments, so that it was impossible to use it for the
cross. The Ilex alone remained whole, and gave up its trunk for the
purpose of being fashioned into the instrument of the Passion. So to
this day the Grecian woodcutters have such a horror of the tree, that
they fear to sully their axe or their hearth-stones by bringing them in
contact with the accursed wood. However, according to the _Dicta Sancti
Aegidii_ (quoted by De Gubernatis), Jesus Himself would seem to have
a preference for the tree which generously gave itself up to die with
the Redeemer; for we find that on most occasion when he appeared to the
saints, it was near an Ilex-tree.----In Russia, the Ilex, so far from
being regarded with disdain, is looked upon as a benefactor and worker
of miraculous cures among children. In certain districts, whenever a
child is ill, and especially when it is suffering from consumption,
they carry it into the forest, where they cleave in two the stem of an
Ilex, and pass the child thrice through the cleft, after which they
close the cut stem, and bind it securely with cord. Then they carry the
child round the tree thrice nine times (the number of days composing
the lunar month). Lastly they hang on the branches the child’s shirt,
so that the martyr-tree may generously take to itself all the disease
hitherto afflicting the child.
=INGUDI.=--In Bengal, they ascribe to the plant Ingudi (_Terminalia,
catappa_) the extraordinary property of begetting infants. According
to De Gubernatis, the _Tâpatasaru_ is also called the Tree of the
Anchorite, because with an oil extracted from the crushed fruit the
Indian ascetics prepare the oil for their lamps.
=IPECACUANHA.=--The root of the _Psychotria emetica_ is used generally
as an expectorant, but in India in cases of dysentery: its sexsyllabic
nomenclature has been thus immortalised by George Canning:--
“Coughing in a shady grove,
Sat my Juliana;
Lozenges I gave my love:
Ipecacuanha!”
=IPOMŒA.=--The Ipomœas are nearly allied to the _Convolvuli_, and are
among the most lovely of all shrubs. The rosy-red _Kâmalatâ_, the
Love’s Creeper of the Hindus, is a plant by which all desires are
granted to such as inherit the Indian Paradise. _Ipomœa Bona-nox_,
“Good-night,” is so named in allusion to its opening its flowers in the
evening.
=IRIS.=--The Iris of “all hues” derives its name from the goddess
Iris, one of the Oceanides, a messenger of the gods, and the especial
attendant of Juno. As goddess of the rainbow, she is represented with
its variegated colours glistening in her wings. Thus Virgil says:--
“Iris on saffron wings arrayed with dew
Of various colours through the sunbeams flew.”
Iris is usually depicted as descending from the rainbow, and her
glorious arch is said not to vary more in its colours than the flower
which bears her name. Columella observes--
“Nor Iris with her glorious rainbow clothed
So fulgent as the cheerful gardens shine
With their bright offspring, when they’re in their bloom.”
The Greeks plant the Iris on tombs, possibly because the goddess
Iris was believed to guide the souls of dead women to their last
resting-place, as Mercury conducted the souls of men. The Iris was one
of the flowers dedicated to Juno, and with the ancients was wont to
be employed as the symbol of eloquence or power; hence the Egyptians
placed this flower on the brow of the Sphinx, and on the sceptres
of their monarchs. The three leaves of the blossom represent faith,
wisdom, and valour. The Iris is supposed to be the flower which
forms the terminating ornament of the sceptre of the ancient kings
of Babylon and Assyria.----The Franks of old had a custom, at the
proclamation of a king, to elevate him upon a shield, or target, and
place in his hand a reed of Flag in blossom, instead of a sceptre,
and from thence the kings of the first and second race in France are
represented with sceptres in their hands like the Flag with its flower,
and which flowers became the armorial figures of France.----There
is a legend that Clotilda, the wife of the warlike king Clovis, had
long prayed for the conversion of her husband, and at length Clovis,
having led his army against the Huns, and being in imminent danger of
defeat, recommended himself to the God of his sainted wife. The tide
of battle turned, he obtained a complete victory, and was baptised by
St. Remi. On this occasion, owing to a vision of St. Clotilda, the
Lilies (Iris) were substituted in the arms of France for the three
frogs or toads which Clovis had hitherto borne on his shield. In the
pictures of St. Clotilda, she is generally represented attended by
an angel holding a shield on which are the three _Fleurs de Lys_.
This occurred early in the sixth century. Louis VII., in consequence
of a dream, assumed it as his device in 1137, when engaged in the
second expedition of the Crusaders, and the Iris-flower soon became
celebrated in France as the _Fleur de Louis_, which was first
contracted into _Fleur de Luce_, and afterwards into _Fleur de Lys_,
or _Fleur de Lis_ (Lily-flower--although it has no affinity to the
Lily), and was incorporated in the arms of France, and formed one of
the embellishments of the crown.----Pope Leo III. presented Charlemagne
with a blue banner, _semée_ of golden _Fleurs de Lys_, and the banner
coming from the Pope was supposed by the ignorant to have descended
from heaven.----Other traditions respecting this blue banner relate
that an angel gave it to Charlemagne, that St. Denis gave it to the
kings of France, and that an angel brought it to Clovis after his
baptism.----The _Fleur de Lys_ appertains to the Bourbon race, and
was made the ornament of the northern radius of the compass in honour
of Charles of Anjou, who was King of Sicily at the time of this great
discovery. When Edward III. claimed the crown of France in 1340, he
quartered the ancient shield of France with the lion of England. After
many changes of position, the _Fleur de Lys_ finally disappeared from
the English shield in the first year of the present century. (See also
FLOWER DE LUCE).
IRON-HEAD and HARD-HEAD.--See Horse-Knot.
=IVY.=--Kissos (Greek for Ivy) was the original name of the infant
Bacchus, who, abandoned by his mother Semele, was hidden under an
Ivy-bush, which was subsequently named after him. Another Hellenic
tradition makes Kissos a son of Bacchus, who, whilst dancing before
his father, suddenly dropped down dead. The goddess Gæa (the Earth),
compassionating the unfortunate youth, changed him into the Ivy, which
afterwards received his name--Kissos.----The god Bacchus is said to
have worshipped the Ivy under the name of _Kissos_; the plant was
sacred to him, and he is represented crowned with the leaves of Ivy as
well as with those of the Vine. The god’s thyrsus was also crowned with
Ivy. In Greece and Rome, Black Ivy was used to decorate the thyrsus of
Bacchus in commemoration of his march through India. This Ivy bears
yellow berries, and is common in the Himalayas; it was, therefore,
appropriately selected as the shrub wherewith to crown Alexander in his
Indian expedition.----According to Plutarch, the priests of Jupiter
were bound to shun the Vine (in order to preserve themselves from
intoxication), and to touch the Ivy, which was believed to impart a
sort of prophetic transport. Bacchus, therefore, crowned with Ivy,
became a god both victorious and prophetic.----At the Dionysian
festivals, the worshippers were crowned with Ivy, Vine-leaves, Fir,
&c. Certain of the men engaged in the procession wore chaplets of Ivy
and Violets, and the women--who, worked up into a kind of frenzy,
executed fantastic dances--often carried garlands and strings of
Ivy-leaves.----Pliny says that Ivy-berries, taken before wine, prevent
its intoxicating effects. Probably the Bacchanals’ chaplet and the
Ivy-bough formerly used as the sign of a tavern, both derived their
origin from the belief that Ivy in some form counteracted the effects
of wine.----On this point, Coles says: “Box and Ivy last long green,
and therefore vintners make their garlands thereof; though, perhaps,
Ivy is the rather used because of the antipathy between it and wine.”
Kennett tells us that, in olden times, “the booths in fairs were
commonly dressed with Ivy-leaves, as a token of wine there sold, the
Ivy being sacred to Bacchus; so was the tavern bush, or frame of wood,
drest round with Ivy forty years since, though now left off for tuns
or barrels hung in the middle of it. This custom gave birth to the
present practice of putting out a green bush at the door of those
private houses which sell drink during the fair.” De Gubernatis says,
that the Ivy to be seen over the doors of Italian wine-shops has the
same signification as the Oak-bough--it is a precaution to render the
wine innocuous. Chéruel tell us that the French, in suspending Ivy at
the door of their cabarets, intend it as a symbol of love.----Ivy,
which clings and embraces, has been adopted as the emblem of confiding
love and friendship.----There is an old Cornish tradition which
relates that the beauteous Iseult, unable to endure the loss of her
betrothed, the valiant Tristan, died broken-hearted, and was buried in
the same church, but, by order of the king, their graves were placed
far asunder. But soon from the tomb of Tristan came forth a branch of
Ivy, and from the tomb of Iseult there issued another branch. Both
gradually grew upwards, until at last the lovers, represented by
the clinging Ivy, were again united beneath the vaulted roof of the
sanctuary.----In Greece, the altar of Hymen was encircled with Ivy, and
a branch of it was presented to the newly-married couple, as a symbol
of the indissoluble knot. It formed the crown of both Greek and Roman
poets; and in modern times, female love, constancy, and dependence have
been expressed by it. Friendship is sometimes symbolised by a fallen
tree, firmly embraced by the verdant arms of the Ivy, with the motto:
“Nothing can part us.”----In Northern mythology, Ivy, on account of its
black colour, was dedicated to Thor, the god of thunder, and offered to
the elf who was supposed to be his messenger.----When, in Germany, they
drive the cattle for the first time to pasture, they deck them with a
branch of Ivy fashioned into a crown. They believe also that he who
carries on his head a crown of Ivy acquires the faculty of recognising
witches. In the Tyrol, a similar belief holds good, only there, Rue,
Broom, Maidenhair, and Agrimony must be bound together with Ground-Ivy
in a bundle, which is to be kept about the person.----In Ross-shire,
it is a May-day custom for young girls to pluck sprays of Ivy with the
dew on them that have not been touched by steel.----Ivy has long been
used in decorating churches and houses at Christmas: thus old Tusser
directs:--“Get Ivye and Hull [Holly], woman, deck up thine house.” It
seems in the middle ages to have been regarded as a most favoured and
auspicious plant; one old song couples the Ivy and Holly as plants
well adapted for Christmas time, and the following mediæval carol
sings loudly the plant’s praises:--
“The most worthy she is in towne;
He that sayeth other do amysse;
And worthy to bear the crowne:
_Veni, coronaberis_.
“Ivy is soft and meke of speech,
Ageynst all bale she is blysse;
Well is he that may hyre rech.
_Veni, coronaberis._
“Ivy is green, with coloure bright,
Of all trees best she is,
And that I prove will now be right.
_Veni, coronaberis._
“Ivy beryth berrys black,
God graunt us all His blysse,
For there shall we nothing lack.
_Veni, coronaberis._”
According to an old poem in the British Museum, however, Ivy was
considered by some good people only fit to ornament the porches and
outer passages of houses, but not the interior.
“Nay my nay, hyt shall not be I wis,
Let Holly have the maystry, as the maner ys.
Holly stoud in the hall, fayre to behold,
Ivy stoud without the dore, she ys ful sore a-cold.
Nay my nay.”
Corymbifer was a surname given to Bacchus, from his wearing a crown
of _corymbi_, or Ivy-berries. These berries were recommended by old
physicians as a remedy for the plague, and Pliny averred that when
taken before wine, they prevented its intoxicating effects.----There
is a popular tradition that an Ivy cup has the property of separating
wine from water--the former soaking through, and the latter remaining.
An old writer remarks that those who are troubled with the spleen shall
find much ease by the continual drinking out of a cup made of Ivy, so
as the drink may stand some time therein before it be drunk; for, he
adds, “Cato saith that wine put into the Ivy cup will soak through
it by reason of the antipathy that is between them;” this antipathy
being so great that a drunkard “will find his speediest cure if he
drunk a draught of the same wine wherein a handful of Ivy-leaves had
been steeped.”----The ancient Scottish clan Gordon claim Ivy as their
badge.----Ivy is under the dominion of Saturn. It is considered to be
exceedingly favourable to dream of the evergreen climber, portending
as it does, friendship, happiness, good fortune, honour, riches, and
success.
Ground-Ivy is a name which was formerly applied to the Periwinkle,
and to the Ground Pine or Yellow Bugle (called till the beginning
of the present century the Forget-Me-Not), but which was afterwards
transferred to the _Nepeta Glechoma_, a plant also known by the rustic
names of Gill and Gill-by-the-ground, Haymaids, Cat’s-foot, Ale-hoof,
and Tun-hoof. In olden times, it was put into ale, instead of hops, and
was also used to clear ale. The juice of the leaves, tunned up in ale,
was thought to cure the jaundice and other complaints.
JACINTH.--See Hyacinth.
JACK-BY-THE-HEDGE.--See Erysimum.
JACK-OF-THE-BUTTERY.--See Stonecrop.
=JACOB’S LADDER.=--The _Polemonium cœruleum_, from its leaflets being
arranged in successive pairs.
=JAMBU.=--The Jambu (_Eugenia Jambos_) is included among the great
Indian cosmogonic trees. It is called, says Prof. De Gubernatis, the
Fruit of Kings, on account of the great size of its fruit. According to
the _Vishnu purâna_, the continent _Jambudvîpa_ took its name from the
tree Jambu. The fruits of this tree are in point of fact very large,
but the fruits of the Indian mythological Jambu attain to the size
of an elephant; when they have ripened they fall from the mountain,
and the juice which exudes feeds the river Jambu, whose waters are
consequently richly endowed with salutary properties, and can neither
be tainted nor defiled. We learn from the _Dîrghâgama-Sûtra_, that
the four cardinal points were not only represented by the four
elephants which sustained the world, but by four trees of colossal
bulk and grandeur. These four trees were the _Ghanta_, the _Kadamba_,
the _Ambala_, and the _Jambu_. The _Jambu_ sprang, it is said, from
the south of the mountain Meru, of which the summit was believed to
represent the zenith. In the cosmogonic forest of the Himalaya towers
the stupendous bulk of the Jambu, and from its roots four great rivers,
whose waters are inexhaustible, take their source. It bears during the
entire _kalpa_ of the renovation an immortal fruit, like unto gold,
great as the vase called _Mahâkala_. This fruit falls into the rivers,
and its pips produce the golden seed which is carried away to the sea,
and which is sometimes washed up again, and to be found on its shores.
This gold is of incalculable value, and has not its equal in the world
for purity.----It appears, according to the _Saptaçataka_ of Hâla, that
Indian lovers are fond of secreting themselves beneath the leaves of
the _Eugenia Jambos_, and that the young Indian bride becomes sad with
jealousy when she sees her young husband approaching, with his ears
decked with the leaves of the Jambu.
=JASMINE.=--Perfumes and flowers play an important part in the poetry
of India, and the Jasmine, which Hindu poets call the “Moonlight
of the Grove,” has furnished them with countless images. Thus, in
_Anvár-i-Suhailî_ (translated by E. B. Eastwick), we read of a damsel
entering the king’s chamber, whose face charms like a fresh Rosebud
which the morning breeze has caused to blow, and whose ringlets are
compared to the twisting Hyacinth buried in an envelope of the purest
Musk:--
“With Hyacinth and Jasmine her perfumed hair was bound,
A posy of sweet Violets her clustering ringlets seemed;
Her eyes with love intoxicate, in witching sleep half drowned,
Her locks, to Indian Spikenard like,
with love’s enchantments beamed.”
De Tassy, the translator of the allegories of Aziz Eddin, points
out that the Arabian word _yâs-min_ is composed of the word _yâs_,
despair, and _min_, an illusion. In the allegories we read: “Then the
Jasmine uttered this sentence with the expressive eloquence of its
mute language: “_Despair is a mistake._ My penetrating odour excels
the perfume of other flowers; therefore lovers select me as a suitable
offering to their mistresses; they extract from me the invisible
treasures of divinity, and I can only rest when enclosed in the folds
and pleats which form in the body of a robe.”----An allusion to the
Jasmine is made in the following poetic description of a young girl
drooping from a sudden illness:--“All of a sudden the blighting glance
of unpropitious fortune having fallen on that Rose-cheeked Cypress,
she laid her head on the pillow of sickness; and in the flower-garden
of her beauty, in place of the Damask-Rose, sprang up the branch of
the Saffron. Her fresh Jasmine, from the violence of the burning
illness, lost its moisture, and her Hyacinth, full of curls, lost
all its endurance from the fever that consumed her.”----The Indians
cultivate specially for their perfume two species of Jasmine--viz., the
_Jasminum grandiflorum_, or _Tore_, and the _J. hirsutum_, or _Sambac_.
The _Moo-le-hua_, a powerful-smelling Jasmine, is used in China and
other parts of the East as an adornment for the women’s hair.----It
is believed that the Jasmine was first introduced into Europe by some
Spaniards, who brought it from the East Indies in 1560.----Loudon
relates that a variety of the Jasmine, with large double flowers and
exquisite scent, was first procured in 1699 from Goa, by the Grand Duke
of Tuscany, and so jealous was he of being the sole possessor of this
species, that he strictly forbade his gardener to part with a single
cutting. However the gardener was in love, and so, on the birthday of
his betrothed, he presented her with a nosegay, in the midst of which
was a sprig of this rare Jasmine. Charmed with its fragrance, the girl
planted the sprig in fresh mould, and under her lover’s instructions
was soon able to raise cuttings from the plant, and to sell them at
a high price: by this means she soon saved enough money to enable
her to wed the gardener, who had hitherto been too poor to alter his
condition. In memory of this tender episode, the damsels of Tuscany
still wear a wreath of Jasmine on their wedding days, and the event
has given rise to a saying that a “girl worthy of wearing the Jasmine
wreath is rich enough to make her husband happy.”----Yellow Jasmine
is the flower of the Epiphany.----To dream of this beautiful flower
foretells good luck; to lovers it is a sure sign they will be speedily
married.
=JERUSALEM.=--Many plants are found to have been named in olden times
after the Holy City. The Lungwort, _Pulmonaria officinalis_, is the
Jerusalem Cowslip; _Phlomis_ is Jerusalem Sage; and _Teucrium Botrys_
is the Oak of Jerusalem, called so from the resemblance of its leaf to
that of the Oak. In these three cases the prefix “Jerusalem” seems to
have been applied for no particular reason--probably because the plants
had an Eastern origin. Salsafy, _Tragopogon porrifolius_, is the Star
of Jerusalem, so named from the star-like expansion of its involucre;
and _Helianthus tuberosus_ is the Jerusalem Artichoke, a plant of the
same genus as the Sunflower, called Artichoke from the flavour of its
tubers. The soup made from it is termed Palestine Soup. In the last two
cases, Dr. Prior thinks the prefix “Jerusalem” is simply a corruption
of the Italian word _girasole_, turn-sun, and has been applied to these
plants from a popular belief that they turn with the Sun. The _Lychnis
Chalcedonica_ is the Jerusalem Cross, which has derived its name from
the fact that a variety of it has four instead of five petals, of the
colour and form of a Jerusalem Cross.
=JEWS’ EARS.=--The _Auricula Judæ_ is a Fungus resembling in shape
the human ear, which grows usually upon the trunks of the Elder, the
tree upon which Judas Iscariot is said by some to have hung himself.
Sir John Maundevile relates that he actually saw the identical tree.
Bacon says of this excrescence, “There is an herb called Jewes-Eare,
that groweth upon the roots and lower parts of the bodies of trees,
especially of Elders, and sometimes Ashes. It hath a strange propertie;
for in warme water it swelleth, and openeth extremely. It is not
greene, but of a darke browne colour. And it is used for squinancies
and inflammations in the throat, whereby it seemeth to have a
mollifying and lenifying vertue.”
=JOAN’S SILVER PIN.=--The red-Poppy (_Papaver Rhœas_) has acquired the
name of Joan’s Silver Pin, because, according to Parkinson, the gaudy
flower is “fair without and foul within” (in allusion to its yellow
juice). Joan’s Silver Pin was a contemptuous term applied to some
tawdry ornament displayed ostentatiously by a sloven.
=JOB’S TEARS.=--The pretty East Indian Grass, _Coix lacryma_, is called
Job’s Tears on account of the formation of its hard beard-like seeds,
of which Gerarde says “every graine resembleth the drop or teare
that falleth from the eye.”----Among the Arabs, the Fleabane (_Inula
dysenterica_) is also called Job’s Tears (See FLEABANE).
=JONAH’S GOURD.=--According to the Greek version of the Scriptures,
the plant under which Jonah sat was a Gourd, but the Vulgate considers
it a species of Ivy. The _Ricinus communis_, the Castor-oil-tree, with
its broad palmate leaves, has been, however, identified with the
_Kikayon_, which God caused to rise up and shelter Jonah.
JOSEPH’S FLOWER.--See Goat’s Beard.
=JUDAS TREE.=--The Fig, the Tamarisk, the Aspen, the Dog Rose, the
Elder, and the Cercis have all been named as the tree from whose
boughs the traitorous Judas, overcome with remorse, hung himself
in guilty despair. The idea that the Fig-tree was the tree whereon
Judas sought his fate, is a wide-spread one, and probably derives
its origin from the fact of our Lord having cursed an unproductive
Fig-tree,--the tradition being that, after this malediction, the tree
lost its foliage, and soon died; that its wood, when put in the fire,
produced smoke, but no flame; and that all its progeny from that
time forth became wild Fig-trees.----A Fig-tree growing on the coast
of Coromandel, bears the name of Judas’ Purse.----De Gubernatis, on
the authority of Dr. J. Pitré, states that, according to a Sicilian
tradition, Judas was not hung on a Fig, but on a Tamarisk-tree, called
_Vruca_ (_Tamarix Africana_), much more common than the _Tamarix
Gallica_. The _Vruca_ is only a shrub; but, say the Sicilians, once
upon a time it was a great tree, and very handsome. Since, however,
the traitor Judas hung himself from its boughs, the tree, owing to a
Divine malediction, became merely a shrub, ugly, mis-shapen, small,
useless, not even capable of lighting even the smallest fire; from
whence has arisen the proverb: “You are like the wood of the _Vruca_,
which neither yields cinders nor fire.”----A Russian proverb says:
“There is a tree which trembles, although the wind does not blow.”
In the Ukraine, they state that the leaves of the Aspen (_Populus
tremula_) have trembled and shaken ever since the day that Judas
hanged himself on a bough of that tree.----In Germany, the Dog Rose
(_Rosa canina_) is a tree of ill repute, and according to tradition,
one with which the Devil has had dealings. (See EGLANTINE). There is
a legend that Judas hanged himself on this tree; that in consequence
it became accursed, and ever after turned to the earth the points of
its thorns; and that from this cause its berries, to this day, are
called _Judasbeeren_.----In England and other countries, there has
long existed a tradition that the Elder was the tree on which the
traitor-disciple hanged himself. Sir John Maundevile, in his ‘Travels,’
declares that he saw the identical tree; and we read in ‘Piers
Plowman’s Vision’:--
“Judas, he japed
With Jewen silver,
And sithen _on an Eller_
Hanged hymselfe.”
Gerarde, however, in his ‘Herbal’ (1597) denies that the Elder was the
tree, but states that the _Arbor Judæ_, the Judas-tree, is the _Cercis
Siliquastrum_ (Wild Carob-tree). “It may,” says the old herbalist,
“be called in English Judas-tree, for that it is thought to be that
whereon Judas hanged himselfe, and not upon the Elder-tree, as it is
vulgarly said.” A similar belief is entertained by the French and
Italians, who regard the _Cercis Siliquastrum_ as an infamous tree.
The Judas-tree grows about twenty feet high, has pale green foliage
and purple papilionaceous flowers, which appear in the Spring in large
clusters: they are succeeded by long flat pods, containing a row of
seeds. Curiously enough, the Spaniards and Portuguese, on account of
what Gerarde terms its “braveness,” call it the “Tree of Love.”
=JUJUBE.=--The real Jujube-tree is _Zizyphus Jujuba_, a native of the
East Indies, nearly allied to the _Paliurus_, or Christ’s Thorn: it
bears similar yellow flowers and fruit about the size of a middling
plum. It is sweet and mealy, and highly esteemed by the natives of the
countries to which the tree is indigenous. The lozenges called Jujubes
are made from the fruit of _Zizyphus vulgaris_, which ripens abundantly
in the neighbourhood of Paris.
JULY FLOWER, the Stock Gilliflower.--See Stock.
=JUNIPER.=--The ancients called the Juniper generally by the name of
Cedar, although Pliny distinguishes the two. Thus Virgil is supposed to
have alluded to the Juniper in the line in his ‘Georgic’:--
“_Disce et odoratam stabulis accendere Cedrum._”
“But learn to burn within your sheltering rooms
Sweet Juniper.”
The Juniper was consecrated to the Furies. The smoke of its green
roots was the incense which the ancients deemed most acceptable to
the infernal gods; and they burned its berries during funerals to
ban malign influences.----The Juniper has always been looked upon
as a protective tree; its powerful odour is stated to defeat the
keen scent of the hound, and the hunted hare at the last extremity
will seek and find a safe retreat in the cover of its branches. It
sheltered the prophet Elijah from the persecutions of King Ahab, and
we read in 1 Kings xix., 4, that the prophet lay and slept “under
a Juniper-tree.”----According to a tradition common in Italy, the
Virgin Mary fled for safety with the infant Jesus, pursued by the
relentless soldiers of King Herod. Whilst on their road, the Brooms
and the Chick-Peas began to rustle and crackle, and by this noise
betrayed the fugitives. The Flax bristled up. Happily for her, Mary
was near a Juniper: the hospitable tree opened it branches as arms,
and enclosed the Virgin and Child within their folds, affording them
a secure hiding-place. Then the Virgin uttered a malediction against
the Brooms and the Chick-Peas, and ever since that day they have
always rustled and crackled. The Holy Mother pardoned the Flax its
weakness, and gave to the Juniper her blessing: on that account, in
Italy, branches of Juniper are hung up on Christmas Day in stables
and cattle sheds, just as in England, France, and Switzerland, Holly
is employed as a decoration.----In Thibet, they burn Juniper-wood as
incense in a gigantic altar, with an aperture at the top, which is
called _Song-boom_, and bears some resemblance to a limekiln.----The
old notion of the ancients that the burning of Juniper-wood expelled
evil spirits from houses evidently led to some superstitious practices
in this country in later times. Thus we find Bishop Hall writing:--
“And with glasse stills, and sticks of Juniper,
Raise the black spright that burns not with the fire.”
In some parts of Scotland, during the prevalence of an epidemic,
certain mysterious ceremonies are enacted, in which the burning of
Juniper-wood plays an important part.-----In Germany and Italy, the
Juniper is the object of a superstitious reverence on account of its
supposed property of dispersing evil spirits. According to Herr Weber,
in some parts of Italy, holes or fissures in houses are brushed over
with Juniper-boughs to prevent evil spirits introducing sickness;
in other parts, boughs of Juniper are suspended before doorways,
under the extraordinary belief that witches who see the Juniper are
seized with an irresistible mania to count all its small leaves,
which, however, are so numerous that they are sure to make a mistake
in counting, and, becoming impatient, go away for fear of being
surprised and recognised.----In Waldeck, Germany, when infants fall
ill, their parents place in a bunch of Juniper some bread and wool,
in order to induce bad spirits to eat, to spin, and so forget the
poor little suffering babe. In Germany, a certain _Frau Wachholder_
is held to be the personification and the presiding spirit of the
Juniper, who is invoked in order that thieves may be compelled to give
up their ill-gotten spoils: this invocation takes place with certain
superstitious ceremonies beneath the shadow of a Juniper, a branch of
which is bent to the earth. In Germany, also, the Juniper, like the
Holly, is believed to drive away from houses and stables, spells and
witchcraft of all description, and specially to cast out from cows
and horses the monsters which are sometimes believed mysteriously to
haunt them. For a similar reason, in Germany, in order to strengthen
horses, and to render them tractable and quiet, they administer to
them on three successive Sundays before sunrise, three handfuls of
salt, and seventy-two Juniper-berries. Prof. De Gubernatis tells us
that from a rare Italian book which he possesses, he finds that in
Bologna it is customary on Christmas Eve to distribute in most houses
branches of Juniper; and moreover, that the best authorities have
proved the omnipotence of Juniper against serpents and venomous beasts,
who by their bites represent sins; and that the Juniper furnished
the wood for the Cross of the Saviour and protected the Prophet
Elijah.----In Tuscany, the Juniper receives a benediction in church
on Palm Sunday.----In Venetia, Juniper is burnt to purify the air,
recalling the ancient Roman custom of burning it instead of incense on
the altars.----In Norway and Sweden, the floors are strewed with the
tops of Juniper, which diffuse a pleasant fragrance.----Evelyn says
that Juniper-berries afford “one of the most universal remedies in the
world to our crazy forester,” and he wonders that Virgil should condemn
the shadow of such a beneficial tree, but suspects him misreported as
having written the following lines:--
“Now let us rise, for hoarseness oft invades
The singer’s voice who sings beneath the shades:
From Juniper unwholesome dews distil.”
The old herbalists recommended the berries of the Juniper for use
as counter-poisons and other wholesome medicines, and water wherein
these berries had been steeped was held to be health-giving and
useful against poisons and pestilent fevers. The smoke of the leaves
and wood was said to drive away serpents, “and all infection and
corruption of the aire which bring the plague, or such-like contagious
diseases.”----The Juniper would appear to be potent in dreams; thus,
it is unlucky to dream of the tree itself, especially if the person
be sick; but to dream of gathering the berries, if it be in winter,
denotes prosperity; whilst to dream of the actual berries signifies
that the dreamer will shortly arrive at great honours, and become an
important person. To the married it foretells the birth of a male
child.----The Juniper is held to be under the dominion of the Sun.
=JUNO’S ROSE.=--The _Lilium candidum_ has derived its name of Juno’s
Rose from the legend that relates how Jupiter, to make his infant son
Hercules immortal, put him to the breast of the sleeping Juno; and how,
when the babe withdrew from her, the milk which fell from his lips
formed the Milky Way, and, falling on earth, caused the White Lily to
spring up. (See Lily).
=JUNO’S TEARS.=--A name originally given by Dioscorides to the _Coix
lacryma_ (now called Job’s Tears), but for some unknown reason
transferred to the Vervain (_Verbena officinalis_).
=JUPITER’S PLANTS.=--The Pink (_Dianthus_) is Jove’s flower; the Oak is
sacred to him because he first taught mankind to live upon Acorns; his
sceptre is of Cypress. The Dodonæan Jupiter is usually depicted with a
wreath of Oak-leaves; the Olympian Jove wears a wreath of Olive, and
his mantle is decorated with various flowers, particularly the Lily;
to Jupiter Ammon the Beech is dedicated. The House-leek (_Sempervivum
tectorum_) has obtained its name of Jupiter’s Beard (_Jovis Barba_)
from its massive inflorescence resembling the sculptured beard of
Jupiter. The same plant is also called Jupiter’s Eye from its stellate
form: in its centre is a bud, and on the surrounding petals can
be distinguished a little eye, from which circumstance has arisen
the superstition, mentioned by Dioscorides, that this plant cures
inflammation of the eyes. Jupiter’s Staff is the Mullein (_Verbascum
Thapsus_). Jupiter’s Distaff is the Yellow Clary (_Salvia glutinosa_).
Gerarde thus describes it: “_Jovis Colus_ representeth in the highest
top of the stalk a distaffe, wrapped about with yellow Flax, whereof
it took its name.”----The Couch of Jupiter and Juno was formed of the
blossoms of Lotus, Lily, Hyacinth, Crocus, and Asphodel.
=KAIL.=--Writing of the Cabbage or Colewort, Gerarde tells us “the
apothecaries and the common herbalists do call it _Caulis_, of the
goodnesse of the stalke.” The old English name Cole and the Scotch
Kail are both derived from this Latin word _Caulis_, a stalk.----In
Scotland, it is a custom on Hallowe’en for the young people, after
being duly blindfolded, to go forth into the Kail-yard, or garden,
and pull the first stalk they meet with. Returning to the fireside,
they determine, according as the stalk is big or little, straight or
crooked, what the future wife or husband will be. The quantity of earth
adhering to the root is emblematic of the dowry to be expected, and
the temper is indicated by the sweet or bitter taste of the _motoc_ or
pith. Lastly, the stalks are placed in order over the door, and the
Christian names of persons afterwards entering the house signify in the
same order those of the wives and husbands _in futuris_.
=KATAKA.=--The Kataka (_Strychnos potatorum_) is an East Indian plant,
the seeds of which are sold in the bazaars for the purpose of cleansing
muddy water, &c. The vessel containing the water, milk, &c., is first
rubbed round the inside for a minute or two with one of the seeds,
after which, by allowing the liquid to settle for a short time, however
impure it may have been before, it becomes clear. The confidence of the
superstitious Hindus in this property of the Kataka became so great,
that in course of time they ignorantly thought the mere name of Kataka
would be sufficient to cleanse water. It became, therefore, necessary
to state in one of their Codes that although the seeds of the Kataka
purify water, its name alone was insufficient for that purpose.
=KATHARINE’S FLOWER.=--The _Nigella Damascena_ has been called
Katharine’s or St. Katherine’s-flower, from the persistent styles
spreading like the spokes of a wheel, the symbol of St. Katharine,
who was martyred upon a wheel. As regards the seed of this plant,
Gerarde tells us that if dried, powdered, and wrapped in a piece of
fine lawn or sarcenet, it “cureth all murs, catarrhes, rheumes, and
the pose, drieth the braine, and restoreth the sence of smelling unto
those which have lost it, being often smelled unto from day to day,
and made warme at the fire when it is used.”----This plant bears
also the names of Fennel-flower, Bishop’s-wort, Old Man’s Beard, and
Kiss-me-twice-before-I-rise.
=KESARA.=--The Kesara (_Mimusops Elengi_) is an Indian tree sacred to
Krishna. According to Jones, the flowers of the _Kesara_ ornament
conspicuously the Garden of Paradise. An odoriferous water is distilled
from the flowers, and the bark is used medicinally.
=KERNEL-WORT.=--The _Scrophularia nodosa_ has obtained the name of
Kernel-wort, from its having kernels or tubers attached to its roots,
and, therefore, as Gerarde remarks, “it is reported to be a remedy
against those diseases whereof it tooke his name.” It appears to have
been more particularly employed as a cure for the King’s-evil; but
the old herbalist tells us that “divers do rashly teach that if it be
hanged about the necke, or else carried about one, it keepeth a man in
health.”
=KERZEREH.=--The Kerzrah, or Kerzereh, is the name of an Eastern
flower, the odour of which would seem to have deadly properties. It
is well known in Persia, and there, it is commonly said, that if a
man inhale the hot south-wind, which in June or July passes over the
Kerzereh-flowers, it will undoubtedly kill him.
=KETAKI.=--The Indian name of the Screw Pine, _Pandanus odoratissimus_,
is Ketaki, the male and female flowers of which are borne on separate
trees. The male flowers are dried, and are then much in vogue as a
scent by Indian ladies. These flowers are said by the native poets to
be dear to the god Siva; and so exquisite is their perfume, that the
bee, intoxicated by it, mistakes the golden blossom for a beauteous
nymph, and, blinded with passion, loses its wings.
=KING’S CUP.=--The Buttercup (_Ranunculus bulbosus_) is also called
King’s Cup, from the resemblance of its buds to a gold stud such as
Kings wore. This flower was dedicated in mediæval times to the Virgin
Mary, and is the Mary-bud alluded to by Shakspeare in ‘Cymbeline’--
“And twinkling Mary-buds begin
To ope their golden eyes.”
KISS-ME-ERE-I-RISE.--See Pansy.
KISS-ME-TWICE-BEFORE-I-RISE.--See Katharine’s Flower.
KNIGHT’S SPURS.--See Larkspur.
=KNOT GRASS.=--The Centinode, or Knot Grass (_Polygonum aviculare_)
derives its name from the knottiness of its stem and its Grass-like
leaves. In ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream,’ Shakspeare refers to this plant
as “the hindering Knotgrass,” because its decoction was, in olden
times, believed to be efficacious in stopping or retarding the growth
of children, as well as of the young of domestic animals. Thus, in
Beaumont and Fletcher’s ‘Coxcomb,’ we read:--
“We want a boy,
Kept under for a year with milk and Knotgrass.”
Gerarde says that “it is given unto swine with good success when they
are sick, and will not eat their meat, whereupon country people do call
it Swine’s-grass or Swine’s-skir.”
=KOVIDARA.=--The Kovidara (_Bauhinia variegata_) is one of trees which
are represented as growing in the Indian Paradise. The flowers of this
Mountain Ebony are of a purplish-red colour, marked with white, and
with yellow bottoms.
=KOUNALNITZA.=--In Russia, a plant dedicated to the Slave-God Kounala,
protector of the harvest, is named after him _Kounalnitza_. It would
seem, however, to be now considered a herb of St. John. De Gubernatis
tells us that on the eve of St. John’s Day it is customary in Russia to
deck the floors of bath-rooms with this plant. _Kounalnitza_ is thus
described by a Russian lady:--“It is a herb as delicate as an arrow,
having on each side nine leaves and four colours--black, green, red,
and blue. This herb is very salutary. He who has gathered it on St.
John’s Day, and carries it about him with a piece of gold or silver
money attached, need neither fear the Devil nor wicked men at night. In
course of time he will prevail against all adversaries, and will become
the friend of Tzars and princes. The root of this plant is equally
miraculous: if a woman be childless, she has only to drink a potion in
which this plant has been powdered, and she will have children and be
able to protect them from all infantile diseases. _Kounalnitza_ is also
gathered as a protection against sorcerers, who by their cries scare
reapers and workers in the fields.”
=KUDDUM.=--The Kuddum, or Cadamba (_Anthocephalus Cadamba_), is one
of the most sacred trees of India. According to the Chinese Buddhist
scriptures, there grows to the east of the mountain Sume a great ring
of trees called _Kadamba_, of vast proportions. The tree of Buddha
sprang spontaneously from a kernel of this _Kadamba_, dropped in the
soil. “In one moment the earth split, a shoot appeared, and the giant
tree raised itself, embracing within its shadow a circumference of
three hundred cubits. The fruits of this miraculous tree are a source
of bitter vexation to the enemies of Buddha, and against these the
Devas launch all the fury of the tempest.” The yellowish-brown flowers
of the Kuddum are small and collected in dense balls: they open at
the commencement of the rainy season, and they are represented by
the Indian poets as having the power of recalling to lovers, with
irresistible vividness, the beloved absent one.
=KUSA GRASS.=--The sacred Vedic herb _Kusa_ (_Poa cynosuroides_) is
known in the Sanscrit writings as the Ornament of the Sacrifice, the
Pure Herb, the Purifier, &c. With its long pointed leaves, the sacred
beverages are purified, the altar is covered, and the sacrificing
priest is furnished with a natural carpet. According to the Vedas, the
sacrifices offered in the Hindu temples of the Indian Trinity, Brahma,
Vishnu, and Siva, consisted of a fire of fragrant woods lighted at
each of the cardinal points. The flames were fed now and again with
consecrated ointment, and around the fire was scattered the sacred
herb _Kusa_. Thus, in the drama of ‘_Sakuntalâ_,’ written by Kâlidâsa
two thousand years ago, we find that Kanva, the father of the heroine
(who is the chief of the hermits), offers one of these sacrifices, and
exclaims:--
“Holy flames, whose frequent food
Is the consecrated wood,
And for whose encircling bed,
Sacred Kusa-grass is spread;
Hear, oh, hear me when I pray,
Purify my child this day!”
In those times it was apparently considered no sin to apply the sacred
grass to private purposes, for one of Sakuntalâ’s handmaids compounds
perfumes and unguents with consecrated paste and the Kusa-grass,
to anoint the limbs of her mistress, previous to her nuptials. In
the Vedas, the Kusa-grass, or _Darbha_, is often invoked as a god.
According to the _Atharvaveda_, it is immortal, it never ages, it
destroys enemies, and Indra, the god of thunder, employs it as his
weapon.----The Vedic rituals contain directions for the employment of
Kusa-grass for various mystic purposes. To cleanse butter, the priest
held a small stalk of the sacred Grass, without nodes, in each hand,
and, turning towards the east, he invoked Savitar, Vasu, and the rays
of the sun. At the new moon, and at the full moon, they bound and
fastened together the sacrificial wood and the Kusa-grass. In the third
year of its age, it was customary for a Hindu child to be brought
by its parents to the priest, that its hair might be cut. Then the
father, placed to the south of the mother, held in his hand twenty-one
stalks of Kusa-grass, which symbolised the twenty-one winds, and an
invocation was made to Vâyu, the god of the winds. The father, or, in
his absence, a Brahman, took three stalks at a time, and inserted them
in the child’s hair seven times, the points turned towards the infant’s
body; at the same time devoutly murmuring, “May the herb protect thee!”
According to the Vedas, a house ought to be erected in a locality where
the Kusa-grass abounds; the foundations are sprinkled with it, and
care is taken to extirpate all thorny plants. When reading the sacred
books, the devout Hindu should be seated either on the ground or on a
flooring strewn with Kusa-grass, upon which once rested Brahma himself.
It was customary, upon leaving a seminary, for the Vedic student to
take, among other things, by way of memento, and as a presage of
good fortune, a few blades of Kusa-grass. Anchorites employed the
sacred Grass as a covering to their nudity, and it was also used as a
purification in funeral rites. In the Buddhist ritual, the Vedic Kusa
appears under the name of _Barhis_, and serves as a kind of carpet, on
which come Agni and all the gods to seat themselves. Of such importance
is the sacred Grass considered, that the name _Barhis_ is sometimes
even employed to signify in a general manner the sacrifice itself.
=KUSHTHA.=--Wilson identifies the Indian mythological tree _Kushtha_
with the _Costus speciosus_, a swamp plant bearing snow-white flowers
and celebrated for the sweetness of its fruits. The Kushtha forms one
of the trees of heaven. In the _Atharvaveda_, it is stated to flourish
in the third heaven, where the ambrosia is to be found: it possesses
magical properties, will cure fevers, and is considered as the first
of medicinal plants. It is represented also as a great friend and
companion of Soma, the god of the ambrosia, and it descends from the
mountain Himavant as a deity of salvation.
LAD’S LOVE.--See Southernwood.
=LADY’S PLANTS.=--When the word “lady” occurs in plant names, it
alludes in most cases to Our Lady, the Virgin Mary, on whom the monks
and nuns of old lavished flowers in profusion. All white flowers were
regarded as typifying her purity and sanctity, and were consecrated
to her festivals. The finer flowers were wrested from the Northern
deities, Freyja and Bertha, and from the classic Juno, Diana, and
Venus, and laid upon the shrine of Our Lady. In Puritan times, the
name of Our Lady was in many instances replaced by Venus, thus
recurring to the ancient nomenclature: for example: Our Lady’s Comb
became Venus’s Comb (_Scandix Pecten Veneris_); _Galium verum_ is
called Our Lady’s Bedstraw, from its soft, puffy, flocculent stems,
and its golden flowers. The name may allude more particularly to the
Virgin Mary having given birth to her Son in a stable, with nothing
but wild flowers for her bedding. _Clematis vitalba_, commonly called
Traveller’s Joy, from the shade and shelter it affords to weary
wayfarers, is also called Lady’s Bower, from “its aptness in making
arbours, bowers, and shadie covertures in gardens.” _Statice Armeria_,
the clustered Pink, which is called Thrift, from the past participle of
the verb to thrive, is, on account of its close cushion-like growth,
termed Lady’s Cushion. _Alchemilla vulgaris_ is named Lady’s Mantle
from the shape and vandyked edge of the leaf; and _Campanula hybrida_
(from the resemblance of its expanded flower, set on its elongated
ovary, to an ancient metallic mirror on its straight handle) is the
Lady’s Looking-glass. Two plants with soft inflated calyces (_Anthyllis
vulneraria_ and _Digitalis purpurea_) are Lady’s Fingers. _Neottia
spiralis_, with its flower-spikes rising above each other like braided
hair, is Lady’s Tresses; and the Maidenhair Fern is Our Lady’s Hair.
Dodder (_Cuscuta_), from its string-like stems, is called Lady’s Laces;
and _Digraphis arundinacea_, from the ribbon-like striped leaves,
Lady’s Garters. In Wiltshire, _Convolvulus sepium_ is called Lady’s
Nightcap. _Cypripedium Calceolus_, from the shape of its flower, is
called Lady’s Slippers; and _Cardamine pratensis_, from the shape of
its flowers, like little smocks hung out to dry, is the Lady’s Smock,
all silver white, of Shakspeare. Lady’s Thimble is a name of the Blue
or Hare Bell (_Campanula rotundifolia_); and Lady’s Seal is now the
Black Briony. _Carduus Marianus_ is the Lady’s Thistle, the blessed
Milk Thistle, whose green leaves have been spotted white ever since
the milk of the Virgin fell upon it when she was nursing Jesus, and
endowed it with miraculous virtues.
=LARCH.=--There has long been a superstitious belief that the wood
of the Larch-tree (_Pinus Larix_) is impenetrable by fire, and a
story is told by Vitruvius of a castle besieged by Cæsar, which,
from being built largely of Larch timber, was found most difficult
to consume.----Evelyn calls the Larch a “goodly tree, which is of so
strange a composition, that ’twill hardly burn; whence the Mantuan,
_Et robusta Larix igni impenetrabile lignum_, for so Cæsar found
it.”----Tiberius constructed several bridges of this timber, and the
Forum of Augustus, at Rome, was built with it.----Evelyn tells of a
certain ship found many years ago in the Numidian Sea, twelve fathoms
under water, which was chiefly built of Larch and Cypress, so hardened
as long to resist the fire or the sharpest tool. Nor, he adds, “was
anything perished of it, though it had lain above a thousand and four
hundred years submerged.”----A Manna is obtained from the Larch,
called in the South of France _Manna de Briançon_; it is very rare,
and met with only in little drops that adhere to the leaves.----In
the case of a forest fire, if Larches are scorched to the pith, the
inner part exudes a gum, called Orenburg gum, which the mountaineers
masticate in order to fasten their teeth. Ben Jonson, in the ‘Masque of
Queens,’ speaks of the gum or turpentine of the Larch as being used in
witchcraft. A witch answers her companion:--
“Yes, I have brought (to help your vows)
Horned Poppy, Cypress-boughs,
The Fig-tree wild, that grows on tombs,
And juice that from the Larch-tree comes,
The basilisk’s blood and the viper’s skin:
And now our orgies let’s begin.”
According to a Tyrolean tradition, the Seliges Fräulein, dressed
in white, repairs to an aged Larch beneath whose shelter she
sings.----Lucan includes the “gummy Larch” among the articles burned
to drive away serpents.----M. de Rialle, quoted in _Mythothologie des
Plantes_, relates that a group of seven Larches constituted for the
Ostiaks a sacred grove. Everyone passing was expected to leave an
arrow, and formerly it was customary to suspend skins there, so that in
course of time an immense quantity was accumulated. As these offerings
were frequently stolen by strangers, the Ostiaks decided to fell one
of the Larches and remove the stump to some secret locality where they
might pay their devotions without fear of sacrilege. M. de Rialle
found the same Larch worship at Bérézof: there a tree fifty feet high,
and so old that only its top bore foliage, received the homage of the
Ostiaks, who showed their piety by turning to good account its singular
conformation: about six feet from the ground the trunk of the tree
became divided into two limbs, which joining again a little higher up,
left a cleft in the centre: this aperture the devotees dedicated to the
reception of their offerings.
=LARKSPUR.=--The Larkspur, the _Delphinium_ or Dolphin-flower of the
ancients, was considered by Linnæus and many other botanists to be
none other than the Hyacinth of the classic poets. It is not, however,
generally recognised as the flower that sprang from the blood of the
unfortunate Hyacinthus, and which to this day bears his name; but is
rather regarded as the flower alluded to in the enigma propounded by a
shepherd in one of the Eclogues of Virgil.
“_Dic quibus in terris inscripti nomina regum
Nascuntur flores._”
“Say in what country do flowers grow with the names of kings
written upon them.”
Tradition states that from the life-blood of the disappointed
and infuriated Ajax sprang the _Delphinium_--the flower which we
now know as the Larkspur, upon whose petals it is said may be
read the letters A I A, and which the botanists consequently term
_Delphininium Ajacis_--truly a flower upon which the name of a king
is written.----The legend concerning the origin of the flower is as
follows:--Ajax, the son of Telamon and Hesione, was next to Achilles
worthily reputed the most valiant of all the Greeks at the Trojan war,
and engaged in single combat with Hector, the intrepid captain of the
Trojan hosts, who was subsequently slain by Achilles. After the death
of Achilles, Ajax and Ulysses both claimed the arms of the deceased
hero: the latter was awarded them by the Greeks, who preferred the
wisdom and policy of Ulysses to the courage of Ajax. This threw Ajax
into such a fury, that he slaughtered a flock of sheep, mistaking
them for the sons of Atreus; and then, upon perceiving his error,
stabbed himself with the sword presented to him by Hector; the blood
spurting from his self-inflicted death-wound, giving birth, as it fell
to the earth, to the purple _Delphinium_, which bears upon its petals
the letters at once the initials of his name and an exclamation of
grief at the loss of such a hero.----The generic name of the plant
is derived from the Greek _delphinion_, a dolphin; the flower-buds,
before expansion, being thought to resemble that fish. In England, the
flower is known by the names of Larkspur, Lark’s-heel, Lark’s-toe,
Lark’s-claw, and Knight’s-spur.
=LAUREL.=--Daphne, daughter of Peneus and the goddess Terra, inspired
Apollo with a consuming passion. Daphne, however, received with
distrust and horror the addresses of the god, and fled from his
advances. Pursued by Apollo, she adjured the water-gods to change her
form, and, according to Ovid--
“Scarce had she finished when her feet she found
Benumb’d with cold and fastened to the ground:
A filmy rind about her body grows;
Her hair to leaves, her arms extend to boughs.
The nymph is all into a Laurel gone
The smoothness of her skin remains alone.
* * * * *
To whom the god: because thou canst not be
My mistress, I espouse thee for my tree:
Be thou the prize of honour and renown;
The deathless poet and the poem crown.
Thou shalt the Roman festivals adorn,
And after poets, be by victors won.
Thou shalt returning Cæsar’s triumph grace
When pomps shall in a long procession pass;
Wreath’d on the posts before his palace wait;
And be the sacred guardian of the gate,
Secure from thunder, and unharmed by Jove,
Unfading as th’ immortal powers above;
And as the locks of Phœbus are unshorn,
So shall perpetual green thy boughs adorn.”--_Dryden._
The classical Laurel, known as the “Royal,” or “Augustan,” was the
Sweet Bay, or Daphne (_Laurus nobilis_). Formerly the Bay-tree was
called Laurel, and the fruit only named Bayes, a word derived from
the French _baie_, a berry. By the Greeks and Romans the tree was
considered sacred. The Romans decorated with Laurel the gods Apollo
and Bacchus, the goddesses Libertas and Salus, Æsculapius, Hercules,
&c. The victors of the Pythian games, held to commemorate Apollo’s
triumph over the Pythons, wore crowns of Laurel, Palm, or Beech. Paris
(called in Homer, Alexander) was crowned with Alexandrian Laurel
(_Ruscus racemosus_), as victor in the public games, whence its names
in Apuleius, _Daphne Alexandrina_ and _Stephane Alexandrina_. Of all
the honours decreed to Cæsar by the Senate, he is said to have valued
most the privilege of wearing a crown of Alexandrian Laurel, because it
covered his baldness, which was reckoned a deformity among the Romans
as well as among the Jews. This is the Laurel generally depicted on
busts, coins, &c. The palace gates of the Cæsars, and the high pontiffs
were decorated with Laurel. Victorious Roman generals sent their
letters and dispatches to the Senate enclosed in Laurel-leaves. The
letter announcing the victory was called _literæ laureatæ_, and its
bearer carried a branch of Laurel, which was placed in the breast of
Jupiter Optimus Maximus. The soldiers’ spears, tents, ships, &c., were
all dressed up with Laurel, and in the triumph each soldier carried a
branch in his hand. According to Plutarch, Scipio entered Carthage,
holding in one hand a sceptre and in the other a branch of Laurel.
Sophocles relates how Œdipus, seeing Creon arrive crowned with Laurel,
believed that he brought good news. The goddess Victoria is represented
as crowned with Laurel, and bearing the branch of a Palm-tree.
According to Hesiod, the Muses hold Laurel in their hands.
The prophetess Manto, a daughter of the prophet Tiresias, was sometimes
called Daphne (Laurel).
The bough of a Laurel was considered to give to prophets the faculty
of seeing that which was hidden. Dionysius calls the Laurel the
prophetical plant; and Claudian, _venturi præscia Laurus_. Fulgentius
states, that a Laurel-leaf placed beneath the pillow will cause coming
events to be foreseen in a dream; thereby greatly assisting the
prediction of future events. Diviners, like the priests of Apollo, wore
Laurel wreaths, and Laurel was used in the composition of incense.
Evelyn relates that the Laurel and _Agnus Castus_ were reputed to be
“trees which greatly composed the ‘phansy,’ and did facilitate true
visions; and that the first was especially efficacious to inspire a
poetical fury. Such a tradition there goes of Rebekah, the wife of
Isaac, in imitation of her father-in-law. The instance is recited
out of an ancient ecclesiastical history, by Abulensis.” From hence,
Evelyn thinks the Delphic Tripos, the Dodonean Oracle in Epirus, and
others of a similar nature, took their origin. The Pythia, or priestess
of Apollo, at Delphi, before delivering the oracles from the sacred
tripod, shook a Laurel-tree and sometimes chewed the leaves with which
she crowned herself, casting them afterwards into the sacred fire.
The temple of Apollo at Delphi, where the celebrated oracles were
delivered, was at first only a structure of Laurel-branches, which
enclosed a fissure in the earth, from which a stupefying exhalation
arose. Over the fissure was placed a tripod, on which the Pythia or
prophetess sat, and, becoming excited by the ascending vapour, she
fell into an ecstacy, and prophesied. After a temple of stone had been
constructed, the Pythia prophesied in an inner and secluded cell,
the only opening to which, accessible to questioners, was covered
with Laurel-leaves. The Laurel being sacred to Apollo as well as to
Æsculapius, was used in the temples of both these divinities, partly
to induce sleep and dreams, partly to produce beneficial effects in
various diseases. Whosoever wished to ask counsel was bound to appear
before the altar crowned with Laurel-twigs and chewing Laurel-leaves.
Every ninth year, a bower, composed of Laurel-branches, was erected in
the forecourt of the temple at Delphi.
The Bœotian fêtes, held every ninth year at Thebes in honour of Apollo,
were designated Daphnephoria. On these occasions, an Olive-bough,
adorned with Laurel, was carried by a beautiful and illustrious youth,
dedicated to the service of Apollo, and who was called _Daphnephoros_
(Laurel-bearer). The origin of the Daphnephoria was as follows:--The
Ætolians had invaded Bœotia, but both invaders and defenders suspended
hostilities to celebrate the festival of Apollo, and having cut down
Laurel-boughs from Mount Helicon, they walked in procession in honour
of the divinity: that same day the Bœotian general, Polemates, dreamed
that a youth presented him with a suit of armour, and commanded the
Bœotians to offer prayers to Apollo, and to walk in procession, with
Laurel-boughs in their hands, every ninth year. Three days later,
Polemates defeated the invaders, and immediately instituted the
Festival of Daphnephoria.
The Laurel formerly had the power ascribed to it of being a safeguard
against lightning, of which Tiberius was very fearful, and in order to
avoid which he is stated to have crept under his bed and protected his
head with Laurel-leaves. In Sicily, it has long been popularly believed
that the shrub is a protection from thunder and lightning. The same
superstition survived till recently in our own country. W. Browne tells
us that “Baies being the material of poets’ ghirlands, are supposed
not subject to any hurt of Jupiter’s thunder-bolts, as other trees
are.” Culpeper alludes to the old belief that neither witch nor devil,
thunder nor lightning, will hurt a man where a Bay-tree is; and remarks
further, that Laurels resist “witchcraft very potently, as also all the
evils old Saturn can do the body of man, and they are not a few. The
berries are very effectual against all poisons of venomous creatures,
as also against the pestilence and other infectious diseases.”
The decay of the Bay-tree, which is generally rapid, was formerly
considered as an omen of disaster. It is said that before the death
of Nero, though in a very mild winter, all these trees withered to
the root, and a great pestilence in Padua is reputed to have been
preceded by the same phenomenon. So great a reputation had the Laurel
for clearing the air and resisting contagion, that the Emperor Claudius
was advised by his physicians during a raging pestilence to remove
his court to Laurentum. That city, in the reign of Latinus, was the
capital of Latium, whose inhabitants were called Laurentini from the
great number of Laurels which flourished in their country. King Latinus
discovered one of unusual size and beauty when about to build a temple
to Apollo, and the tree was consecrated to the god, and preserved with
religious care.
The Laurel had the reputation of being generally propitious to man.
At Rome, on the 15th of May, merchants used to celebrate a festival
in honour of Mercury, and proceeding to a public fountain, they drew
water wherein they dipped a Laurel-branch, which they then employed
to bless all their merchandise. The Laurus (Bay) was held in high
esteem by the old Greek physicians; and among the people there existed
a belief that spirits could be banished by its means. The Greeks had
a saying, “I carry a branch of Laurel,” to indicate that the speaker
had no fear of poison or sorcery. They had a custom of affixing a
Laurel-bough over the doorway, in the case of a severe illness, in
order to avert death and drive away evil spirits. Presumably from these
associations, it became the fashion to crown young doctors of physic
with Laurel-berries (_Bacca Lauri_), and the students were called
Baccalaureats, Bay-laureats, or Bachelors. Theophrastus tells us that
in his time the superstitious kept Bay-leaves in their mouths all day,
to guard them from misfortune. Theocritus says that young girls were
wont to burn Laurel as a charm to recall errant lovers. The Bolognese
use Laurel to obtain an augury of the harvest: they put Laurel-leaves
in the fire, and if in burning they crackle, it is a sign that the
harvest will be good; if not, it will be bad. Tibullus chronicles a
similar superstition in his time.
In the days of Pliny, there still existed on Mount Aventine a
plantation of Laurels, of which the branches were employed for
expiations. On the other hand, there grew on the shores of the Euxine
a Laurel bearing a sinister reputation, close to where Amycus, the
son of Neptune, was killed and buried. The Argonauts, when passing
there, broke off a branch of this Laurel, and they immediately began
to quarrel among themselves: the quarrel ceased, however, directly the
branch was thrown away.
Petrarch made the Laurel the constant theme of his verse, associating
it with the name of his beloved mistress, Laura; and when publicly
crowned in the Roman Capitol with a wreath of Laurel, the poet
acknowledged himself to have experienced the greatest delight.
Sir Thomas Browne refers to a custom common in Christian countries of
throwing a sprig of Bay upon the coffin when interred. In England, it
has long been used, together with Holly, Rosemary, &c., to decorate
houses and churches at Christmas. In Greece, on Holy Saturday, they
spread Laurel-leaves on the church floor. In Corsica, they deck with
Laurel-leaves the doorway of the house where a wedding is being
celebrated.
To dream of a Laurel-bush is a token of victory and pleasure. If the
dreamer is married it denotes an inheritance through the wife. If
a married woman dreams of seeing or smelling Laurel, it is a sign
that she shall bear children; if a maid, it denotes that she will be
suddenly married. Astrologers consider the Laurel a tree of the Sun,
under the celestial sign Leo.
The Roumanians have a legend that there was once a nymph, known as the
Daughter of the Laurel, who dwelt in the midst of a Laurel-bush. One
evening the Laurel had opened its branches that she might, as was her
wont, issue forth and dance in the flowery valley. Whilst tripping
along she was accosted by a handsome youth, who extolled her beauty,
expressed his passion for her, and finally endeavoured to embrace her;
but the Laurel nymph fled, and pursued by the stranger, disappeared in
the flowery groves.... “The Star Queen sleeps in her palace of clouds;
sleep also, gentle and lovely girl; try to calm thy sighs.” So sings
the handsome stranger, and the Daughter of the Laurel falls to sleep
in his arms, murmuring a prayer that her lover may never abandon her.
At her waking, alas! the youth is nowhere to be seen. She shrieks
for him wildly, and calls to the night; to the stars; to the rivulet
running through the wood; but in vain. “Open thy branches, beautiful
Laurel-tree!” then cries the deserted girl; “the night is already
flying, and if I remain longer here I shall dissolve away into dew.”
“Away, young and beautiful girl,” replies the Laurel-tree mournfully;
“the star wreath of honour has fallen from thy brow; there is no longer
any place for thee here.” Then the sun rose over the mountain, and the
Daughter of the Laurel dissolved away into dew.
=LAVENDER.=--The ancients employed Lavender (_Lavandula Spica_) largely
in their baths, whence its name, derived from the Latin verb, _lavare_,
to wash. The expression “Laid up in Lavender” has arisen from the old
custom of using the plant to scent newly-washed linen.
“Its spike of azure bloom
Shall be erewhile in arid bundles bound,
To lurk amid the labours of the loom,
And crown our kerchiefs clean with mickle rare perfume.”
The ancients used the French Lavender (_L. Stœchas_), which formerly
grew in great abundance on the islands near Hyères, in France, that
were named after the plant, the Stœchades. Gerarde calls this French
Lavender, Sticadove, and says the herb was also known as Cassidonie,
corrupted by simple country folk into “Cast-me-down.” Shakspeare makes
Perdita class Lavender among the flowers denoting middle-age:--
“Here’s flowers for you;
Hot Lavender, Mints, Savory, Marjoram.
The Marygold, that goes to bed with the sun,
And with him rises weeping; these are the flowers
Of middle Summer, and, I think, they are given
To men of middle age.”
English Lavender was formerly called Lavender Spike, and Gerarde says
it was thought by some to be the sweet herb Cassia, mentioned by Virgil
in his ‘Bucolics’:--
“And then she’ll Spike and such sweet herbs unfold,
And paint the Jacinth with the Marigold.”
It was formerly believed that the asp, a dangerous species of viper,
made Lavender its habitual place of abode, for which reason the
plant was approached with extreme caution.----In Spain and Portugal,
Lavender is used to strew the floors of churches and houses on festive
occasions, or to make bonfires on St. John’s Day.----In Tuscany,
it is employed to counteract the effect of the Evil Eye on little
children.----The Kabyle women attribute to Lavender the property of
protecting them from marital cruelty, and invoke it for that purpose.
=LEEK.=--Biblical commentators say that the Leek (_Allium Porrum_),
as well as the Onion and Garlic, was included among those Egyptian
luxuries after which the Children of Israel pined. White and green were
the old Cymric colours, and these colours are found combined in the
Leek, which is the national emblem of the Welsh. The following lines
are from a MS. in the Harl. Col., British Museum:--
“I like the Leeke above all herbes and floures;
When first we wore the same the field was ours.
The Leeke is white and green, whereby is ment
That Britaines are both stout and eminente.
Next to the lion and the unicorne,
The Leeke’s the fairest emblym that is worne.”
Shakspeare, in Henry V., tells us that the Leek, worn by Welshmen on
St. David’s Day (March 1st), is “an ancient tradition, begun upon an
honourable respect, and worn as a memorable trophy of pre-deceased
valour.” This vegetable “trophy” is said to be in memory of a great
victory obtained by the Welsh over the Saxons; on which occasion,
they, by order of St. David, placed Leeks in their caps in order to
distinguish themselves. It has also been supposed that the wearing
of the Leek may have originated in the custom of _Cymortha_, still
observed among the farmers of the country, where, in assisting one
another in ploughing their land, they bring each their Leeks to the
common repast of the whole party.----Drayton relates another legend,
which runs as follows:--
“There is an aged cell, with Moss and Ivy grown,
In which not to this day the sun has ever shone.
That reverend British saint, in zealous ages past,
To contemplation lived, and did so truly fast,
As he did only drink what crystal Hodney yields,
And fed upon the Leeks he gathered in the fields;
In memory of whom, in each revolving year,
The Welshmen on his day that sacred herb do wear.”
Pliny states that Nero brought Leeks into great repute among the Romans
by eating them with oil to clear his voice for singing. His folly in
this respect obtained for him the satirical name of _Porrophagus_, the
Leek Eater. Martial, referring to the disagreeable effects of the Leek
upon the breath of the eater, says:--
“The juice of Leeks who fondly sips,
To kiss the fair, must close his lips.”
----In Poland, the flower-stalk of the Leek is placed in the hands
of the statues of our Saviour on certain special days, to represent
the Reed given to Him at the Crucifixion.----Among the Sicilians,
the mother of the Apostle Peter is the subject of many legends. She
is always represented as bad and niggardly. The only thing she ever
gave away was the leaf of a Leek, which she flung to a beggar, who
importuned her one day as she was washing her potherbs. When she died,
hell received her. Years afterwards, Peter, the doorkeeper of Paradise,
heard a piteous voice saying: “Son Peter, see what torments I am in.
Go, ask the Lord to let me out.” So Peter went and asked. But the Lord
said: “She never did a nail-paring of good. Except this Leek-leaf,
she never once gave a scrap away. However, here is a Leek-leaf: this
angel shall take it, and shall tell her to lay hold of the other end,
while he pulls her up.” So Peter’s mother grasped the Leek-leaf; but
all the souls in torment ran after her, and clung to her skirts, so
that the angel was dragging quite a string of them after her. Her evil
disposition, however, would not permit her to keep quiet. It grieved
her avaricious temperament that anyone besides herself should be saved;
so she struggled and kicked, in order to shake the poor souls off, and
in so doing tore the saving Leek-leaf, and fell back again, and sank
deeper than before.
=LENT LILIES.=--The Daffodil is the Lent Lily. Mingled with Yew, which
is the emblem of the Resurrection, it forms an appropriate decoration
for Easter. Lent Lilies are called by the French _Pauvres Filles de
Ste. Clare_. (See NARCISSUS).
=LENTIL.=--Like almost all vegetables, Lentils are traditionally
regarded as funereal plants: formerly they were forbidden at all
sacrifices and feasts.----St. Hilarion, when he arrived at man’s
estate, subsisted for three years upon Lentils steeped in cold
water.----To dream of Lentils is supposed to indicate sorrow and
anxiety.
=LETTUCE.=--Pythagoras, we are told, was extremely fond of Lettuces,
which formed a large portion of his diet; but Eubulus is said to have
bitterly reproached his wife for having served up at a meal Lettuces,
which were only recommended for funeral repasts.----The ancients
considered the Lettuce (_Lactuca_) as an aliment appropriate in times
of mourning, and they employed it largely in their funeral repasts in
commemoration of the death of Adonis, son of Myrrha, whom Venus had
concealed in a bed of Lettuces, and whose death had occurred from a
wound inflicted by a wild boar that had come to feed on the Lettuces,
and so surprised the beautiful youth.----Another legend states that
the young man hidden by Venus in the Lettuce bed was Phaon, the
handsome boatman of Lesbos, and not Adonis.----In mediæval days, it
was superstitiously thought that an evil spirit lurked in a bed of
Lettuces, and a species known by women as _Astylida_ was believed to
affect mothers adversely, and to cause grievous ills to newly-born
infants. Perhaps this may account for a saying often heard at Richmond,
Surrey:--“O’er-much Lettuce in the garden will stop a young wife’s
bearing.”----The old poets prescribed a bed of Lettuce for those who
were unable to obtain repose; and Pliny states that Lettuces of all
descriptions were thought to cause sleep. Pope, referring to its
soporific qualities, has said of the Lettuce:--
“If your wish be rest,
“Lettuce and Cowslip wine, _probatum est_.”
Gerarde remarks that, if eaten after supper, this vegetable prevents
the drunkenness resulting from too free indulgence in wine.----Lettuce
is stated by the Mishna to be one of the five “bitter herbs” ordered
to eaten by Jews at the Feast of the Passover.----To dream of eating
salads made of Lettuce, &c., is supposed to portend trouble and
difficulty in the management of affairs.
=LILY.=--The white Lily (_Lilium candidum_) was held in the highest
regard by the heathen nations; it was one of the flowers employed
to form the couch of Jupiter and Juno, and under the name of _Rosa
Junonis_ was consecrated to the imperious queen of the heavens, from
whose milk, indeed, the flower is stated to have originally sprung. The
legend is as follows:--Jupiter being desirous of rendering the infant
Hercules immortal, that he might rank among the divinities, caused
Somnus to prepare a nectareous sleeping-draught, which he persuaded
Juno to take. The Queen of the Gods fell immediately into a profound
slumber, and Jupiter then placed the little Hercules to the celestial
breast, in order that the babe might imbibe the ambrosial milk that
would ensure its immortality. The infant, over-eager to enjoy the
delightful nutriment, drew the milk faster than he could swallow, and
some drops falling to the earth, there immediately sprang from it the
white Lily, the emblem of purity: some of the milk is also said to have
dropped over that portion of the heavens which, from its whiteness,
still retains the name of the Milky Way (_lactea via_). Another version
of the myth states that originally all the Lilies were Orange-coloured,
but that those on which Juno’s milk fell were rendered white, and
produced the _Lilium candidum_.----The Lily was doubtless cultivated by
the ancient Egyptians, and probably held in great esteem, for we find
it appearing in their hieroglyphical representations, and may therefore
conclude that the flower possessed some special significance. With
the Greeks and Romans, the Lily was a favourite flower, and Columella
tells us that the latter were wont to preserve Lilies by planting them
in baskets. The frequent allusions made to the plant in the Scriptures
are sufficient proof that the Hebrew race thought highly of the beauty
and grace of the Lily. In their language, the name Susannah signifies
a Lily. There are great diversities of opinion as to what was the
particular Lily alluded to by our Saviour when He said, “Consider the
Lilies of the field.” Some think the Tulip, others the _Amaryllis
lutea_, others again the white Lily to be the flowers to which Solomon
in all his glory was not to be compared.----In nearly every Catholic
country, the White Lily is dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and is held
to be emblematic of her purity: hence the flower is frequently used to
decorate her shrine, and especially so on the feast of the Visitation
of Our Lady and the Annunciation. The Continental order of the Blessed
Lady of the Lily was instituted by Garcia, fourth King of Navarre, on
account of an image of the Holy Virgin being miraculously found, as it
was reported, in a Lily, which is believed to have cured this prince
of a dangerous disorder.----Rapin, the French Jesuit poet, has the
following lines on the Lily, which he evidently confounds with the
Iris, or _Fleur de Luce_ (see IRIS), as being the representative flower
of the French nation. He says:--
“With Lilies our French monarchs grace their crown,
Brought hither by the valiant Hector’s son,
From Trojan coasts, when Francus forc’d by fate
Old Priam’s kingdom did to France translate:
Or, if we may believe what legends tell,
Like Rome’s Ancilia, once from heav’n they fell.
Clovis, first Christian of our regal line,
Of heav’n approved, received the gift divine
With his unblemished hands, and by decree
Ordained this shield giv’n by the gods should be
Preserved, the nation’s guard to late posterity.”
The Roman Catholics assigned to the Madonna, as Queen of Heaven, the
White Lily (_Lilium candidum_), the symbol of purity, and it is the
flower appropriated to the Annunciation and to the Visitation of Our
Lady. According to the Romish legend, St. Thomas, who was absent at
the death of the Virgin, would not believe in her resurrection, and
desired that her tomb should be opened before him; and when this was
done, it was found to be full of Lilies and Roses. Then the astonished
Thomas, looking up to heaven, beheld the Virgin ascending, and she,
for the assurance of his faith, flung down to him her girdle.----In a
picture by Gozzoli, in the National Gallery, representing St. Jerome
and St. Francis kneeling at the foot of the Virgin, a red Rose-bud
has sprung up at the knees of St. Jerome, and a tall White Lily at
those of St. Francis--these flowers typifying the love and purity of
the Virgin Mother. In the works of Italian masters, a vase of Lilies
stands by the Virgin’s side, with three flowers crowning three stems.
St. Joseph, husband of the Virgin Mary, is depicted with the Lily in
his hand; his staff, according to the legend, having put forth Lilies.
Later painters of this school depict the angel Gabriel with a branch
of White Lilies.----As the emblem of purity and chastity, the Lily
is associated with numbers of saints, male and female; but, being
consecrated to the Virgin, it is always placed, in the paintings of
the early Italian masters, near those saints who were distinguished
by their devotion to the Mother of Jesus, as in the pictures of St.
Bernard.----As protector of youth, St. Louis de Gonzague bears a Lily
in his hand, and the flower is also dedicated to St. Anthony, as a
guardian of marriages. The flower is likewise the characteristic of St.
Clara, St. Dominick, and St. Katherine of Siena. The crucifix twined
with the Lily signifies devotion and purity of heart: it is given
particularly to St. Nicholas of Solentine.----Lilies being emblematic
of the Virgin, an order of knighthood was instituted by Ferdinand of
Aragon, in 1403, called the “Order of the Lily,” the collar of which
was composed of Lilies and gryphons.----From the Virgin being the
patron Saint of Dundee, that town bears Lilies on its arms.----To dream
of Lilies during their blooming season is reputed to foretell marriage,
happiness, and prosperity; but a vision of Lilies out of their season,
or withered, signifies frustration of hopes, and the death or severe
illness of someone beloved.----Astrologers state that Lilies are under
the dominion of the Moon.
=LILY OF THE VALLEY.=--In mediæval days, the monks and nuns believed
that the _Convallaria_ was the Lily of the Valley mentioned in the
Canticles (ii., 17), and the flower alluded to by Christ when he bade
his disciples “consider the Lilies of the field.” The Martagon Lily,
however (_Lilium Chalcedonicum_), is now generally considered to be the
Lily of Palestine; the Lily of the Valley, or Conval Lily, being quite
unknown in the Holy Land.----Lilies of the Valley are called Virgin’s
Tears; they are the flowers dedicated to Whitsuntide, but in some parts
of England still retain their old name of May Lilies.----There exists
in Devon a superstition that it is unlucky to plant a bed of Lilies
of the Valley, as the person doing so will probably die in the course
of the ensuing twelve months.----In France, Germany, and Holland,
these Lilies are called May-flowers.----The blossoms possess a perfume
highly medicinal against nervous affections. The water distilled
from them was formerly in such great repute that it was kept only in
vessels of gold and silver: hence Matthiolus calls it _aqua aurea_.
It was esteemed as a preventive against all infectious distempers.
Camerarius recommends an oil made of the flowers as a specific against
gout and such-like diseases. His prescription is as follows:--“Have
filled a glass with flowers, and being well stopped, set it for a
moneth’s space in an ante’s hill, and after being drayned cleare, set
it by for use.”----There is a legend in Sussex, that in the forest
of St. Leonard, where the hermit-saint once dwelt, fierce encounters
took place between the holy man and a dragon which infested the
neighbourhood; the result being that the dragon was gradually driven
back into the inmost recesses of the forest, and at last disappeared.
The scenes of their successive combats are revealed afresh every year,
when beds of fragrant Lilies of the Valley spring up wherever the earth
was sprinkled by the blood of the warrior saint.----The Conval Lily is
under Mercury.
=LIME-TREE.=--The origin of the Lime-tree, according to Ovid, is to
be traced to the metamorphosis of Baucis, the good-hearted wife of
an aged shepherd named Philemon. This old couple lived happily and
contentedly in a humble cottage in the plains of Phrygia. Here they
one day, with rustic hospitality, entertained unknowingly the gods
Jupiter and Mercury, who had been refused admittance to the dwellings
of their wealthier neighbours. Appreciating their kindness, Jupiter
bade them ascend a neighbouring hill, where they saw their neighbours’
dwellings swept away by a flood, but their own hut transformed into a
splendid temple, of which the god appointed them the presiding priests.
According to their request, they both died at the same hour, and were
changed into trees--Baucis into a Lime, and Philemon into an Oak. Ovid
thus describes the transformation:--
“Then, when their hour was come, while they relate
These past adventures at the temple gate,
Old Baucis is by old Philemon seen
Sprouting with sudden leaves of sprightly green:
Old Baucis looked where old Philemon stood,
And saw his lengthened arms a sprouting wood;
New roots their fastened feet begin to bind.
Their bodies stiffen in a rising rind.
Then, ere the bark above their shoulders grew,
They give and take at once their last adieu.
At once, farewell, O faithful spouse! they said,
At once th’ incroaching rinds their closing lips invade.
Ev’n yet an ancient Tyanæan shows
A spreading Oak that near a Linden grows.”
Rapin, in his version of the tale, makes both of the old folks become
Limes, male and female:--
“While these you plant, Philemon call to mind,
In love and duty with his Baucis joined--
A good old pair whom poverty had tried,
Nor could their vows and nuptial faith divide;
Their humble cot with sweet content was blest,
And each benighted stranger was their guest.
When Jove unknown they kindly entertained,
This boon the hospitable pair obtained,
Laden with years, and weak through length of time,
That they should each become a verdant Lime
And since the transformation Limes appear
Of either sex; and male and female are.”
In honour of its descent from the worthy old couple, the Lime became
the symbol of wedded love.----In Scandinavian mythology, Sigurd, after
having killed the serpent Fafnir, bathes himself in its blood: a leaf
of a Linden or Lime-tree falls on him between his shoulders, and
renders that particular place vulnerable, although every other portion
of his body had become invulnerable.----In Germany, during May-day
festivities, they often make use of the Linden. Around the Linden
dance the villagers of Gotha. In Finland and in Sweden, the Linden is
considered as a protective tree.----In the cemetery of the hospital of
Annaberg, in Saxony, there is a very ancient Linden-tree, concerning
which tradition relates that it was planted by an inhabitant, with
its top in the ground; and that its roots became branches, which now
overshadow a considerable portion of the country.----At Süderheistede,
in Ditmarschen, there once stood a Linden which was known throughout
the country, as the “Wonderful Tree.” It was much higher than other
trees, and its branches all grew crosswise. Connected with this tree
was an old prophecy that, as soon as the Ditmarschens lost their
freedom, the tree would wither; and so it came to pass. But the people
believe that a magpie will one day build its nest in its branches,
and hatch five young ones, and then the tree will begin to sprout
out anew, and again be green, and the country recover its ancient
freedom.----According to an old legend current in Berlin, the youngest
of three brothers fell in love with the daughter of an Italian, who was
the Elector’s chief kapellmeister. The Italian refused the hand of his
daughter, and forbade any further intercourse. Some time afterwards
the three brothers met the kapellmeister on the occasion of a public
execution; when, suddenly, the assembled crowd were horrified at seeing
the Italian fall with a loud shriek, and pointing to a knife which had
been plunged into his bosom. The brothers were all three arrested on
suspicion of the murder; and the eldest, who had been standing nearest
the deceased, was speedily sentenced to death. The two other brothers,
to save him, however, each declared he was the real murderer, whereupon
the perplexed judge referred the case to the Elector, who resolved upon
a curious ordeal to ascertain the truth. He ordered each of the three
brothers to carry a Linden-tree to a certain churchyard, and plant it
with its head downwards, adding, that the one whose tree did not grow
should be executed as the murderer. Accordingly, the brothers proceeded
to the churchyard, accompanied by the clergy, the magistrates, and many
citizens; and, after hymns had been sung, they planted their trees;
after which solemn act, they were allowed to return home, and remained
unguarded. In course of time, the upper branches of the Lindens all
struck root, and the original roots were transformed into branches,
which, instead of growing upwards, spread horizontally, in rich
luxuriance, and, in thirty years, overshadowed the churchyard. They
have since perished, but the brothers were ennobled by the Elector as
Lords of Linden, and bore the effigy of the marvellous trees on their
escutcheon. The youngest afterwards married the Italian’s daughter.
LING.--See Heather.
=LIVELONG.=--The name of Livelong, or Liblong, is supposed to have been
given to the _Sedum Telephium_ from its remaining alive when hung up in
a room. Parkinson, in his ‘_Paradisus_,’ states that the ladies of his
time (1629) called the plant Life Everlasting; and remarks that “they
are also laid in chests and wardrobes, to keep garments from moths,
and are worne in the heads and arms of gentiles and others, for their
beautiful aspect.” The plant is much esteemed for divining purposes.
(See ORPINE).
=LONDON PRIDE.=--A speckled Sweet John had formerly the honour of being
called London Pride, and a red Sweet William, London Tufts. _Saxifraga
umbrosa_ now bears the title of London Pride, not, however, because,
like the speckled Sweet John, it was the pride and ornament of old
London gardens, but because it was introduced by Mr. London, a partner
in the firm of London and Wise, Royal Gardeners in the early part of
the eighteenth century. (See SAXIFRAGE.)
LONG PURPLES.--See Orchis.
LORDS-AND-LADIES.--See Arum.
=LOOSESTRIFE.=--The word Loosestrife is a translation of the plant’s
Latin name _Lysimachia_ (from the Greek _lysis_, dissolution, and
_mache_, strife). Gerarde, who calls the plant, also, Willow-herb, says
of it:--“Lysimachia, as Dioscorides and Pliny write, tooke his name of
a speciall vertue that it hath in appeasing the strife and unrulinesse
which falleth out among oxen at the plough, if it be put about their
yokes; but it rather retaineth and keepeth the name _Lysimachia_, of
King Lysimachus, the sonne of Agathocles, the first finder-out of the
nature and vertues of this herbe.” He adds that the smoke of the herb
when burnt will drive away gnats, flies, all manner of venomous beasts,
and serpents; and says that Pliny reports that snakes will crawl away
at the smell of Loosestrife.
=LOTOS-TREE.=--Lotis, the beauteous daughter of Neptune, was
unfortunate enough to attract the notice of Priapus, who attempted to
offer her violence. Flying terrified from the deformed deity, the nymph
invoked the assistance of the gods to save herself from his odious
importunities: her prayers were heard, and she was transformed into the
Lotos-tree. Dryope, the wife of Andræmon, passing the tree one day,
in company with her sister Iole, stopped to pluck the fruit to please
her infant son Amphisus, whereupon she became suddenly changed into a
Lotos-tree. Iole afterwards recounted her fate to Alcmena--
“But, lo! I saw (as near her side I stood)
The violated blossoms drop with blood;
Upon the tree I cast a frightful look,
The trembling tree with sudden horror shook,
Lotis, the nymph (if rural tales be true)
As from Priapus’ lawless lust she flew,
Forsook her form; and, fixing here, became
A flow’ry plant, which still preserves her name.
This change unknown, astonished at the sight,
My trembling sister strove to urge her flight;
Yet first the pardon of the nymph implored,
And those offended sylvan powers adored:
But when she backward would have fled, she found
Her stiffening feet were rooted to the ground.”--_Ovid._
The tree into which the nymph Lotis was transformed must not be
confounded with the Lotus Lily, or Sacred Bean, a totally distinct
plant: it was the _Rhamnus Lotus_, the Lotos of the Lotophagi, a
people inhabiting the coast of Africa near the Syrtes. Pliny states
that not far from the lesser Syrtis is the island of Menynx, surnamed
Lotophagitis on account of its Lotos-trees; but Strabo affirms that the
lesser Syrtis, in addition to the adjacent isle of Menynx, was thought
to be Lotophagitis, the land of the Lotos-eaters. In this country, he
says, there are certain monuments to be seen, and an altar to Ulysses,
besides a great abundance of Lotos-trees, whose fruit is wonderfully
sweet. According to Homer, the Lotos-eater became oblivious of the
world and its cares; and he relates how the seductive fruit of the
Lotos-tree possessed of old so potent a charm, that Ulysses, when
returning from the Trojan war, dreaded it would lure his companions to
give up home and friends for ever. In the ninth book of the Odyssey,
the poet sings--
“And whoso tasted of their flowery meat
Cared not with tidings to return, but clave
First to that tribe, for ever fain to eat--
Reckless of home return--the tender Lotos sweet.”
Gerarde describes the Lotos-tree as being as big as a Pear-tree, of a
“gallant greene colour tending to blewnesse,” with leaves similar to
the Nettle, dashed here and there with stripes of a yellowish-white
colour. “The beries be round, and hang upon long stalks like Cherries,
of a yellowish-white colour at the first, and afterwards red, but being
ripe they are somewhat black.” The Lotos-eaters were held to have
immunity from all stomachic complaints. The fruit which formed their
food is described by Theophrastus as being of the size of a Bean, which
changed its colour when ripening, like the Grape. In flavour it was
sweet, pleasant, harmless, and perfectly wholesome; the most agreeable
sort being that which had no kernel. Whole armies were reported to have
been fed with the nutritious food afforded by the Lotos, when passing
through Africa. The Lotophagi obtained a wine from their beloved fruit,
which, however, Cornelius Nepos says would not endure above ten days.
The Lotos and its fruit is dwelt upon by Tennyson, who tells how
“The mild-eyed melancholy Lotos-eaters came,
Branches they bore of that enchanted stem,
Laden with flowers and fruit, whereof they gave
To each; but whoso did receive of them
And taste, to him the gushing of the wave
Far, far away did seem to mourn and rave
On alien shores.”
The Lotos was considered by Theophrastus to be by nature everlasting.
Pliny enumerates several very ancient trees growing in Rome, notably
one in Vulcan’s temple built by Romulus, which was reputed to be as old
as the city.----It was under the Lotos-tree, beyond which there is no
passing, that Mahomed saw the angel Gabriel.
=LOTUS.=--The Lotus, as described by Herodotus, is the “Water Lily
that grows in the inundated lands of Egypt”: it is the _Nymphæa Lotus_
of Linnæus, and, according to Grecian mythology, owed its origin to
a young girl who was deeply in love with Hercules, and who, dying of
jealousy, was transformed into the Lotus. With the Greeks, the flower
was the symbol of beauty and of eloquence, perhaps because it was
reputed to flourish in the fields of Helicon. Young girls twined these
flowers into garlands. Theocritus writes of maidens carrying a crown
of Lotus for the Princess Helen on her marriage with Menelaus. In a
painted temple at Pompeii, the Lotus-flower is represented above a geni
or winged god.----The Grecian god of silence (Harpocrates), who was of
Egyptian origin, is represented sometimes with a Lotus-flower in his
left hand; sometimes seated on a Lotus.----But it is in the East where
the Lotus is supreme--a sacred plant not merely revered as a symbol,
but even the object of worship in itself, and notably in Hindostan,
Thibet, and Nepaul, where it is believed that from its mystic blossom
came forth the all-powerful Brahma. In the Hindu theology, OM is the
one Supreme Being from whom proceed the great deities Brahma (creator),
Vishnu (preserver), and Siva (destroyer). Before the creation of this
world, there existed an immense sea covering its surface; on this vast
sea moved the spirit of OM, and quickened into life a golden Lotus,
resplendent as the sun, from which emanated the four-formed creative
god Brahma, who by the radiance of his countenance dispelled the
pervading gloom, and by the light and warmth of his divine presence
evoked the earth from the surrounding waters. Vishnu, the pervader or
preserver, is represented with four arms: from his umbilicus springs
a Lotus-plant, in the beautiful calyx of which Brahma appears seated,
ready to accomplish the work of creation. The breath of Vishnu is like
the perfume of the Lotus, and he rests and walks, not on the earth,
but on nine golden Lotus-plants, carried by the gods themselves. The
heaven of Vishnu is described in the _Mahâbhârata_ as blazing with
golden edifices studded with innumerable gems. Descending from the
superior heaven the waters of the Ganges flow through this Paradise,
and here are also lovely diminutive lakes of water, upon the surfaces
of which myriads of red, blue, and white Lotus-flowers, with a thousand
petals, are seen floating. On a throne glorious as the meridian sun,
seated on Lotus-lilies, is Vishnu, and on the right hand is his wife,
the goddess Lakshmî, also seated in a Lotus, shining like a continued
blaze of lightning, while from her beauteous form the fragrance of the
Lotus is diffused through the heaven. Siva, the destroyer (the third
member of the Hindoo triad), is represented in many ways, but generally
with three eyes; his favourite seat is a Lotus. Buddha, an emanation
from Vishnu, like Brahma, first appeared on this hemisphere floating on
an enormous Lotus, which spread itself over the ocean. Buddha had for
his symbol a Lotus, surmounted by a trident (typical of the Sun with
a flame, or the superior heaven).----The emblem of the Sun was called
_Sûramani_ (the jewel of the Sun), but when the _Svâbhâvikas_ adopted
the Lotus as their symbol of spontaneous generation, they called this
ornament _Padmi Mani_ (jewel of the Lotus), and inscribed their temples
with these words:--
AUM MANI PADMI HOONG.
_Jehovah_ _The Jewel_ _Lotus_ _Amen._
This sentence forms the Alpha and Omega of Lama worship, and is
unceasingly repeated by the devotees of Thibet and the slopes of
the Himalayas. For the easy multiplication of this prayer, that
extraordinary contrivance, the praying-wheel, was invented. In
accordance with the principles of this belief, Jin-ch’au represents all
creation as a succession of worlds, typified by Lotus-flowers, which
are contained one within the other, until intelligence is lost in the
effort to multiply the series _ad infinitum_.----A legend connected
with Buddha runs as follows:--In an unknown town, called _Bandnumak_,
Bipaswi Buddh arrived one day, and having fixed his abiding place on a
mountain to the east of _Nâg-Hrad_, saw in a pool a seed of the Lotus
on the day of the full moon, in the month of _Chait_. Soon afterwards
from this Lotus-seed sprang a Lotus-flower, in the middle of which
appeared Swayambhû, in the form of a luminary, on the day of the full
moon in the month of _Asvins_.----Another Buddhist legend relates that
the King Pându had the imprudence to burn a tooth of Buddha, which was
held in high reverence among the Kalingas: but a Lotus-flower sprang
from the middle of the flame, and the tooth of Buddha was found lying
on its petals.----In Eastern India, it is popularly thought that the
god Brahma first appeared on a sea of milk, in a species of Lotus of
extraordinary grandeur and beauty, which grew at Temerapu, and which
typified the umbilicus of that ocean of sweetness. To that flower is
given eighteen names, which celebrate the god’s different beauties;
and within its petals he is believed to sleep during six months of
the year.----Kâmadeva, the Indian Cupid, was first seen floating
down the sacred Ganges, pinioned with flowers, on the blossom of a
roseate Lotus.----The Hindus compare their country to a Lotus-flower,
of which the petals represent Central India, and the eight leaves
the surrounding eight divisions of the country. The sacred images of
the Indians, Japanese, and Tartars are nearly always found seated
upon the leaves of the Lotus.----The sacred Lotus, as the hallowed
symbol of mystery, was deemed by the priests of India and China an
appropriate ornament for their religious structures, and hence its
spreading tendrils and perfect blossoms are found freely introduced
as architectural enrichments of the temples of the East.----Terms
of reverence, endearment, admiration, and eulogy have been freely
lavished by Indian writers on the flowers of the Lotus, dear to the
sick women of their race from the popular belief of its efficacy in
soothing painful feelings. Nearly every portion of the human body has
been compared by Indian poets to the Lotus; and in one of their works,
the feet of the angels are said to resemble the flowers of that sacred
plant.----The Persians represent the Sun as being robed with light
and crowned with Lotus.----By the Japanese, the Lotus is considered
as a sacred plant, and pleasing to their deities, whose images are
often seen sitting on its large leaves. The blossom is deemed by them
the emblem of purity because it is unsullied by the muddy waters in
which it often grows: with the flowers of the Mother-wort it is borne
aloft in vases before the body in funeral processions.----The Chinese
make the Lotus typical of female beauty: their god Puzza is always
represented as seated upon the leaves of the plant.----The Lotus is
stated to be held sacred by the Egyptians because it conceals the
secret of the gods; from the throne of Osiris, Isis, and Nephthys, it
rises in the midst of the waters, bearing on the margin of its blossom
the four genii. It is the “Bride of the Nile,” covering the surface of
the mighty river, as it rises, with its fragrant white blossom. Like
the Indians, the ancient Egyptians represented the creation of the
world under the form of a Nymphæa that floated on the surface of the
waters. The Lotus was consecrated by the Egyptians to the Sun, and the
dawn of day was figured by them as a youth seated upon a flower of the
Nymphæa. The god Osiris (the Egyptian Phœbus) is represented as having
his head decorated with the sacred Lotus. Oblations of flowers were
common among the offerings of the Egyptians to their gods. A papyrus in
the British Museum (lent by the Prince of Wales) represents the altar
of the god Re or Ra piled up with Lotus-blossoms and other offerings.
Upon approaching a place of worship, the ancient Egyptian always held
the flower of the Lotus or Agrostis in his hand. A single flower was
sometimes deemed a suitable oblation, or a bouquet of the Lotus or
Papyrus, carefully arranged in a prescribed form, was offered.----The
Lotus typified Upper Egypt; the Papyrus, Lower Egypt. In the British
Museum are several Egyptian statues with sceptres of the Lotus; and
a mummy with crossed arms, holding in each hand a Lotus-flower. In
the mummies of females the Lotus is found, placed there probably to
typify regeneration or purification. A bust of Isis emerging from
a Lotus-flower has often been mistaken for Clytie changing into a
Sunflower.----The Egyptians cultivated three species of Nymphæaceæ--the
_Nymphæa cerulea_, or blue-flowered Lotus; the _Nymphæa Lotus_, a
white-flowered variety, which still grows profusely in Lower Egypt, and
which is the flower represented in the mosaic pavement at Præneste;
and, lastly, the _Nelumbium speciosum_, or Sacred Bean--the “Rose Lily”
of Herodotus--the true Lotus of the Egyptians, whose blossoms are of a
brilliant red colour, and hang over broad peltated leaves: its fruit
is formed of many valves, each containing a Nut about the size of a
Filbert, with a taste more delicate than that of the Almond. It has
been thought that the use of the seeds in making bread, and the mode
of sowing them, by enclosing each seed in a ball of clay, and throwing
it into the water, may be alluded to in the text, “Cast thy bread
upon the waters, for thou shalt find it after many days.” The Nelumbo
maintains its sacred character in Africa, India, China, Japan, Persia,
and Asiatic Russia; it has, however, disappeared from Egypt.----The
Arabians call the Lotus, _Nuphar_; and the Syrians regard it as a
symbol of the cradle of Moses, and typify, also, the Ark of Noah by
the same flower.----The collar of the order of the Star of India is
composed of the heraldic Rose of England, two Palm-branches crossed,
and a Lotus-flower, alternating with each other.
=LOVE PLANTS.=--The _Clematis Vitalba_ was formerly called Love,
because of its habit of embracing; from its clinging to people,
the _Galium Aparine_ has obtained the name of Loveman; _Levisticum
officinale_ is Loveage; the _Solanum Lycopersicum_ is the Apple of
Love; _Nigella damascena_ is Love-in-a-mist; the Pansy is called
Love-in-idleness and Love-and-idle; and _Amaranthus caudatus_ has been
named Love-lies-bleeding, from the resemblance of its crimson flowers
to a stream of blood.
=LUCK-FLOWER.=--There is in Germany a favourite legend of a certain
mystical Luck-flower which possesses the extraordinary power of gaining
admittance for its owner into the recesses of a mountain, or hidden
cave, or castle, wherein vast treasures lie concealed. The legend
generally runs that the fortunate discoverer of the receptacle for
wealth is a man who has by chance found a beautiful flower, usually
a blue one, which he sticks in his hat. Suddenly the mountain he is
ascending opens to admit him; astounded at the sight, he enters the
chasm, and a white lady or fairy bids him help himself freely from the
heaps of gold coin he sees lying all around. Dazzled at the sight of so
much wealth, he eagerly fills his pockets, and is hastening away when
she calls after him, “_Forget not the best!_” He thinks, as he feels
his stuffed pockets, that he cannot find room for any more, but as he
imagines the white lady wishes to imply that he has not helped himself
to enough, he takes his hat and fills that also with the glittering
gold. The white lady, however, alluded to the little blue flower which
had dropped from his hat whilst he stooped to gather up the gold coins.
As he hurries out through the doorway the iron door shuts suddenly
behind him with a crash of thunder, and cuts off his right heel. The
mountain side instantly resumes its old impenetrable appearance, and
the entrance to the treasure hall can never be found again. As for the
wonderful flower, that has vanished, but is to this day sought for by
the dwellers on the Kyffhäuser, on the Quästenburg, and even on the
north side of the Harz. It was from this legend that, according to
Grimm, the little blue flower “Forget-me-not” originally received its
name, which at first was indicative of its magic virtue, but afterwards
acquired a sentimental meaning from the tale of the drowning lover of
the Danube and his despairing death cry.
LUNARY.--See Moonwort and Honesty.
=LUPINE.=--The Romans cultivated the Lupine (_Lupinus_) as an article
of food, and Pliny declared that nothing could be more wholesome than
white Lupines eaten dry, and that this diet imparted a fresh colour
and cheerful countenance.----The eating of Lupines was also thought
to brighten the mind and quicken the imagination. It is related of
Protogenes, a celebrated painter of Rhodes, that during the seven
years he was employed in painting the hunting piece of Ialysus, who
was the accredited founder of the State of Rhodes, he lived entirely
upon Lupines and water, with an idea that this aliment would give
him greater flights of fancy.----Virgil called the Lupine, _Tristis
Lupinus_, the Sad Lupine, and this expression has given rise to much
discussion--the only tangible explanation being that when the Lupine
pulse was eaten without preparation to destroy the bitter, it was
apt to contract the muscles and give a sorrowful appearance to the
countenance.----The seeds are said to have been used by the ancients,
in their plays and comedies, instead of pieces of money: hence the
proverb, _Nummus Lupinus_, a piece of money of no value.----The
Bolognese have a tradition that during the flight of the Holy Family
into Egypt, the Lupine received the maledictions of the Virgin Mary,
because, by the clatter and noise they made, certain plants of this
species drew the attention of Herod’s minions to the spot where the
tired and exhausted travellers had made a brief halt.
=LYCHNIS.=--The scarlet _Lychnis Coronaria_ is, in the Catholic
Church, dedicated to St. John the Baptist, and the text in which he is
described as “a light to them which sit in darkness,” being taken in
a literal sense, the flame-coloured flower was said to be lighted up
for his day, and was called _Candelabrum ingens_. This flower is also
called Rose-Campion, and, on the Continent, Cross of Jerusalem and
Cross of Malta. By old writers it was known as Flower or Campion of
Constantinople, Flower of Bristow, and Nonsuch.
=MAGNOLIA.=--The _Magnolia grandiflora_ is one of those shrubs the
baneful emanations from which have procured for them an ill name. It
is a native of Carolina, and has large white blossoms of powerful
fragrance. When wafted to a distance upon the air, the scent is
delicious, but when inhaled in the immediate neighbourhood of a group
of Magnolias in flower, it becomes overpowering. The Indians carefully
avoid sleeping under a Magnolia in blossom, and it is stated that so
powerful is the perfume of the flower, that a single blossom placed in
a bedroom suffices to cause death in one night.
MAGHET.--See Mayweed.
=MAHWAH.=--The _Bassia latifolia_, or Mahwah, is esteemed a sacred
tree in India, and is, besides, interesting as being one of the few
plants whose flowers are used as food by the human race. They are
eaten raw by the poor of India, and are also employed largely in the
distillation of a spirit somewhat resembling Scotch whiskey. A kind of
flour is produced from them when dried, and so valuable are they to
the Indians, that the prosperity of some parts of the country depends
largely on their abundance. The Almond-like fruit is eaten, and an
oil is obtained from it: the wood is hard, and is used by the Indians
in constructing their huts. Among certain uncivilised hill tribes, the
Mahwah is regarded as equal to a deity, so great is their affection
for this tree, under whose branches they hold their assemblies and
celebrate their anniversaries; on whose boughs they suspend, when not
in use, their spears and their ploughshares, and beneath whose shadow
they exhibit those mysterious circles of flint which take the place of
idols with them. So, when attacked by the Hindus, the wild tribes fight
with desperation for the defence of their Mahwahs, which their enemies,
when at war with them, make a point of seizing and destroying.
=MAIDENHAIR FERN.=--_Adiantum_, or _Capillus Veneris_, derived its name
from the Greek _adiantos_, unmoistened, in relation, doubtless, to its
property of repelling water--a peculiarity noticed by Theophrastus,
and also by Pliny, who says it is in vain to plunge the _Adiantum_
in water, for it always remains dry. This property of remaining
unmoistened by water was attributed to the hair of Venus, when she rose
from the sea; and hence the _Adiantum_ obtained the name of _Capillus
Veneris_. Nevertheless, _Adiantum_ was specially dedicated to Pluto
and to Proserpine. Maidenhair is called _polytrichon_, because it
brings forth a multitude of hairs; _callitrichon_, because it produces
black and fair hair; _Capillus Veneris_, because it produces grace and
love.----According to Egyptian symbolism, _Adiantum_ indicated recovery
from illness.----In the Catholic Church, the Maidenhair Fern is known
as the Virgin’s Hair.
=MAITHES or MAIDS.=--The _Pyrethrum Parthenium_ was formerly known
by the name of Maithes (Maids), because by the old herbalists it was
considered efficacious in hysterical and other irregularities of
the system to which maidens are subject. In the same category are
the plants formerly known as Maghet, Mather, or Maydweed (_Anthemis
Cotula_), the Maydweed (_Matricaria Chamomilla_), Maudlein, or
Costmary (_Balsamita_), Maudlin-wort or Moon Daisy (_Chrysanthemum
Leucanthemum_), the Maudlin, or _Herba divæ Mariæ_ (_Achillea
Ageratum_), the Marguerite (_Bellis perennis_), and some others.
These plants, bearing flowers with white ray florets, were thought to
resemble the Moon, which, as it regulated the monthly periods of the
year, was supposed, says Dr. Prior, to have an influence over female
complaints. By the ancients these plants were consecrated to Isis,
Juno Lucina, and Artemis, or Diana, the virgin goddess of the night;
but were transferred by the Catholics to St. Mary Magdalene and St.
Margaret of Cortona.
=MAIZE.=--The American aborigines worshipped Maize as a divinity.
Children were kept to watch the precious grain as it grew, and guard
it from the ravages of birds; but some of the tribes protected the
thievish crow because of the legend that a crow had brought them
the first seed of the sacred plant.----At the present day, the
Indians regard it with superstitious veneration. They esteem it, says
Schoolcraft, so important and divine a grain, that their story-tellers
invented various tales in which this idea is symbolised under the form
of a special gift from the Great Spirit. The Ojebwa-Algonquins, who
call it Mon-da-min, or the Spirit’s grain or berry, cherish a legend,
in which the stalk in full tassel is represented as descending from the
sky, under the guise of a handsome youth, in response to the prayers of
a young man offered up at his fast of virility.----Among the American
colonists, the husking of the Maize was always accompanied with a
rustic ceremony and gathering of the villagers.----Longfellow tells us
how--
“In the golden weather the Maize was husked, and the maidens
Blushed at each blood-red ear, for that betokened a lover;
But at the crooked laughed, and called it a thief in the cornfield.
Even the blood-red ear to Evangeline brought not her lover.”
=MALLOW.=--The ancient Romans had some kind of Mallow (_Malva_) served
up as vegetables, and the Egyptians, Syrians, and Chinese also use them
as food. In Job’s days, these plants were eaten by those wandering
tribes who, as the patriarch says, “cut up Mallows by the bushes, and
Juniper-roots for their meat.” The Mallow formed one of the funeral
flowers of the ancients, with whom it was customary to plant it around
the graves of departed friends. The plant yields a fibre capable of
being woven into a fabric; and there is an Eastern tradition that
Mahomed was so delighted with the texture of a robe made of this
material, that he forthwith miraculously turned the Mallow into a
Pelargonium. The seeds of the Mallow are called by country children,
cheeses. Clare recalls the days of his childhood, when he and his
playmates sat--
“Picking from Mallows sport to please,
The crumpled seed we call’d a cheese.”
Pliny ascribes a magical power to Mallows. He says, “Whosoever shall
take a spoonful of any of the Mallows shall that day be free from
all the diseases that may come unto him;” and he adds, that it is
especially good against the falling sickness. The same writer, quoting
Xenocrates, attributes to the seed of Mallows the power of exciting
the passions. Gerarde, writing of the _Malva crispa_, commends its
properties in verse:--
“If that of health you have any speciale care,
Use French Mallowes, that to the body holsome are.”
=MANCHINEEL.=--The Manchineel-tree (_Hippomane Mancinella_) is one of
ill repute. Its exhalations are stated to cause certain death to those
who sleep beneath its foliage. It abounds in a white milky juice, which
is highly poisonous; a single drop causing instant pain if it touches
the human skin.
=MANDRAKE.=--The _Atropa Mandragora_ derives its name from Atropos, the
eldest of the all-powerful Parcæ, the arbiters of the life and death of
mankind. Clothed in sombre black robes, and holding scissors in her
hands, Atropos gathers up the various-sized clues of thread which, as
the chief of the inexorable Fates, it is her privilege to cut according
to the length of the persons’ lives they represent.----Another name
bestowed by the Greeks upon the Mandrake was that of Circeium, derived
from Circe, the weird daughter of Sol and Perseis, celebrated for her
witchcraft and knowledge of magic and venomous herbs.----From the
earliest ages, the _Atropa Mandragora_ appears to have been deemed
a mystic plant by the inhabitants of Eastern countries, and to have
been regarded by them as stimulating the passions; on which account
it is still used for preparing love potions. It is generally believed
that the Mandrake is the same plant which the ancient Hebrews called
_Dudaim_; and that these people held it in the highest esteem in
Jacob’s time is evident from the notice in Genesis (xxx., 14) of Reuben
finding it and carrying the plant to his mother Leah. From the remotest
antiquity the Mandrakes were reputed in the East to possess the
property of removing sterility; hence Rachel’s desire to obtain from
Leah the plants that Reuben had found and given to his mother. It is
certain that the _Atropa Mandragora_ was looked upon by the ancients as
something more than a mere vegetable, and, in fact, as an embodiment of
some unquiet or evil spirit. In an Anglo-Saxon manuscript of the tenth
or eleventh century, the Mandrake is said to shine in the night like a
candle. The Arabs call it the Devil’s Candle, because of this nocturnal
shining appearance; and in allusion to this peculiarity, Moore says of
it in ‘Lalla Rookh’:--
“Such rank and deadly lustre dwells,
As in those hellish fires that light
The Mandrake’s charnel leaves at night.”
From times long past has come down the legend that the Mandrake is a
dweller in the dark places of the earth, and that it thrives under the
shadow of the gallows, being nourished by the exhalations or flesh
of the criminals executed on the gibbet. Amongst other mysterious
attributes, we are told by old writers that the Mandrake has the power
of emitting sounds, and that when it is pulled out of the ground, it
utters dreadful shrieks and groans, as if possessed of sensibility.
Shakspeare thus describes these terrible cries:--
“Would curses kill, as doth the Mandrake’s groan,
I would invent as bitter-searching terms,
As curst, and harsh, and horrible to hear.”
And Moore relates in verse another tradition--
“The phantom shapes--oh touch them not--
That appal the maiden’s sight,
Lurk in the fleshy Mandrake’s stem
That shrieks when plucked at night.”
These screams were so horrible and awe-inspiring, that Shakspeare tells
us the effect was maddening--
“And shrieks like Mandrakes, torn out of the earth,
That living mortals, hearing them, ran mad.”
One other terrible attribute of this ill-omened plant was its power, by
its pestilential effects, severely to injure, if not, indeed, to strike
with death, the person who had the hardihood to drag the root from its
bed. To guard against these dangers, therefore, the surrounding soil
was removed, and the plant securely fastened to the tail of a dog,
which was then driven away, and thus pulled up the root. Columella, in
his directions for the site of gardens, says they may be formed where
“The Mandrakes flowers
Produce, whose root shows half a man, whose juice
With madness strikes.”
The Romans seem to have been very superstitious as to the manner of
taking up the root. According to Pliny, those who undertook the office
were careful to stand so that the wind was at their back; and before
commencing to dig, they made three circles around the plant with the
point of the sword; then, turning to the west, they proceeded to take
it up. Probably the plant’s value as a narcotic and restorative alone
induced the gathering of so dangerous a root.----In mediæval times,
when ignorance and credulity were dominant in Europe, the mountebank
quack doctors palmed on the credulous fictitious Mandrake-roots,
which were largely sold as preventives against mischief and dangers.
Speaking of this superstition, Lord Bacon, in his ‘Natural History,’
says, “Some plants there are, but rare, that have a mossie or downie
root, and likewise that have a number of threads, like beards, as
Mandrakes, whereof witches and impostours make an ugly image, giving
it the forme of a face at the top of the root, and leave those strings
to make a broad beard down to the foot.”----Madame de Genlis speaks
of an author who gravely gives a long description of the little
idols which were supposed to be roots of the Mandrake, and adds that
they must be wrapped up in a piece of sheet, for that then they will
bring unceasing good luck. The same author, she says, gives this name
_Mandragora_ (Mandrake) to certain sprites that are procured from an
egg that must be hatched in a particular manner, and from which comes
forth a little monster (half chick and half man) that must be kept in
a secret chamber, and fed with the seed of Spikenard, and that then it
will prophesy every day. Thus it can make its master lucky at play,
discover treasures to him, and foretell what is to happen.----The
credulous people of some nations have believed that the root of the
Mandrake, if dislodged from the ground, becomes the good genius of
the possessor, and not only cures a host of maladies, but discovers
hidden treasures; doubling the amount of money locked up in a box,
keeping off evil spirits, acting as a love charm, and rendering other
notable services. According to Pliny, the Mandrake was sometimes
conformed like a man, at others like a woman: the male was white, the
female black. In the mountain of Pistoia, the peasants think they can
trace the form of a man in the leaves of the Mandrake, and of the
human face in the roots.----In Germany, since the time of the Goths,
the word _alruna_ has borne the double meaning of witch and Mandrake.
Considering the roots to possess magical properties, the Germans formed
from them little idols, to which they gave the name of _Alrunen_. These
images were regularly habited every day, and consulted as oracles;
their repute becoming very great, large numbers were manufactured and
sold in cases: in this state they were brought over to this country
during the reign of Henry VIII., and met with a ready sale. Fraudulent
dealers used to replace the Mandrake-roots with those of the White
Briony, cut to the shape of men and women, and dried in a hot sand
bath.----In France, under the names of _Main de gloire_ or _Maglore_,
the Mandrake became a species of elf; and, till the eighteenth century,
there existed a wide-spread superstition among the peasantry connected
therewith. Sainte-Palaye writes: “When I asked a peasant one day why
he was gathering Mistletoe, he told me that at the foot of the Oaks on
which the Mistletoe grew, he had a Mandrake (_Main de gloire_); that
this Mandrake had lived in the earth from whence the Mistletoe sprang;
that he was a kind of mole; that he who found him was obliged to give
him food,--bread, meat, or some other nourishment; and that he who
had once given him food was obliged to give it every day, and in the
same quantity, without which the Mandrake would assuredly cause the
forgetful one to die. Two of his countrymen, whom he named to me, had,
he said, lost their lives; but, as a recompense, this _Main de gloire_
returned on the morrow double what he had received the previous day. If
one paid cash for the _Main de gloire’s_ food one day, one would find
double the amount the following; and so with anything else. A certain
countryman, whom he mentioned as still living, and who had become very
rich, was believed to have owed his wealth to the fact that he had
found one of these _Mains de gloire_.”----The Chinese physicians assert
that the Mandrake has the faculty of renovating exhausted constitutions.
=MANGO.=--The Indian mythologists relate that the daughter of the
Sun, persecuted by a wicked enchantress, plunged into a pool, where
she was transformed into a golden Lotus. The king became enamoured of
the beautiful flower, so the enchantress burnt it; but from its ashes
rose the Mango (_Mangifera Indica_). Then the king fell in love, first
with the Mango-flower, and next with the fruit, which he ordered to be
carefully preserved for his own use. At last, just as the fruit was
ripe, it fell from the bough, and out of it issued the daughter of the
Sun, whom the king, after having lost and forgotten, now recognised as
his former wife.----The Indian poets are never tired of singing the
praises of the Mango, the beauty of its flowers, and the sweetness of
its fruit. The Indian Cupid Kâmadeva is represented as having five
arrows, each tipped with the blossom of a flower which pierce the heart
through one of the five senses. A young maiden once plucked one of
these blossoms, and offered it to the god, saying:--
“God of the bow, who with Spring’s choicest flowers
Dost point the five unerring shafts; to thee
I dedicate this blossom; let it serve
To barb thy truest arrow; be its mark
Some youthful heart that pines to be beloved.”
Kâmadeva accepted the offering, and tipped with the Mango-flower one
of his darts, which, from that time, was known as the arrow of love,
and is the god’s favourite dart. Along with Sandalwood, the wood of the
Mango is used by the Hindus in burning their dead. Among the Indian
jugglers, the apparent production and growth of the Mango-tree is a
performance executed in such a marvellous manner as to excite the
astonishment of those who have most determined to discover how the
illusion is effected.
=MANNA.=--Some naturalists consider that the Manna miraculously
provided for the sustenance of the Children of Israel in the Desert
was a species of Lichen--the _Parmelia esculenta_. Josephus, however,
describes it as a kind of dew which fell, like honey in sweetness and
pleasant taste, but like in its body to Bdellium, one of the sweet
spices, but in bigness equal to Coriander-seed. The origin of the
different species of Manna or sugary exudations which cover certain
trees, has at all times been a subject of wonder, and for a long time
it was thought that these saccharine tears, which appear so quickly,
were simply deposits from the atmosphere. The Manna used in medicine is
principally procured from the flowering Ash (_Fraxinus ornus_), which
is cultivated for the purpose in Sicily and Calabria: the puncture of
an insect of the cochineal family causes the sap to exude. The Manna
of Mount Sinai is drawn from the Tamarisk by puncture of the coccus:
it exudes in a thick syrup during the day, falls in drops, congeals in
the night, and is gathered in the cool of the morning. The Larch-tree
furnishes the Manna of Briançon. A sweet substance resembling Manna
exudes from the leaves of the _Eucalyptus resinifera_, dries in the
sun, and when the leaves are shaken by the wind, falls like a shower
of snow. In some countries, even herbs are covered with an abundant
sugary exudation similar to Manna. Bruce observed this in Abyssinia.
Matthiolus relates that in some parts of Italy the Manna glues the
grass of the meadows together in such a manner as to impede the mowers
at their work.----To dream of Manna denotes that you will be successful
through life, and overcome all troubles.
=MAPLE.=--The wood of the Maple (_Acer_) was considered by Pliny to
be, in point of elegance and firmness, next to the Citron itself. The
veined knobs of old Maples, known as the _bruscum_ and _molluscum_,
were highly prized by the Romans, and of these curiously-marked woods
were made the famous Tigrine and Pantherine tables, which were of such
immense value, that when the Romans reproached their wives for their
extravagance in jewels, they were wont to retort and (literally) “turn
the tables” upon their husbands. Evelyn tells us, that such a table
was that of Cicero, “which cost him 10,000 sesterces; such another had
Asinius Gallus. That of King Juba was sold for 15,000; and yet that
of the Mauritanian Ptolemy was far richer, containing four feet and
a half diameter, three inches thick, which is reputed to have been
sold for its weight in gold.”----Some centuries ago, Maple-wood was in
great request for bowls and trenchers. The unfortunate Fair Rosamond
is reputed to have drunk her fatal draught of poison from a Maple
bowl; and the mediæval drinking-vessels, known as mazers, were chiefly
made of this material--deriving their name from the Dutch _Maeser_,
Maple.----On May-day, in Cornwall, the young men proceed, at daybreak,
to the country, and strip the Maple (or Sycamore) trees--there called
May-trees--of all their young branches, to make whistles, and with
these shrill musical instruments they enliven their way home with “May
music.”----In Germany, the Maple is regarded with much superstitious
reverence. There existed formerly, in Alsace, a curious belief that
bats possessed the power of rendering the eggs of storks unfruitful.
When once a stork’s egg was touched by a bat, it became sterile;
and so, in order to preserve it, the stork placed in its nest some
branches of the Maple, and the wonderful power of this tree sufficed
to frighten away every intruding bat.----De Gubernatis relates a
Hungarian fairy tale, in which the Maple plays a conspicuous part.
According to this legend, a king had three daughters, one of whom, a
beautiful blonde, was in love with a shepherd, who charmed her with
delightful music he produced from a flute. One night, the king, the
princess, and the shepherd, were disturbed by disquieting dreams. The
king dreamt that his crown had lost its diamonds; the princess that
she had visited her mother’s tomb and was unable to get away from it;
the shepherd that two fallow deer had devoured the best lamb in his
flock. After this dream, the king called his three daughters to him,
and announced to them that she who should first bring to him a basket
of Strawberries should become his pet daughter, and inherit his crown
and seven kingdoms. The three daughters hastened to a neighbouring
hill to gather the Strawberries. There, setting down their baskets,
each one in turn wished that her basket might be filled with fruit.
The wishes of the two elder sisters were unheeded; but when it came to
the blonde’s turn, her wish was no sooner expressed, than her basket
was filled with Strawberries. At this sight, the two sisters, mad with
envy, fell upon the poor blonde, and slew her; then, having buried her
under an old Maple-tree, they broke her basket in two, and divided the
Strawberries between them. On their return to the palace, they told the
king that their sister had been devoured by a fallow deer. On hearing
this sad news, the unhappy father exclaimed: “Alas! I have lost the
most precious diamond of my crown.” At the approach of the new moon,
the shepherd took up his flute to play a tune; but it was mute, for
the fair princess was no longer there to listen to its tuneful notes.
Meanwhile, on the third night, there sprang from the stem of the old
Maple on the hill a new shoot, on the spot where the poor princess had
met her cruel death. The shepherd, happening to pass by, saw this fresh
shoot from the Maple, and thought he would make from it a new flute. So
he cut the Maple-shoot, and from it fashioned a flute; but the moment
he placed it to his lips, the flute sang, “Play, play, dearest. Once
I was a king’s daughter; then I was a Maple-shoot; now I am a flute
made from the Maple-shoot.” The shepherd rushed off with the flute
to the king, who put it to his lips, when instantly it sang, “Play,
play, my father. Once, &c.” Then the two wicked sisters approached,
and each in turn put the flute to her lips--only, however, to hear it
hiss, “Play, play, murderess. Once, &c.” Then the king, becoming aware
of the sisters’ wickedness, cursed them, and drove them with bitter
reproaches from his palace into the wide world.----The Maple has been
made the emblem of reserve, because its flowers are late in opening,
and slow to fall.----A curious belief exists in some parts of England,
that the Maple can confer longevity on children, if they are passed
through its branches. In West Grinstead Park, Sussex, was an old Maple
much used for this purpose, and, upon a rumour reaching the parish,
that the ancient tree was to be felled, many petitions were made that
it might be spared.----Pliny says that Maple-root, pounded, is a remedy
for pains in the liver, and Gerarde states that, steeped in wine, it is
useful in stopping pain in the side. He quotes a verse from Sammonicus,
which he thus translates:--
“Thy harmless side if sharp disease invade,
In hissing water quench a heated stone:
This drink. Or Maple-root in powder made,
Take off in wine, a present med’cine known.”
=MARGUERITE.=--The Daisy (_Bellis perennis_), which Chaucer called
“douce Margarette,” derives its French name of Marguerite from its
supposed resemblance to a pearl. In Germany, indeed, it is known as the
Meadow-pearl, and Chaucer, in describing the flower, says:--
“And of a perle fine orientall,
Her white croune was imaked all.”
The Greek word for pearl, _Margarites_, became in Latin _Margarita_,
remained the same in Italian, and in French was spelt _Marguerite_; the
same word in each language indicating both the pearl and the flower
we call Daisy. This flower was formerly employed in the treatment of
certain female complaints, and on that account, perhaps, was dedicated
by the Monks to St. Margaret of Cortona. Chaucer, in error, referred
the name Margaret, as bestowed on the Daisy, to St. Margaret of
Hungary, who was martyred in the thirteenth century; but in an old
legend it is stated
“There is a double flowret, white and red,
That our lasses call Herb Margaret,
In honour of Cortona’s penitent,
Whose contrite soul with red remorse was rent;
While on her penitence kind Heaven did throw
The white of purity surpassing snow;
So white and red in this fair flower entwine,
Which maids are wont to scatter at her shrine.”
This St. Margaret of Cortona, who in mediæval days was very popular,
had for some years, says Mrs. Jameson, led an abandoned life, but
having repented and been canonised, she was regarded by the people
of her native town as a modern Magdalene; and, like her prototype,
was supposed, on account of her early habits, to preside over uterine
diseases, and others peculiar to young women. The Daisy, and other
flowers which were supposed from their shape to resemble the Moon, were
by the ancients dedicated to the virgin goddess of the night, Artemis,
or Diana: but in Christian times were transferred to the two saints who
replace her, namely, St. Mary Magdalene and St. Margaret of Cortona.
Dr. Prior, in his work on plant names, points out that this latter
saint has often been confounded with a St. Margaret of Antioch, who was
“invoked as another Lucina, because in her martyrdom she prayed for
lying-in-women.” This maiden of Antioch is described in old metrical
legends as
“Maid Marguerite that was so meeke and milde.”
The Daisy has been connected with several eminent women of the name of
Margaret. Margaret of Anjou wore the flower as her device, and had it
embroidered on the robes of her courtiers. Lady Margaret, the mother of
Henry VII., wore three white Daisies; Margaret, the sister of Francis
I., also wore the Daisy, and was called by her brother his Marguerite
of Marguerites--his pearl of pearls. (See DAISY).
=MARIGOLD.=--The African Marigold (_Tagetes erecta_) is regarded as a
sacred flower in Northern India, where the natives adorn the trident
emblem of Mahâdeva with garlands of it; and both men and women wear
chaplets made of its flowers on his festival.----The Romans named the
European Marigold _Calendula_--the flower of the Calends--from a notion
that it blossoms the whole year.----In the oldest of English herbals,
the ‘Grete Herball,’ the Marigold is called Mary Gowles, but by the
old poets it is frequently alluded to as Gold simply, and it is still
called Goules or Goulans in some counties of England. Another old
English name for these flowers was Ruddes.----From its tawny yellow
blossom the Marigold is presumed to have been the _Chrusanthemon_, or
Gold Flower, of the Greeks.----In mediæval times, this flower, along
with numerous others, was dedicated by the monks and nuns to the
Virgin, and had the prefix Mary appended to its name. According to an
old tradition, however, the Marigold was so called because the Virgin
Mary wore this flower in her bosom.----Shakspeare, in ‘Cymbeline,’
speaks of the flower as the Mary-bud, and in ‘A Winter’s Tale,’ alludes
to its habit of closing at sunset and opening at sunrise:--
“The Marigold that goes to bed with the sun,
And with him rises weeping.”
Linnæus states that the flower is usually open from 9 a.m. till 3 p.m.,
and this foreshows a continuance of dry weather. Should the blossom
remain closed, rain may be expected. This circumstance, and the plant’s
habit of turning its golden face towards the sun, has gained for it the
name of the “Sun-flower” and the “Spouse of the Sun”.----Marguerite
of Orleans, the maternal grandmother of Henri IV., chose for her
armorial device a Marigold turning towards the sun, and for a motto,
“_Je ne veux suivre que lui seul_.”----In America, Marigolds are called
Death-flowers, in reference to an existing tradition that the crimson
and gold-coloured blossoms sprang upon ground stained by the life-blood
of those unfortunate Mexicans who fell victims to the love of gold and
arrogant cruelty of the early Spanish settlers in America.----In the
reign of Henry VIII., the Marigold was called _Souvenir_, and ladies
wore wreaths of them intermixed with Heart’s-ease.----To dream of
Marigolds appears to be of happy augury, denoting prosperity, riches,
success, and a happy and wealthy marriage.----The Marigold is deemed by
astrologers a Solar herb, under the sign Leo.
=MARJORAM.=--The origin of Marjoram (_Origanum vulgare_: Greek,
_Amarakos_) is related by the Greeks as follows:--A young man named
Amaracus was employed in the household of Cinyras, King of Cyprus:
one day, when carrying a vase containing perfumes, he unfortunately
let it fall, and was so frightened at the mishap that he lost all
consciousness, and became metamorphosed into an odoriferous herb called
at first _Sampsuchon_, and afterwards _Amarakos_. According to Rapin,
the goddess Venus first raised Sweet Marjoram. He says:--
“And tho’ Sweet Marjoram will your garden paint
With no gay colours, yet preserve the plant,
Whose fragrance will invite your kind regard,
When her known virtues have her worth declared:
On Simois’ shore fair Venus raised the plant,
Which from the goddess’ touch derived her scent.”
The Greeks and Roman crowned young married couples with Marjoram, which
in some countries is the symbol of honour.----Astrologers place the
herb under the rule of Mercury.
=MARSH MALLOW.=--The name _Althæa_ (from a Greek root meaning to cure)
was given to this plant on account of its manifold healing properties,
which were duly appreciated by the old herbalists. It was sometimes
called _Bismalva_, being held to be twice as good in medicinal
properties as the ordinary Mallow. As an ointment, it was celebrated
for mollifying heat, and hence it became invaluable as a protection to
those who had to undergo the ordeal of holding red-hot iron in their
hands. This ordeal was practised by the ancient Greeks; for we read in
the ‘Antigone’ of Sophocles, that the guards placed over the body of
Polynices--which had been carried away surreptitiously--offered, in
order to prove their innocence, to take up red-hot iron in their hands:
a similar ordeal was extant in the Middle Ages, when invalids and
delicate persons, particularly monks and ecclesiastics, were exempted
from the usual mode of single combat, and were required to test their
innocence by holding red-hot iron in their hands. These trials were
made in the church during the celebration of mass, inspection being
made by the clergy alone. The suspected person, therefore, if he had
any friends at hand, was easily shielded by covering his hand with a
thick coating of some substance which would enable him to resist the
action of heat. Albertus Magnus describes a paste compounded in the
thirteenth century for this express purpose. The sap of the Marsh
Mallow, the slimy seeds of a kind of Fleabane, and the white of a hen’s
egg, were combined to make the paste adhere, and the hands covered with
it were perfectly safe.----According to a German tradition, an ointment
made of the leaves of the Marsh Mallow was employed to anoint the
body of anyone affected by witchcraft.----The Marsh Mallow is held by
astrologers to be a herb of Venus.
=MARSH MARIGOLD.=--According to Rapin, the Sicilian shepherd Acis
originally discovered the Marsh Marigold (_Caltha_) growing in his
native pastures:--
“Nor without mention shall the _Caltha_ die,
Which Acis once found out in Sicily;
She Phœbus loves, and from him draws her hue,
And ever keeps his golden beams in view.”
The flower’s modern Italian name, _Sposa di Sole_, has probably been
given to it in reference to this legend. On May-day, country people
strew Marsh Marigolds before their doors, and twine them into garlands.
Some think the _Caltha palustris_ to be Shakspeare’s “winking May-bud
with golden eye,” which, if plucked with due care, and borne about,
will hinder anyone from speaking an angry word to the wearer.
=MASTIC.=--The Mastic or Pistachio-tree (_Pistacia Lentiscus_), the
symbol of purity and virginity, was particularly dear to Dictynna, a
nymph of Crete, and one of Diana’s attendants. Following her example,
the Greek virgins were fond of adorning themselves with Mastic-sprays;
and at the present time, in the isle of Chios, where the Mastic-tree
flourishes, they eat the gum to preserve sweetness of breath. The
Mastic is stated to have been under the special protection of Bacchus,
as being the tree under which the Bacchanals found and slew Pentheus,
King of Thebes, who had forbidden his subjects to acknowledge the new
god.
MATHER.--See Mayweed.
MAUDLEIN, MAUDELYNE, or _Maudlin_.--See Costmary.
MAUDLIN WORT.--See Moon Daisy.
=MAURITIA.=--The Moriche Palm (_Mauritia flexuosa_) is regarded as a
sacred tree by the Mexican Indians. Certain tribes live almost entirely
on its products, and, strange to say, build their houses high up
amongst its leaves, where they live during the floods. These Indians
have a traditional Deluge, which they call the Water Age, when there
was only one man and one woman left alive. To re-people the earth,
the Deucalion and Pyrrha of the new world, instead of stones, threw
over their shoulders the fruit of the Moriche Palm, and from its seeds
sprang the whole human race. The Moriche is regarded as a deity among
the Tamancas, a tribe of Oronoco Indians.
=MAY.=--The Hawthorn has obtained the name of May, or May-bush, from
the time of its flowering. In Suffolk, it is believed to be unlucky to
sleep in a room in which there is May in bloom. In Sussex, to bring
a branch of blossoming May into the house is thought to portend a
death. It was a custom in Huntingdonshire, forty years ago, for the
rustic swains to place a branch of May in blossom before sunrise at the
doorway of anyone they wished to honour, singing the while--
“A branch of May we have brought you,
And at your door it stands;
It is but a sprout,
But it’s well budded out,
By the work of our good Lord’s hands.”
An Italian proverb describes the universal lover as “one who hangs
every door with May.” (See HAWTHORN).
=MAYFLOWER.=--The Mayflower of New England, _Epigæa repens_, is the
emblem of Nova Scotia. The trailing Arbutus, or Mayflower, is a native
of North America; it grows abundantly in the vicinity of Plymouth,
Massachusetts, and was the first flower that greeted the Pilgrims after
their terrible winter.
=MAYWEED.=--The Mayweed, or more properly Maydweed (_Anthemis Cotula_),
owes its name to its having been formerly used for the complaints
of young women. In olden times, the plant was also known as Maghet,
and Mather or Mauther, words signifying a maid.----The flower is
distinguished as having, for its fairness, been likened to the brow of
the Northern divinity Baldr.----The _Matricaria Chamomilla_ is called
Stinking Maydweed. (See MAITHES, COSTMARY, and MOON DAISY.)
=MELON.=--According to a tradition of the Arabs, the Melon is to be
found in Paradise, where it signifies that God is One, and that Ali is
his true prophet.----Sebastian, a Roman traveller of the seventeenth
century, recorded that on Mount Carmel, in the Holy Land, he had seen
a field of Melons which had been turned into stones by the curse of
Elias.----An old Tuscan legend records how the wife of a certain
young king bore him three children, which were represented by the
Queen’s jealous sisters to be a cat, a piece of wood, and a snake.
The enraged king, upon this, cast his unfortunate wife into prison,
whilst the three infants were secured by the wicked sisters in a box,
and cast into the sea. A gardener found the box, and compassionating
the helpless babes, brought them up, and taught them to tend his
garden. Through the kindly offices of a good fairy, the king came to
dinner one day, and a large Water Melon was gathered from the garden
and placed before him. The king cut the Melon, when in place of seeds
he discovered inside a number of precious stones. In astonishment, he
demanded: “How is it possible that a Melon can produce gems?” Then the
good fairy responded: “And how, sire, is it possible that a woman could
give birth to a cat, a piece of wood, and a snake? Behold your three
children, and hasten, cruel man, to release the poor innocent queen.
The envy of her sisters has occasioned all this mischief.” The king was
deeply affected; he embraced his children, and forthwith hastened with
all speed to his wife, whose pardon he implored. Then he ordered public
fêtes and rejoicings to take place, but condemned the wicked sisters
to the stake.----According to dream oracles, a young woman who dreams
of Melons is destined to marry a rich foreigner, and to live with him
in a foreign land. If a young man dreams of Melons, it denotes that he
will marry a rich foreign lady, by whom he will have a large family,
but they will die young. If a sick person dreams of Melons, it is a
prognostic of recovery by reason of their humidity or juicy substance.
MIDSUMMER MEN.--See Orpine.
=MIGNONETTE.=--The Mignonette, or Little Darling, is supposed to be an
Egyptian plant, and to have been brought to England from the South of
France, where it is called _Herbe d’Amour_, or Love-flower. Although
a flower of no heraldic fame, the Mignonette is nevertheless, to be
seen on the armoured shield of a noble Saxon house, and the origin
of its adoption is related in the following legend:--A Count of
Walstheim was betrothed to Amelia von Nordburg, a young and beautiful
heiress, whose poor cousin Charlotte, an amiable girl of no particular
personal charms, had been brought up with her from infancy. Returning
one evening from a charitable visit, the humble dependent found her
aunt’s saloon full of guests, the ladies busily occupied in selecting
flowers for which their admirers were expected to improvise mottoes.
Charlotte was invited to follow the example of her betters. Amelia
von Nordburg had selected the Rose as her emblem, and her companions
had naturally chosen such popular flowers as were best calculated to
elicit gallant compliments. Thus most of the floral favourites had
been appropriated; so Charlotte placed a modest spray of Mignonette
in her dress. Noticing as she did so that her coquettish cousin was
neglecting the Count of Walstheim for the fascinations of a gallant
colonel, and anxious to recall the thoughtless heiress to her lover’s
side, Charlotte asked the Count what motto he had ready for the Rose.
Taking out his pencil, he wrote: “_Elle ne vit qu’un jour, et ne plait
qu’un moment_;” and then presented her with this motto for her own
Mignonette: “_Ses qualités surpassent ses charmes_.” His wilful fiancée
took offence at the Count’s discrimination, and revenged herself by
treating him with studied coldness and neglect; the result being that
the Count transferred his affections to the dependent Charlotte, whom
he soon afterwards married, and to celebrate the event added a spray of
Mignonette to the ancient arms of his family.
=MILK THISTLE.=--The Thistle _Silybum Marianum_ is called the Milk
Thistle from a supposition that it derived the colour of its leaves
from the Milk of the Virgin Mary having fallen on them as she suckled
the infant Jesus.
=MILKWORT.=--In olden times, the Milkwort (_Polygala vulgaris_),
bore the names of Cross-flower, Rogation-flower, Gang-flower, and
Procession-flower, which were given it because, according to ancient
usage, maidens made garlands of the flower, and carried them in
procession during Rogation Week. At this period it was customary to
offer prayers against plagues, fires, and wild beasts, and as the
bounds of the parish were traversed on one of the days, it was also
termed Gang Week. This custom was a relic of the ancient Ambarvalia.
The bishop, or one of the clergy, perambulated the limits of the parish
with the Holy Cross and Litanies, and invoked the blessing of God upon
the crops; on which occasion, Bishop Kennett tells us, the maidens made
garlands and nosegays of the Milkwort, which blossomed in Rogation
Week, the next but one before the Whitsuntide.----Gerarde relates that,
in Queen Elizabeth’s time, Milkwort-flowers were “vulgarly knowne in
Cheapside to the herbe women by the name of Hedge Hyssop.” The plant
was called Milkwort from an old belief that it increased the milk of
mothers who took it.----A Javanese species, _Polygala venenata_, is
greatly dreaded by the natives of Java for its poisonous effects;
violent sneezing and faintness seizes anyone touching the leaves of
this ill-omened plant.
=MILLET.=--According to Schlegel, Millet has, among the Chinese, given
its name to the constellation _Tien-tzi_, “Celestial Millet,” which
is composed of five stars, and presides at the grain harvest. Its
clearness and brilliance presage an abundant harvest, its absence
foretells famine. This constellation the Chinese consider as the
residence of the King of the Cereals.----The grain of Millet has
become proverbial as indicative of anything minute: possibly on this
account, Millet portends misery if seen in a dream.----There is a
legend in North Germany, that, long ago, a rich merchant had a fine
garden, in which was a piece of land sown with Millet. One day the
merchant discovered that a part of the Millet had been shorn during the
preceding night, so he set his three sons to watch in case the theft
should be repeated. Both the eldest and the second son fell asleep
during their respective vigils; and on each occasion the theft was
repeated, and further portions of the Millet disappeared. On the third
night, the youngest son, John, agreed to watch: he surrounded himself
with Thorns and Thistles, so that if he felt sleepy, and began to nod,
the Thorns should prick him, and thus keep him awake. At midnight
he heard a tramping, and then a sound of munching among the Millet:
pushing aside the Thorns, John sprang out from his hiding-place, and
saw a beautiful little colt feeding on the Millet. To catch the little
animal was an easy task, and it was soon safely locked up in the
stable. The merchant, overjoyed at the capture his vigilant son John
had made, made him a present of the colt, which he named Millet-thief.
Soon after this, the brothers heard of a beautiful princess who was
kept by enchantment confined in a palace that stood on the top of a
glass mountain, which no one, on account of its being so slippery,
could ascend; but it was said that whosoever should be so fortunate as
to reach its summit, and ride thrice round the palace, would disenchant
the princess and obtain her hand in marriage. Numbers had already
endeavoured to ride up the slippery mountain, but were precipitated
to its foot; and their skeletons lay bleaching all around. The three
brothers determined to try and ascend the mountain, but, alas, the two
eldest fell with their horses down the treacherous mountain side, and
lay sorely hurt. Then John saddled his little colt Millet-thief, and
to his delight, when ridden to the mountain, he easily rattled up to
its summit, and trotted round the palace three times as though he knew
the road perfectly. Soon they stood in front of the palace-gates, which
opened spontaneously, and the lovely princess stepped forth with a cry
of joy, as she recognised in Millet-thief her own little colt, who had
been accustomed to take her by night down the steep mountain, so that
she might enjoy a gallop across the green fields--the only indulgence
permitted her by the cruel enchanter. Then the princess bestowed her
hand upon her deliverer, and they lived happily, far removed from
worldly cares, in the palace on the glass mountain.
=MIMOSA.=--The _Mimosa Catechu_, according to Indian mythology, was
the tree which sprang from the claw lost by a falcon whilst engaged in
purloining the heavenly Soma, or Amrita, the drink of immortality.
The Vedas recount that, when the gods were pining for the precious
beverage, the falcon undertook to steal it from the demons who kept
it shut up: the attempt was successful, but the falcon, whilst flying
off with its prize, was wounded by an arrow discharged by one of
the demons, and lost a claw and a feather. They fell to earth, and
struck root there; the claw becoming the Indian Thorn-tree, or _Mimosa
Catechu_--the younger branches of which have straight thorns, that
afterwards become hooked, and bear a strong resemblance to a bird’s
claw.----Bishop Heber tells us that, whilst travelling in Upper India,
he saw, near Boitpoor, a Mimosa-tree, with leaves at a little distance
so much resembling those of the Mountain Ash, that he was for a moment
deceived, and asked if it did not bear fruit. The Bishop says: “They
answered no; but that it was a very noble tree, being called the
Imperial Tree for its excellent properties. That it slept all night,
and awakened, and was alive all day, withdrawing its leaves if any
one attempted to touch them. Above all, however, it was useful as a
preservative against magic. A sprig worn in the turban, or suspended
over the bed, was a perfect security against all spells, Evil Eye, &c.,
insomuch that the most formidable wizard would not, if he could help
it, approach its shade. One, indeed, they said, who was very renowned
for his power (like Lorinite, in the Kehama) of killing plants and
drying up their sap with a look, had come to this very tree and gazed
on it intently; but, said the old man, who told me this with an air
of triumph, look as he might, he could do the tree no harm. I was
amazed and surprised to find the superstition which in England and
Scotland attaches to the Rowan-tree here applied to a tree of nearly
similar form. What nation has, in this case, been the imitator? Or from
what common centre are these common notions derived?”----The _Mimosa
sensitiva_ is the true Sensitive Plant, which collapses its leaflets
upon the slightest touch (see SENSITIVE PLANT); and another member of
this singular family droops its branches whenever anyone approaches;
hence Moore has called it
“That courteous tree
Which bows to all who seek its canopy.”
Frankincense is the product of the Egyptian Mimosa, a tree spoken of by
Theophrastus as an Acanthus, and referred to by Virgil.
=MIMUSOPS.=--The _Mimusops Elengi_ is one of the sacred trees of India,
and dedicated to the god Krishna. An odoriferous water, highly prized,
is distilled from the flowers, and the astringent bark of the tree is
used medicinally.
=MINT.=--Ovid tells us, in his ‘Metamorphoses,’ that the nymph Minthe,
a daughter of Cocytus, was beloved of Pluto, and that Proserpine,
discovering her husband’s infidelity, transformed his mistress into the
herb which is called by her name.----In olden times, Mint (_Mentha_)
was called _Herba bona_ and _Herba sancta_, and the ancients were
wont to weave garlands of its foliage to be worn by brides--_corona
Veneris_. In later days, the herb was dedicated to the Virgin, under
the name of _Herba Sanctæ Mariæ_.----It was formerly customary to
strew the churches with Mint or other herbs or flowers. In ‘Appius and
Virginia,’ an old play, is an illustration of this custom:--
“Thou knave, but for thee ere this time of day
My lady’s fair pew had been strewed full gay
With Primroses, Cowslips, and Violets sweet,
With Mints, and with Marygold and Marjoram meet,
Which now lyeth uncleanly, and all along of thee.”
Among the women of the Abruzzi there exists a curious superstition. If,
whilst walking, they should chance to come across a plant of Mint, they
will bruise a leaf between their fingers, in order to ensure that, on
the day of their death, Jesus Christ will assist them.----In Holstein,
at the funeral of peasants, Mint is carried by youths attending the
ceremony.----Pliny was of opinion that “the smell of Mint doth stir up
the minde and taste to a greedy desire of meat;” and other old writers
state that Mint should be smelled, as being refreshing for the head and
memory; probably on this account it was formerly a custom to strew it
“in chambers and places of recreation, pleasure, and repose, and when
feasts and banquets are to be made.” Gerarde says of this herb:--“It is
poured into the eares with honied water. It is taken inwardly against
scolopendres, beare-wormes, sea scorpions and serpents. It is applied
with salt to the bitings of mad dogs.”
=MISTLETOE.=--According to Scandinavian mythology, Baldr (the Apollo of
the North) was rendered by his mother Frîgg proof against all injury
by the four elements, fire, air, earth, and water: Loki, the evil
spirit, however, being at enmity with him, fashioned an arrow out of
Mistletoe (which proceeded from neither of the elements), and placed
it in the hand of Hödr, the blind deity, who launched the fatal dart
at Baldr, and struck him to the earth. The gods decided to restore
Baldr to life, and as a reparation for his injury, the Mistletoe was
dedicated to his mother Frîgg; whilst, to prevent its being again used
adversely to her, the plant was placed under her sole control so long
as it did not touch the earth, the empire of Loki. On this account
it has always been customary to suspend Mistletoe from ceilings; and
so, whenever persons of opposite sexes pass under it, they give one
another the kiss of peace and love, in the full assurance that this
plant is no longer an instrument of mischief.----Like the Indian
Asvattha, and the Northern Rowan, the Mistletoe was supposed to be
the embodiment of lightning: hence its Swiss name, _Donnerbesen_; and
like them, again, it is very generally believed to spring from seed
deposited by birds on trees. Some naturalists, indeed, say that the
seeds will not vegetate until they have passed through the stomach
of a bird, and so recommend that fowls should be caused to eat the
seeds, which, after evacuation, should be sown. This old belief in the
Mistletoe-seed being sown by birds is referred to by Lord Bacon in his
‘Natural History.’ His lordship says:--“They have an idle tradition
that there is a bird called a Missel-bird that feedeth upon a seed
which many times she cannot digest, and so expelleth it whole with her
excrement, which, falling upon a bough of a tree that hath some rift,
putteth forth the Misseltoe.”----In Druidic times, the Mistletoe was
regarded as a divine gift of peculiar sanctity, only to be gathered
with befitting ceremonies, on the sixth day, or at latest on the sixth
night, of the sixth moon after the winter solstice, when their year
commenced.----Pliny tells us that “the Druids hold nothing more sacred
than the Mistletoe and the tree upon which it is produced, provided
it be an Oak. They make choice of groves of Oak on their own account,
nor do they perform any of their sacred rites without the leaves of
these trees, so one may suppose that for this reason they are called
by the Greek etymology Druids, and whatever Mistletoe grows upon the
Oak they think is sent from heaven, and is a sign of God Himself as
having chosen that tree. This, however, is rarely found, but, when
discovered, is treated with great ceremony; they call it by a name
which in their language signifies the curer of all ills, and, having
duly prepared their feast and sacrifices under the tree, they bring to
it two white bulls, whose horns are then for the first time tied; the
priest, dressed in a white robe, ascends the tree, and, with a golden
pruning-hook, cuts off the Mistletoe, which is received into a white
_sagum_, or sheet; then they sacrifice the victims, praying that God
would bless His own gift to those on whom He has bestowed it.” As the
Druids attributed to the Mistletoe marvellous curative properties, they
placed it in water, and distributed this water to those who deserved
it, to act as a charm against the spells of witches and sorcerers.
If any portion of this plant came in contact with the earth, it was
considered as ominous of some impending national disaster.----The
practice of decorating dwellings with Mistletoe and Holly is
undoubtedly of Druidic origin. Dr. Chandler states that, in the times
of the Druids, the houses were decked with boughs in order that the
spirits of the forest might seek shelter among them during the bleak
winds and frosts of winter.----Among the Worcestershire farmers, there
is a very ancient custom of taking a bough of Mistletoe, and presenting
it to the cow that first calved after New Year’s Day, as this offering
is presumed to avert ill-luck from the dairy.----In some provinces of
France, they preserved for a long period the custom of gathering the
Mistletoe of the Oak, which they regarded as a talisman. Many public
documents attest that, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries,
large gatherings of the country-people took place at the fêtes held
in commemoration of the ceremony of the sacred Mistletoe, and which
was called _Auguilanneuf_ (_Gui de l’an neuf_).----In Holstein, the
peasantry call the Mistletoe the “Spectre’s wand,” from the supposition
that a branch borne in the hand will enable the holder not only to
see ghosts, but to compel them to speak.----The magical properties
of the Mistletoe are alluded to by Virgil in his _Æneid_, as well as
by Ovid and other ancient writers. Albertus Magnus states that the
Mistletoe, which the Chaldæans called _Luperax_, the Greeks _Esifena_,
and the Latins _Viscus Querci_, like the herb _Martagon_ (Moonwort),
possessed the property of opening all locks. The Druids called it
All-heal, and represented it as an antidote to all poisons, and a cure
for all diseases. When there were no longer any Druids in England
left to gather the holy plant with the customary sacred rites, it was
gathered by the people themselves, with a lack of due solemnity, so
that, according to Aubrey, this want of reverence met with miraculous
punishment. He relates how some ill-advised folk cut the Mistletoe from
an Oak, at Norwood, to sell to the London apothecaries: “And one fell
lame shortly after; soon after each of the others lost an eye; and a
rash fellow, who ventured to fell the Oak itself, broke his leg very
shortly afterwards.” At this time, the powder of an Oak-Mistletoe was
deemed an infallible cure for epilepsy; and Culpeper, the astrological
herbalist, prescribed the leaves and berries of this precious
plant, given in powder for forty days together, as a sure panacea
for apoplexy, palsy, and falling sickness. Clusius affirmed that a
sprig of the sacred plant worn round the neck was a talisman against
witchcraft, always providing that the bough had not been allowed to
touch earth after being gathered.----In the West of England, there is a
tradition that the Cross was made of Mistletoe, which, until the time
of the Crucifixion, had been a noble forest tree, but was thenceforth
condemned to exist only as a mere parasite. Culpeper remarks that
it was sometimes called _lignum sanctæ crucis_--wood of the holy
cross--from a belief in its curative virtues in cases of consumption,
apoplexy, and palsy--“not only to be inwardly taken, but to be hung at
their neck.”----In Sweden, Oak-Mistletoe is suspended in the house to
protect it from fire and other injuries; a knife with an Oak-Mistletoe
handle is supposed by the Swedes to ward off the falling sickness: for
other complaints, a piece of this plant is hung round the patient’s
neck, or made into a finger-ring.
=MOLY.=--The Moly was a magical plant, beneficent in its nature, which
Homer tells us, in the ‘Odyssey,’ was given by Mercury to Ulysses to
enable him successfully to withstand and overcome the enchantments of
the sorceress Circe, and obtain the restoration of his comrades whom
the witch-goddess had by her enchantments transformed into swine.
Ulysses, distressed at the fate of his companions, was visited by
Mercury, who promised to give him a plant of extraordinary powers,
which should baffle the spells of Circe;
“Thus while he spoke, the sovereign plant he drew
Where on th’ all-bearing earth unmark’d it grew,
And show’d its nature and its wondrous power:
Black was the root, but milky white the flower;
Moly the name, to mortals hard to find,
But all is easy to th’ ethereal kind.”--_Pope._
The Moly is generally supposed to have been a species of Garlick
(a plant credited with many magical qualities), and Gerarde, in
his ‘Herbal,’ describes several plants under the head of “Moly, or
Sorcerer’s Garlick,” one of which he particularises as Homer’s Moly
(_Moly Homericum_). The identity of the plant has, however, long
been a matter for speculation among botanists of all ages. Dodonæus,
Anguillara, and Cæsalpinus consider it to be _Allium magicum_;
Matthiolus and Clusius, _Allium subhirsutum_; Sprengel, _Allium
nigrum_; and Sibthorp, a plant which he names _Allium Dioscoridis_.
Various treatises have appeared on the subject, in one of which
the Moly is thought to be identified with the Lotus. Milton, in
his ‘Comus,’ mentions a magical plant, designated Hæmony, which
possessed similar properties to the Moly, and was potent in dispelling
enchantments, ghostly apparations, mildew-blast, and unwholesome
vapours.
MONEY FLOWER.--See Honesty.
=MONK’S HOOD.=--_Aconitum_ has two English names, Monk’s Hood and
Wolf’s Bane. The former has been given it from the resemblance of the
plant’s upper sepal to the cowl of a monk. The latter is of great
antiquity, being the same as that of the Anglo-Saxon. By the ancients
(who were unacquainted with mineral poisons) the Aconite was regarded
as the most virulent of all poisons, and their mythologists declare it
to be the invention of Hecate, who caused the plant to spring from the
foam of the many-headed Cerberus, when Hercules dragged him from the
gloomy regions of Pluto. The legend is thus told by Ovid:--
“Medea, to dispatch a dang’rous heir,
(She knew him) did a pois’nous draught prepare,
Drawn from a drug, long while reserved in store,
For desp’rate uses, from the Scythian shore,
That from the Echydnæan monster’s jaws
Derived its origin, and this the cause.
Through a dark cave a craggy passage lies
To ours ascending from the nether skies,
Through which, by strength of hand, Alcides drew
Chained Cerberus, who lagged and restive grew,
With his bleared eyes our brighter day to view.
Thrice he repeated his enormous yell,
With which he scares the ghosts, and startles hell;
At last outrageous (though compelled to yield),
He sheds his foam in fury on the field;
Which, with its own and rankness of the ground,
Produced a weed by sorcerers renowned
The strongest constitution to confound--
Called Aconite, because it can unlock
All bars, and force its passage through a rock.”
With this venomous plant the ancients were wont to poison their
arrow-heads when engaged in war and also when in pursuit of wild
beasts. As a poison, it had a sinister reputation. Ovid was of opinion
that the _Aconitum_ derived its name from growing on rocks almost
barren; and he describes, in his ‘Iron Age,’ the step-dame occupied in
preparing a deadly potion of this plant:--
“_Lurida terribiles miscent Aconita novercæ._”
In Greece, the Wolf’s Bane is credited with many malignant influences,
and the fevers so common in the neighbourhood of Corinth were
attributed to it. Until the Turks were dispossessed, the Aga proceeded
every year in solemn procession to denounce it and hand it over to
destruction.----In North India, a species, _Aconitum ferox_, is used as
a poison for arrows--the poison which is obtained from the roots being
of remarkable virulence and activity when infused into the blood.
=MOON DAISY.=--The _Chrysanthemum Leucanthemum_, a large Daisy-like
flower, resembles the pictures of a full moon, and on this account has
acquired the name of Moon Daisy. From its use in uterine diseases, this
plant was dedicated by the ancients to Artemis, goddess of the Moon,
Juno Lucina, and Eileithuia, a deity who had special charge over the
functions of women--an office afterwards assigned by the Romish Church
to St. Mary Magdalene and St. Margaret. Hence, in the Middle Ages, the
Moon Daisy became known as Maudelyne or Maudlin-wort.----The plant
is also called the Ox-eye and Midsummer Daisy; and in France, this
flower, known as the _Paquerette_, is employed, like the Bluet, as a
divining-flower, to discover the state of a lover’s affections.----The
Midsummer Daisy is dedicated to St. John the Baptist.
=MOONWORT.=--The Fern _Botrychium Lunaria_ has derived its name of
Moonwort from the crescent shape of the segments of its frond. Perhaps
it is this lunar form which has caused it to be so highly esteemed for
its supposed magical properties. The old alchymists professed to be
able, by means of the Moonwort, which they called _Lunaria minor_, or
Lesser Lunary, to extract sterling silver from Mercury. By wizards and
professors of necromancy no plant was held in greater repute, and its
potency is attested by many old writers. Gerarde refers to the use made
by the alchymists of this Fern in those mystic compounds over which
they pored night and day, and he also states that it was a plant prized
by witches, who called it Martagon. In Ben Jonson’s ‘Masque of Queens,’
a witch says to her companions:--
“And I ha’ been plucking plants among
Hemlock, Henbane, Adder’s-tongue;
Nightshade, Moonwort, Libbard’s-bane,
And twice by the dogs was like to be ta’en.”
Coles, referring to the mystical character of the Moonwort, observes:
“It is said, yea, and believed by many, that Moonwort will open the
locks, fetters, and shoes from those horses’ feet that goe on the
places where it groweth; and of this opinion was Master Culpeper, who,
though he railed against superstition in others, yet had enough of
it himselfe.” Du Bartas, in his ‘Divine Weekes,’ thus refers to this
superstition--
“Horses that, feeding on the grassie hills,
Tread upon Moonwort with their hollow heels,
Though lately shod, at night goe barefoot home,
Their maister musing where their shooes become.
O Moonwort! tell us where thou hidst the smith,
Hammer and pincers, thou unshodd’st them with.
Alas! what lock or iron engine is’t
That can thy subtill secret strength resist,
Sith the best farrier cannot set a shoe
So sure, but thou (so shortly) canst undo?”
Culpeper tell us that the Moonwort was a herb which, in his days,
was popularly believed to open locks and unshoe horses that trod on
it. “This,” he adds, “some laugh to scorn, and those no small fools
neither, but country people that I know call it Unshoe-the-Horse.
Besides, I have heard commanders say that on White Down, in Devonshire,
near Tiverton, there were found thirty horse-shoes, pulled off from the
Earl of Essex’s horses, being there drawn up in a body, many of them
being newly shod, and no reason known, which caused much admiration;
and the herb described usually grows upon the heaths.”--In Virginia,
the _Botrychium Lunaria_ is called the Rattle-snake Fern, because that
reptile shelters itself beneath its fronds.
=MOSS.=--The _Sifjar haddr_, or Hair Moss (_Polytrichum commune_),
which supplies the Lapp with bedding, is dedicated to Sif, the wife of
Thor. The _Supercilium Veneris_ is Freyja’s hair.--The good fairies
called by the Germans _Moosweibchen_ are represented as being entirely
covered with Moss. They live in the hollows of forest trees, or on the
soft Moss itself. These beneficent fairies of the forest spin soft
Moss of various kinds, which they weave into beautiful fabrics, and,
according to their custom, occasionally make handsome presents to
their protégés.----There is a legend that Oswald, King of Northumbria,
erected a certain cross, which, after his decease, acquired miraculous
properties. One day, a man who was walking across the ice towards
this venerated cross, suddenly fell and broke his arm; a friend who
was accompanying him, in dire distress at the mishap, hurried to the
cross, and plucked from it some Moss, which was growing on the surface.
Then, hastening back to his friend, he placed the Moss in his breast,
when the pain miraculously ceased, and the broken arm became set, and
was soon restored to use.----The _Bryum_ Moss, which grows all over
the walls of Jerusalem, is supposed to be the plant referred to by
Solomon as “the Hyssop that groweth out of the wall.”----According
to tradition, headache is to be removed by means of snuff made from
the Moss which grows on a human skull in a churchyard; and Gerarde
says that this Moss is “a singular remedie against the falling evill
and the chin-cough in children, if it be powdered, and then given
in sweet wine for certain daies together.” Robert Turner tells us of
this Moss that it is “a principal ingredient in the Weapon Salve; but
the receipt is, it should be taken from the skull of one who died a
violent death.”----The dust from the spore cases of Club-Moss is highly
inflammable, and is used in fireworks; it is the _Blitz-mehl_, or
lightning-meal, of the Germans. (See CLUB-MOSS.)
=MOSS ROSE.=--The country of the Moss Rose or Moss Provins Rose (_Rosa
Muscosa_) is unknown, but the origin of its mossy vest is thus given by
a German writer:--
“The angel of the flowers one day
Beneath a Rose-tree sleeping lay;
That spirit to whose charge is given
To bathe young buds in dews from heaven;
Awaking from his light repose,
The angel whispered to the Rose;
‘O fondest object of my care,
Still fairest found where all are fair,
For the sweet shade thou’st given to me
Ask what thou wilt, ’tis granted thee.’
‘Then’ said the Rose, with deepened glow,
‘On me another grace bestow:’
The spirit paused in silent thought
What grace was there that flower had not?
’Twas but a moment: o’er the Rose
A veil of Moss the angel throws,
And robed in Nature’s simplest weed,
Could then a flower that Rose exceed?”
The Moss Rose is one of the flowers specially plucked at the fall of
the dew on Midsummer Eve for the purposes of love divination. This
rite of rustic maidens is fully described in the poem of ‘The Cottage
Girl’:--
“The Moss Rose that, at fall of dew,
Ere eve its duskier curtain drew,
Was freshly gathered from its stem,
She values as the ruby gem;
And, guarded from the piercing air,
With all an anxious lover’s care,
She bids it, for her shepherd’s sake,
Await the New Year’s frolic wake:
When, faded, in its altered hue
She reads--the rustic is untrue!
But if its leaves the crimson paint,
Her sick’ning hopes no longer faint;
The Rose upon her bosom worn,
She meets him at the peep of morn.”
=MOTHERWORT.=--According to Parkinson, the Motherwort (_Leonurus
Cardiaca_) was so called from its being “of wonderful helpe to women
in the risings of the mother;” its name of _Cardiaca_ was given
because the herb was formerly noted for curing not only heartburn but
the mental disorder known as heart-ache.----In Japan, the Motherwort
is in great estimation. In bygone times it is related that to the
north of the province of Nanyo-no-rekken, there was a village situated
near a hill covered with Motherwort. At the foot of the hill, fed
by the dew and rains that trickled down its sides, ran a stream of
pure water, which formed the ordinary beverage of the villagers,
who generally lived till they had attained an age varying from a
hundred to a hundred and thirty years. Thus the people ascribe to the
Motherwort the property of prolonging life. At the Court of the Cairi,
the ecclesiastical potentate of Japan, it is a favourite amusement to
drink _zakki_, a kind of strong beer prepared from Motherwort-flowers.
The Japanese have five grand festivals in the course of the year. The
last, which takes place on the 9th of the 9th month, is called the
Festival of Motherwort; and the month itself is named _Kikousouki_,
or month of Motherwort-flowers. It was formerly the custom to gather
these flowers as soon as they had opened, and to mix them with boiled
rice, from which they prepared the _zakki_ used in celebrating the
festival. In the houses of the common people, instead of this beverage,
you find a branch of the flowers fastened with a string to a pitcher
full of common _zakki_, which implies that they wish one another a long
life. The origin of this festival is as follows:--An emperor of China
who succeeded to the throne at seven years of age, was disturbed by a
prediction that he would die before he attained the age of fifteen.
An immortal having brought to him, from Nanyo-no-rekken, a present of
some Motherwort-flowers, he caused _zakki_ to be made from them, which
he drank every day, and lived upwards of seventy years. This immortal
had been in his youth in the service of the Emperor, under the name of
Zido. Being banished for some misdemeanour, he took up his residence in
the valley before mentioned, drinking nothing but the water impregnated
with these flowers, and lived to the age of three hundred years, whence
he obtained the name of _Sien-nin-foso_.
=MOUSE-EAR.=--The plant now known as Forget-me-not, was formerly called
Mouse-Ear, from its small, soft, oval leaves. It is called _Herba
Clavorum_, because, according to tradition, it hinders the smith from
hurting horses when he is shoeing them.
=MULBERRY.=--According to tradition, the fruit of the Mulberry-tree was
originally white, but became empurpled by human blood. Referring to the
introduction of the Mulberry by the Greeks, Rapin writes:--
“Hence Pyramus and Thisbe’s mingled blood
On Mulberries their purple dye bestowed.
In Babylon the tale was told to prove
The fatal error of forbidden love.”
This tale of forbidden love is narrated at length by Ovid: Pyramus, a
youth of Babylon, and his neighbour, Thisbe, became mutually enamoured,
but were prohibited by their parents from marrying; they therefore
agreed to meet at the tomb of Ninus, under a white Mulberry-tree.
Thisbe reached the trysting-place first, but was compelled to seek
safety in a cave, owing to the arrival of a lioness, who besmeared with
blood a veil which the virgin dropped in her flight. Soon afterwards
Pyramus reached the spot, and finding the bloody veil, concluded that
Thisbe had been torn to pieces. Overcome with grief, he stabbed himself
with his sword; and Thisbe, shortly returning, and beholding her lover
in his death throes, threw herself upon the fatal weapon. With her last
breath she prayed that her ashes should be mingled with her lover’s in
one urn, and that the fruit of the white Mulberry-tree, under which the
tragedy occurred, should bear witness of their constancy by ever after
assuming the colour of their blood.
“The prayer which dying Thisbe had preferred
Both gods and parents with compassion heard.
The whiteness of the Mulberry soon fled,
And ripening, saddened in a dusky red;
While both their parents their lost children mourn,
And mix their ashes in one golden urn.”--_Eusden._
Lord Bacon tells us that in Calabria Manna falls upon the leaves
of Mulberry-trees during the night, from whence it is afterwards
collected.----Pliny called the Mulberry the wisest of trees, because it
is late in unfolding its leaves, and thus escapes the dangerous frosts
of early spring. To this day, in Gloucestershire, the country folks
have a saying that after the Mulberry-tree has shown its green leaves
there will be no more frost.----At Gioiosa, in Sicily, on the day of
St. Nicholas that saint is believed to bless the sea and the land,
and the populace sever a branch from a Mulberry-tree and preserve it
for one year as a branch of good augury.----In Germany, at Iserlohn,
the mothers, to deter the children from eating the Mulberries, sing
to them that the Devil requires them for the purpose of blacking his
boots.----According to Gerarde, “Hegesander, in _Athenæus_, affirmeth
that the Mulberry-tree in his time did not bring forth fruit in twenty
yeares together, and that so great a plague of the gout then raigned,
and raged so generally, as not onely men, but boies, wenches, eunuches,
and women were troubled with that disease.”----A Mulberry-tree, planted
by Milton in the garden of Christ’s College, Cambridge, has been
reverentially preserved by successive college gardeners. The Mulberry
planted by Shakspeare in Stratford-on-Avon was recklessly cut down in
1759; but ten years later, when the freedom of the town was presented
to Garrick, the document was enclosed in a casket made from the wood
of the tree. A cup was also wrought from it, and at the Shakspeare
Jubilee, Garrick, holding this cup aloft, sang the following lines
composed by himself:--
“Behold this fair goblet, ’twas carved from the tree
Which, O my sweet Shakspeare, was planted by thee;
As a relic I kiss it, and bow at the shrine;
What comes from thy hand must be ever divine!
All shall yield to the Mulberry-tree;
Bend to the blest Mulberry;
Matchless was he who planted thee;
And thou, like him, immortal shall be.”
To dream of Mulberries is of good import: they denote marriage,
many children, and all sorts of prosperity: they are particularly
favourable to sailors and farmers.----Among the hill tribes of Burmah,
the Mulberry-tree is regarded as sacred, and receives a kind of
worship.----A Chinese folk-lore tale records that in the Tse dynasty,
one Chang Ching, going out at night, saw a woman in the south corner
of his house. She beckoned him to come to her, and said: “This is your
honour’s Mulberry-ground, and I am a shên (fairy); if you will make
next year, in the middle of the first moon, some thick congee and
present it to me, I will engage to make your Mulberry-trees a hundred
times more productive.” Ching made the congee, and afterwards had
a great crop of silkworms. Hence came the Chinese custom of making
thickened congee on the fifteenth of the first month.
=MULLEIN.=--The Mullein (_Verbascum_) was formerly employed by
wizards and witches in their incantations. The plant is known as the
Flannel-flower from its stem and large leaves being covered with wool,
which is often plucked off for tinder. The Great Mullein (_V. Thapsus_)
was called by the old Romans _Candela regia_, and _Candelaria_,
because they used the stalks dipped in suet to burn at funerals, or
as torches; the modern Romans call the plant Light of the Lord. In
England, the White Mullein was termed Candle-week-flower; and the
Great Mullein’s tall tapering spikes of yellow flowers suggested, at a
period when candles were burnt in churches, the old names of Torches,
Hedge-taper, High-taper, and Hig-taper, which became corrupted into
Hag-taper, from a belief that witches employed the plant in working
their spells.----The little Moth Mullein (_V. Blattaria_) derives
its specific name from _blatta_, a cockroach, it being particularly
disliked by that troublesome insect. Gerarde explains its English
prefix by stating that moths and butterflies, and all other small
flies and bats, resort to the place where these herbs are laid or
strewed.----Mullein is known by country people as Bullock’s Lungwort, a
decoction of the leaves being considered very efficacious in cases of
cough: probably we are indebted to the Romans for this specific, for
they attributed extraordinary properties to the Mullein as a remedy for
coughs. (See also HAG-TAPER).
=MUGWORT.=--The old Latin name for this species of Wormwood was
_Artemisia, mater herbarum_; and, according to Gerarde, the plant was
so named after Artemisia, the wife of Mausolus, King of Caria, who
adopted it for her own herb.
“_That_ with the yellow crown, named from the queen
Who built the Mausoleum.”--_Smith’s ‘Amarynthus.’_
Other authorities say that _Artemisia_ is derived from Artemis, one of
the names of Diana, and that the plant was named after that goddess,
on account of its being used in bringing on precocious puberty. Among
the ancients, the Mugwort had a reputation for efficacy in the relief
of female disorders. It was also used for the purpose of incantations.
Pliny says that the wayfarer having this herb tied about him feels no
fatigue, and that he who hath it about him can be hurt by no poisonous
medicines, nor by any wild beast, nor even by the sun itself. Apuleius
adds that it drives away lurking devils and neutralises the effect of
the evil eye of men. The plant was also considered a charm against the
ague.--T--here is an old Scotch legend which tells how a mermaid of the
Firth of Clyde, upon seeing the funeral of a young girl who had died of
consumption, exclaimed--
“If they wad drink Nettles in March,
And eat Muggins [Mugwort] in May,
Sae mony braw maidens
Wad not go to clay.”
In Italy, there is still a superstitious custom extant of consulting
Mugwort as to the probable ending of an illness. Some leaves of Mugwort
are placed beneath the pillow of the patient without his knowledge. If
he falls asleep quickly, his recovery is certain: if he is unable to
sleep, it is a sign that he will die.----Mugwort is one of the plants
associated with St. John the Baptist, and is, indeed, called the Herb
of St. John in Italy, Spain, Portugal, Germany, and Holland. There is
a curious superstition regarding it which is related by Lupton in his
‘Notable Things.’ He says:--“It is certainly commonly affirmed that, on
Midsummer Eve, there is found under the root of Mugwort a coal which
keeps safe from the plague, carbuncle, lightning, and the quartan ague,
them that bear the same about them: and Mizaldus, the writer hereof,
saith that it is to be found the same day under the root of Plantain,
which I know for a truth, for I have found them the same day under
the root of Plantain, which is especially and chiefly to be found at
noon.” Paul Barbette, writing in 1675, says, these coals were old
dead roots, and that it was a superstition that “old dead roots ought
to be pulled up on the Eve of St. John the Baptist, about twelve at
night.”----In some parts of England, girls pull a certain root which
grows under Mugwort, and which, they believe, if pulled exactly at
midnight, on the eve of St. John, and placed under the pillow, will
cause dreams of the future husband.----De Gubernatis tells us that, in
Sicily, on the eve of the Ascension, the women of Avola form crosses of
Mugwort, and place them on the roofs of their houses, believing that,
during the night, Jesus Christ, as He re-ascends to heaven, will bless
them. They preserve these crosses of Mugwort for a year. Placed in
stables, they are believed to possess the power of taming unmanageable
animals.----The same author gives the following legends:--In the
district of Starodubsk, Russia, on the day of the Exaltation of the
Cross, a young girl was searching for Mushrooms in a forest, when she
saw a number of serpents curled up. She endeavoured to retrace her
steps, but fell into a deep pit, which was the abode of the serpents.
The pit was dark, but at the bottom she found a luminous stone; the
serpents were hungry; the queen of the golden-horned serpents guided
them to the luminous stone, and the serpents licked it, and satisfied
their hunger; the young girl did the same, and remained in the pit
until Spring. On the arrival of Spring, the serpents interlaced
themselves in such a manner as to form a ladder on which the young
girl ascended to the mouth of the pit. But in taking her leave of the
queen of the serpents, she received, as a parting gift, the power of
understanding the language of plants, and of knowing their medicinal
properties, on the condition that she should never name the Mugwort, or
_Tchornobil_ (that which was black): if she pronounced that word, she
would forget all that she had come to know. The damsel soon understood
all that the plants talked about; but, one day, a man suddenly asked
her, “What is the plant which grows in the fields by the side of the
little footpaths?” Taken by surprise, the girl replied, _Tchornobil_;
and, at the same moment, all her knowledge forsook her. From that time,
it is said, the Mugwort obtained the additional name of _Zabytko_, or
the Herb of Forgetfulness.----In Little Russia, Mugwort has obtained
the name of _Bech_, which has a legendary etymology. The story goes,
that the Devil had, one day, offended his brother, the Cossack Sabba,
who took him and bound him, saying he should remain a prisoner until
he did him some great service. Soon afterwards, a troop of Poles
arrived in the neighbourhood, and began to make merry at a rustic
feast, leaving their horses to graze. The Cossack Sabba wished to seize
their horses, and promised the Devil his liberty if he would aid him
to accomplish his object. The Devil despatched certain demons to the
fields where the horses were feeding, who caused Mugwort to spring up.
As the horses trotted away, the plant moaned “_Bech_, _Bech_”: and now,
whenever a horse treads on the Mugwort, recollecting the horses of the
Poles, the plant always moans, “_Bech_, _Bech_”; hence, the name which
has been given to it in the Ukraine.----The Japanese manufactured a
kind of tinder, called Moxa, from the dried leaves of Mugwort, and,
according to Thunberg, twice in a year, men and women, young and old,
rich and poor, were indiscriminately burnt with it, either to prevent
disorders, or to cure rheumatism, &c.----Astrologers state that Mugwort
is a herb of Venus.
=MUSHROOM.=--On account of their apparently spontaneous generation,
Porphyrius calls Mushrooms sons of the gods.----In Indo-European
mythology, the Sun-hero is represented as sometimes hiding under a
Mushroom. He also appears as King of the Peas, and in a Russian legend,
in this capacity, gives battle to the Mushroom tribes.----In Wales,
the poisonous Mushroom is called _Bwyd Ellyllon_, or the meat of the
goblins.----In many parts of England it is believed that the changes of
the moon influence the growth of Mushrooms, and in Essex there is an
old saying that
“When the moon is at the full,
Mushrooms you may freely pull;
But when the moon is on the wane,
Wait ere you think to pluck again.”
There is an old belief that Mushrooms which grow near iron, copper, or
other metals, are poisonous; the same idea is found in the custom of
putting a piece of metal in the water used for boiling Mushrooms, in
order that it should attract and detach any poison from the Mushrooms,
and thus render them innocuous.----Bacon characterises Mushrooms as
“venereous meat,” but Gerarde remarks that “few of them are good to be
eaten, and most of them do suffocate and strangle the eater. Therefore,
I give my advice unto those that love such strange and new-fangled
meates, to beware of licking honey among thornes, least the sweetnesse
of the one do not countervaile the sharpnesse and pricking of the
other.”----The Burman, if he comes across Mushrooms at the beginning
of a journey, considers it as a most fortunate omen.----Dream oracles
state that Mushrooms forbode fleeting happiness; and that to dream of
gathering them indicates a lack of attachment on the part of lover or
consort.
=MUSTARD.=--Among the Jews, “Small as a grain of Mustard-seed” was a
common comparison; and our Saviour referred to it as being “the least
of all seeds; but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs,
and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in
the branches thereof” (Matthew xiii., 31, 32). The Mustard-tree here
alluded to is not, however, the English Mustard (_Sinapis nigra_), but
a tree called by the Arabs _Khardal_ (_Salvadora Persica_), a tree with
numerous branches, among which birds may take shelter, while the seed
is exceedingly small. In the north-west of India, this plant is known
as _Kharjal_.----One of the Sanscrit names given to the Mustard-tree
is the She-devil or Witch. By means of the seed the Hindus discover
witches. During the night they light lamps and fill certain vessels
with water, into which they gently drop Mustard-seed oil, pronouncing
the while the name of every woman in the village. If, during this
ceremony, as they pronounce the name of a woman, they notice the
shadow of a female in the water, it is a sure sign that such woman is
a witch.----In India, the Mustard-seed symbolises generation: thus, in
the Hindu myth of the ‘Rose of Bakawali,’ the king of Ceylon destroys
the temple in which the nymph Bakawali is incarcerated; having been
condemned by Indra to remain there transformed into marble for the
space of twelve years. A husbandman ploughs over the site of this
temple, and sows a Mustard-seed. In course of time the Mustard ripens,
is gathered, pressed, boiled, and the oil extracted. According to the
custom of his class, the husbandman first tastes it, and then his wife:
immediately she, who before had been childless, conceives, and nine
months afterwards gives to the world a daughter (Bakawali), beauteous
as a fairy.
=MYROBALAN.=--The Myrobalan Plum-tree produces a fruit similar to a
Cherry, but containing only a juice of so disagreeable a flavour that
the very birds refuse to feed upon it: the fruit, however, is much
employed in Indian medicines. According to Hindu tradition, the wife
of Somaçarman struck twice with a wand a Myrobalan-tree, whereupon
the tree rose from the earth with her, and carrying her away, at last
placed her on a golden hill in a golden town.
=MYRRH.=--Myrrh is an exudation from the tree _Balsamodendron Myrrha_;
but the precious resin was held by the ancients to have been first
produced by the tears of Myrrha, daughter of Cinyras, King of Cyprus,
and mother of Adonis. Flying from the avenging sword of her father,
for whom she had conceived an incestuous passion, the guilty Myrrha,
after long and weary wanderings, reached the Arabian continent, and at
length, in the Sabæan fields, overcome with fatigue and the misery of
her situation, prayed with her dying breath to the gods to accept her
penitence and to bestow upon her, as a punishment for her sin, a middle
state “betwixt the realms above and those below.” “Some other form,”
cries she, “to wretched Myrrha give, nor let her wholly die, nor wholly
live.”
“The prayers of penitents are never vain;
At least she did her last request obtain.
For while she spake the ground began to rise
And gathered round her feet, her legs, and thighs;
Her toes in roots descend, and, spreading wide,
A firm foundation for the trunk provide:
Her solid bones convert to solid wood,
To pith her marrow, and to sap her blood:
Her arms are boughs, her fingers change their kind,
Her tender skin is hardened into rind.
And now the rising tree her womb invests,
Now, shooting upwards still, invades her breasts
And shades her neck; when, weary with delay,
She sunk her head within, and met it half the way.
And though with outward shape she lost her sense,
With bitter tears she wept her last offence;
And still she weeps, nor sheds her tears in vain,
For still the precious drops her name retain.”--_Dryden._
Myrrh is one of the ingredients of the sacred ointment or oil of the
Jews, with which were anointed the Tabernacle, the Ark, the altars,
and the sacred vessels (Exodus xxx.) It was also used to consecrate
Aaron and his sons. The purification of women, as ordained by the
Jewish law, lasted one year; the first six months being accomplished
with oil of Myrrh, and the rest with other sweet odours. After our
Lord’s death, Nicodemus brought a mixture of Myrrh and Aloes, about
an hundred pounds weight, that his body might be embalmed.----Myrrh
formed part of the celebrated _Kuphi_ of the Egyptians--a preparation
used in fumigations and embalmings. At the _fête_ of Isis, which was
celebrated with great magnificence, they sacrificed an ox filled with
Myrrh and other aromatics. This ancient people delighted in displays of
perfumes: in a religious procession which took place under one of the
Ptolemies, marched one hundred and twenty children, carrying incense,
Myrrh, and Saffron in golden basins, followed by a number of camels
bearing precious aromatics.----At Heliopolis, the city of the sun,
where the great luminary was worshipped under the name of Re, incense
was burnt to him thrice a day,--resin at his rising, Myrrh when in
the meridian, and the compound called _Kuphi_ at his setting. In the
temples of Isis similar rites were observed. According to Herodotus,
powdered Myrrh formed one of the principal ingredients inserted in the
bodies of mummies.----The Persian kings usually wore on their heads
crowns composed of Myrrh and Labyzus.----In mediæval times, it was
customary for the king to make an oblation on Twelfth Day. In pursuance
of this custom, we read that so late as 1762 George III. made the usual
offering at the Chapel Royal, of gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh--the
gifts of the Magi, offered to the infant Saviour at Bethlehem; the gold
typifying king; Frankincense, God; and Myrrh, man.
=MYRTLE.=--The father, mother, and brothers of Myrene, a beautiful
Grecian, were murdered by robbers, who despoiled their home, and
carried Myrene away. She escaped, however, and on her return was made
a priestess of Venus. On the occasion of a festival, she discovered
one of the assassins of her family, who was seized, and disclosed
the hiding-place of his confederates. Myrene’s lover promised that,
if she would yield him her hand, he would bring the rest of the band
to punishment. He was successful, and received his promised reward;
but Venus, offended at being deprived of her favourite priestess,
caused the bridegroom to expire suddenly, and changed the bride into
the Myrtle, which she ordained, as a proof of her affection, should
continue green and odoriferous throughout the year. The Myrtle became,
therefore, an especial favourite with Venus. Reputed to possess the
virtue not only of creating love, but of preserving it, it was,
both by the Greeks and Romans, considered symbolic of love, and was
appropriately consecrated to Venus, the goddess of love, around whose
temples groves of Myrtle were planted. It was behind a Myrtle-bush
in the island of Cythera, that Venus sought shelter when disturbed
at her bath by a band of Satyrs; with Myrtle she caused Psyche to be
chastised for daring to compare her charms with the heaven-born beauty
of her mother-in-law; and with Myrtle the goddess selected to deck her
lovely brows when Paris adjudged to her the golden Apple--the prize
for supremacy of beauty: hence the shrub was deemed odious to Juno and
Minerva. Because she presided over the Myrtle, Venus was worshipped
under the name of Myrtea, and had a temple dedicated to her under
that appellation at the foot of Mount Aventine. It is probable that
the Myrtle was dedicated to Venus because of its fondness for the
sea--from the foam of which the goddess sprang, and was wafted by the
Zephyrs to the shore, where she was received by the Horæ, and crowned
with Myrtle. Myrtle chaplets were worn by her attendants, the Graces,
and by her votaries when sacrificing to her. During her festivals in
April, married couples (her protégés) were decked with Myrtle wreaths.
The Myrtle of which the nuptial crowns were composed was the _Myrtus
latifolia_ of Pliny, called by Cato _Myrtus conjugula_.----The Myrtle
was adopted by Minerva and Mars; the priests of the latter deity being
sometimes crowned with it. The plant was also associated with Hymen,
the son of Venus, and the Muse Erato, whose chaplet was composed
of Roses and Myrtle. It sometimes symbolised unchaste love. In the
festivals of Myrrha, the incestuous mother of Adonis, the married
women crowned themselves with Myrtle. Virgil represents the victims
of love in the infernal regions hiding themselves behind bunches of
Myrtle. At the festival of the Bona Dea at Rome, where all other
flowers and shrubs might be used, Myrtle was forbidden to be placed
on the altar, because it encouraged sensual gratification.----The
Greeks were extremely partial to the Myrtle. At their most sacred
festival, the Eleusinian mysteries, the initiates, as well as the
high priest, who officiated at the altar of Ceres, were crowned with
Myrtle. The Athenian magistrates wore chaplets of the fragrant shrub
in token of their authority; and bloodless victors entwined Myrtle
with their Laurel wreaths. When Aristogiton and Harmodius set forth
to free their country from the tyranny of the Pisistratidæ, their
swords were wreathed with Myrtle.----With the Romans, the Myrtle was a
highly-esteemed plant, and invariably expressive of triumph and joy. It
also symbolised festivity, and, when steeped in wine, was supposed to
impart to it invigorating qualities. On the 1st of April, Roman ladies,
after bathing beneath the Myrtle-trees, crowned themselves with the
leaves, and proceeded to the shrine of Venus to offer sacrifice. The
Roman bridegroom decked himself with Myrtle on his bridal day; and the
hero wore it as a badge of victory, and sometimes interweaved it with
Laurel in honour of Venus and Mars. When the Romans fought to guard the
captured Sabine women, they wore chaplets of Myrtle on their heads,
and, according to Pliny, after the combatants had at length become
reconciled, they laid down their weapons under a Myrtle, and purified
themselves with its boughs. The tree was sacred to the Sabine Mars
Quirinus; and two Myrtles stood before his temple, as two Laurels stood
before the temple of the Roman Mars, symbolising the union of the Roman
and Sabine peoples.----The Romans crowned themselves with Myrtle after
a victory, but only when blood had not been shed.----Pliny relates that
Romulus planted in Rome two Myrtles, one of which became the favourite
of the patricians, the other of the people. When the nobles won, the
people’s Myrtle drooped; when, on the other hand, the people were
victorious, the patricians’ Myrtle withered. As a charm to ensure a
successful journey, Roman pedestrians were accustomed to procure and
wear a Myrtle wreath.----At Temnos, in Asia Minor, there is a statue
in Myrtle-wood consecrated by Pelops to Venus, as a thank-offering for
his marriage with Hippodamia. After the death of Hippolytus, Phædra,
maddened with passionate grief, pricked innumerable small holes in the
leaves of a Myrtle with a hair-pin. The geographer Pausanias states
that this Myrtle was in his time to be seen near the tomb of Phædra
at Trœzen.----The same writer relates that a Myrtle which had been
the hiding place of a hare was selected by Diana to mark the site of
a new city.----With the Jews, the Myrtle is a symbol of peace, and is
often so referred to in the Old Testament, notably by Nehemiah and
the prophets Zechariah and Isaiah. A variety, called the Broad-leaved
Jew’s Myrtle, is held in especial veneration, and is frequently used
in Hebrew religious ceremonies. Branches of this and other Evergreens
are used in the erection of their tents at the Feast of Tabernacles.
At Aleppo, these tabernacles are made by fastening to the corner of a
wooden divan four slender posts as supports to a diaper-work of green
Reeds on all sides, leaving only a space in front for the entrance,
which on the outside is covered with fresh Myrtle. Jewish maidens were
wont to be decked with a bridal wreath of Myrtle; but this wreath
was never worn by a widow, or by divorced women. This custom is
still retained in Germany, where the bride is adorned with a Myrtle
wreath.----The Oriental nations are extremely partial to the Myrtle,
and there is a tradition among the Arabs that, when Adam was expelled
from Paradise, he brought the Myrtle with him, as being the choicest of
fragrant flowers.----It is a popular belief in Somersetshire, that, in
order to ensure its taking root, it is necessary when planting a sprig
of Myrtle, to spread the skirt of your garment, and to look proud. In
the same county, there is a saying that “the flowering Myrtle is the
luckiest plant to have in your window, water it every morning, and be
proud of it.”----In Greece, there is a superstitious notion that no one
should pass near an odoriferous Myrtle without gathering a perfumed
bunch; indifference to the attractions of Myrtle being considered a
sign of impotence and death.----In the allegories of Azz Eddin, the
Rose says that the Myrtle is the prince of odoriferous plants.----Rapin
calls the Myrtle “of celestial race,” and in his poem has the
following lines on it:--
“When once, as Fame reports, the Queen of Love
In Ida’s valley raised a Myrtle grove,
Young wanton Cupids danced a summer’s night
Round the sweet place by Cynthia’s silver light.
Venus this charming green alone prefers,
And this of all the verdant kind is hers:
Hence the bride’s brow with Myrtle wreaths is graced,
When the long-wished-for night is come at last;
And Juno (queen of nuptial mysteries)
Makes all her torches of these fragrant trees.
Hence in Elysian fields are Myrtles said
To favour lovers with their friendly shade,
There Phædra, Procris (ancient poets feign),
And Eriphyle still of love complain,
Whose unextinguished flames e’en after death remain.
Nor is this all the honour Myrtles claim:
When from the Sabine war Tudertus came,
He wreathed his temples from the Myrtle grove,
Sacred to Triumph as before to Love.”
To dream of seeing a fine Myrtle portends many lovers and a legacy. If
a married person dreams of Myrtle, it prognosticates a second marriage.
A similar dream for the second time portends a second marriage to
a person who has also been married before. Myrtle seen in a dream
denotes, as a rule, a numerous family, wealth, and old age.
=NARCISSUS.=--The white, or Poet’s, Narcissus owes its origin to a
beautiful youth of Bœotia, of whom it had been foretold he should
live happily until he beheld his own face. Caressed and petted by the
Nymphs, and passionately loved by the unhappy Echo, he slighted and
rejected their advances; but one day, when heated by the chase, he
stopped to quench his thirst in a stream, and in so doing beheld the
reflection of his own lovely features. Enamoured instantly of his own
beauty, he became spell-bound to the spot, where he pined to death.
Ovid relates how the flower known by his name sprang from the corpse of
Narcissus:--
“As wax dissolves, as ice begins to run,
And trickle into drops before the sun,
So melts the youth, and languishes away;
His beauty withers, and his limbs decay;
And none of those attractive charms remain,
To which the slighted Echo sued in vain.
She saw him in his present misery,
Whom, spite of all her wrongs, she grieved to see;
She answered sadly to the lover’s moan,
Sighed back his sighs, and groaned to every groan.
‘Ah, youth belov’d in vain!’ Narcissus cries;
‘Ah, youth beloved in vain!’ the Nymph replies.
‘Farewell!’ says he;--the parting sound scarce fell
From his faint lips but she replied, ‘Farewell!’
Then on th’ unwholesome earth he gasping lies,
Till death shuts up those self-admiring eyes.
To the cold shades his flitting ghost retires,
And in the Stygian waves itself admires.
For him the Naiads and the Dryads mourn,
Whom the sad Echo answers in her turn.
And now the sister-nymphs prepare his urn;
When, looking for his corpse, they only found
A rising stalk, with yellow blossoms crown’d.”--_Addison._
The cup in the centre of the flower is fabled to contain the tears of
Narcissus. Virgil alludes to this (Georgic IV.) when, in speaking of
the occupations of bees, he says: “Some place within the house the
tears of Narcissus.” Milton also refers to this fancy in the following
lines, when introducing the Narcissus under its old English name of
Daffodil:--
“Bid Amaranthus all his beauty shed,
And Daffodillies fill their cups with tears,
To strew the laureat hearse where Lycid lies.”
The Daffodil is supposed to be one of the flowers which Proserpine
was gathering when she was seized and carried off by Pluto (Dis). The
Earth, at the instigation of Jupiter, had brought forth the lovely
blossom for a lure to the unsuspecting maid. An old Greek hymn contains
the tale:--
“In Sicilia’s ever-blooming shade,
When playful Proserpine from Ceres strayed,
Led with unwary step, the virgin train
O’er Ætna’s steeps and Enna’s flow’ry plain
Pluck’d with fair hand the silver-blossom’d bower,
And purpled mead,--herself a fairer flower;
Sudden, unseen, amidst the twilight glade,
Rushed gloomy Dis, and seized the trembling maid.”
Shakspeare, in ‘A Winter’s Tale,’ alludes to the same story:--
“O Proserpina,
For the flowers now that, frightened, thou let’st fall,
From Dis’s waggon! Daffodils
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty.”
Other accounts of a similar legend, slightly varied, state that it
was at the instigation of Venus that Pluto employed the Narcissus to
entice Proserpine to the lower world.----Ancient writers referred to
the Narcissus as the flower of deceit, on account of its narcotic
properties; for although, as Homer assures us, it delights heaven and
earth by its odour and beauty, yet, at the same time, it produces
stupor, madness, and even death.----It was consecrated both to Ceres
and Proserpine, on which account Sophocles poetically alludes to
it as the garland of the great goddesses. “And ever, day by day,
the Narcissus, with its beauteous clusters, the ancient coronet of
the ‘mighty goddesses,’ bursts into bloom by heaven’s dew” (_Œdipus
Coloneus_).----The Fates wore wreaths of the Narcissus, and the Greeks
twined the white stars of the odorous blossoms among the tangled locks
of the Eumenides. A crown composed of these flowers was wont to be
woven in honour of the infernal gods, and placed upon the heads of the
dead.----The Narcissus is essentially the flower of Lent; but when
mixed with the Yew, which is symbolical of the Resurrection, it becomes
a suitable decoration for Easter:--
“See that there be stores of Lilies,
Called by shepherds Daffodillies.”--_Drayton._
Herrick, Shakspeare, Milton, Wordsworth, all sing the praises of
the Narcissus, or Lent Lily, the Daffodil and Daffadowndily of our
forefathers,--names which they formed from the still older one of
Affodilly, a corruption of _Asphodelus_.
=NASTURTIUM.=--According to Rapin, the Nasturtium was once a young
Trojan huntsman; but the Jesuit poet gives no details of the
metamorphosis, merely stating that
“Shield-like Nasturtium, too, confusedly spread,
With intermingling Trefoil fills each bed--
Once graceful youths; this last a Grecian swain,
The first an huntsman on the Trojan plain.”
The shield-like form of the Nasturtium’s leaves and its
curiously-shaped flowers, which resemble golden helmets, have obtained
for the plant the Latin name of “_Tropæolum_” (trophy). Its old English
names were Yellow Lark’s-heels and Indian Cress.----The seed of the
Nasturtium, according to Macer Floridus, possess a great power to repel
serpents.----Linnæus has recorded that his daughter Elizabeth Christina
observed the flowers of the Nasturtium emit spontaneously, at certain
intervals, sparks like electric ones, visible only in the evening.
=NEEM.=--The Neem-tree (_Azardirachta Indica_) is considered by the
Indians a sacred tree, and is described by their poets as the type of
everything bitter. Its bark is used as a substitute for Cinchona in
cases of fevers.
=NELUMBO.=--The Nelumbo, Sacred Lotus, or Padma (_Nelumbium
speciosum_), was the Sacred Bean of Egypt, the Rose Lily of the
Nile spoken of by Herodotus. The beauty of its blossoms, which are
sometimes of a brilliant red colour, but rarely white, hanging over
broad peltated leaves considerably above the surface of the water,
render this the most lovely and graceful of all the Water Lilies; and
at the same time it is the most interesting on account of its remote
historical associations. Four thousand years ago the Nelumbo was the
emblem of sanctity in Egypt amongst the priests of a religion long
since defunct; and the plant itself has long been extinct in that
country, though in India and China the flowers are held especially
sacred, and the plant is commonly cultivated. The Chinese call this
sacred flower the _Lien-wha_, and prize it above all others. Celebrated
for its beauty by their poets, and ranked for its virtues among the
plants which, according to Chinese theology, enter into the beverage of
immortality, this _Lien-wha_ is to the Chinese what the Gul or Rose is
to the Persians; and a moonlight excursion on a tranquil river covered
with its yellow blossoms is numbered by the inhabitants of the Flowery
Land among the supreme delights of mortal existence. (See also LOTUS
and NYMPHÆA).
=NETTLE.=--The Nettle is one of the five plants which are stated by
the Mishna to be the “bitter herbs” ordered to be partaken of by the
Jews at the Feast of the Passover.----In Ireland, the Nettle of Timor
is known as _Daoun Setan_, or the Devil’s Apron; and in the southern
parts of the island it is a common practice for schoolboys, once a
year, to consider themselves privileged to run wildly about with a
bunch of Nettles, striking at the face and hands of their companions
or of such other persons as they fancy they may venture to assault
with impunity.----The Roman Nettle (_Urtica pilulifera_) is the most
venomous of British Nettles, and is found abundantly about Romney, in
Kent, where, according to Camden, the Roman soldiers brought the seed
with them, and sowed it for their own use, to rub and chafe their limbs
when, through extreme cold, they should be stiff and benumbed; having
been told before they came from home that the climate of England was
so cold that it was not to be endured without having recourse to some
friction to warm their blood and to stir up natural heat.----Among
the various remedies once prescribed for the “trembling fever,” or
ague, by Catherine Oswald, a noted herbalist, was one which related
to plucking up a Nettle by the root three successive mornings before
sunrise. In bygone times, Nettle and Milfoil carried about the person
used to be believed to drive away fear, and to be a certain charm
against malignant spirits.----The Scotch say that to cure the sting of
a Nettle, the person stung must rub the leaves of a Dock over the part
affected, repeating at the same time: “Nettle in, Dock out; Dock rub
Nettle out.” This charm was known to Chaucer, who uses it as a common
saying, implying lovers’ inconstancy, in ‘Troilus and Cresside’:--
“But canst thou playen racket to and fro,
Nettle in, Dock out, now this, now that, Pandure?”
In German mythology, the Nettle was consecrated to the god Thor.----In
the Tyrol, during thunderstorms, the mountaineers throw Nettles on the
fire to avert danger, and more especially to guard themselves from
lightning; this custom also prevails in some parts of Italy.----In
Germany, there exists a superstition that Nettles gathered before
sunrise will drive away evil spirits from cattle.----The god Thor was,
among the ancient Germans, regarded as the guardian deity of marriage;
hence it is, perhaps, that in Germany Nettle-seed is believed to excite
the passions and to facilitate births.----In dream lore, to fancy you
are stung by Nettles indicates vexation and disappointment; to dream of
gathering Nettles denotes that someone has formed a favourable opinion
of you; and if the dreamer be married, then that the domestic circle
will be blessed with concord and harmony.----Astrologers place Nettles
under the dominion of Mars.
=NIGHTSHADE.=--The Deadly Nightshade (_Atropa Belladonna_), or Death’s
Herb, is a plant of ill omen, and one of which witches are reported
to be fond: it is so poisonous in its nature, that Gerarde says: “If
you will follow my counsell, deale not with the same in any case, and
banish it from your gardens, and the use of it also, being a plant so
furious and deadly; for it bringeth such as have eaten thereof into a
dead sleepe, wherein many have died.” Buchanan relates that the Scots,
under Macbeth, being desirous of poisoning the Danes, treacherously
took the opportunity, during a period of truce, to mix the poisonous
Nightshade with the beer with which they had agreed to supply them.
Thus stupefied, Sweno’s army slept soundly, and the Scots, falling
upon their enemies, destroyed them in their helplessness.----According
to Gassendi, a shepherd in Provence produced visions and prophesied,
through the use of Deadly Nightshade.----The Nightshade (_Solanum
Dulcamara_) has poisonous red berries; but the root and leaves have
been applied to several medicinal uses.----The Vale of Furness,
Lancashire, is still known by the name of Valley of Nightshade, on
account of the plant being exceedingly plentiful there. Sprigs of
Nightshade appeared on the ancient seals of the Abbey.
=NIMBU.=--The Nimbu (_Melia Azedarach_) is a native of the warm parts
of Asia, and bears a variety of names in different countries, such as
the Holy Tree, Pride of India, Bead Tree (in allusion to the seeds
being strung for chaplets), Persian Lilac, and Hill Margosa. Bishop
Heber saw it in India, and states that the natives have a profound
reverence for the tree, which they believe has the power to ward off
witchcraft and the Evil Eye.
=NIPA PALM.=--The Nipa, or Susa (_Nipa fruticans_), is the sacred tree
of Borneo, and is the most valuable of all growing things to the Dyaks
of that country. The seeds, it is recorded, lie dormant in the fruit
several years before germination, when the fruit becomes detached from
the plant and is floated off by the tide to establish itself on some
other mudbank. This plant only grows where fever and Mangroves flourish.
NONE-SO-PRETTY, or NANCY-PRETTY.--See London Pride.
NOSEBLEED.--See Yarrow.
=NUTMEGS.=--In the Middle Ages, a curious belief existed that Nutmegs,
Cloves, Cinnamon, and Ginger all grew on the same tree.----The strength
of the Nutmeg in the season is said so to overcome the birds of
Paradise, that they fall helplessly intoxicated.----To dream of Nutmegs
is stated to be a sign of many impending changes.
=NUTS.=--When the Scandinavian god Loki, transformed into a falcon,
rescued Idhunn, the goddess of youthful life, from the power of the
Frost-giants, it was in the shape of a Hazel-nut that he carried her
off in his beak.----The Hazel was sacred to Thor, and was in olden
times regarded as an actual embodiment of lightning: hence it possessed
great virtue as a promoter of fruitfulness, and Hazel-nuts became a
favourite medium in divinations relating to love and marriage.----In
old Rome, Nuts were scattered at marriages, as they are now in Italy
and in Altmark.----In Westphalia and other parts of Germany, a few
Nuts are mixed with the seed-corn to act as a charm in making it
prolific.----In Hertfordshire and other parts of England, as well as in
Germany, a certain relation is believed to exist between the produce of
the Hazel-bushes and the increase of the population; a good Nut year
always bringing an abundance of babies. In Westphalia, the proverb
runs, “Plenty of Nuts, plenty of babies.”----Brand says it is a custom
in Iceland, when a maiden would know if her lover is faithful, to put
three Nuts upon the bar of a grate, naming them after her lover and
herself. If a Nut crack or jump, the lover will prove faithless; if it
begin to blaze or burn, it is a sign of the fervour of his affection.
If the Nuts named after the girl and her swain burn together, they
will be married. This divination is still practised in Scotland on
Hallowe’en, whose mysterious rites Burns has immortalised in his poem,
containing these lines:--
“Some merry friendly countree folks
Together did convene
To burn their Nits and pu’ their stocks,
And haud their Hallowe’en,
Fu’ blithe that night.”
A similar custom has for years existed in Ireland; and Gray, long
before Burns, had evidenced that the superstitions of Hallowe’en or
Nutcrack Night (October 31st) were known and practised in England, as
thus--
“Two Hazel-nuts I threw into the flame,
And to each Nut I gave a sweetheart’s name.
This with the loudest bounce me sore amazed,
That with a flame of brightest colour blazed.
As blazed the Nut, so may thy passion grow;
For ’twas _thy_ Nut that did so brightly glow.”
In Bohemia, on Christmas Eve, girls fix coloured wax lights in the
shells of the first parcel of Nuts they have opened that day, light
them all at the same time, and set them floating in the water, after
mentally giving to each the name of a wooer. He whose lighted bark
first approaches the girl will be her future husband. If an unwelcome
suitor seems likely to be first in, the girl endeavours to retard the
shell by blowing against it, and by this means the favourite’s bark
usually wins. Should, however, one of the lights be perchance blown
out, it is accounted a portent of death.----The instrument used by the
nutter in robbing the Hazel of its fruit seems to have been formerly
regarded as opprobrious, and as suggestive of a thief: thus, in the
‘Merry Wives of Windsor,’ Nym says: “If you run the Nut-hook’s humour
on me,” or, in other words, “If you call me a thief.” Again, in ‘Henry
IV.,’ Part II., Doll Tearsheet cries out to the beadle: “Nut-hook,
Nut-hook, you lie!”----In Sussex, there is a proverb current: “As black
as the De’il’s nutting bag;” and it is held to be dangerous to go out
nutting on Sunday, for fear of meeting the Evil One, who haunts the
Nut-bushes, and sometimes appears to nutters in friendly guise, and
holds down the branches for them to strip.----In bygone times, it was
believed that a spirit of a weird and sinister character inhabited a
Nut-grove.----There is a superstition that the ashes of the shells of
Hazel-nuts have merely to be applied to the back of a child’s head to
ensure the colour of the iris in the infant’s eyes turning from grey
to black.----In Germany, Nuts are placed in tombs, as being emblematic
of regeneration and immortality. Searchers in the old tombs of
Wurtemburg sometimes found Pumpkins and Walnuts, but always a number of
Nuts.----In some countries, Hazel-nuts are supposed to be endowed with
the power of discovering or attracting wealth. Thus, in Russia, there
is a belief that anyone carrying a Nut in his house will make money;
and on this account many of the Russian peasantry invariably carry a
double Nut in their purses. In fairy tales, we often find good fairies
using Nuts as their carriages: as, in ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ Mercutio
speaks of Queen Mab arriving in a Nut-shell.----There is a legend that
St. Agatha every year crosses the sea from Catania to Gallipoli on a
Nut-shell, which she employs as a boat.----Authorities on the subject
say that to dream that you see Nut-trees, and that you crack and eat
their fruit, signifies riches and content gained with toil and pain.
Clusters of Nuts imply happiness and success: to dream of gathering
Nuts is a bad omen; and to dream of finding Nuts that have been hid
signifies the discovery of treasure.
=NYMPHÆA.=--The _Nymphæa cœrulea_ is the Lily of the Nile, the Lotus
of ancient Egypt; but not the Sacred Bean, which was the _Nelumbium
speciosum_. (See LOTUS and NELUMBO).----According to German tradition,
the Undines often conceal themselves from mortal gaze under the form of
Nymphæas.----This beautiful Water-lily was deemed by the Frisians to
have a magical power. Dr. Halbertsma has stated that, when a boy, he
remembers people were extremely careful in plucking and handling them;
for if anyone fell with such a flower in his possession, he became
immediately subject to fits.----The Wallachians have a superstition
that every flower has a soul, and that the Water-lily is the sinless
and scentless flower of the lake, which blossoms at the gates of
Paradise to judge the rest, and that she will enquire strictly what
they have done with their odours.
=OAK.=--Rapin tells us that among the ancients there were many
conjectural reports as to the origin of the Oak, and the country which
first knew the sacred tree: but the popular tradition which met with
most credence, he considers, was as follows:--
“When Jupiter the world’s foundation laid,
Great earth-born giants heaven did invade;
And Jove himself--when these he did subdue--
His lightning on the factious brethren threw.
Tellus her sons’ misfortunes does deplore,
And while she cherishes the yet-warm gore
Of Rhœcus, from his monstrous body grows
A vaster trunk, and from his breast arose
A harden’d Oak; his shoulders are the same,
And Oak his high exalted head became.
His hundred arms, which lately through the air
Were spread, now to as many boughs repair.
A sevenfold bark his now stiff trunk does bind;
And where the giant stood a tree we find.
The earth to Jove straight consecrates this tree,
Appeasing so his injured deity.
Thus Oaks grew sacred, in whose shelter plac’d,
The first good men enjoy’d their Acorn feast.”
To do full justice to the legendary lore connected with the Oak, it
would be necessary to devote a volume to the subject: the largest,
strongest, and as some say, the most useful of the trees of Europe, it
has been generally recognised as the king of the forest,
“Lord of the woods, the long-surviving Oak.”
An emblem of majesty and strength, the Oak has been revered as a symbol
of God by almost all the nations of heathendom, and by the Jewish
patriarchs. It was underneath the Oaks of Mamre that Abraham dwelt a
long time, and there he erected an altar to the Lord, and there he
received the three angels. It was underneath an Oak that Jacob hid the
idols of his children, for this tree was held sacred and inviolable
(Gen. xxxv., 2-4). Under the “Oak of weeping,” the venerable Deborah,
Rebekah’s nurse, was interred. The messenger of the Lord that appeared
to Gideon sat beneath an Oak; and it was a branch of one of these
trees that caught the flowing hair of Absalom, and so caused the death
of King David’s beloved son. The Oaks of Bashan are several times
mentioned in the Bible, and in the sacred volume we are informed that
the Israelites worshipped and offered sacrifices beneath the shadow of
Oaks which they considered as sacred (Hosea iv., 13; Ezekiel vi., 13;
Isaiah i., 29).
The ancient Greeks attributed the deluge of Bœotia to the quarrels
between Jupiter and Juno. After the rain had ceased and the water
subsided, an oaken statue became visible, erected, it is supposed,
as a symbol of the peace concluded between the king of the gods and
his consort. The Oak was thought by the Greeks to have been the first
tree that grew on the earth, and to have yielded for man Acorns and
honey, to ensure nourishment and fecundity. They called it, indeed,
the mother-tree, and they regarded it as a tree from which the human
race had originally sprung--a belief, shared by the Romans, for we find
Virgil speaking
“Of nymphs and fauns, and savage men, who took
Their birth from trunks of trees and stubborn Oak.”
Acorns were the first food of man, and there is an old Greek proverb
in which a man’s age and experience are expressed by saying that he
had eaten of Jove’s Acorns. Some of the classic authors speak of the
fatness of the earliest inhabitants of Greece and Southern Europe,
who, living in the primeval forests, were supported almost wholly upon
the fruit of the Oak; these primitive people were called _Balanophagi_
(eaters of Acorns).
Homer mentions people entering into compacts under Oaks as places of
security, for the tree was highly reverenced by the Greeks, and held a
prominent place in their religious and other ceremonies. The Arcadians
believed that by stirring with an Oak-branch the waters of a fountain
near a temple of Jupiter, on Mount Lycius, rain could be caused to
fall. The Fates and Hecate were crowned with Oak-leaves; and a chaplet
of Oak adorned the brow of the Dodonæan Jove.
The Pelasgic oracle of Jupiter, or Zeus, at Dodona, was situated at
the foot of Mount Tamarus, in a wood of Oaks, and the answers were
given by an aged woman, called Pelias: and as _pelias_, in the Attic
dialect, means dove, the fable arose that the doves prophesied in the
Oak groves of Dodona. Respecting the origin of this oracle, Herodotus
narrates that two priestesses of Egyptian Thebes were carried away by
Phœnician merchants: one of these was conveyed to Libya, where she
founded the oracle of Jupiter Ammon; the other to Greece. The latter
remained in the Dodonæan wood, which was much frequented on account
of the Acorns. There she had a temple built at the foot of an Oak in
honour of Jupiter, whose priestess she had been in Thebes, and here
afterwards the oracle was founded. This far-spreading speaking Oak was
a lofty and beautiful tree, with evergreen leaves and sweet edible
Acorns (the first sustenance of mankind). The Pelasgi regarded this
tree as the tree of life. In it the god was supposed to reside, and the
rustling of its leaves and the voices of birds showed his presence.
When the questioners entered, the Oak rustled, and the Peliades
said, “Thus speaks Zeus.” Incense was burned beneath the tree, and
sacred doves continually inhabited it; and at its foot a cold spring
gushed, as it were, from its roots, and from its murmur the inspired
priestesses prophesied. The ship Argo having been built with the wood
of trees felled in the Dodonæan grove, one of its beams was endowed
with prophetic or oracular power, and counselled the hardy voyagers.
Socrates swore by the Oak, the sacred tree of the oracles, and
consequently the tree of knowledge.
The Romans regarded the Oak as sacred, and the chosen tree of Jupiter,
who was sheltered by it at his birth. Thus Lucan mentions “Jove’s
Dodonæan tree,” and Ovid, in alluding to the primitive food of man,
speaks of Acorns dropping from the tree of Jove. The Oak, says Virgil,
is
“Jove’s own tree
That holds the worlds in awful sovereignty.
* * * * *
For length of ages lasts his happy reign,
And lives of mortal men contend in vain;
Full in the midst of his own strength he stands,
Stretching his brawny arms and leafy hands;
His shade protects the plains, his head the hills commands.”
We have seen how Acorns formed the earliest food of mankind, and in
ancient Rome the substitution of Corn was attributed to the bounty of
Ceres, who, through the instrumentality of Triptolemus, taught the
inhabitants of the earth its use and cultivation.
“The Oak, whose Acorns were our food before
That Ceres’ seed of mortal man was known,
Which first Triptoleme taught how to be sown.”--_Spenser._
To commemorate this gift, Oak was worn in the festivals in honour of
Ceres, as also by the husbandmen in general at the commencement of
harvest. In the Eleusinian mysteries, Oaken chaplets were worn.
“Then crowned with Oaken chaplets, marched the priest
Of Eleusinian Ceres, and with boughs
Of Oak were overshadowed in the feast
The teeming basket and the mystic vase.”--_Tighe._
A Roman who saved the life of another was adjudged a crown of
Oak-leaves: thus Lucan writes:--
“Straight Lælius from amidst the rest stood forth--
An old centurion, of distinguished worth;
The Oaken wreath his hardy temples wore,
Mark of a citizen preserved he bore.”
This civic crown of Oak conferred many notable tokens of honour upon
its possessor, who was exempted from all civil burdens, and enjoyed
many rights. At Roman weddings, boughs of Oak were carried during the
ceremonies as emblems of fecundity.
“With boughs of Oak was graced the nuptial train;
And Hecate (whose triple form surveys
And guards from rapine the nocturnal path)
Entwined with boughs of Oak her spiral snakes.”--_Tighe._
Like the Greeks and Romans, the Scandinavians, in their mythology,
traced the origin of mankind from either the Ash or the Oak. By
the Teutons and Celts the Oak was invested with a mystical sacred
character, and it was connected with the worship of their god Teutates.
Among the German people, who consecrated the Oak to the god Thunar,
the cultus of the sacred tree lingered for a long time, even after
Boniface, the apostle of the Germans, at Geismar, on the Weser, had
caused the Oak consecrated to the god of thunder to be uprooted. After
the establishment of Christianity, the Oak was long supposed to be the
abiding-place of the terrible Northern god, and was, consequently,
regarded with superstitious awe. Bishop Otho, of Bamberg, in the
year 1128, found at Stettin pagan temples, situate near an Oak and a
fountain, which had been objects of worship, and were still regarded
with superstitious awe, as being consecrated to a god. As the good
bishop could not induce the people to cut down these sacred Oaks, he
persuaded them that they were inhabited by evil spirits and demons;
and, in course of time, the people who before had prostrated themselves
before the trees, shunned them in superstitious dread and terror.
The ancient Britons dedicated the Oak to Taranis, their god of thunder;
and the Celts, under the form of an Oak, are by some authorities
stated to have worshipped Baal, the god of fire. On the occasion of
an _auto-da-fé_, we are told that fagots of “grey” Oak were always
selected. The festival of Baal was kept at Yule (Christmas); and on
the anniversary, the Druids are said to have ordained that every fire
should be extinguished, and then re-lighted with the sacred fire,
which, in their sacerdotal character, they always kept burning. In
this rite, it is supposed, may be traced the origin of the Yule-log,
the kindling of which, at Christmas-time, is still kept up in England,
though in this country the log is often of Ash. Among the Germans,
Czechs, Serbs, and Italians, however, the Yule-log is always of Oak.
The Mistletoe which grew on an Oak was regarded by the Druids as
the most holy; it was beneath the shade of venerated Oaks that
they performed their sacred rites; and when they offered up human
sacrifices, the victims, in grim mockery, were crowned with Oak-leaves.
The baskets in which they were immolated were composed of Oaken twigs,
and the brands with which the sacrificial fires were kindled were cut
from Oak-trees. The priests scattered branches of the Oak upon the
altars, and after the sacrifice fresh Oak-leaves were cast upon the
blood-stained stones.
Alluding to the human sacrifices which polluted the recesses of the
Druidic groves of Oak, and caused them to be regarded with shuddering
terror, Tighe says:--
“Such groves in night terrific wrapt the gods
Of Gaul, where fostering nymph dared never tread,
Nor sylvan deity; no bird here couched
Her wing; no beast here slumbered in his lair;
No zephyr woke the silence of the boughs;
Alone at eve the trembling Druid sought
The mystic oracle; alone entranced
Amid the sanctuary stood, whose foul
Expanse in horrors veiled a dreaded god.”
When an Oak died, the Druids stripped off its bark, and shaped it
reverently into the form of a pillar, a pyramid, or a cross, and
still continued to worship it as an emblem of their god. In Anglesea,
the ancient Mona, are still dug up great trunks of Oak, relics of
the Druids’ holy groves. The central Oak was the peculiar object of
veneration. The poet relates how men of old,
“When through the woods the Northern blast
Howled harsh appeased with horrid cries and blood
The Scythian Taranis; or bowed around
The central Oak of Mona’s dismal shade.”
The Druids it is believed revered the form of the cross. It is stated
to have been their custom to seek studiously for a large and handsome
Oak-tree, growing up with two principal arms in the form of a cross
beside the main stem. If the two horizontal arms were not sufficiently
adapted to the figure, they fastened a crossbeam to it. Then they
consecrated it by cutting upon the right branch the word _Hesus_, upon
the middle stem _Taranis_, and upon the left branch _Belenus_, and over
them the word _Thau_. The tree thus inscribed was deemed peculiarly
sacred, and to it they directed their faces when offering prayer.
It was beneath the shade of the Oak that Druidic criminal trials were
held--the judge and jury being seated under the branches, and the
prisoner placed in a circle traced by the wand of the chief Druid. With
the Saxons, the Oak retained its sacred character, and their national
meetings were held beneath its shelter. It was below the Oaks of
Dartmoor that they held their conference with the Britons, whose land
they were invading.
In Great Britain, the Oak remained an object of veneration long after
the establishment of Christianity. It was under an aged Oak that St.
Brigid of Ireland established her retreat for holy women, whence called
Kildara, or cell of the Oak. Here had been burning for many centuries
the sacred fire of the Druids, but by the piety of St. Brigid the light
of Christianity was henceforth to emit its flame from beneath
“The Oak of St. Bride, which demon nor Dane,
Nor Saxon, nor Dutchman could rend from her fane.”
Many of the Druidical sacred Oaks were utilised by the early preachers
of the Christian faith, who from beneath their boughs preached the
gospel of Christ to the pagan inhabitants. Hence these trees became
noted throughout the country as Gospel Oaks, a name which still
appertains to many ancient trees existing at the present time in
England. It is right to say, however, that other authorities consider
the origin of the name to have been the custom of reading the Gospel
of the day at a certain tree, when the priest went round the fields to
bless the crops.
The Sclavonians worshipped Oaks, which they enclosed in a consecrated
court. This spot was the sanctuary of all the country, and had its
priest, its festivals, and its sacrifices. The inner sanctuary,
where grew the sacred Oak, was reserved especially for the priests,
sacrificers, and people in danger of their life, who had sought of the
priests an asylum. It is said that the ancient Russians, upon arriving
at the Isle of St. George, offered up sacrifices beneath a great Oak,
before which the people and priests chanted a _Te Deum_. After the
ceremony, the priest distributed the branches of the Oak among the
people.
It is curious to note how the old Grecian belief in the sacred and
supernatural character of the Oak has lingered in Italy. Prof. de
Gubernatis tells us that in the Campagna of Rome, about seventeen
years ago, a young shepherdess, during a storm, sought shelter under
an Oak, and prayed to the Madonna. Whilst she prayed, a gracious lady
appeared before her, and, thanks to her intercession, no rain fell on
the Oak, and the girl was enabled to reach home without being wetted by
a single drop. Everyone saw it was a miracle; the curé examined her,
and from his representations the young girl was received into a convent
at Rome, where she probably is preparing herself for canonisation.
Under similar circumstances, two centuries ago, a Tuscan shepherdess,
Giovanna of Signa, was canonised. In the district of Signa, near
Ginestra, the villagers still show a sacred Oak, which people kneel
to and adore. The story runs that one day the shepherdess Giovanna,
surprised by a storm, called around her the shepherds and their flocks,
and stuck her shepherdess’s crook into the ground; when, wondrous to
relate, at the same instant shot forth an Oak, which sheltered beneath
its branches shepherds and sheep. No one was wetted by the rain. On
account of this miracle, Giovanna was made a saint, and near the sacred
Oak a little chapel was erected to the Virgin. Strange to say, the tree
throws down anyone climbing into its branches to cut boughs; but people
are permitted to pluck sprays, which are believed to guard themselves
and their houses from the effects of storms, provided that the names of
Jesus and Mary are invoked with certain ceremonies.
Among the Bolognese, who inhabit a district once occupied by the
Celts, and consequently Druidic, the sacred character of Oak-trees was
long acknowledged. In the fourteenth century, there stood in Bologna
an ancient Oak, which was regarded with the greatest reverence, and
beneath its boughs all important gatherings of the people took place.
In their religious processions the children still carry garlands of
the Oak and Olive. In the country districts, images of the Virgin are
often suspended from Oak-trees, and these effigies are called after
the trees, the little Madonnas of the Oak. A legend of Bologna relates
that in a chapel an image of the Virgin had long been neglected, and
overlooked, till, one day, a pious shepherd took it away, and placed it
in the trunk of a Cork-tree (a species of Oak, the _Quercus Suber_).
Henceforth he visited it daily, and to honour the Virgin played on the
flute. The thief having been denounced, the shepherd was seized and
condemned to death; but during the night, through the intervention
of the Madonna, the statue and the shepherd both returned to their
favourite tree, and notwithstanding subsequent efforts to remove them,
they again took up their place beneath its boughs. Then the people
recognised a miracle performed by the Virgin, and falling on their
knees before the statue in the Oak, they asked pardon of the shepherd.
The time-honoured belief in the sacred and supernatural attributes of
the Oak have doubtless caused it to be regarded, even at the present
day, as a tree which would vicariously bear the diseases of men. Thus,
in England, Cross Oaks, which were trees planted at the juncture of
cross-roads, were formerly resorted to by people suffering from ague,
for the purpose of transferring to them their malady: this they did
by pegging a lock of their hair into one of the trees, and then, by a
sudden wrench, transferring the lock from their heads to the Oak, and
with the lock the ague.
In Germany, there still exists a custom of creeping through an Oak
cleft to cure hernia and other disorders. There was, near Wittstock, in
Altmark, a bushy Oak, the branches of which had grown together again at
some distance from the stem, leaving open spaces between them. Whoever
crept through these spaces was freed from his malady, whatever it might
be, and many crutches lay about, which had been thrown away by visitors
to the tree whose ailments had been cured. In Russia, a similar custom
is extant, the favourite tree there being the _Quercus Ilex_.
A belief that Oak-trees were the homes of Dryads, Hamadryads, spirits,
elves, and fairies has existed since the days of the ancient Greeks.
Pindar speaks of a Hamadryad as “doomed to a term of existence coeval
with the Oak.” Callimachus represents Melia “deeply sighing for her
coeval Oak,” and tells us that
“The Dryads laugh when vernal showers return;
O’er Autumn’s fading leaves the Dryads mourn.”
Preston, in his translation of Apollonius, makes a Hamadryad plead in
vain for her existence, threatened by the destruction of the Oak in
which she dwelt:--
“As in the mountain, with repeated stroke,
The churlish fellow felled the stubborn Oak;
Impious, he scorned the Hamadryad’s prayer,
And smote the tree coeval with the fair.
With streaming tears she pleads a suppliant strain
To that unfeeling churl, but pleads in vain.
‘Oh, rustic, stay, nor wound the hallowed rind,
For ages with that stem I live entwined.’”
In Germany, the holes in the trunks of Oaks are thought to be utilised
by the elves inhabiting the trees as means of entry and exit; in our
own country, Oaks have always been reputed as the trees in whose boughs
elves delighted to find shelter. The fairies, too, were fond of dancing
around Oaks: thus Tighe, apostrophising the monarch of the forest,
exclaims:--
“The fairies from their nightly haunt,
In copse, or dell, or round the trunk revered
Of Herne’s moon-silvered Oak, shall chase away
Each fog, each blight, and dedicate to peace
Thy classic shade.”
In these lines allusion is made to a famous tree in Windsor Forest, one
of a long series of celebrated Oaks--“lusty trees,” which, as Robert
Turner writes, England “did once so flourish with, that it was called
Druina by some.” One of these, known as the Cadenham Oak, in the New
Forest, is said, like the Glastonbury Thorn, to mark the birthday of
our Lord by budding on Christmas Day. Another, renowned as the Royal
Oak, is reverenced as having been the hiding-place of Charles II.,
after the battle of Worcester. In this tree, not far from Boscobel
House, the king, and his companion, Col. Careless, or Carless, resorted
when they thought it no longer safe to remain in the house--the family
giving them victuals on a Nut-hook. From this tree Charles gathered
some Acorns, and set them himself in St. James’s Park:--
“Blest Charles then to an Oak his safety owes;
The Royal Oak, which now in songs shall live,
Until it reach to heaven with its boughs--
Boughs that for loyalty shall garlands give.”
In many parts of England, Oak-branches are suspended over doorways, and
gilded Oak-leaves and Oak-Apples are worn, on Royal Oak Day (May 29th),
in celebration of King Charles’s restoration, and his preservation in
the Boscobel Oak, which is still extant.
Seven Oaks have given a name to a village in Kent; and Dean Stanley
has described a row of seven Oaks standing at a particular spot
in Palestine to which the following curious legend is locally
attached:--After Cain had murdered his brother, he was punished by
being compelled to carry the dead body of Abel during the lengthened
period of five hundred years, and then to bury it in this place. Upon
doing so, he planted his staff to mark the grave, and out of this staff
grew up the seven Oak trees.
The aged Oaks of Germany excited the wonder and respect of Tacitus,
who, speaking of one of the giants of the Hercynian forest, exclaims:
“Its majestic grandeur surpasses all belief; no axe has ever touched
it; contemporary with the creation of the world, it is a symbol of
immortality.” Sacred trees, or pillars formed of living trunks of
trees, many of which were Oaks, were to be found in ancient Germany,
called _Irmenseule_. The world-tree of Romowe, the ancient sacred
centre of the Prussians, was an evergreen Oak. The Oak of St. Louis at
Vincennes, and the Oak of the Partisans at St. Ouen, are trees regarded
with reverence by the French.
Evelyn considers that the wood used for our Saviour’s cross was Oak;
founding his belief on the statements made by divers learned men who
had studied the subject, and “upon accurate examination of the many
fragments pretended to be parcels of it.” The same author speaks of
“the fatal præadmonition of Oaks bearing strange leaves”; and tells us
that sleeping under Oak-trees will cure paralysis, and recover those
whom the malign influence of the Walnut-tree has smitten. Paulus, a
Danish physician, averred that one or two handfuls of small Oak-buttons
mingled with Oats given to black horses will change them in a few days
to a fine dapple-grey. Bacon says that there is an old tradition that
if boughs of Oak be put into the earth, they will bring forth wild
Vines; he also remarks that in his day country people had “a kind
of prediction that if the Oake-apple, broken, be full of wormes, it
is a signe of a pestilent yeare.” It is said that when the Oak comes
out before the Ash, it is a sign that there will be fine weather in
harvest. The Kentish people have a saying:--
“Oak, smoke;
Ash squash.”
and that if the Oak comes out before the Ash, the summer will be hot;
but if after the Ash, that it will be wet. Authorities in dream lore
state that it is a very favourable omen to dream of an Oak-tree: if
covered with verdure, it signifies a long and happy life; if devoid of
foliage or withered, it betokens poverty in old age; to see many young
Oaks thriving foretells male children, who will reap distinction by
bravery; Oaks bearing Acorns betoken great wealth; and a blasted Oak
forebodes sudden death.
Astrologers state that the Oak-tree is under the dominion of Jupiter.
=OATS.=--Oats did not enjoy a good reputation among the ancient Romans,
and Pliny writes of them:--_Primum omnium frumenti vitium Avena est._
In old English books, the Oat is called Haver or Hafer corn, and to
this day in Wales it is still called Hever. In Scandinavian mythology,
the “Hafer” of the evil genius Loki is synonymous with Oats of the
Devil, a term originally applied to all herbs hurtful to cattle.----The
Danes call the plant _Polytrichum commune_ Loki’s Oats; and in the
tradition that the diabolic God of the North is wont mischievously to
sow weeds among the good seed is probably to be found the origin of the
English saying, “He is sowing his wild Oats.”----In the Ukraine, there
is a tradition that on one occasion the Devil besought the Almighty to
make him a present. God responded: “What is there that I can give you?
I cannot part with the Rye, or the Barley, or the Millet: I must give
you the Oats.” The Devil, well pleased, withdrew, crying, “Hurrah! the
Oats, the Oats, are mine!” Then God inquired of St. Peter and St. Paul:
“What can I do, seeing that I have handed them over to him?” “Verily,”
said Paul, “I will at once go and get them from him.” “How will you
manage that?” “Leave that to me,” replied Paul. “Very well--go!” St.
Paul passed the Devil, and hid himself beneath a bridge. Presently
the Devil came along shouting “Oats! Oats!” St. Paul commenced to
shriek. The Devil stopped short. “Why have you thus frightened me?”
he asked. “God has given me a plant, and now you have made me quite
forget its name.” “Was it Rye?” “No,” “Wheat?” “No.” “Could it have
been the Sow-thistle?” “Ah! that was it, that was it!” exclaimed the
Devil, and he ran off shouting, “Sow-thistle, Sow-thistle.”----The
contortions of the Animal Oat (_Avena sterilis_) are very noticeable:
the strong beards, after the seeds have fallen off, are so sensible
of alteration in the atmosphere, that they maintain an apparently
spontaneous motion, resembling that of some grotesque insect. In olden
times, conjurors and wizards predicted events and told fortunes by
means of the awns of these Oats, which they caused to wriggle about by
holding them in a damp hand, or breathing upon them. In these jugglers’
hands the Wild Oat became a magical plant, figuring at their will as
the leg of an enchanted spider, Egyptian fly, or some other wonderful
insect.----To dream of a field of ripe Oats just ready for the sickle
is a most favourable omen, under all circumstances.
OLD MAN.--See Southernwood.
=OLEANDER.=--The banks of the Meles, the rivulet sacred to Homer,
are in some parts thickly set with _Nerium Oleander_, a plant which
bears a funereal and sinister character, and in Italy is considered
as ill-omened and as bringing disgrace and misfortune. In Tuscany and
Sicily, it is customary to cover the dead with Oleander-blossoms,
and in India chaplets of these flowers are placed on the brows of
the departed: the blossoms are also in that country much used in the
decoration of temples. The Hindus call the shrub the “Horse-killer,”
from a notion that horses inadvertently eating of its foliage are
killed by it. The Italians bestow a similar name on the plant--_Ammazza
l’Asino_, Ass-bane. Gerarde remarks that the flowers and leaves prove
fatal to many quadrupeds, and that sheep and goats drinking water
wherein the leaves have fallen are sure to die. In England, the plant
is known as the Rose Bay and Laurel Rose. In Tuscany, it is called
_Mazza di San Giuseppe_ (St. Joseph’s Staff), and there is a legend
that this staff commenced to blossom directly St. Joseph took it in his
hands.
=OLIVE.=--The legend runs, that in the days of Cecrops, king of Attica,
the two rival deities, Neptune and Minerva, strove for the worship
of the Athenians. Each claimed priority of right: Neptune, by a salt
spring, which his trident had opened in the rock of the Acropolis;
Minerva, by pointing to the Olive-tree, which at her command had sprung
from the soil. The gods in council decided that the latter was the
earlier, as well as the more useful, gift; and so Minerva became the
tutelary deity of the city, and the early Athenian rulers endeavoured
to turn the attention of the citizens from warlike and seafaring
pursuits, to the cultivation of the soil and the peaceful arts. On the
coins of Attica, before the time of Pericles, an Olive-branch appeared
with the moon and owl. Goats were sacrificed to Minerva, because they
were thought to do special injury to the Olive-tree, and the goddess is
styled by Virgil _Oleæ inventrix_. There was a deeper meaning attached
to this Attic legend, the realisation of which appears as far off as
it was in the days of Cecrops: still the Olive-branch remains the
emblem of that period of peace and plenty which the world still hopes
for.----The most sacred of the Athenian Olives grew in the temple of
Minerva since the time of the dispute between Minerva and Neptune: it
was burnt by Xerxes with the temple; but it was stated to have shot up
again suddenly, after having been destroyed. The Athenians punished
with great severity those who damaged their venerated Olive, which to
them appears to have been emblematic of peace. It indicated liberty,
hope, chastity, pity, and supplication; and special directions for
the mode of planting the sacred tree had place among the institutes
of Solon. Pliny asserts that the identical Olive-tree, called up by
Minerva, was standing in his time.----The Olive is frequently mentioned
in the Bible, both in a literal and figurative manner. The dove sent
forth by Noah from the Ark, brought back an Olive-leaf (probably from
Assyria, a country famous for Olive-trees), which the bird probably
selected because the leaves would continue green beneath the water.
As an emblem of peace, a garland of Olive was given to Judith when
she restored peace to the Israelites by the death of Holofernes. The
tree is still with the Jew the emblem of peace and plenty, with an
added significance of holiness; and the association of it with the
last days of Christ has made it also sacred to sorrow.----As an emblem
of peace and reconciliation, the Olive is figured on the tombs of the
early martyrs. As the attribute of peace, it is borne by the angel
Gabriel, and St. Agnes, and St. Pantaleon. By Romanists the Olive is
deemed a fitting emblem of the Virgin Mary, as the mother of Christ,
who brought peace on earth, and who was the Prince of Peace.----In
regard to the Olive-trees of the Garden of Gethsemane, eight of which
are still stated to exist, Dean Stanley says: “In spite of all the
doubts that can be raised against their antiquity, or the genuineness
of their site, the eight aged Olive-trees, if only by their manifest
difference from all others on the mountain, have always struck even
the most indifferent observers. They are now, indeed, less striking
in the modern garden enclosure, built round them by the Franciscans,
than when they stood free and unprotected on the rough hillside; but
they will remain so long as their already protracted life is spared,
the most venerable of their race on the surface of the earth. Their
gnarled trunks and scanty foliage will always be regarded as the most
affecting of the sacred memorials in or about Jerusalem.”----According
to the Jewish legend of Abimelech, the trees, once upon a time,
desiring a king, addressed themselves first of all to the Olive, who
refused the honours of royalty. The trees next in turn invited the
Fig, the Vine, and other trees to become their monarch, but they all
declined. At last the crown was offered to the Oak, who accepted
it.----Grecian mythologists relate that the club of Hercules, which was
made of Olive-wood, took root, and became a tree. In the Olympic games,
instituted by Hercules, the victor was rewarded with a crown of Olive.
The club of Polyphemus was the green trunk of an Olive-tree.----The
caps of the priests of Jupiter were surmounted with a twig of Olive.
The Olympian Jove is represented as wearing a wreath of Olives.
Herodotus recounts that Xerxes, before his Grecian expedition,
dreamed that he was crowned with an Olive wreath, the sprays of which
turned towards the sun; but that a moment afterwards, this crown had
disappeared.----The Athenians went to consult the Delphic oracle,
holding in their hands branches of Olive, and asking for a favourable
response in the name and through the favour of the Olive-trees; and
Tigranes, when before Xerxes, reproached Mardonius with having carried
on a war against a people who, in their Olympian games, were content
with a crown of Olives as the reward of victory, and who fought not
for plunder and riches, but for love of country and glory.----There
stood in the Forum of Megara a wild Olive, on which it became the
custom to hang the arms of local heroes. In course of time the bark of
the Olive grew over these arms, and they were forgotten. An oracle,
however, had declared that when the tree had brought forth arms, its
destruction would take place. When the tree was cut down, the arms and
helmets alluded to were discovered; and it was seen that the oracle
had been fulfilled.----The Provençaux, at harvest time, sing a curious
song, called the Reapers’ Grace, the first part of which narrates how
Adam and Eve were put into the Garden of Eden; Adam is forbidden to
eat of the fruit of life; he eats thereof, and the day of his death
is foretold him. He will be buried under a Palm, Cypress, and Olive,
and out of the wood of the Olive the cross was made.----According to a
German tradition, from the tomb of Adam, the father of the human race,
sprang an Olive: from this Olive was plucked the branch that the dove
from the ark carried to Noah, the regenerator of the human race; and
from the same Olive was made the cross of the Redeemer--the spiritual
redeemer of the human race.----A tradition very general relates
that the cross was formed of the Olive, Palm, Cedar, and Cypress,
representing the four quarters of the globe.----In Central Europe, the
Olive is everywhere regarded as the emblem of peace. It is planted in
the midst of fields to ensure a good harvest and to protect the crops
from hail: and in Venetia a branch is placed on the chimney-piece
during thunder-storms as a preservative from lightning--a prayer
being offered up at the same time to St. Barbara and St. Simon.----In
some parts of Italy, young girls employ an Olive-branch as a means of
divination. Having moistened a spray of Olive with their lips, they
throw it in the fire; if the leaf jumps three times or darts out of
the fire, they will find a husband; but if it burns without moving,
it is a sure sign of celibacy. In Rome and Tuscany, the superstitious
peasants imagine that no witch or sorcerer will enter a house where an
Olive-branch that has been blessed is kept, and in order to ascertain
whether they are suffering from the dire effects of an Evil Eye,
they drop some Olive-oil in water, and from the appearance satisfy
themselves on the point.----To dream of Olive-trees or Olives is
considered a good omen, denoting happiness, prosperity, and success,
and a speedy marriage to the lover; but to dream of plucking Olives is
unpropitious, announcing trouble and vexation. To dream of Olive-trees
bearing Olives denotes peace, delight, concord, liberty, dignity, and
fruition of your desires. To dream that you beat the Olives down is
lucky for all but servants.
=ONION.=--By the ancient Egyptians the Onion was regarded as a plant
partaking of a sacred character and as a symbol of the Universe. With
them it was a common object of worship, and their veneration for this
and other vegetable products is ridiculed by the satirist Juvenal--
“How Egypt, mad with superstition grown,
Makes gods of monsters, but too well is known:
’Tis mortal sin an Onion to devour,
Each clove of Garlic hath a sacred power;
Religious nation sure, and blest abodes,
When every garden is o’errun with gods!”
The Onions of Egypt, which were of large size and exquisite flavour,
were remembered with regretful longings by the discontented Israelites
in the wilderness; and although the priests of ancient Egypt were
forbidden to partake of them, yet they were admitted among the
offerings placed on the altars of the gods.----Mythologists relate
that the goddess Latona, having, during an indisposition, lost her
appetite, regained it by eating an Onion, and thenceforth adopted this
vegetable, which was accordingly consecrated to her.----The disciples
of Pythagoras abstained from eating Onions, ostensibly because they
grew during the falling moon, but probably because, like Beans, they
were considered too stimulating in their effects. Among the Greeks,
it would seem that the Onion was considered symbolic of generation,
since we find that at the nuptials of Iphicrates with the daughter of
King Cotys, he received, among other presents, a jar of snow, a jar
of Lentils, and a jar of Onions.----It is thought that, as with the
Egyptians, or with the English Druids, the Onion was an emblem of the
deity, and to this day it is a custom in some parts of England for
girls to divine by it. Barnaby Googe, in ‘Ye Popish Kingdome,’ tells
us:--
“In these same days young wanton gyrles that meet for marriage be
Doe search to know the names of them that shall their husbands be;
Four Onyons, five, or eight they take, and make in every one
Such names as they do fancie most, and best to think upon.
Then nere the chimney them they set, and that same Onyon then
That firste doth sproute doth surely bear the name of their good man.”
In olden times, country lasses used to resort to a method of divination
with an Onion named after St. Thomas: this they peeled and wrapped in a
clean kerchief; then, placing it under their heads, they repeated the
following lines:--
“Good St. Thomas, do me right,
And let my true-love come to-night,
That I may see him in the face,
And him in my fond arms embrace.”
In the South of England this species of divination is still extant,
but the procedure is different. When the Onions are bought, the
purchaser must take care to go in by one door of the shop and come out
by another--a shop being selected that has two doors. These Onions,
placed under your pillow on St. Thomas’s Eve, are sure to bring visions
of your true-love, your future husband.----According to astrologers,
the Onion is under the dominion of Mars.----To dream of Onions is
considered of evil augury, portending sickness and misfortune.
“To dream of eating Onions means
Much strife in thy domestic scenes;
Secrets found out or else betrayed,
And many falsehoods made and said.”
=ORANGE.=--Both Spenser and Milton held the opinion that the Orange
is the veritable “golden Apple” presented by Juno to Jupiter on the
day of their nuptials; hence, perhaps, the association of the Orange
with marriage rites. This golden fruit grew only in the garden of
the Hesperides, situated near Mount Atlas in Africa, where they were
carefully tended by the three daughters of Hesperus--Ægle, Arethusa,
and Erythia--and guarded by an ever-sleeping dragon. It was one of
the labours of Hercules, to obtain some of these golden Apples. After
slaying the dragon, he succeeded in plucking the auriferous fruit, and
took them to Eurystheus, but they were afterwards carried back to the
garden of the Hesperides by Minerva, as they could not be preserved
elsewhere. Milton alludes to the Orange as a tree
“Whose fruit, burnished with golden rind,
Hung amiable, Hesperian fables true,
If true, here only, and of delicious taste.”
These, again, were the golden Apples given by Venus to the subtle
Hippomenes, and by means of which he cunningly contrived to wrest
victory in his race with the swift-footed Atalanta. Perhaps, also,
Spenser’s opinion is correct, and the Orange may be the fruit, the
bestowal of which upon Venus was the origin of the Trojan war. Spenser
states his opinion in the following stanzas of his ‘Faërie Queene’:--
“Next thereunto did grow a goodly tree,
With branches broad dispread and body great,
Clothèd with leaves, that none the wood might see,
And laden all with fruit, as thick as thick might be.
“The fruit were golden Apples glistering bright,
That goodly was their glory to behold;
On earth no better grew, nor living wight
E’er better saw, but they from hence[17] were sold;
For those which Hercules, with conquest bold,
Got from great Atlas’ daughters, hence began,
And planted there, did bring forth fruit of gold,
And those with which th’ Eubœan young man wan [won]
Swift Atalanta, when, through craft, he her outran.
“Here also sprang that goodly golden fruit
With which Acontius got his lover true,
Whom he had long time sought with fruitless suit;
Here eke that famous golden Apple grew,
The which among the gods false Até threw,
For which th’ Idæan ladies disagreed,
Till partial Paris deem’d it Venus’ due,
And had of her fair Helen for his meed,
That many noble Greeks and Trojans made to bleed.”
[17] The garden of Proserpina.
At Brighton, there exists a curious custom of bowling or throwing
Oranges along the high-road on Boxing-day. He whose Orange is hit by
that of another, forfeits the fruit to the successful hitter.----An
Andalusian tradition, given by De Gubernatis, relates that the Virgin
Mary, journeying with the infant Jesus and with Joseph, came to the
Orange-tree, which was guarded by an eagle, and begged of it one of
the Oranges for the holy child. The eagle miraculously fell asleep,
and the Virgin thereupon plucked not one but three Oranges, one
of which she gave to the infant Jesus, another to Joseph, and the
third she kept for herself. Then, and not till then, the eagle that
guarded the Orange-tree awoke.----According to Evelyn, the first
China Orange-tree which reached Europe was sent as a present to
the old Conde Mellor, then Prime Minister to the King of Portugal.
Writing in 1697, the Jesuit Le Comte states that “the first and
unique Orange-tree, from which it is said all others have sprung, is
still preserved at Lisbon, in the house of Count St. Laurent.”----In
Sicily, statues of the Madonna are decorated with branches of the
Orange; at Avola, in Sicily, on Easter Sunday, two posts are set up,
and decorated with Orange-boughs.----The Orange is one of those rare
trees which produce at the same time fruit, flowers, and foliage;
hence it is in some countries considered as typifying great fulness,
and has thus become connected with wedding ceremonies. The practice
of wearing Orange-blossoms and wreaths by brides has been derived
from the Saracens, amongst whom the Orange-flower was regarded as
emblematic of a happy and prosperous marriage. In Crete, the bride and
bridegroom are sprinkled with Orange-flower-water. In Sardinia, it is
customary to attach Oranges to the horns of oxen which draw the nuptial
carriage.----To dream of Oranges would appear to be at all times a very
unfavourable omen.
=ORCHIS.=--From mythology we learn that the Orchis owes its origin to
the wanton son of the satyr Patellanus and the nymph Acolasia, who
presided at the feasts celebrated in honour of Priapus. The headstrong
Orchis, being present at the celebration of the feast of Bacchus,
laid violent hands on one of the priestesses of that god; and this
sacrilegious conduct so incensed the Bacchanals against the youth,
that they forthwith set upon him, and in their fury literally tore
him in pieces. His father adjured the gods, but the only remedy he
could obtain was that his son’s mangled corpse should be transformed
into a flower, which should ever after bear the name of Orchis, as a
blot upon his memory.----Among the early Romans, the Orchis was often
called Satyrion, because it was believed to be the food of the satyrs,
and as such excited them to those excesses which were characteristic
of the attendants of Bacchus. Hence, the Orchis-root not unnaturally
became famous as a powerful stimulating medicine, and is so described
by all herbalists from the time of Dioscorides.----A very old tradition
exists that Orchids sprang from the seed of the thrush and the
blackbird.----Bishop Fleetwood writes of these curious flowers that
they represent apes, birds, wasps, bees, flies, butterflies, gnats,
spiders, grasshoppers, and other insects; “but the most curious sort
is that which is called _Anthropophora_, because it represents a man
or a woman very exactly.” He further tells us “this flower, resembling
a man, appears in the beginning of Autumn; but that which represents
women comes in May. These two Orchids were, in 1671, engraved by order
of the _Academia Curiosorum Naturæ_, and were described as _Orchis
Anthropophorus Mas._, and _O. A. Fœmina_.”----A tradition is attached
to the English species, _Orchis mascula_, which usually has its leaves
marked with deep purple spots. It is said that these spots are the
stains of the precious blood which flowed from our Lord’s wounded body
on the cross at Calvary, as this species of Orchis is reported to
have grown there. In Cheshire, the plant is called Gethsemane.----The
sweet-scented Orchis, _Gymnadenia conopsea_, is the Northern goddess
Frigg’s Grass.
=ORPINE.=--On Midsummer Eve, Orpine (_Sedum Telephium_), Fennel,
Lilies, and Hypericum used formerly to be hung over doors and windows.
The plant is commonly called ‘Midsummer Men’ and ‘Livelong,’ from a
custom of country lasses to try their lovers’ fidelity with it on
Midsummer Eve: this they do by setting up two plants of Orpine--one
representing themselves, and another their lovers--upon a slate
or trencher, and afterwards judging of the state of their lover’s
affections by his plant living and turning to their own, or not. Wives,
also, place over their heads the Orpine-plant, and by the bending of
the leaves to the right or to the left divine whether husbands are true
or false. (See LIVELONG.)
=OSMUND ROYAL.=--The stately flowering Fern _Osmunda Regalis_ is said
to derive its name from the following legend:--A waterman, named
Osmund, once dwelt on the banks of Loch Fyne, with his wife and
daughter. One day a band of fugitives, bursting into his cottage,
warned Osmund that the cruel Danes were fast approaching the ferry.
Osmund heard them with fear; he trembled for those he held dearer
than life. Suddenly the shouts of furious men roused him to action.
Snatching up his oars, he rowed his trembling wife and child to a small
island covered with this beautiful Fern; and helping them to land, he
bade them lie down beneath the shady foliage for protection. Scarcely
had the ferryman returned to his cottage, ere a company of fierce
Danes rushed in, but knowing that he could be of service to them, they
did him no harm. During the day and night, Osmund was occupied in
ferrying the troops across the lake. When the last company had landed,
Osmund kneeled beside the bank, and returned thanks to Heaven for the
preservation of his wife and child. Often in after years did he speak
of that day’s peril; and his daughter called the Fern by her father’s
name. Gerarde, in describing the stem of the _Osmunda_, which, on being
cut, exhibits a white centre, calls this portion of the Fern the “heart
of Osmund, the waterman,” probably in allusion to the above tradition.
OUR LADY’S PLANTS.--See Lady’s Plants.
OX-EYE.--See Moon Daisy.
=PALASA.=--Palasa is a Sanscrit word, meaning “leaf,” but in course
of time it became applied to the _Butea frondosa_ as well as the name
Parna, which also signifies a leaf. The modern Indian name of the
tree is Dhak. The Palasa is in India a sacred tree, and has a special
cultus; as such, it is held to be imbued with the immortalising Soma,
the beverage of the gods. According to the Vedas, it owed its origin to
a feather dropped by a falcon who, when the gods were pining for the
precious Soma fluid, succeeded in stealing some from the demons who
had charge of it. In flying off with its prize, the falcon was wounded
by an arrow shot by one of the demons, which wounded it and caused a
feather impregnated with the divine fluid to fall to earth, where it
took root and became a Palasa-tree (called also Parna), which has a
red sap and scarlet blossoms--emblems of the sacred fire. The falcon
was a transformed god--some say Indra--hence the tree which sprang
from the god-bird’s feather was in its nature divine.----The Palasa
was much employed by the Hindus in religious ceremonies, particularly
in one connected with the blessing of calves to ensure them proving
good milkers. To this end, at the time of the sacrifice offered in the
new moon (the season of increase), the priest, on behalf of the Hindu
farmer, selected a Palasa-branch that grew on the north-east, north,
or east side of the tree, and cut it off, saying, “For strength cut
I thee.” Then, having stripped off the leaves, he struck both calves
and dams with it, blessing the latter and bidding them be good milkers
and breeders, and profitable animals to their masters. This done, he
stuck up the Palasa rod eastward of the holy fire, and bade it protect
the cattle. The object in thus touching the cattle was that the divine
Soma contained in the rod might pass into and enrich the udders of the
beasts. The Palasa is triple-leaved, and hence was deemed to typify,
like the trident, the forked lightning, an appropriate attribute,
inasmuch as it originally sprang from a god of the lightning. In this
respect, it resembled the rod of Mercury (a fire-god), the Sami, and
the Rowan rod.----The staff of the Brahman ought to be made of Palasa
wood. (See DHAK.)
=PALM.=--The Palm-tree is symbolic of victory, of riches, and of
generation. It was considered by the ancients also an emblem of light,
and was held sacred to Apollo. The Palm of Delos was supposed to have
existed from the time of the god Apollo himself. Among the Greeks,
there existed a legend that the Palm, like the Olive, was brought
into Greece by Hercules, on his return from the infernal regions. The
Orphics venerated the Palm as an immortal tree, which never grew old;
hence, as a symbol of immortality, and especially of the immortality of
glory, it was associated with the goddess Victoria, called also _Dea
Palmaris_.----In India, as amongst the Arabs, the Palm is considered
a sacred tree.----According to an Indian legend, the Palm of the Lake
of Taroba, in Central India, was only visible during the day; in the
evening it re-entered the earth. It is related that a rash pilgrim
climbed one morning to the top of the Palm, but the tree grew to such
a height above the earth’s surface, that the pilgrim was scorched to
death by the sun’s rays, and the Palm itself was reduced to tinder. On
the spot where the miraculous Palm is said to have once grown stands
the idol of the Geni of the Lake, called Taroba.----Christian legend
has associated the Palm with the history of Jesus. According to the
Apocryphal Gospel, the Virgin Mary, whilst journeying, became fatigued
and oppressed with the great heat; in passing by a great desert, she
saw a large and beautiful Palm-tree, beneath which she wished to seek
rest and shelter; so she asked Joseph to drive the ass upon which she
was seated towards the tree. When she reached the foot of the tree,
she dismounted, and, looking up, noticed that the tree was laden with
fruit. Then she said to Joseph: “I wish to have some of the fruit of
this tree, for I am hungry.” To this, Joseph replied: “Mary, I marvel
that you should desire to eat of this fruit.” Then Jesus Christ, who
was seated in his mother’s lap, ordered the Palm to bend down, so that
his mother might partake of its fruit at pleasure. And forthwith the
tree bent down to the Virgin Mary, and she partook of its fruit, and
still the Palm remained bent downwards. Then, Jesus perceiving this,
ordered the Palm to resume its natural position, and it immediately
did so. This legend has been widely diffused in Italy and elsewhere,
sometimes with the following addendum: “Jesus, after this act of
devotion on the part of the Palm, gave the tree his benediction, chose
it as the symbol of eternal salvation for the dying, and declared that
he would make his triumphant entry into Jerusalem with a Palm in his
hand.”----The Palm was early assumed by the Christian Church as the
universal symbol of martyrdom, in accordance with Revelation vii., 9:
“And after this I beheld, and lo, a great multitude stood before the
throne, clothed with white robes, and with Palms in their hands.... And
he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation.”
Hence, in early Italian paintings of the saints, as well as on the
sculptured effigies of Christian heroes, the Palm is represented as
borne by those who suffered martyrdom; and, in some instances, by
those conspicuous for their victory over pain and temptation.----In
old religious paintings, St. Christopher (who lived in the middle of
the fourth century) is represented as a man of Herculean proportions,
who uses, as a supporting staff, an entire Palm-tree with leaves
and branches. The legend is, that having, when still unconverted,
entreated a hermit to show him Christ, the holy man admonished him
that he must do some good and acceptable work, and recommended him to
go to the banks of a deep and swollen river, and by his great strength
assist travellers to cross over it. Christopher readily undertook the
task, and went and dwelt by the side of the river. Having rooted up a
Palm-tree, he used it as a staff to guide and support his steps, and
aided all who were overcome by the stream, and carried the weak on his
shoulders across it. After he had spent many days at this toil, he,
one night, whilst lying resting in his hut, heard a voice calling him
from the shore. He arose and looked out, but saw nothing. So he lay
down again, and the same thing occurred to him a second and third time.
Then he took his lantern and searched about the river bank, and at last
discovered a little child, who plaintively said to him: “Christopher,
carry me over this night.” Thereupon the stalwart young man lifted the
little child on his shoulders, and grasping his Palm-staff, entered
the stream. As he struggled across, the waters kept rising higher and
higher; the waves roared, and beat against him, and the winds blew.
The infant on his shoulder became heavier and still heavier, till
Christopher felt that he must sink under the excessive weight, and
began to feel afraid: nevertheless, taking fresh courage, and staying
his tottering steps with his Palm-staff, he at length reached the
opposite bank. Gently placing the child down, he looked at him with
astonishment, and asked, “Who art thou, child, that hast placed me in
such extreme peril? Had I carried the whole world on my shoulders, the
burthen had not been heavier.” Then the child replied: “Wonder not,
Christopher, for thou hast not only borne the world, but Him who made
the world, upon thy shoulders. Me wouldst thou serve in this thy work
of charity; and, behold, I have accepted thy service; and in testimony
that I have accepted thy service and thee, plant thy staff in the
ground, and it shall put forth leaves and fruit.” Christopher did so,
and the dry Palm-staff flourished as a Palm-tree in the season, and was
covered with clusters of Dates. But the miraculous child had vanished.
Then Christopher fell on his face, and confessed and worshipped
Christ.----According to the legend of the death of the Virgin Mary, she
was, one day, filled with an inexpressible longing to behold her Son
again, and whilst weeping, an angel suddenly appeared, and said: “Hail,
O Mary! I bring thee here a branch of Palm, gathered in Paradise;
command that it be carried before thy bier in the day of thy death;
for in three days thy soul shall leave thy body, and thou shalt enter
into Paradise, where thy Son awaits thy coming.” After conversing with
the Holy Mother, the angel departed into heaven, and the Palm-branch
which he had left behind him shed light from every leaf, and sparkled
as the stars of the morning. At the same instant, the apostles, who
were dispersed in various parts of the world, were miraculously caught
up and deposited at Mary’s door. Then, having thanked the Lord, she
placed in the hands of St. John the shining Palm, and desired him
to bear it before her at the time of the burial--an office which he
faithfully discharged.----Some authorities mention the Palm as one of
the four trees which furnished the wood of which the Redeemer’s Cross
was composed; this notion is derived from Canticles vii., 8: “I will go
up to the Palm-tree,” &c. Hence the old rhyme:--
“Nailed were His feet to Cedar, to Palm His hands--
Cypress His body bore, title on Olive stands.”
The praises of the Palm have been sung by Hebrew, Indian, Persian, and
Arabian poets of all ages. According to Strabo, a Persian hymn, but
according to Plutarch a Babylonian hymn, records the three hundred and
sixty benefits conferred on mankind by this noble tree; whilst a poem
in the Tamil language, although enumerating eight hundred and one uses
of the Palmyra Palm, does not exhaust the catalogue.----In the Indian
_Vishnu Purâna_, the fruitfulness of the Date Palm is alluded to. The
youthful Bala Râma slays the monster Dhenuka, and casts the carcase at
the foot of a Date Palm: then the Dates fell upon him just as rain,
beaten by the winds, patters down on the earth.----In India, the Palm
has given rise to a proverb on account of the facility with which it
takes root: the natives say of a vile and despised enemy, that he
takes root as a Palm.----To dream of a Palm-tree is a very good omen,
particularly if it is in full blossom, in which case it predicts much
success and good fortune.
=PANSY.=--The Pansy (_Viola tricolor_) derives its name from a
corruption of the French word _pensées_, thoughts: thus poor Ophelia
says:--
“Pray you love, remember,
And there’s Pansies,--that’s for thoughts.”--_Shakspeare._
Spenser designated the flower “the pretty Pawnce;” Milton spoke of it
as the “Pansy freak’d with jet;” and Drayton sings:--
“The pretty Pansy then I’ll tye,
Like stones some chain enchasing;
The next to them, their near ally,
The purple Violet placing.”
Rapin writes of the flower as _Flos Jovis_--the flower of Jove:--
“With all the beauties in the valleys bred,
Spearmint, that’s born with Myrtle crowns to wed.
And Jove’s own flower, in which three colours meet,
To rival Violets, though without their sweet.”
In addition to this grandiose title, the little flower rejoices in
a multiplicity of epithets bestowed on it by rural admirers. It is
Heart’s-ease, Forget-me-not, Herb Trinity, Three-Faces-under-a-Hood,
Love-and-Idle, Love-in-idleness, Live-in-Idleness, Call-me-to-you,
Cuddle-me-to-you, Jump-up-and-kiss-me, Kiss-me-ere-I-Rise,
Kiss-me-at-the-Garden-Gate, Tittle-my-Fancy, Pink-of-my-John, and
Flamy, because its colours are seen in the flame of wood. In the
North-east of Scotland, and in Scandinavia, the flower is with a spice
of irony called Step-mother. In ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream,’ Shakspeare
gives the Heart’s-ease magical qualities. Oberon bids Puck procure for
him “a little western flower” on which Cupid’s dart had fallen, and
which maidens called “Love-in-Idleness.” Says the fairy king:--
“Fetch me that flower--the herb I showed thee once;
The juice of it, on sleeping eyelids laid,
Will make or man or woman madly dote
Upon the next live creature that it sees.”
The poet Herrick tells us, in regard to the origin of these favourite
flowers, that--
“Frolick virgins once there were,
Over-loving, living here.
Being here their ends denied,
Ran for sweethearts mad, and died.
Love, in pity of their tears,
And their loss in blooming years,
For their restless here-spent hours,
Gave them Heart’s-ease turned to flowers.”
The Pansy was the accidental cause of Bertram, the first American
botanist, devoting himself to the study of botany. The stamens and
pistil of this flower have something grotesque in their appearance
when disclosed, resembling to a fanciful mind an animal with arms, and
a head projecting and stooping forward. Bertram, who was originally
a farmer, while superintending his servants in the field, and giving
them directions, gathered a Pansy that was growing at his feet, and
thoughtlessly pulled off its petals one after another. Struck with
the stamens and pistil, Bertram conveyed it home, that he might
examine it more carefully. Its examination created in him that thirst
for the knowledge of the construction and habits of plants which
afterwards rendered him so famous, and won for him the friendship of
Linnæus.----The Heart’s-ease is said to be sacred to St. Valentine. As
the _Herba Trinitatis_, or Herb Trinity, it is the special flower of
Trinity Sunday.----It is considered to be a herb of Saturn.
=PAPYRUS.=--Plutarch tells us that the vessel on which the Egyptian
goddess Isis embarked on her voyage to search for the remains of
Osiris, was constructed of the Reeds of the Papyrus (_Papyrus
antiquorum_), and that the crocodiles, out of respect and fear of
the goddess, dared not approach the bark.----The Papyrus is the Rush
described in the Hebrew Scriptures by the word _Gôme_, and in an ark
of _Gôme_ the mother of the infant Moses put her babe, and laid it
in the Flags by the brink of the river Nile. The ancient Egyptians
plaited the stems of the Papyrus not only into little boats, but into
sails, mats, and sandals. The fabrication in particular of little
boats appears to have been practised by them to an immense extent,
and to have commenced in the very earliest days of the nation. M. de
Castelnau says that the Reed-boats still in use amongst the Peruvians
exactly resemble the pictured representations of the Egyptian ones, as
preserved on the walls of the tomb of Rameses III. at Thebes. Bundles
of Papyrus-stems furnished models for the shafts of some of the pillars
of the ancient Egyptian temples, and the bases of these were ornamented
with representations of the sheaths that encircle the foot of the
flower-stalk. The Papyrus-plant supplied the material of which the
famous paper, both rough and fine, was manufactured in ancient times.
Papyrus paper made 2000 years B.C., or anterior to the time of Abraham,
is still in existence. It was an article of commerce long before the
time of Herodotus, and it remained in use till the seventh century.
This Papyrus paper was prepared from the white pith of the stoutest
stems of the Reeds which grew in great abundance in the pools caused by
the overflowing of the Nile.----Plutarch relates, that when Agesilaus
visited Egypt, he was so delighted with the chaplets of Papyrus sent
him by the king, that he took some home when he returned to Sparta.
=PARSLEY.=--Hercules is said to have selected Parsley to form the first
garlands he wore. The Greeks held Parsley (_Petroselinum_) in great
reputation. A crown of dried and withered Parsley was given to the
victor at the Isthmian games; and one of green Parsley to the conqueror
at the Nemean games, in memory of the death of Archemorus, the infant
son of Lycurgus, who, laid down by his nurse on a sprig of Parsley, was
killed by a serpent.----A branch of Laurel and a crown of Parsley were
given to the god of banquets. At Greek banquets the guests wore crowns
of Parsley, under the belief that the herb created quiet and promoted
an appetite.----Greek gardens were often bordered by Parsley and Rue;
hence arose the saying, when an undertaking was in contemplation,
but not really commenced: “Oh, we are only at the Parsley and Rue!”
Parsley, again, was in great request for the purpose of decorating
graves; and the Greeks were fond of strewing sprigs of the herb over
the bodies of the dead. A despairing lover cries:--
“Garlands that o’er thy doors I hung,
Hang withered now and crumble fast;
Whilst Parsley on thy fair form flung,
Now tells my heart that all is past!”
From these funereal associations the herb acquired an ominous
significance; and “to be in need of Parsley” was a proverbial
expression meaning to be on the point of death. Plutarch tells of a
panic created in a Greek force marching against the enemy by their
suddenly meeting some mules laden with Parsley, which the soldiery
looked upon as an ill omen. In our own country, to this day, there is
an old saying among the people of Surrey and Middlesex, that “Where
Parsley’s grown in the garden, there’ll be a death before the year’s
out.”----There are several other English superstitions connected with
Parsley. Children are often told that newly-born infants have been
found in a Parsley bed. The seed of this herb is apt to come up only
partially, according as the Devil takes his tithe of it. If, after
having bruised some sprigs of Parsley in her hands, the housewife
should attempt to raise her glasses, they will generally snap, and
suddenly break. In some parts of Devonshire, the belief is widely
spread that to transplant Parsley is an offence to the spirit who is
supposed to preside over Parsley beds, entailing sure punishment either
on the offender himself or some members of his family within a year.
The peasants of South Hampshire will on no account give away Parsley,
for fear of misfortune befalling them; and in Suffolk there is an old
belief that to ensure the herb coming up “double,” Parsley-seed must be
sown on Good Friday.----In the Southern States of America, the negroes
consider it unlucky to transplant Parsley from an old home to a new
one.----To dream of cutting Parsley is said to indicate a cross in
love; to dream of eating it foretels good news.----The herb is held to
be under Mercury.
=PASQUE-FLOWER.=--The _Anemone Pulsatilla_ is the Paschal or
Pasque-flower, especially dedicated to the Church’s Easter festival,
The petals of the flower yield a rich green colour, which in olden
times was used for the purpose of staining the eggs to be presented,
according to custom, as Easter gifts. (See ANEMONE.)
=PASSION-FLOWER.=--The Passion-flower (_Passiflora cœrulea_) is a
wild flower of the South American forests, and it is said that the
Spaniards, when they first saw the lovely bloom of this plant, as it
hung in rich festoons from the branches of the forest trees, regarded
the magnificent blossom as a token that the Indians should be converted
to Christianity, as they saw in its several parts the emblems of the
Passion of our Lord.----In the year 1610, Jacomo Bosio, the author of
an exhaustive treatise on the Cross of Calvary, was busily engaged
on this work when there arrived in Rome an Augustinian friar, named
Emmanuel de Villegas, a Mexican by birth. He brought with him, and
showed to Bosio, the drawing of a flower so “stupendously marvellous,”
that he hesitated making any mention of it in his book. However, some
other drawings and descriptions were sent to him by inhabitants of
New Spain, and certain Mexican Jesuits, sojourning at Rome, confirmed
all the astonishing reports of this floral marvel; moreover, some
Dominicans at Bologna engraved and published a drawing of it,
accompanied by poems and descriptive essays. Bosio therefore conceived
it to be his duty to present the _Flos Passionis_ to the world as the
most wondrous example of the _Croce trionfante_ discovered in forest or
field. The flower represents, he tells us, not so directly the Cross
of our Lord, as the past mysteries of the Passion. It is a native of
the Indies, of Peru, and of New Spain, where the Spaniards call it
“the Flower of the Five Wounds,” and it had clearly been designed by
the great Creator that it might, in due time, assist in the conversion
of the heathen among whom it grows. Alluding to the bell-like shape
assumed by the flower during the greater part of its existence (_i.e._,
whilst it is expanding and fading), Bosio remarks: “And it may well be
that, in His infinite wisdom, it pleased him to create it thus shut up
and protected, as though to indicate that the wonderful mysteries of
the Cross and of his Passion were to remain hidden from the heathen
people of those countries until the time preordained by His Highest
Majesty.”----The figure given of the Passion-flower in Bosio’s work
shows the crown of thorns twisted and plaited, the three nails, and
the column of the flagellation just as they appear on ecclesiastical
banners, &c. “The upper petals,” writes Bosio in his description, “are
tawny in Peru, but in New Spain they are white, tinged with rose. The
filaments above resemble a blood-coloured fringe, as though suggesting
the scourge with which our blessed Lord was tormented. The column
rises in the middle. The nails are above it; the crown of thorns
encircles the column; and close in the centre of the flower from which
the column rises is a portion of a yellow colour, about the size of a
reale, in which are five spots or stains of the hue of blood, evidently
setting forth the five wounds received by our Lord on the Cross. The
colour of the column, the crown, and the nails is a clear green. The
crown itself is surrounded by a kind of veil, or very fine hair, of a
violet colour, the filaments of which number seventy-two, answering to
the number of thorns with which, according to tradition, our Lord’s
crown was set; and the leaves of the plant, abundant and beautiful,
are shaped like the head of a lance or pike, referring, no doubt, to
that which pierced the side of our Saviour, whilst they are marked
beneath with round spots, signifying the thirty pieces of silver.”
Such is Bosio’s description of what he designates the “stupendous
flower,” and the stir which his writings caused among the botanists
and theologians of Italy soon brought about the introduction of the
plant itself, which, before the year 1625, had established itself
and blossomed in the garden of Cardinal Odoardo Farnese, at Rome.
Aldinus, who was both the Cardinal’s physician and the controller
of his garden, has left his description of the Passion-flower, and
says of it:--“This is the famous plant sung by poets and celebrated
by orators, the plant reasoned about by philosophers with the utmost
subtlety, praised by physicians for its marvellous virtues, sought for
eagerly by the sick, wondered at by theologians, and venerated by
all pious Christians.” In his description of the flower Aldinus sets
forth “what theologians may really find in it.” He says: “The nails
on the top are represented so exactly, that nothing more perfect can
be imagined.... In the open flower they are twisted and marked with
dark blood-like spots, as if they had been already removed from the
Cross. The small undeveloped seed-vessels may be compared to the sponge
full of vinegar offered to our Lord. The star-form of the half-opened
flower may represent the star of the Wise Men; but the five petals,
fully opened, the five wounds. The base of the ovary is the column of
the flagellation. The filaments represent the scourges spotted with
blood, and the purple circle on them is the crown of thorns, blood
covered. The white petals symbolise the purity and brightness of Our
Lord, and His white robe. The _corniculata folia_, the sub-petals,
white inside and green without, figure hope and purity, and are sharply
pointed, as if to indicate the ready eagerness with which each one of
the faithful should embrace and consider the mysteries of the Passion.
The leaves of the whole plant are set on singly, for there is one God,
but are triply divided, for there are Three Persons. The plant itself
would climb toward heaven, but cannot do so without support. So the
Christian, whose nature is to climb, demands constant assistance. Cut
down, it readily springs up again; and whoever holds the mysteries
of the Passion in his heart cannot be hurt by the evil world. Its
fruit is sweet and delicate, and the Passion of our Lord brings sweet
and delectable fruit to us.” In his ‘_Paradisus Terrestris_,’ John
Parkinson, writing in 1629, speaks of the “Virgin Climer,” as “a brave
and too-much-desired plant,” with flowers which “make a tripartite shew
of colours most delightfull,” and are “of a comfortable sweet sent,
very acceptable.”----The plant’s native Indian name was _Maracot_; from
the likeness of the fruit to a small Pomegranate, it was sometimes
called _Granadilla_; the Mexican Jesuits named it _Flor de las cinca
llagas_; but in Italy, it was usually known as _Fior della Passione_,
the name which it has retained throughout Europe.
[Illustration: TO FACE PAGE 487.]
The Granadilla, or Passion Flower.
_From Zahn’s ‘Speculæ Physico-Mathematico-Historicæ.’_]
=PAULOWNIA.=--The noble hardy tree, _Paulownia imperialis_, was so
named in 1840 in honour of the Hereditary Princess of the Netherlands,
a daughter of the Emperor of Russia. The Paulownias are famous
throughout Japan for the hardness and beauty of their wood: they attain
a height of about thirty feet, and produce dark lilac flowers, which
are borne in three spikes upon a tri-lobed sinuous leaf. These flowers,
which resemble the blossom of the Catalpa, constitute one of the crests
of the Mikado of Japan.
=PAVETTA INDICA.=--A race of Malays, called the Aruans, when burying
their dead, carry the body into the forest, and hoist it upon the
summit of four posts. A tree, usually the _Pavetta Indica_, is then
planted near it, and at this final ceremony none but nude females are
allowed to be present.
=PEA.=--The priests of ancient Egypt were not allowed to partake of
Peas.----The Pea, like most trailing and climbing plants, has always
traditionally been connected with celestial fire. According to a
mediæval legend, the ancient Midsummer or St. John’s Day fires were
kindled at the season of the Summer solstice for the purpose of scaring
away pestilential dragons; and these dragons carried Peas in their
flight, which they cast down in such quantities as to fill up the
wells, and their smell was so foul that the cattle refused to eat them:
these Peas represent lightning, and their smell is the sulphurous fume
that clings to everything struck by it. The ancient German Zwergs, who
are dwarfs closely connected with the thunder-god Thor, and who forged
for him his lightning hammer, are exceedingly fond of Peas, and often
plunder the Pea-fields. Peas were consecrated to Thor himself, and to
this day in Berlin Peas with Saurkraut are a standing dish on Thor’s
Day (Thursday). The Pea was the favourite vegetable of Thor himself,
and St. Nicholas, who in some countries has replaced him, is sometimes
represented as being clad in Peas-straws. In the North of England,
if a lass’s lover has proved unfaithful to her, she is, by way of
consolation, rubbed with Peas-straw by neighbouring lads. A Scottish
ballad says:--
“If you meet a bonnie lassie
Gie her a kiss, and let her gae;
If you meet a dirty hussey,
Fie, gae rub her o’er wi’ strae!”
Similarly when a Cambrian youth has been jilted, and his sweetheart
marries a rival, the same operation is performed upon him, as a solace,
by the village lasses. In the North of England, Carling Sunday (the
fourth in Lent) is universally celebrated by feasts of Peas and butter.
The use of Peas in divination concerning love affairs probably arises
from the fact that they are sacred to the patron of marriage. In
Bohemia, the girls go into a Pea-field, and there make a garland of
five or seven kinds of flowers, all of different hues. This garland
they use as a pillow, lying down with their right ear upon it, and then
they hear a voice from underground, which tells them what manner of
man they will have for a husband. A curious custom, known as “Peascod
wooing,” was formerly extant in many country places; it was performed,
according to Brand, by selecting one growing on the stem, snatching it
away quickly, and if the good omen of the Peas remaining in the husk
was preserved, then presenting it to the chosen lady. A girl shelling
Peas will, if she should chance to find a pod containing nine, place it
on the lintel of the kitchen door, and the first single man who enters
is considered to be marked out for her future husband. Gay alludes to
this custom in the following lines:--
“As Peascod once I plucked, I chanced to see
One that was closely filled with three times three;
Which, when I cropped, I safely home conveyed,
And o’er the door the spell in secret laid.
The latch moved up, when who should first come in,
But in his proper person--Lubberkin.”
The village girls in Hertfordshire lay the pod with nine Peas under a
gate, and believe they will have for husband the man who first passes
through, or, at any rate, one whose Christian name and surname have
the same initials as his.----It is always considered a good augury to
dream of Peas.----In Suffolk, there is a legend that the _Lathyrus
Maritimus_, or Everlasting Pea of the sea-side, sprang up on the coast
there for the first time in a season when greatly needed; and Fuller
says of this particular Pea that “in a general dearth all over England,
plenty of Peas did grow on the sea-shore, near Dunmow, in Suffolk,
never set or sown by human industry, which, being gathered in a full
ripeness, much abated the high price in the markets, and preserved many
hungry families from perishing.”
=PEACH.=--There is an old tradition that the falling of the leaves of
a Peach-tree betoken a murrain.----There is a superstitious belief
in Sicily, that anyone afflicted with goître, who on the night of
St. John, or of the Ascension, eats a Peach, will be cured, provided
only that the Peach-tree dies at the same time; the idea being that
the tree, in dying, takes the goître away with it, and so delivers
the sufferer from the affliction. In Italy, as a charm to cure warts,
Peach-leaves are carefully buried in the earth, so that as they perish
the wart may disappear.----To dream of Peaches in season denotes
content, health, and pleasure.
=PEAR.=--Among the ancients, the Pear was specially consecrated to
Venus. Columella knew a species called _Pyrus Venerea_, the Pear of
Love. The Scots claim that “fair Avalon,” the Celtic “Isle of the
Blest,” is an island in Loch Awe, Argyleshire; and the Gaelic legend
changes the mystical Apples into the berries of the _Pyrus cordata_,
a species of wild Pear, found both in the island of Loch Awe, and in
Aiguilon.----On the Continent, there is a belief that orchards are
infested by malignant spirits, which attack the fruit-trees, and in
the Département de l’Orne, to drive away the demons which attack Pears
and Apples, the peasants burn the Moss on the trunk and branches,
singing the while an appropriate rhyme or incantation. In Aargau,
Switzerland, when a boy is born, they plant an Apple-tree; when a girl,
a Pear.----To dream of ripe Pears betokens riches and happiness; if
unripe, adversity; if baked, great success in business; to a woman a
dream of Pears denotes that she will marry above her in rank.
=PEEPUL.=--The _Ficus religiosa_, the _Asvattha_ or _Pippala_ of the
Hindus, is a tree held in the highest sanctity by the Buddhists, near
whose temples it is always found. It is this tree--the Bodhidruma,
the Tree of Wisdom--under which Buddha sat absorbed in a species of
intellectual ecstacy, and which his followers regard as the tree of
creation, life, wisdom, and preparation for Paradise, as well as
the yielder of ambrosia and rain. From ancient Vedic tradition the
Buddhists have inherited the worship of this sacred tree: they say
that at the hour of Buddha’s nativity, whilst around Kapilavastu
suddenly arose magnificent woods, an enormous Asvattha, or Bo-tree,
sprang from the very centre of the universe.----Hiouen-thsang, the
Chinese pilgrim, professed to have found the Bodhidruma, or some tree
that passed for it, twelve hundred years after Buddha’s death, at a
spot near Gaya Proper, in Bahar, where still may be seen an old temple
and ruins.----De Gubernatis tells us that there is represented in the
_Kâthaka Upanishad_ a heavenly cosmogonic Asvattha under precisely
the same form as the Indian Bo-tree. “The eternal Asvattha, it is
said, has its roots above, its branches below; it is called the Germ,
Brahma, Ambrosia; beneath it all the worlds repose, above it nothing
exists.” With its wood and that of the _Acacia Suma_ (_Sami_) the
sacred fire is lighted--the Asvattha representing the male, the _Sami_
the female. The Asvattha, in rubbing the Sami, engenders the fire, and
thus becomes an emblem of generation. From its heavenly origin and from
its maintaining the fire of purification, the Bo-tree is credited with
marvellous medicinal properties. Into a vase made of Asvattha-wood
the priests pour the divine drink Soma.----In the _Atharvaveda_,
says De Gubernatis, we are told that the Asvattha grows in the third
heaven, and produces the Ambrosia under the name of Kushtha, or flower
of the Amrita. He who eats the ambrosial food becomes intelligent.
The cosmogonic tree of the Vedas is also the Tree of Intelligence,
hence Buddha, the apostle of intelligence, sought refuge beneath its
shade.----In a book of travels by two Chinese Buddhist pilgrims,
translated by Mr. Beal, we find it stated that the only spot indicated
by the gods as propitious to the acquirement of supreme wisdom is
beneath the tree Peito, which the translator identifies with the
Peepul, Bo-Tree, or _Ficus religiosa_. In the same narrative we learn
that the gods constructed from the tree _Sal_ (_Shorea robusta_) to the
tree Bo a splendid road, three thousand cubits wide. The young Prince
Buddha traverses the road during the night, surrounded by the Devas,
the Nâgas, and other divine beings. Under the tree Peito Buddha walked
from east to west, and was worshipped by the gods for the space of
seven days; after that the gods constructed, north-west of the tree, a
palace of gold, where Buddha stayed for seven days. Then he repaired to
the lake Mukhalinda, where he sought the shadow of the tree Midella.
Then the rain fell for seven days, and so the Nâga Mukhalinda came
forth from the lake and sheltered Buddha with his hood. As showing
the extreme fondness of Buddha for the Bo-tree, it is related by
the Chinese that at the commencement of his conversion, he withdrew
habitually beneath the tree Peito to meditate and fast. The Queen
became exceedingly uneasy, and, in the hope of bringing back Buddha
to his home, she gave orders for the Peito to be cut down. But at
the sight of his beloved Bo-tree razed to the earth, so bitter became
the grief of the seer, that he fell in a swoon to the ground. They
sprinkled him with water, and when, after considerable trouble, he was
restored to consciousness, he sprinkled on the roots one hundred jars
full of milk; then prostrating himself with his face to the earth, he
pronounced this vow:--“If the tree does not revive, I shall never arise
again.” The tree at the same moment shot forth branches, and little
by little raised itself until it attained its present height, which
is about 120 feet. The number of Bo-trees which have become objects
of veneration among the Hindus, and especially the Buddhists, is
infinite, and the worship of the sacred Bodhidruma is still extant in
India.----The Bo-tree is also specially consecrated to Vishnu, who is
often portrayed as seated on its heart-shaped and pointed leaves. It is
represented in the Vedas as being frequented by various birds, who eat
its sweet Figs.----In the sacred city of Anurâdhapura, in Ceylon, is a
Bo-tree, which is supposed to be one of the oldest trees in existence,
and its age is not merely legendary, but substantiated by authentic
records. Kings have dedicated their dominions to it, in testimony of
their belief that it sprang from a branch of the identical tree under
which Buddha reclined for seven years whilst undergoing his apotheosis.
The precious branch was taken to Ceylon by the king Asoka, and the tree
of which it was the parent was planted by the king Tissa, in the year
288 B.C. When planting it Tissa prophesied that it should flourish
eternally, and that it should be an evergreen. It is too sacred to be
touched by a knife, but the leaves, as they fall, are eagerly gathered
and treasured by Buddhist pilgrims.----In Java, the Bo-tree is also
held sacred, and a species of Mistletoe which grows on its branches is
supposed to afford much gratification to the shades of the departed
which revisit earth. The Buddhists of Thibet call the sacred Bo-tree
the bridge of safety--the bridge by which mortals pass from the shores
of the world to the shores of the immortal land.
=PENNYROYAL.=--The Pennyroyal (_Mentha Pulegium_) used formerly to
be called Puliol Royal, and derived its name from the Latin word
_pulices_, fleas--insects it was thought to be specially efficacious
in destroying. In most of the Western Counties the plant is known as
Organ-herb, and is much prized by old-women herbalists as a blood
purifier. According to an ancient recipe, Organ broth was used in
witchcraft to make people see double.----In Sicily, children put
Pennyroyal in their cots on Christmas Day, under the belief that at
the exact hour and minute when the infant Jesus was born this plant
puts forth its blossom. The same wonder is repeated on Midsummer
Night. In Sicily, also, Pennyroyal is given to husbands and wives who
quarrel.----According to astrologers, Pennyroyal is a herb of Venus.
=PEONY.=--The Peony, or healing plant (_Pæonia_), commemorates the
Homeric god Pæon, the first physician of the gods, who healed the
divinities Ares and Hades of their wounds. Tradition asserts that the
Peony is the floral descendant of Pæon, who was a pupil of the great
Æsculapius. Pæon first received the flower on Mount Olympus, from
the hands of the mother of Apollo, and by its means he cured Pluto
of a wound he had received from Hercules; but this cure created so
much jealousy in the breast of Æsculapius, that he secretly caused
the death of Pæon. Pluto, however, retained a grateful sense of his
service, and so transformed his body into the flower which to-day bears
his name.----Rapin has a totally different tale to tell as to the
origin of the blooming Peony, although from what source he derived his
information we are unable to discover. According to the French poet,
Pæonia is a nymph whose crimson hue is not the blush of modesty, but
the tell-tale witness of the sin of a shepherdess of Alcinous, King
of Phæacia, who seems to have been unable to withstand the amorous
advances of the Sun-god.----In the emblematic language of flowers, the
Peony is the representative of bashful shame.----Speaking of the Peony,
Rapin says:--
“Erect in all her crimson pomp you’ll see
With bushy leaves the graceful Piony,
Whose blushes might the praise of virtue claim,
But her vile scent betrays they rise from shame.
Happy her form, and innocent her red,
If, while Alcinous’ bleating flock she fed,
An heavenly lover had not sought her bed;
’Twas Phœbus’ crime, who to his arms allured
A maid from all mankind by pride secured.”
The ancient Greeks held the Peony in great repute, believing its origin
to have been divine. It was thought to have been an emanation from the
moon, and that the flower shone during the night, chased away evil
spirits, and protected the dwellings of those who cultivated it. Hence,
in later days, it came to be ranked as a miraculous plant; and it was
thought that evil spirits would shun the spot where it was planted, and
that even a small piece of the root, worn round the neck as an amulet,
would protect the wearer from all kinds of enchantment. To this day, in
Sussex, necklaces of beads turned from the Peony-root are worn by young
children, to prevent convulsions and assist them in teething. Apuleius
states that the Peony is a powerful remedy for insanity. Lord Bacon
tells us, in his ‘Natural History,’ that “it hath beene long received,
and confirmed by divers trialls, that the root of the male Piony dried,
tied to the necke, doth help the falling sicknesse, and likewise the
incubus, which we call the Mare. The cause of both these diseases,
and especially of the epilepsie from the stomach, is the grossenesse
of the vapours, which rise and enter into the cells of the braine;
and therefore the working is by extreme and subtill alternation,
which that simple hath.”----In Germany, the Peony is the Pentecostal
Rose.----Astrologers say that both male and female Peonies are herbs of
the Sun, and under the Lion.
=PERIWINKLE.=--In France, the Periwinkle is considered the emblem of
the pleasures of memory and sincere friendship, probably in allusion
to Rousseau’s recollection of his friend Madame de Warens, occasioned,
after a lapse of thirty years, by the sight of the Periwinkle in
flower, which they had once admired together.----In Italy, garlands of
Periwinkle are placed upon the biers of deceased children, for which
reason the plant has acquired the name of the Flower of Death; but
in Germany it becomes the symbol of immortality.----Culpeper, in his
‘Herbal,’ says that the Periwinkle is owned by Venus, and that the
leaves eaten together by man and wife, cause love between them.
=PESTILENCE WEED.=--The Butterbur Coltsfoot (_Tussilago Petasites_)
obtained the name of Pestilence Weed from its having in olden times
been held in great repute as a sovereign remedy for the plague and
pestilent fever.
=PHYTOLACCA.=--A species of _Phytolacca_ found by M. Lévy in Nicaragua
in 1876, and named by him _P. electrica_, may well be called the
electrifying plant. The discoverer, when gathering a branch,
experienced a veritable electric shock. Experimenting with a compass,
he found the needle was agitated at a distance of eight paces, and
became more so the nearer he approached; the action changing to a rapid
gyratory motion when he finally placed the compass in the midst of the
shrub. There was nothing in the soil to account for what may be termed
the “shocking” proclivities of the shrub, which are slight in the
night-time, becoming gradually intensified until about two o’clock p.m.
In stormy weather, the intensity of action is increased, and the plant
presents a withered appearance until the fall of rain. Neither insect
nor bird was seen by M. Lévy to approach this terrible shrub.
PICK-PURSE, or PICK-POCKET.--(See Shepherd’s Purse).
=PIMPERNEL.=--The scarlet Pimpernel (_Anagallis arvensis_) is well
known as the Poor Man’s Weather-glass, or Shepherd’s Barometer; both
names having been given on account of the plant invariably closing its
petals before and during rain. Darwin alludes to this peculiarity of
the Pimpernel in the following lines:--
“Closed is the pink-eyed Pimpernel;
In fiery red the sun doth rise,
Then wades through clouds to mount the skies;
’Twill surely rain--we see’t with sorrow,
No working in the fields to-morrow.”
Besides being a barometrical, the Pimpernel is a horological, plant,
opening its petals about 7 a.m., and closing them about 2 p.m. The
plant was also considered a surgical plant, inasmuch as the old
herbalists ascribed to it the power of drawing out arrows which were
embedded in the flesh, as well as thorns and splinters, or “other such
like things.” The bruised leaves were believed to cure persons bitten
by mad dogs, and the juices of the plant were considered efficacious
in complaints of the eyes, and in hypochondriacal cases. Its manifold
virtues have passed into a proverb:--
“No ear hath heard, no tongue can tell,
The virtues of the Pimpernell.”
Pliny records that sheep avoided the blue, and ate the scarlet,
Pimpernel, and that if, by mistake, they ate the blue, they immediately
sought for a plant which is now unknown. In Dyer’s ‘English Folk Lore,’
it is stated that, according to a MS. on magic, preserved in the
Chetham Library, Manchester, “the herb Pimpernell is good to prevent
witchcraft, as Mother Bumby doth affirme.” The following lines may be
used when it is gathered:--
“Herbe Pimpernell, I have thee found,
Growing upon Christ Jesus’ ground:
The same guift the Lord Jesus gave unto thee,
When He shed His blood on the tree.
Arise up, Pimpernel, and goe with me,
And God blesse me,
And all that shall were thee. Amen.”
“Saying this fifteen dayes together, twice a day, morning earlye
fasting, and in the evening full.”----Pimpernel is considered to be a
herb of the Sun.
=PINE.=--The Pine was called the tree of Cybele (or Rhea), the mother
of the gods. She was passionately fond of Atys, a Phrygian shepherd,
and entrusted him with the care of her temple, under a vow that he
should always live in celibacy. This vow, however, Atys violated by
an amour with the nymph Sangaris, upon which he became delirious, and
mutilated himself with a sharp stone. Then, as he was about to lay
violent hands upon himself, Cybele transformed him into a Pine-tree.
Ovid records that--
“To Rhea grateful still the Pine remains,
For Atys still some favour she retains;
He once in human shape her breast had warmed,
And now is cherished to a tree transformed.”
Rapin considers the Pine to have been regarded by the ancients as a
sacred tree. He says--
“Old Cybele changed her Atys to a Pine,
Which, sacred there to her, was held divine.”
After the metamorphosis of Atys into the Pine, Cybele sought refuge
beneath the tree’s branches, and sat mourning there the loss of her
faithless lover, until Jupiter promised that the Pine should remain
ever green. It was tied to a Pine-tree, that Marsyas, the Phrygian
flute-player, met his death. He became enamoured of Cybele, and
journeyed with her as far as Nysa. Here
“He Phœbus’ self, the harmonious god, defied,
And urged to have their skill in music tried.
Phœbus accepts the challenge, but decreed,
The boaster vanquished should alive be flayed;
And Marsyas vanquished (so the poet sung)
Was flayed alive, and on a Pine-tree hung.”--_Rapin._
The Pine was dedicated to Bacchus, and at the Dionysian festivals the
votaries sometimes wore garlands of its foliage: its cone is frequently
represented surmounting the god’s thyrsus, possibly as being symbolic
of fecundity and reproduction. The connection of the Pine with Bacchus
is still maintained by the Greeks, who place the cones in their wine
vats, to preserve and flavour the wine by means of the resin. The
Pine-cone was considered a symbol of the heart of Zagræus, who was
destroyed by the Titans, and whose ashes were given to Semele, the
mother of Bacchus.----We find the Pine also dedicated to Pan, because
Pitys, one of the many nymphs whom he loved, was changed into that
tree, to escape the importunities of Boreas.----The wood of the Pine
was employed in the construction of the first boats: hence the tree was
also sacred to the sea-god Neptune.----Ovid introduces Pan as “crowned
with a pointed leaf of Pine-leaf,” in reference to the sharpness of its
narrow leaves. The length and straightness of its trunk, and freedom
from branches, rendered it a suitable walking staff for the giant
Polyphemus (Æn. iii.); and Turnus (from the resinous nature of this
tree) is represented as raising a flaming brand of Pine-wood to set on
fire the ships of the Trojans.----In Assyrian monuments, we find the
Pine-cone offered to the god guarding life.----According to a Roman
legend, two lovers who had died of love and were buried in the same
cemetery, were changed, the one into a Pine, the other into a Vine,
and were thus enabled to continue their fond embraces.----Prof. De
Gubernatis remarks that, despite the legend of St. Martin, written by
Sulpicius, who represented the Pine as a diabolic tree, Christianity
itself has consecrated it. The town of Augsburg, which has for its
badge a Pine-cone, is under the protection of St. Afra. In Sicily,
they believe that the form of a hand is to be seen in the interior of
the fruit--the hand of Jesus blessing the Pine which had saved Him
during the flight into Egypt by screening Him and His mother from
Herod’s soldiers.----At Ahorn, near Coburg, a frightful wind sent
by a sorceress had bent the church steeple, which thus became an
object of derision to the inhabitants of the surrounding villages. A
shepherd, to save his village from such a standing reproach, attached
a short rope to a Pine, which the inhabitants still pointed out in
Nork’s time, and by dint of invocations and magical imprecations
succeeded in straightening the steeple. Nork adds that in the year
1300, at Krain, near a convent, a statue of the Madonna, concealed in
the trunk of a Pine, miraculously made itself heard by a priest: on
that account a church has been erected in honour of the Virgin, in
the immediate vicinity.----King Crœsus threatened the inhabitants of
Lampsacus that the destruction of their town should be as complete as
a felled Pine, which, once cut down, never sprouts out again. The
comparison was particularly apt, inasmuch as the town of Lampsachus was
reputed to have been formerly called Pityusa--“the place planted with
Pines.”----In a Pompeian design, we find a rural Cupid with a crown of
Pine. Ovid crowns the Fauns with Pine. Virgil calls the Pine _Pronuba_,
because the torches used at weddings were made of Pine-wood.----In
the hymn of Callimachus to Diana, virgins are represented as wearing
chaplets of Pine.----The Pine-cone unopened symbolised virginity.----In
Podolia, in Little Russia, the bride-cake is ornamented with sprigs
of Pine.----In Japan, the Pine has become a symbol of constancy and
conjugal fidelity, because it is always verdant, even beneath the
snow.----The Pine is a funereal tree, and, as is the case with all
others of its class, it symbolises immortality and generation. Like the
Cypress and the Fir, on account of the durability of its wood and its
evergreen foliage, it represents the perpetuity of life,--a symbol that
appears singularly in keeping with the funereal rites of a people who
believed in the immortality of the soul.----In Russia, when the coffin
is being carried to the cemetery, it is covered with branches of Pine
or Fir.----The Fijian believes that, after death, the spirit, with
his war-club and a whale’s tooth, journeys to the world’s end: there
grows the sacred Pine, and at it the spirit hurls his whale’s tooth.
If he strikes it, he proceeds on his way rejoicing, but if he misses
his mark, his further progress is stopped.----Crowns of Pine were worn
by victors at the Isthmian games.----The Pine was one of the trees
ordered to be used by the Jews in erecting their tents at the Feast of
the Tabernacles.----According to tradition, the Pine seen in a dream
portends dissolution.
=PINK.=--The Pink (_Dianthus_) has been said to derive its name from
the Dutch word _Pinkster_--Whitsuntide--the season at which a species
called of old the Whitsuntide Gilliflower, is in flower. In Bologna,
however, the flower is held sacred to St. Peter, who is believed
to have been partial to it above all others; the 29th of June is
there considered to be the day of Pinks.----In an old work quoted by
Alphonse Karr, the author recommends the water distilled from Pinks
as an excellent remedy against epilepsy, and adds: “but if a conserve
be composed of it, it is the life and delight of the human race.” A
vinegar made of Pinks was formerly prized for its efficacy against the
plague.
PIXIE-STOOL.--See Toadstool.
=PLANE.=--The Plane-tree (_Platanus orientalis_) was specially
venerated in Greece. In the school of Plato, the philosophers
used to walk and converse under the shadow of these delightful
trees.----Pausanias mentions a Plane tree of extraordinary size and
beauty in Arcadia, supposed to have been planted by Menelaus thirteen
hundred years before.----The Plane was held sacred to Helen, the wife
of Menelaus.----Evelyn gives an account of the passion conceived by
Xerxes for a Plane-tree. Whilst marching through Lydia, he is said
to have stopped his vast army of 1,700,000 soldiers, that he might
admire the beauty of one of these trees, and became so enamoured of
it, that, spoiling both himself, his concubines, and great persons, of
all their jewels, he covered it with gold, gems, necklaces, scarfs,
bracelets, and infinite riches. For some days, neither the concerns of
his portentous army, nor the objects of his expedition, could divert
his thoughts from the stately tree, and when at length he was forced to
leave it, he caused the figure of it to be stamped on a medal of gold,
which he continually wore about him.----In Greece, when lovers are
obliged to separate, they exchange, as a gage of fidelity, the halves
of a leaf of the Plane. When they meet again, each one produces the
half-leaf, and they then fit them together.
=PLANTAIN.=--According to Grimm, the Plantain or Waybread (like the
Endive or Succory--the German _Wegewarte_) is said to have been once
a maiden, who, worn out with constantly watching the roadway for her
lover, was changed into a plant, that still clings to a position by the
wayside. In Devonshire, they say that once in seven years it becomes
a bird--either the cuckoo or its helpmate, known as the “dinnick,”
which is said to follow the cuckoo wherever it goes.----In Aargau,
the Plantain is called _Irrwurzel_, and the peasantry there ascribe
to it the power of disordering the wits.----The Greeks called the
plant “Lamb’s-tongue,” and no less a personage than Alexander the
Great ascribed to it magical properties, and asserted that its root
was marvellously potent in the cure of headaches. According to Macer
Floridus, a root suspended round the neck prevented scrofula; and
Dioscorides affirmed that the water derived from three roots cured the
tertian, and from four the quartan ague.----In England, the Plantain
or Waybread has always had a high reputation as a vulnerary. Chaucer
notices it as an application to wounds, and Shakspeare makes Romeo,
when referring to a broken shin, say, “Your Plantain-leaf is excellent
for that.” Clare, in his ‘Shepherd’s Calendar,’ recounts the following
rustic divination common among the Midland country-folk:--
“Or, trying simple charms and spells,
Which rural superstition tells,
They pull the little blossom threads
From out the Knotweed’s button heads,
And put the husk, with many a smile,
In their white bosoms for awhile.
Then, if they guess aright the swain,
Their love’s sweet fancies try to gain,
’Tis said that ere it lies an hour,
’Twill blossom with a second flower,
And from the bosom’s handkerchief,
Bloom as it ne’er had lost a leaf.”
In Henderson’s ‘Folk Lore of the Northern Counties’ is an account of a
curious rustic divination practised in Berwickshire by means of kemps
or spikes of the Ribwort Plantain. Two spikes--one to represent the
lad, the other the lass--are plucked when in full bloom, and after all
the blossom has been carefully removed, the kemps should be wrapped
in a Dock-leaf and laid under a stone. If the spikes shall have again
blossomed when visited the next morning, the popular belief is that
there will be “Aye love between them twae.”----Plantain is held by
astrologers to be under the rule of Venus.
=PLUM.=--The Japanese, once a year, hold a popular festival in honour
of the Plum-tree.----To dream of Plums is said to augur but little
good to the dreamer: they are the forerunners of ill-health, and
prognosticate losses, infidelity, and sickness, and much vexation in
the married state.
=POLYPODIUM.=--According to a German tradition, the _Polypodium
vulgare_ sprang from the milk that the goddess Freyja, and after her
the Virgin Mary, let fall on the earth.
=POMEGRANATE.=--The fruit of the Pomegranate has always been highly
prized in the East. Rapin says of it:--
“Succeeding fruit attend the blossoms’ fall,
Each represents a crown upon a ball;
A thousand seeds with Tyrian scarlet dyed,
And ranged by nature’s art in cells they hide.”
The Pomegranate was one of the plants assigned to Bacchus, and the
origin of the tree is said to be due to a nameless nymph, beloved by
Bacchus, to whom a priest had foretold that she should wear a crown.
Bacchus kept the letter, but not the spirit of this prophecy, for,
instead of espousing the betrayed maiden, he transformed her into a
Pomegranate-tree, and twisted up the calyx of the blossom into the
crown-like form it has ever since retained. Rapin relates the story as
follows:--
“The story’s short how first this fruit obtained
A graceful crown, and was with purple stained.
A royal nymph there was of Tyrian race,
A Moor, indeed, but formed with every grace,
Her native colour knew; yet fate denied
Indulgence equal to her beauty’s pride.
Filled with ambitious thoughts she pressed to know
What gifts the gods would on her charms bestow.
Ravished she heard the ambiguous priest declare
She should a crown and purple garments wear;
Fancied that hence a kingdom must arise,
Deceived by words and flattering prophecies.
For when the god of wine in triumph came,
Laden with Indian spoils to court the dame,
He soon beguiled her with a husband’s name.
Baulked of her hopes, her virgin honour stained,
By favour of her god at last she gained
To be transformed to this imperial plant--
The only honour which the prophet meant.”
Oppian gives another legend as to the origin of the Pomegranate,
according to which, a man having lost his first wife, became enamoured
of his daughter Side (Greek for Pomegranate-tree): to escape his cruel
persecution, the unfortunate young girl killed herself; but the gods,
compassionating her, metamorphosed Side into the Pomegranate-tree,
and her unnatural father into a sparrow-hawk: so, according to
Oppian, the sparrow-hawk will never alight upon the Pomegranate, but
always persistently shuns the tree.----According to M. Lenormant,
the Pomegranate sprang from the blood of Adgestis. The name Rimmon
(Pomegranate) was that given in certain parts of Syria, near Damascus,
to the young god, who died but to spring into a new life--reminding
one of the story of Adonis.----The great number of seeds which the
fruit of the Pomegranate contains has caused it to become the symbol of
fecundity, generation, and wealth. Probably on this account the plant
was sacred to Juno, the patroness of marriage and riches. In the Isle
of Eubœa, there was formerly a statue of this goddess, holding in one
hand a sceptre, and in the other a Pomegranate. Prof. De Gubernatis
suggests that the uterine form of the opened Pomegranate is the reason
why Pausanias, after having said that Juno held a Pomegranate in
her hand, adds, that she did not wish to divulge the mystery which
appertained to this symbolic fruit. This is also the reason why
(according to Cicero) Proserpine did not wish to leave the infernal
regions without having eaten the Pomegranate which she plucked from a
tree growing in the Elysian Fields. Ceres, inconsolable for the loss
of her daughter, had begged Jupiter to release her from the power of
Pluto. Jupiter decreed that if Proserpine had not tasted any food in
the infernal regions, she might be restored to her mother; but, as Ovid
tells us, by an unfortunate mischance,
“As in the garden’s shady walk she strayed,
A fair Pomegranate charmed the simple maid,
Hung in her way, and tempting her to taste,
She plucked the fruit and took a short repast.
Seven times, a seed at once, she eat the food:
The fact Asculaphus had only viewed.
He saw what passed, and, by discovering all,
Detained the ravished nymph in cruel thrall.”
Ceres, enraged, would not permit the earth to yield any fruits till
her daughter was restored to her, and Jupiter at last decided that
Proserpine should spend six months of the year with her mother, but
as she had partaken of the Stygian Pomegranate, she was to stay the
other six months with Pluto.----A legend states that from having been
planted on the grave of King Eteocles, the fruit of the Pomegranate
has ever since exuded blood. Another account relates that the blood
of the Pomegranate had its origin in the life-blood of the suicide
Menœceus. On account of this blood which seems to flow from its fruit,
the Pomegranate has acquired a somewhat sinister signification.
As a rule, however, the sanguineous juice and innumerable seeds
of the Pomegranate are considered a happy augury of fecundity and
abundance.----There is a tradition that the fruit of the Tree of Life
presented by Eve to Adam was the Pomegranate. It is also the opinion
of some, that Paris adjudged a Pomegranate to Venus, and not an
Apple; and that nearly always where the latter fruit is alluded to in
legends or popular customs relating to marriage, the Pomegranate is
meant.----In Turkey, the bride throws a Pomegranate on the ground, and
from the number of seeds which exude from the broken fruit judges of
the extent of her future family.----In Dalmatia, it is the custom for
a young man, when asking the hand of his bride from her parents, to
speak figuratively, and so he vows to transplant into his own garden
the beautiful red flowers of the Pomegranate which are then flourishing
in the paternal parterre.----In Sicily, they use a branch of the
Pomegranate-tree as a divining-rod to discover hidden treasures: it is
reported to be unfailing provided that it is manipulated by an expert
or by some one who knows the mystical formulary.----Many references
to the Pomegranate are to be found in the Bible, where it is usually
associated with the idea of fruitfulness. Moses described the promised
land as a land of Wheat and Barley, and Vines, and Fig-trees, and
Pomegranates; a land of oil-Olive and honey. Solomon speaks of “an
orchard of Pomegranates with pleasant fruits.” It was used to flavour
wine and meats, and a wine was made from its juice: “I would cause thee
to drink of spiced wine of the juice of my Pomegranate” (Canticles
viii., 2). The Jews employed the fruit in their religious ceremonials.
The capitals of the pillars in the Temple of Jerusalem were covered
with carved Pomegranates. On the hem of Aaron’s sacred robe were
embroidered, in blue, in purple, and in scarlet, Pomegranates,
alternating with golden bells. A similar adornment of the fringes of
their robes was affected by the ancient Kings of Persia, who united
in their own person the regal and sacerdotal offices.----In Christian
art, the Pomegranate depicted as bursting open, and the seeds visible,
was an emblem of the future--of hope in immortality. St. Catherine,
as the mystical _Sposa_ of Christ, is sometimes represented with a
Pomegranate in her hand; and the infant Saviour is often depicted
holding this fruit and presenting it to the Virgin.----Moore speaks
of the “charmed leaf of pure Pomegranate,” in allusion to the Persian
idea as to its purifying attributes. In the ceremonies of the Ghebers
(fire-worshippers) round their sacred fire, the Darvo gives them water
to drink and Pomegranate-leaf to chew in their mouth, to cleanse them
from inward uncleanness.----The Pomegranate was the device of Henry
IV., who took it from the Moorish kings of Grenada, with the motto,
“Sour, yet sweet.” The crown-like shape of its calyx probably induced
Anne of Austria to adopt it, with the motto, “My worth is not in my
crown.” The Pomegranate was the emblem of Katherine of Arragon, and
in one of the masques held in honour of her marriage with our Henry
VIII., a bank of Roses and Pomegranates typified the union of England
and Spain. Her daughter, Queen Mary, took the Pomegranate and white and
red Roses.----Parkinson tells us that from the rind of the Pomegranate
is made writing-ink “which is durable to the world’s end.”----The
Athenian matrons, during the Thesmophoria (festivals in honour of
Ceres), were expressly forbidden to eat Pomegranates.----To dream
of Pomegranates is a fortunate augury, foretelling good fortune and
success; to the lover such a dream implies a faithful and accomplished
sweetheart, and to the married an increase of riches and children, and
great success in trade.
POOR MAN’S PARMACETTY.--See Shepherd’s Purse.
=POPLAR.=--In allusion to the reputed origin of this tree, René Rapin,
in his poem on Gardens, says:--
“Nor must the Heliads’ fate in silence pass,
Whose sorrow first produced the Poplar race;
Their tears, while at a brother’s grave they mourn,
To golden drops of fragrant Amber turn.”
The Heliades, sisters of the rash Phaëthon (who had yoked the horses
to the chariot of the Sun before his fatal drive), on finding his tomb
upon the banks of the river Po, became distracted with grief, and
for four days and nights kept mournful watch with their disconsolate
mother around the grave. Tired out with their exhausting vigil, they
endeavoured at length to obtain some repose for their weary limbs, when
to their dismay they found them rooted to the ground. The gods, pitying
their intense grief, had changed the seven sisters into Poplars, and
their tears into Amber. Ovid thus narrates the incident:--
“Each nymph in wild affliction, as she grieves,
Would rend her hair, but fills her hand with leaves;
One sees her limbs transformed, another views
Her arms shot out and branching into boughs,
And now their legs, and breasts, and bodies stood
Crusted with bark and hardening into wood.
* * * * *
Then the bark increased,
Closed in their faces, and their words suppressed.
The new-made trees in tears of Amber run,
Which, hardened into value by the sun,
Distil for ever on the streams below;
The limpid streams their radiant treasure show,
Mixed in the sand; whence the rich drops conveyed
Shine in the dress of the bright Latian maid.”--_Addison._
The species of Poplar into which the Heliades were transformed was the
Black Poplar (_Populus nigra_). This Poplar was consecrated to the
goddess Proserpine. The White Poplar was considered to be an antidote
to the bite of a serpent, and was dedicated to Hercules, who sometimes
wore a crown of Poplar-leaves. When the demi-god destroyed Cacus in a
cavern on Mount Aventine, which was covered with Poplars, he bound a
branch of one round his brow in token of his victory. On his return
from Hades, he wore a crown of Poplar-leaves, the outer portions of
which were turned black by the smoke of the infernal regions, whilst
the inner surface was blanched by the perspiration from the hero’s
brow. At all ceremonies and sacrifices to Hercules, his worshippers
wore garlands of Poplar-leaves, as did those who had triumphed
in battle, in commemoration of the demi-god’s victory. Groves of
Poplar-trees were frequently planted and dedicated to Hercules.----The
White Poplar was also dedicated to Time, because its leaves were
constantly in motion, and, being dark on one side and light on the
other, they were emblematic of night and day.----Of the wood of this
tree the Romans made bucklers, on account of its lightness, and covered
them with ox-hides: hence, Pliny says, _Populus apta scutis_.----The
prophet Hosea is thought to have referred to the White Poplar when
he accused the Children of Israel of sacrificing and burning incense
under Poplars “because the shadow thereof is good” (Hosea iv.)----The
similarity of sound, in Latin and French, between the words for
“Poplar” and “People” seems to be the reason which has led to the
tree being regarded as a republican emblem. In the French Revolution
of 1848, Poplars were transplanted from gardens, and set up in the
squares of Paris, where they were glorified as Trees of Liberty, and
hung with wreaths of Everlasting Flowers. Napoleon III. had them all
uprooted and burnt.----Under the head of ASPEN will be found several
legends respecting the quivering foliage of the _Populus tremula_--the
“Quiggen-epsy” of the good folk of Ulster. Mrs. Hemans, in her ‘Wood
Walk,’ thus alludes to one of these old traditions, in which the Cross
of Christ is represented as having been made of the wood of this
species of Poplar:--
“FATHER.--Hast thou heard, my boy,
The peasant’s legend of that quivering tree?
“CHILD.--No, father; doth he say the fairies dance
Amidst its branches?
“FATHER.--Oh! a cause more deep,
More solemn far, the rustic doth assign
To the strange restlessness of those wan leaves.
The Cross he deems--the blessed Cross, whereon
The meek Redeemer bow’d His head to death--
Was formed of Aspen wood; and since that hour
Through all its race the pale tree hath sent down
A thrilling consciousness, a secret awe
Making them tremulous, when not a breeze
Disturbs the airy Thistle-down, or shakes
The light lines from the shining gossamer.”
Among the Highlanders, there is a tradition that the Cross of Christ
was made of the wood of the White Poplar, and throughout Christendom
there is a belief that the tree trembles and shivers mystically in
sympathy with the ancestral tree which became accursed.----The Greeks
regarded the Poplar as a funereal tree. In the funeral games at
Rhodes, the victor was crowned with Poplar leaves consecrated to the
Manes.----Like several other funereal trees, the Poplar has become a
symbol of generation. Thus, in Bologna, at the birth of a girl, the
parents, if able, will plant one thousand Poplar-trees, which they
religiously tend till the maiden marries, when they are cut down,
and the price given as a marriage portion to the bride. Alphonse
Karr says that a similar custom exists in certain northern countries
among the better class of farmers.----In Sicily, and especially at
Monterosso, near Modica, on Midsummer Eve, the people fell the highest
Poplar, and with shouts, drag it through the village. Numbers of the
villagers mount the trunk during its progress, beating a drum. Around
this great Poplar, symbolising the greatest solar ascension and the
decline which follows it, the crowd dance and sing an appropriate
refrain.----Astrologers state that the Poplar is under the dominion of
Saturn.
=POPPY.=--The origin of the Poppy (_Papaver_) was attributed by the
ancient Greeks to Ceres, who, despairing of regaining her daughter
Proserpine, carried off by Pluto, created the flower, in order that
by partaking of it she might obtain sleep, and thus forget her great
grief. Browne thus speaks of this legend:--
“Sleep-bringing Poppy, by the plowman late,
Not without cause to Ceres consecrate.
* * * * *
Fairest Proserpine was rapt away,
And she in plaints the night, in tears the day,
Had long time spent: when no high power could give her
Any redresse, the Poppy did relieve her:
For eating of the seeds, they sleep procured,
And so beguiled those griefs she long endured.”
The ancients considered the _Papaver Rhæa_, or Corn-Rose, so necessary
for the prosperity of their Corn, that the seeds of this Poppy were
offered up in the sacred rites of Ceres, whose garland was formed
with Barley or bearded Wheat interwoven with Poppies. The goddess is
sometimes depicted holding Poppies in her hand. The somniferous and
quieting effects of the Poppy, which were well known to the Greeks,
probably led them to represent the deities Hypnos (Sleep), Thanatos
(Death), and Nyx (Night), either as crowned with Poppies, or holding
Poppies in their hands.----Rapin, speaking of the effects of the Poppy
as a narcotic, says:--
“The powerful seeds, when pressed, afford a juice.
In med’cine famous, and of sovereign use,
Whether in tedious nights it charm to rest,
Or bind the stubborn cough and ease the lab’ring breast.”
It was customary with the Romans, to offer Poppies to the dead,
especially to those whose names they were desirous of appeasing.
Virgil, in his ‘Georgics,’ calls the flower the Lethean Poppy, and
directs it to be offered as a funeral rite to Orpheus. The Grecian
youths and maidens were wont to prove the sincerity of their lovers
by placing in the hollow of the palm of the left hand a petal or
flower-leaf of the Poppy, which, on being struck with the other hand,
was broken with a sharp sound: this denoted true attachment; but if the
leaf failed to snap, unfaithfulness. From Greece, this usage passed to
Rome, and finally to modern Italy, where, as well as in Switzerland, it
is still extant.
“By a prophetic Poppy leaf I found
Your changed affection, for it gave no sound,
Though in my hand struck hollow as it lay,
But quickly withered like your love away.”--_Theocritus._
A superstitious belief exists that the red Poppies which followed the
ploughing of the field of Waterloo after Wellington’s victory sprang
from the blood of the troops who fell during the battle.----According
to a Bengali legend, the origin of Opium was as follows:--There once
lived on the banks of the holy river Ganga a Rishi, or sage, in whose
hut, made of Palm-leaves, there was a mouse, which became a favourite
with the seer, and was endowed by him with the gift of speech. After
awhile, the mouse, having been frightened by a cat, at his earnest
solicitation, was changed by the Rishi into a cat; then, alarmed by
dogs, into a dog; then into an ape; then into a boar; then into an
elephant; and finally, being still discontented with its lot, into a
beautiful maiden, to whom the holy sage gave the name of Postomani,
or the Poppy-seed lady. One day, whilst tending her plants, the king
approached the Rishi’s cottage, and was invited to rest and refresh
himself by Postomani, who offered him some delicious fruit. The King,
however, struck by the girl’s beauty, refused to eat until she had told
him her parentage. Postomani, to deceive the king, told him she was a
princess whom the Rishi had found in the woods and had brought up. The
upshot was that the king made love to the girl, and they were married
by the holy sage. She was treated as the favourite queen, and was very
happy; but one day, whilst standing by a well, she turned giddy, fell
into the water, and died. The Rishi then appeared before the king, and
begged him not to give way to consuming grief, assuring him that the
late queen was not of royal blood. Said he: “She was born a mouse,
and, according to her own wish, I changed her successively into a cat,
a dog, a boar, an elephant, and a lovely girl. Let her body remain
in the well; fill up the well with earth. Out of her flesh and bones
will grow a tree, which shall be called after her Posto, that is, the
Poppy-tree. From this tree will be obtained a drug called Opium, which
will be celebrated through all ages, and which will be either swallowed
or smoked as a wondrous narcotic till the end of time. The Opium
swallower or smoker will have one quality of each of the animals to
which Postomani was transformed. He will be mischievous like a mouse,
fond of milk like a cat, quarrelsome like a dog, filthy like an ape,
savage like a boar, and high-tempered like a queen.”----According to
astrologers, the Poppy is a flower of the Moon.
=POTATO.=--Although introduced into Europe as late as 1584, the Potato
(_Solanum tuberosum_) has been made the subject of several popular
superstitions. In Birmingham and many other districts, it is believed
that a Potato carried in the trousers pocket is a sure charm against
rheumatism so long as the tuber is kept there; and the Dutch believed
that a Potato begged or stolen is a preservation against the same
malady.----In Germany, they take precautions against the Potato demon
or wolf (_Kartoffelwolf_): after the last Potatoes have been dug up,
the peasants dress up a puppet which they call _Erdapfelmann_, and
carry the figure in procession to the house of their master, where
they recite a doggrel verse. A luminosity, powerful enough to enable a
bystander to read by, issues from the common Potato when in a state of
putrefaction; this was particularly remarked by an officer on guard at
Strasburg, who thought the barracks were on fire in consequence of the
light that was emitted from a cellar full of Potatoes.
PRICK MADAM.--See Stonecrop.
PRIEST’S PINTLE.--See Arum.
=PRIMROSE.=--Anciently the Primrose was called _Paralisos_, after the
name of a handsome stripling, the son of Priapus and Flora, who died
of grief for the loss of his betrothed Melicerta, but was snatched
from the jaws of death by his parents, and metamorphosed into “the
rathe Primrose that forsaken dies.”----The name Primrose anciently
appertained to the Daisy, and is written by Chaucer Primerole, from the
old French _Primeverole_, the first Spring flower; Primerole became
changed to Primrolles, and then to Primrose, the first Rose of Spring;
and it was not until the sixteenth century that it attached itself
to the flower which now bears its name.----In Worcestershire, it is
regarded as exceedingly unlucky in Spring-time to take less than a
handful of Primroses or Violets into a farmer’s house, as a disregard
of this rule is popularly believed to invite destruction of the good
wife’s brood of ducklings and chickens.----In East Norfolk, it is
thought that if a less number of Primroses than thirteen be brought
into a house on the first occasion of introducing any, so many eggs
only will each goose hatch that season.----Henderson, in his ‘Folk-lore
of the Northern Counties,’ gives the following superstitious custom:
“Let a youth or maiden pull from its stalk the flower, and after
cutting off the tops of the stamens with a pair of scissors, lay it in
a secret place where no human eye can see it. Let him think through
the day and dream through the night of his sweetheart; and then, upon
looking at it the next day, if he find the stamens shot out to their
former height, success will attend him in love; if not, he can only
expect disappointment.”----Browne tells us--
“The Primrose, when with six leaves gotten grace,
Maids as a true-love in their bosoms place.”
Shakspeare makes it a funeral flower for youth:--
“With fairest flowers
Whilst summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele,
I’ll sweeten thy sad grave: thou shalt not lack
The flower that’s like thy face, pale Primrose.”
In recent times, the Primrose has become associated with the memory
of Lord Beaconsfield, and a society called the “Primrose League”
has been formed, having for its object the dissemination of those
constitutional principles which were so dear to the late Earl.----In
Germany, the Primrose is called the _Schlüsselblume_, or Key-flower,
in reference to the numerous legends of a flower opening the locks of
doors to treasure-caves, &c.; resembling in its magical functions the
Russian _Rasrivtrava_, the _Eisenkraut_ (Vervain), the Fern, Mistletoe,
Hazel, Springwort, and Moonwort.----The goddess Bertha is supposed to
entice children to enter her enchanted halls by offering them beautiful
Primroses.----Astrologers claim the Primrose as a herb of Venus.
PROCESSION FLOWER.--See Milkwort.
=PTERIS ESCULENTA.=--The New Zealand _tohunga_, or priest, professes
the following rite to be a cure for headache. The officiant pulls out
two stalks of the _Pteris esculenta_, from which the fibres of the root
must be removed; and beating them together over the patient’s head, he
offers a prayer to Atua.
PUCK-FIST.--See Toadstool.
=PULSATILLA.=--In the Ukraine, the _Pulsatilla patens_ is called
Sontrava, the Dream-plant. It is believed by the people of the country
that the flowers of this plant, which blossoms in the month of April,
if placed between the pillow and the bed, will cause the sleeper to
dream of what will undoubtedly be accomplished.
=PUMPKIN.=--Among the East Indians, there is a legend that there once
existed a mighty man named Iaïa, whose only son died. The father wished
to bury him, but did not know where. So he placed him in an enormous
Pumpkin, which he conveyed to the foot of a mountain, not far from his
habitation. Impelled by his love for the departed one, he one day had
the curiosity to revisit the spot, and, desirous of once again seeing
his son, he opened the Pumpkin. Immediately whales and other immense
fish jumped out. Iaïa, affrighted, returned home, and told what he had
seen to his neighbours, adding that the Pumpkin appeared to be filled
with water and quantities of fish. Four brothers who had been born
at one time rushed off in haste to the spot indicated, in order to
secure the fish for food. Iaïa followed, to prevent them from injuring
the Pumpkin. The brothers, who had succeeded in lifting the gigantic
vegetable, were frightened at seeing Iaïa approach, and let fall the
Pumpkin, which was, in consequence, cracked in several places. From
the fissures thus made poured forth such a volume of water, that the
whole earth was inundated: and from this circumstance the oceans were
formed.----The Chinese honour the Pumpkin or Gourd as the emperor of
vegetables. The vegetable was considered by the ancients to be an
emblem of abundance, fecundity, prosperity, and good health. To dream
of Pumpkins, however, is considered a very bad omen.
PURIFICATION FLOWER.--See Snowdrop.
=PURSLANE.=--Purslane (_Portulaca_), strewn about a bed, used
in olden times to be considered a sure protection against evil
spirits.----Astrologers classify it among the herbs of the Moon.
=QUINCE.=--The fruit of the Quince-tree (_Cydonia_) was consecrated
to Venus, and was looked upon by Grecian lovers as a love token.
According to Athenæus, the chariot of the goddess of Love was not only
filled with Myrtles and Roses, but also with Quinces, and in many
ancient effigies of the goddess, she is represented with a Quince
in her hand. By a decree of Solon, which gave to an ancient popular
custom the countenance of the law, a Grecian bride, before seeking the
nuptial couch, had to eat a Quince.----The Greeks called the Quince
_Chrysomelon_, or Golden Apple; hence it is not surprising to find it
asserted that the golden fruit of the Hesperides were Quinces, and that
these tempted Hercules to attack the guardian dragon. In confirmation
of this opinion, a statue of the demi-god holding a Quince in his hand
as a trophy is referred to. It is also alleged that it was by means
of Quinces given to him by Venus, that Hippomenes beguiled Atalanta
during his race with her, and so won it.----It was by means of a Quince
that Acontius won his bride: this youth, when at Delos, to attend the
sacrifices of Diana, fell in love with the beautiful Cydippe: fearing
to demand her hand, on account of his obscure origin, the crafty
lover threw into the Temple of Diana, whilst Cydippe was performing
her devotions, a Quince, with this inscription:--“I swear, by the
divinity of Diana, to become the wife of Acontius.” The young girl,
having picked up the Quince, read aloud the inscription, and, being
compelled by the oath she had thus inadvertently taken in the sacred
presence of the goddess, she obtained her parents’ consent to marry
the quick-witted Acontius.----Turner, in his ‘Brittish Physician,’
says that the juice of raw Quince is accounted an antidote against
deadly poison.----To dream of Quinces is stated to be favourable to the
dreamer, denoting speedy release from troubles, sickness, &c.
=QUICKEN-TREE.=--The Mountain Ash, Wild Service, or Rowan-tree (_Pyrus
aucuparia_), is also known by the names of the Quicken or Quick-beam,
Witchen or Wicken, appellations which, from the Rowan-tree having been
long regarded as a preservative against witchcraft, some writers have
erroneously connected with the Anglo-Saxon word _wicce_, a witch.
Evelyn calls this tree the Quick-beam, and says that in Wales it is
planted in every churchyard, and that “on a certain day in the year
everybody religiously wears a cross made of the wood, and it is reputed
to be a preservative against fascination and evil spirits, whence
perhaps we call it _Witchen_; the boughs being stuck about the house,
or the wood used for walking-staves.” (See ROWAN).
=RADISH.=--The Germans have given to a species of wild Radish bearing
blue flowers the name of _Hederich_, and they have an old superstition
that whoever wears a crown composed of Hederich is enabled to detect
witches. A wreath of Hederich is sometimes placed on cows before
leaving their stalls to be milked, in order to protect them from the
effect of the Evil Eye.----In England, to dream of Radishes signifies
the discovery of secrets, domestic quarrels, and misfortune.----In
Germany, they call a certain evil spirit, or Geni of the mountain,
_Rübezahl_, the Counter of Radishes; and the legend relates that on
one occasion this Geni took advantage of the absence of her lover to
pay his odious addresses to a young princess, whom he kept confined
in her castle. As the princess expressed a desire for companions, the
Geni gathered some Radishes, which she touched with a magic wand, and
changed into young girls, who, however, only remained young so long
as the Radishes retained their juice. Then the Geni gave her some
fresh Radishes, one of which, on being touched with the magic wand,
became a bee. The princess, who was jealously guarded by the Geni,
sent off the bee as a messenger to her lover, to inform him that she
was in the Geni’s power. The bee did not return. She touched a second,
which became a cricket, and despatched it in search of her lover. The
cricket never returned. Then the princess desired the Geni to count
the Radishes, and he, to please her, did so. Whilst so occupied, the
princess touched one of the Radishes with her wand, and it became a
horse. In an instant, she sprang on its back, and rode away at full
speed; and fortunately meeting her lover, they both escaped together.
=RAGGED ROBIN.=--The Ragged Robin, Cuckoo Flower, Meadow Campion, or
Meadow Pink (_Lychnis Flos cuculi_) owes the first of these names to
the finely-cut but ragged appearance of its petals. It is dedicated to
St. Barnabas.
=RAG-WEED.=--The large Rag-weed (_Senecio Jacobæa_) has a traditional
reputation of having been employed by witches as horses when they
took their midnight rides.----To the south of the famed Logan Rock
on the Cornish coast is a high peak of granite known as the Castle
Peak, which is locally reputed to have been for ages the midnight
rendezvous for witches; and thither, according to tradition, witches
were constantly seen flying on moonlight nights, mounted on the stems
of the Rag-weed, and carrying with them the things necessary to make
their charms potent and strong. The Rag-weeds or worts were also called
Stagger-worts because they were found effectual to cure the staggers
in horses. Hence these plants were dedicated to St. James, the patron
of horses, and are still known as St. James’s Worts; they also blossom
about this great warrior and pilgrim saint’s day, July 25th. This
connection of the plant with horses probably explains the tradition of
its having been employed as the witches’ steed.
RAMP.--See Arum.
=RAMPION.=--The Rampion (_Campanula Rapunculus_) was considered by
the ancients as a funereal vegetable or root. In the temple of Apollo
at Delphi, the esculent roots of the Rampion were highly esteemed
as appropriate food, and were carried on golden plates. Among the
Italians, there exists an old superstition that the possession of a
Rampion engenders among children a quarrelsome disposition, and excites
their anger to such a degree, that unless checked, murder would result.
Hence, in ancient dream-books, a dream in which the Rampion is seen is
interpreted as a sure sign of an impending quarrel.
=RANUNCULUS.=--The name Ranunculus (which is the diminutive of _rana_,
a frog) was applied by the Latins to this species of plants because
they were observed to grow in places frequented by frogs.----Rapin
tells us that the flower was originally a young Libyan noted for his
sweet voice:--
“Ranunculus, who with melodious strains
Once charmed the ravished nymphs on Libyan plains,
Now boasts through verdant fields his rich attire,
Whose love-sick look betrays a secret fire;
Himself his song beguiled and seized his mind
With pleasing flames for other hearts designed.”
The Latin herbalists also called the plant _Strumea_, because it was
used as a remedy for a complaint similar to the King’s-evil, termed
_Strumæ_. With one of the species of Ranunculus the ancients were wont
to poison the points of their arrows.----The Buttercup, also known
as King’s Cup, Gold Cup, Gold Knobs, Leopard’s Foot, and Cuckoo-bud,
belongs to the Ranunculus family.----The Crowfoot or Crowflower
(the _Coronopus_ of Dioscorides) is also a Ranunculus: this plant
possesses the power of raising blisters on the skin, and is employed
by mendicants to raise wounds on their limbs, in order to excite
sympathy. Cattle generally refuse the acrid Crowfoot (_R. acris_), but
if they perchance eat it, it will blister their mouths. The Illyrian
Crowfoot (_R. Illyricus_), Gerarde tells us, is thought to be the
_Gelotophyllis_ mentioned by Pliny (Book xxiv.), “which being drunk,
saith he, with wine and Myrrhe, causeth a man to see divers strange
sights, and not to cease laughing till he hath drunk Pine-apple kernels
with Pepper in wine of the Date-tree (I think he would have said until
he be dead), because the nature of laughing Crowfoot is thought to
kill laughing, but without doubt the thing is clean contrary, for
it causeth such convulsions, crampe, and wringings of the mouth and
jaws, that it hath seemed to some that the parties have died laughing,
whereas, in truth, they have died in great torment.”----The Double
Crowfoot, or Bachelor’s Buttons, used formerly to be called St.
Anthony’s Turnip, because of its round bulbous root: this root was
reputed to be very efficacious in curing the plague, if applied to the
part affected. According to Apuleius, it was a sure cure for lunacy,
if hung round the neck of the patient, in a linen cloth, “in the wane
of the Moon, when the sign shall be in the first degree of Taurus or
Scorpio.”----The Persian Ranunculus is the Ranunculus of the garden.
The Turks cultivated it under the name of _Tarobolos Catamarlale_,
for several ages before it was known in other parts of Europe. Their
account of its introduction is, that a Vizier, named Cara Mustapha,
first noticed among the herbage of the fields this hitherto neglected
flower, and decorated the garden of the Seraglio with it. The flower
attracted the notice of the Sultan, upon which he caused it to be
brought from all parts of the East where varieties could be found.
This collection of Ranunculus flowers was carefully preserved in the
Seraglio gardens alone, and only through bribery did at last some few
roots find their way into other parts of Europe.----Astrologers hold
the Ranunculus to be under the rule of Mars.
_RASRIVTRAVA._--The Rasrivtrava is the Russian name of a plant which
has magical powers, enabling it to fracture chains and break open
locks,--properties which appertain also to the _Primula veris_ or Key
of the Spring, to the _Eisenkraut_ or Vervain, the Mistletoe, the
Lunary or Moonwort, the Springwort, the Fern, and the Hazel. The word
_Rasrivtrava_ means literally the “Plant that Opens.”
=RASPBERRY.=--Formerly the Raspberry was very generally known as the
Hindberry; and this name is still retained in some counties.----It is
thought that to dream of Raspberries betokens success, happiness in
marriage, fidelity in a sweetheart, and good news from abroad.
=REED.=--King Midas is said to have expressed the opinion that the
Reed-pipes of the god Pan produced better music than the lyre of
Apollo. The offended god in consequence changed the king’s ears to
those of an ass. Midas concealed his deformity as long as he was able;
but at length a barber discovered his secret, and being unable to keep
it, and at the same time dreading the king’s resentment, he dug a hole
in the earth, and after whispering therein, “King Midas has the ears
of an ass,” he covered up the hole, and in it, as he hoped, the words
divulging the secret. But on that spot grew a number of Reeds, and
when they were agitated by the wind, instead of merely rustling, they
repeated the buried words--“King Midas has the ears of an ass.”--Cato
tells us the Roman country folks, when they had broken an arm or a leg,
split a Reed, and applied it, with certain precautions, to the wounded
part, accompanying the operation with a rustic incantation, such as the
following:--
“_Huat, hanat huat,
Ista pista sista,
Damiabo damnaustra._”
A Devonshire charm for the thrush is:--Take three Reeds from any
running stream, and pass them separately through the mouth of the
infant; then plunge the Reeds again into the stream, and as the current
bears them away, so will the thrush depart from the child.----From the
Reed (_Calamus_) the first pen was invented, and of Reeds arrows were
made. The root of _Calamus aromaticus_ was highly esteemed in eastern
countries: thus we read in Gerarde’s ‘Herbal,’ that “the Turks at
Constantinople take it fasting, in the morning, against the contagion
of the corrupt aire; and the Tartars have it in such esteeme, that
they will not drinke water unlesse they have first steeped some of
the root therein.”----In the Ukraine, is current a version of the
tradition alluded to under the head of OATS. In this version, the Reed
belongs to the Devil, and has, in fact, been his habitation since
the days of Jesus Christ. One day, having met the Saviour, he prayed
Him to give to him as his portion the Oats and Buckwheat, because,
after having assisted the Almighty to create the world, he had never
received for himself any consideration. The Saviour consented, and
the Devil was so delighted, that he skipped off without even thanking
his benefactor. The wolf met him, and seeing him so elated, asked him
why he was jumping and skipping about? This question confused the
Devil, who, instead of replying “because God has given me the Oats and
Buckwheat,” said: “I am skipping because God has given me the Reed and
the Sow-thistle.” From that time, it is said, the Devil never could
recollect the present that God had made him, but always imagined that
it was the Reed and the Sow-thistle.----According to English dream
oracles, for the slumberer to see Reeds betokens mischief between him
and his friends.
=REED-MACE.=--The Bulrush, or Cat’s-Tail (_Typha latifolia_), has
acquired the name of Reed-Mace from the fact that Rubens and the early
Italian painters, in their _Ecce Homo_ pictures, depict the Saviour as
holding in His hands this Reed as a mace or sceptre. The Reed-Mace is,
on certain days, put by Catholics into the hands of statues of Christ.
RESURRECTION-FLOWER.--See Rose of Jericho.
=RHAMNUS.=--The _Rhamnus Spina Christi_, or Syrian Christ’s Thorn, has
acquired that name because it is supposed by many to have supplied the
crown of Thorns at our Saviour’s crucifixion. An English species,
_Rhamnus Paliurus_, is also called by Miller _Spina Christi_. (See
THORN and BUCKTHORN.)
=RICE.=--Among Orientals, Rice is esteemed the symbol of life,
generation, and abundance. The Dyaks of Borneo and the Karens of
Burmah look upon it as a divinity, and address prayers to it to ensure
a good harvest. In Siam, Rice and honey are offered to trees before
they are felled.----Rice plays an important part in the marriage
ceremonies of India. At the altar, the bride is three times approached
by her friends, who on each occasion place Rice in her hands. They
also scatter Rice on the head of the bridegroom. On the last day of
the nuptial ceremonies, the bride and bridegroom together offer the
sacrifice of Soma, during which they throw in the fire Rice moistened
with butter. The Brahmans, when performing the marriage rites, after
having recited a variety of prayers, consecrate the union of the
couple by throwing a handful of Saffron mixed with the flour of Rice
on their shoulders. Offerings of Rice and Saffron are made by married
women in India to obtain healthy children, and to procure from the
divinity exemption from the maladies of their sex. On the birth of a
son, the Brahman father, after having banished the females from the
apartment, takes the infant and places on its head Rice coloured red:
this is done in order to avert the Evil Eye. Another method is to
envelope small portions of Rice in cloths marked with the names of
women suspected of being witches, and to place the whole in a nest of
white ants. Should the ants devour the Rice in any of these mystic
bundles, the charge of sorcery is thereby established against the woman
whose name it bears. Young girls desirous of husbands offer dressed
Rice to the gods. At the consecration of a Brahmanic disciple, the
father of the candidate carries in his hands a cup filled with Rice,
and the assistants, after the bath, cover the candidate with Rice. Rice
is employed in many of the Hindu sacrifices and religious ceremonies,
and is regarded as sacred: no one would touch it without having first
made his ablutions. At the time of sowing it, certain ceremonies are
solemnly observed.----In China, during the Spring Festival of the
Fire, the priests of Tao march round the brasier, carrying a basket
filled with Rice and salt, of which from time to time they cast a
handful into the fire, to conjure the flame and to obtain an abundant
harvest.----A Japanese legend relates that in ancient times the Bonzes
(priests) of Nikko, like the other natives, lived solely on herbs and
roots, not knowing any other kind of nourishment. One day, however, a
Bonze observed a mouse hiding some Rice and other grains in a corner.
He could not understand where the mouse could have obtained it, so he
set a trap, and having caught the little creature, he tied to one of
its hind legs a silken thread; and then, holding the other end of the
thread in his hand, he set the mouse free, and determined to follow
wherever it should run. The mouse led the priest into a remote and
unknown land, where Rice grew in abundance. The Bonze learnt how
to cultivate it, and speedily introduced it into his own country,
where it proved such a blessing, that the inhabitants worshipped the
mouse as a god, under the name of Daikoku-sama. From that day the
mouse has been held sacred by the Japanese poor, and its effigy is
found suspended in many of their houses as a fetish.----Among the
Arabs, Rice is considered as a sacred food, and tradition runs that
it first sprang from a drop of perspiration which fell from Mahomet
in Paradise. Another tradition current among the Arabs is, that the
national dish, composed of a mixture of Rice with other ingredients,
and called Kuskussu, was revealed to Mahomet by the angel Gabriel
himself.----The Bushmen of Central Africa have the following legend
concerning Rice:--A pretty woman having eaten a certain Bushman-rice,
called “ant’s-egg,” became transformed into a lioness; but after the
spell was broken by reason of her little sister and her brothers also
eating this particular Rice, she regained her original form, and from
that day detested the Bushman-rice. This beautiful woman is supposed to
have been the wife of the star called Heart of the Dawn.----In England,
the Oriental practice of employing Rice at wedding festivities has
of late become very general; and it is customary for showers of Rice
to be thrown after the bride and bridegroom, as the happy pair quit
the bride’s home; this is thought to promote their success and future
happiness.----According to a work on the subject, to dream of eating
Rice denotes abundance of instruction.
=ROCKET.=--This is a name given to several different plants the most
noted of which are the London Rocket (_Sisymbrium Irio_) and the
Dame’s, or Garden Rocket (_Hesperis matronalis_). The former plant is
said to have first appeared in the metropolis in the Spring succeeding
the Great Fire of London, when young Rockets were seen everywhere
springing up among the ruins, where they increased so marvellously,
that in the Summer the enormous crop crowding over the surface of
London created the greatest astonishment and wonder.----The Garden
Rocket (_Hesperis_) boasts of many other old-fashioned names:--Dame’s
Violet, Damask Violet, Queen’s Gilliflower, Rogue’s Gilliflower,
Winter Gilliflower, and Close Sciences (originally Close Sciney).
It is the _Cassolette_ (smelling-bottle), _Julienne_, and _la
Juliana_ of the French; and the _Bella Giulia_ and _Giuliana_ of the
Italians.----According to Pliny, as quoted by Gerarde, “whosoever
taketh the seed of Rocket before he be whipt, shall be so hardened
that he shall easily endure the paines.” Turner remarks that all sorts
of Rockets, but especially the seed, quicken nature and excite the
passions; the seed he recommends as efficacious “against the bitings
of the shrew-mouse and other venomous beasts.” Moreover, if mixed
with vinegar, it is stated to remove freckles and pimples from the
face.----Rocket is held to be under the dominion of Mars.
ROGATION-FLOWER.--See Gang-Flower and Milkwort.
ROOT OF THE HOLY GHOST.--See Angelica.
=ROSE.=--It is worthy of notice how little the name of the Rose
varies amongst different nations. The Greeks call it _Rodon_, the
Latins _Rosa_ (a form adhered to by Italians, Russians, Spaniards,
and Portuguese), the English, French, Germans, and Danes, _Rose_, the
Poles _Roza_, the Dutch _Roos_, and the Swedes _Ros_. Roses embellish
the whole earth, and are natives of Europe, Asia, Africa, and America;
Nature having apparently, in this generous distribution, designed to
offer these flowers to all people, as the type of grace and beauty. The
origin of the queen of flowers is told us by the Jesuit poet Rapin,
according to whose verse--
“She was a Grecian born, gave Corinth laws,
And fame proclaimed her worth with such applause,
That youthful rivals for her favour strove,
And high-born kings were suppliants for her love.”
Of her numerous suitors, Brias, Orcas, and Halesus, a warrior, were the
principal. Provoked at their importunities, she haughtily bade them
“from arms and not entreaties seek a bride;” and then, to rid herself
of them, she entered the temple of Apollo and Diana with her father and
people. The lovers, not to be denied, combined in an attack upon the
temple gates, and the excitement of the combat so enhanced the maiden’s
beauty, that the people shouted, “Let Rhodanthe be a goddess, and let
the image of Diana give place to her!” Rhodanthe being therefore placed
upon the shrine, Phœbus, Diana’s brother, became so incensed at the
insult to his sister, that he turned his scorching rays against the
would-be goddess, who bitterly repented that she had ever appeared a
deity; for--
“Fast in the shrine her foot takes hold and cleaves,
Her arms stretch’d out are cover’d o’er with leaves;
Tho’ chang’d into a flower, her pomp remains,
And lovely still, and still a queen she reigns.
The crowd for their offence this doom abide.
Shrunk into thorns to guard her beauty’s pride.”
Her too ardent lovers were transformed respectively into a worm, a
drone, and a butterfly.
This account bears a general resemblance to the legend recounted by Sir
John Maundevile, who visited Bethlehem in the fourteenth century, and
found there the field Floridus, wherein, he tells us, a fair maiden
who had been unjustly accused of wrong was doomed to be burned; and,
after praying devoutly to God that, inasmuch as she was not guilty, He
would help her, and make her innocence known to all men, “she entered
the fire, and immediately the fire was extinguished, and the faggots
that were burning became red Rose-bushes full of Roses, and those that
remained unkindled became white Rose-bushes; and these were the first
Rose-trees and Roses, both white and red, that ever any man saw.”
“Thus,” concludes Sir John, “was this mayden saved be the grace of
God. And therfore is that feld clept the Feld of God florysscht: for it
was fulle of Roses.” Southey, in his poem on the Rose, has commemorated
this old story in the following lines:--
“The stake
Branches and buds, and spreading its green leaves,
Embowers and canopies the fair maid,
Who there stands glorified; and Roses, then
First seen on earth since Paradise was lost,
Profusely blossom round her, white and red.
In all their rich variety of hues.”
According to a Roumanian tradition, the Rose was originally a young and
beauteous princess, who, while bathing in the sea, so dazzled the Sun
with the radiance of her loveliness, that he stood still to gaze upon
her, and covered her with kisses. Then for three days he forgot his
duty, and obstructed the progress of night. Since that day the Lord of
the Universe has changed the princess into a Rose, and this is why the
Rose always hangs her head and blushes when the Sun gazes on her.
Anacreon gives the following poetic account of the origin of the Rose,
connecting it with the goddess of love and beauty:--
“Oh! whence could such a plant have sprung?
Attend, for thus the tale is sung:
When, humid from the silvery stream,
Effusing beauty’s warmest beam,
Venus appeared, in flushing hues,
Mellowed by ocean’s briny dews;
When, in the starry courts above,
The pregnant brain of mighty Jove
Disclosed the nymph of azure glance,
The nymph who shakes the martial lance;
Then, then, in strange eventful hour,
The earth produced an infant flower,
Which sprung with blushing tinctures drest,
And wantoned o’er its parent’s breast.
The gods beheld this brilliant birth,
And hailed the Rose, the boon of earth.”--_Moore._
Bion describes the Rose as springing from the blood of the slain
Adonis; and the Mahometans have a legend that it was produced from a
drop of perspiration which fell from the brow of Mahomet.
Relative to the colour of the Rose, we find a number of stories left us
by the ancients. Catullus tells us, that the Rose is red from blushing
for the wound it inflicted on the foot of Venus as she hastened to the
assistance of Adonis; Claudian, when Venus plucks a Rose, says it is
in remembrance of Adonis; an ancient epigram mentions her wishing to
defend Adonis from Mars, when
“Her step she fixes on the cruel thorns;
And with her blood the pallid Rose adorns.”
Anacreon tells us that the flower was dyed with nectar by the gods:--
“With nectar drops, a ruby tide,
The sweetly orient buds they dyed
And bade them bloom--the flowers divine
Of Him who sheds the teeming Vine.”--_Moore._
Still another legend is to the effect that Cupid, whilst leading a
dance in heaven, stumbled and overset a bowl of nectar, which, falling
upon the earth, stained the Rose.
The Rose--the flower of love, poetry, and beauty--was specially
dedicated to Venus, who is sometimes represented crowned with Roses,
and sometimes with a sceptre terminated with that flower. One of the
Three Graces--the attendants of Venus--usually carried a Rose in her
hand. Cupid is often depicted crowned with Roses, and the chaplet of
Hymen consisted generally of Marjoram or Roses, which latter flowers
were used in his feasts. The Thracians crowned Bacchus (Sabazius) with
Roses, and, in the vicinity of Pangæus, held a feast called _Rosalia_.
In the procession of the Corybantes, the goddess Cybele was pelted with
white Roses.
The Rose was a domestic flower sedulously cultivated by the ancients,
but especially by the Romans. It is said to have early flourished
at Rhodes, and possibly gave its name to that island. The Roses of
Campania, Miletus, Præneste, Malta, Cyrene, and Sybaris were all
noted; but especially celebrated were those of Pæstum: to this day the
insignia of Pæstum--a Syren holding a Rose--remains sculptured on the
ruined arch of one of its gates.
Among the ancients, it was customary to crown brides and bridegrooms
with a chaplet of red and white Roses. The Roman bride was decorated
with a wreath of Roses and Myrtle. The shrines of the gods and of
illustrious men in Rome were surmounted with wreaths of Roses. The
triumphal arches were adorned with these flowers, and garlands of Roses
were thrown into the chariots. At the public games, wreaths of Roses
were presented to the senators, and sometimes to the performers and
spectators. At the private entertainments of the ancients, the guests
wore wreaths of blooming Roses. The Romans thought to impart additional
relish to their feasts by the aid of the fragrance of the Rose. Pacutus
relates that “even in the time of the Republic, people were not
satisfied unless the cup of Falernian wine were swimming with Roses.”
The Spartan soldiers, after the battle of Cirrha, were so fastidious as
to refuse wine that was not perfumed with Roses. At the famed regatta
of Baiæ, the whole surface of the Lucrine Lake used to be strewn with
these flowers. At some of his banquets, Nero caused showers of Roses
to be rained down upon his guests from apertures in the ceiling.
Heliogabalus carried this practice to such an absurd extent, as to
cause the suffocation of some of his guests, who could not extricate
themselves from the heap of flowers. Cleopatra, in the entertainment
she gave in honour of Antony, spent an immense sum in Roses, with which
she had the floor of the banqueting chamber covered to the depth of an
ell, and over the flowers a thin net was drawn. The Romans were at
great expense to procure Roses in the Winter. Suetonius affirms that
Nero spent upwards of four million sesterces (about £30,000) for Roses,
at one supper. Horace, alluding to this custom, says: “Seek not for
late-blowing Roses; I ask no other crown than simple Myrtle.” In those
days, Rose-wine was celebrated, and we learn that Heliogabalus was wont
to indulge largely in this drink, and bathed himself in it. He even
caused a large swimming-bath to be filled with the costly liquid.
Milto, a fair young maiden, of obscure birth, was wont to deposit every
morning garlands of fresh flowers in the temple of Venus, as she was
too poor to make costlier offerings. Her rare beauty was once in danger
of being destroyed by a tumour which grew on her chin, but in a dream
she one night beheld the goddess, who told her to apply to it some of
the Roses from her altar. Milto obeyed; the tumour soon disappeared,
and she grew more lovely than ever; eventually attracting the notice of
the younger Cyrus, whose favourite wife she became. From that time the
medicinal properties of the Rose met with general recognition, and the
flower formed the basis of many lotions.
In classical times, the Rose was regarded as the emblem of joy, and
Comus, the god of feasting, is represented as wearing a garland of
bedewed Roses. As, during the intoxication of mirth, the mouth is apt
to run over when the heart is full, the ancients feigned that Cupid
presented a Rose to Harpocrates, the grave god of silence, as a bribe
not to betray the amours of Venus. The flower thus became a symbol of
secrecy and silence, and as such, a Rose was formerly suspended over
the guest table, that the sight of it might remind the guests that the
conversation should not be repeated elsewhere. More recently, a Rose
was painted on the ceiling of dining-rooms, and in our own time the
plaster ornament in the centre of the ceiling is still called a Rose.
This custom gave rise to the saying “Under the Rose”--an injunction of
secrecy. Hence it fell out that the Jacobins adopted the white Rose as
a political symbol of the Pretender, since his adherents were compelled
to help him “under the Rose.”
The Rose held an important place in early ecclesiastical history. As
an emblem of love and beauty, the queen of flowers was especially
dedicated by the Romish Church to the Virgin Mary: she is the Rose
of Sharon, the Mystic Rose (_Rosa mystica_), as well as the Lily of
the Valley. In old Italian paintings of the Madonna, a plantation,
garden, or hedge of Roses is often introduced, enclosing the principal
figure. In mediæval days, the Rose had a Sunday of its own at Rome,
and the reigning Pope officiated at the ceremony of the blessing of
the Golden Rose upon Mid-Lent Sunday. A Golden Rose is, even in our
own enlightened times, annually blessed by the Pope and sent as a mark
of signal pontifical favour to some royal personage. Ecclesiastical
tradition affirms that Roses and Lilies were found in the tomb of the
Virgin Mary after her assumption into heaven, and Roses were conveyed
by St. Dorothy, at the instance of Theophilus, from the heavenly
garden. Roses replaced the alms of Elizabeth of Hungary, when her apron
was rudely torn from her grasp by those who shared not her charitable
zeal for the poor. A legend of the twelfth century, quoted in a German
work by Wolf, relates how Iosbert, a pious monk, having fallen dead,
whilst worshipping at a shrine of the Virgin Mary (in honour of whom he
had been accustomed to recite five psalms every day), there sprang from
his mouth, from his eyes, and from his ears, five Roses. The bishop, on
his arrival, plucked one of the miraculous flowers, and solemnly placed
it upon the altar. No sooner had he done so, however, than the other
four Roses instantly faded away. In old paintings of the saints, Roses
are sometimes introduced in allusion to the saint’s name. St. Rosalia,
of Palermo, St. Rosa di Viterbo, St. Rosa di Lima, all wear the crown
of Roses, or it is presented by an angel. The last-named saint, who is
the patroness of America, was canonised by Clement X. According to the
Peruvian legend, the pope, when entreated to canonise her, absolutely
refused, exclaiming: “Indian and saint! as likely as that it should
rain Roses!” whereupon a miraculous shower of Roses began to fall in
the Vatican, and ceased not until the incredulous pontiff acknowledged
himself convinced of her sanctity. A legend of St. Francis of Assisi
relates that as the saint was one day shivering in his cell, in the
depth of Winter, a demon whispered in his ear suggestions of ease and
luxury. He repelled the temptations by going out and rolling himself in
the snow on a heap of Thorns. From the Thorns sprinkled with his blood
sprang Roses of Paradise, which he piously offered up to Christ and the
Madonna.
The Rosary was introduced by St. Dominick, in commemoration of his
having been shown a chaplet of Roses by the blessed Virgin. It
consisted formerly of a string of beads made of Rose-leaves tightly
pressed into round moulds, when real Roses were not strung together.
The use of a chaplet of beads as a minute of the number of prayers
recited is of Eastern origin, and dates from the time of the Egyptian
anchorites. Beads were also used by the Benedictines, and are to this
day in use among Mahometan devotees. St. Dominick invented a novel
arrangement of the chaplet, and dedicated it to the honour and glory of
the Virgin Mary. A complete Rosary consists of fifteen large and 150
small beads, the former representing the number of _Paternosters_, the
latter the number of _Ave-Marias_. The Indian Buddhists use a Rosary
of 99 beads: the Chinese and Japanese Buddhists one of 108 beads,
corresponding to the daily prayers offered against the 108 possible
sins.
In the sixth century, St. Médard, Bishop of Noyon, France, instituted a
festival at Salency, his birth-place, for adjudging a prize to the girl
who should be acknowledged the most amiable, modest, and beautiful.
The prize consisted of a simple crown of Roses, and the founder of
the festival had the gratification of crowning his own sister as the
first Rose Queen of Salency, in which obscure village this pleasant
institution still exists. At the present time, however, the _Rosière_
has a douceur of three hundred francs presented to her. Of late years
the institution of the _Rosière_ has been introduced into this country
by a Roman Catholic priest who labours in the east of London. The
Academy of Floral Games at Toulouse, founded in 1322, and still in
existence, was wont to give a Rose as a prize for the best poem. From
1288 to 1589 the French dukes and peers of all degrees were obliged
in the Spring which followed their nomination to present a tribute of
Roses to Parliament.
The association of the flower with our own country dates from a very
early period; and we find Pliny doubting whether the name Albion
referred to the white cliffs of our island or the white Roses which
grew there in abundance. In Edward the Third’s reign a gold coin was
struck called the “Rose noble,” which bore the figure of a Rose on one
of its faces. As the badge of the rival houses of York and Lancaster,
the flower became celebrated in English history--the White Rose being
the hereditary cognisance of the house of York, and the Red Rose that
of Lancaster. Shakspeare (in Henry VI.) represents the feud between the
two houses as having originated in the Temple Gardens, where after a
fierce altercation, Warwick addresses Plantagenet thus:--
“In signal of my love to thee,
Will I upon thy party wear this Rose:
And here I prophesy, this brawl to-day,
Grown to this faction in the Temple Garden,
Shall send, between the Red Rose and the White
A thousands souls to death and deadly night.”
Like the Gilliflower, the Rose was occasionally taken as a quit-rent;
thus we find in 1576 that the then Bishop of Ely granted to Sir
Christopher Hatton the greater portion of Ely House, Holborn, for
a term of twenty-one years, on consideration of the tenant paying
annually a red Rose for the garden and gate-house, and giving the
Bishop free access to the gardens, with the right of gathering twenty
bushels of Roses every year.
In the East, the Rose is an object of peculiar esteem. The Oriental
poets have united the beauteous Rose with the melodious nightingale;
and the flower is fabled to have burst forth from its bud at the song
of the warbler of the night. The poet Jami says--“You may place a
handful of fragrant herbs and flowers before the nightingale; yet he
wishes not in his constant heart for more than the sweet breath of his
beloved Rose.”
“Though rich the spot
With every flower this earth has got,
What is it to the nightingale,
If there his darling Rose is not?”--_Moore._
Persia is the veritable land of Roses: nowhere does the queen of
flowers reign in such glorious majesty. Zoroaster himself, the apostle
of the Persians, and the introducer of the worship of the sacred fire,
is connected in a legend with the Rose. An astrologer having predicted
the birth of a child who would dethrone the King of Babylon, the
monarch at once gave orders for the assassination of all women who
were about to become mothers. Thousands were slain; but one gave birth
secretly to the future prophet. This having come to the King’s ear,
he sent for the child, and tried to kill him with his own hand, but
his arm was withered on the spot. Alarmed, and furious with rage, he
had the babe placed on a lighted stake, but the burning pile changed
into a bed of Roses, on which the little one lay quietly sleeping.
Some persons present saved a portion of the fire, which has been kept
up to the present day in memory of this great miracle. The king made
two other attempts to destroy Zoroaster, but his temerity was punished
miraculously by a gnat, which entered his ear and caused his death. A
festival is held in Persia, called the Feast of the Roses, which lasts
the whole time they are in bloom.
“And all is ecstacy, for now
The valley holds its feast of Roses;
That joyous time, when pleasures pour,
Profusely round, and in their shower
Hearts open, like the season’s Rose,--
The flowret of a hundred leaves,
Expanding while the dew-fall flows,
And every leaf its balm receives!”--_Moore’s ‘Lalla Rookh.’_
Pelting with Roses is still common in Persia during the time of the
blooming of the flowers. A band of young musicians repair to the places
of public entertainment to amuse the guests, and on their way through
the streets they pelt the passengers whom they meet with Roses. The
Persians regard the _Rosa centifolia_ as the flower of an archangel.
Zoroaster affirmed that the Rose was free from thorns until the
entrance into the world of Ahrimanes (the evil spirit).
The “bed of Roses” is not altogether a poetic fiction. In ancient
days, the Sybarites used to sleep upon mattresses that were stuffed
with Rose-leaves. A similar luxury was afterwards indulged in, both in
Greece and Rome. Men would sit at their meals upon cushions, and sleep
by night on beds of Roses. The tyrant Dionysius had couches stuffed
with Roses, on which he lounged at his revels. Verres used to travel on
a litter reclining on a mattress stuffed with Roses. He wore, moreover,
garlands of Roses round his head and neck, and had Rose-leaves
intertwined in a thin net, which was drawn over the litter. It was a
favourite luxury of Antiochus to sleep in a tent of gold and silver on
a mattress stuffed with Roses.
The Indians have a tradition respecting the discovery of the mode of
preparing the far-famed Attar of Roses, a perfume perhaps unrivalled
in its refreshing qualities. To gratify the voluptuous Jehanghir,
his favourite sultana is said to have had the royal bath in the
palace garden filled with Rose-water. The action of the sun speedily
concentrated the oleaginous particles floating on the surface, and
the careful attendant, fearing lest the Rose-water should have become
corrupt, hastened to skim it in order to remove the oily flakes. The
globules burst whilst this operation was being performed, and emitted
such an exquisite odour, that the idea of preparing the delicious
attar was at once suggested. Avicenna, an Arabian doctor of the tenth
century, was the first to extract from Roses their fragrant perfume by
distillation. He selected the _Rosa centifolia_ for his experiments,
and succeeded in producing the delicious liquid known as Rose-water,
which is held in such repute in the East, that when a stranger enters a
house, it is considered a mark of distinction and welcome to sprinkle
him over with Rose-water. When Saladin entered Jerusalem in 1187, he
had the floor and walls of Omar’s mosque entirely washed with this
delicate perfume.
At all times, in all countries, Roses have been employed for planting
and strewing upon graves. The dying Antony begged Cleopatra to scatter
perfumes on his tomb and cover it with Roses; and both Greeks and
Romans were desirous of having their graves bedecked every year with
the fragrant flowers. So religiously did they observe the practice of
planting Roses round graves, that they annexed codicils to their wills,
as appears by an old inscription at Ravenna, and another at Milan, by
which Roses are ordered to be yearly strewed upon the graves. In the
German portions of Switzerland, churchyards are called “Rose gardens.”
A Rose is sculptured on the tombs of maidens in Turkey. In Poland, the
coffins of little children are covered with Roses, and Roses are thrown
from the windows as the funeral procession passes along the streets.
In the South of England, a chaplet of white Roses is borne before the
corpse of a maiden, by a young girl of the same age as the deceased,
and afterwards hung up over her accustomed seat in church. In South
Wales, and in many parts of England, it was formerly customary to strew
Roses and plant Rose-trees on graves, and, indeed, the custom is still
extant. Camden says that at Ockley, in Surrey, the custom of planting
Rose-trees on graves had been observed “time out of mind.”
The Rose is one of the plants used for love divinations on Midsummer
Eve. In Cornwall, Devon, and other counties, if a young lady will, on
Midsummer Eve, walk backwards into the garden, and pluck a Rose, she
is reputed to have the means of knowing who is to be her husband. The
Rose must be cautiously sewn up in a paper bag, and put aside in a dark
drawer, there to remain until Christmas morning, when the bag must be
carefully opened in silence, and the Rose placed by the lady in her
bosom. Thus she must wear it to church. Some young man will either
ask her for the Rose or take it from her without asking; and that
young man is destined eventually to become the lady’s husband. Herrick
probably refers to this charm in the ‘Hesperides,’ when, in allusion to
a bride, he says:--
“She must no more a-maying,
Or by Rosebuds divine
Who’ll be her Valentine.”
There is a curious old divination rite to be employed on the 27th
of June, according to which maidens are enjoined on that morning to
gather secretly a full-blown Rose, between three and four o’clock. The
flower is then to be held for about five minutes over the smoke of a
chafing-dish containing some brimstone and charcoal; then, before the
Rose gets cool, it is to be placed on a sheet of paper, on which is
inscribed the maiden’s name and that of the swain she loves, together
with the date of the year, and the name of the morning star. This
paper, having been folded and thrice sealed, is to be buried at the
foot of the Rose-tree from which the flower was plucked, and allowed
to remain there until the 6th of July, when it is to be taken up,
and placed beneath the maiden’s pillow, with the result that, before
morning, she will, in a dream, have her fate revealed. The Rose is
utilised as a love-charm in Thuringia; there a maid who has several
lovers will name a Rose-leaf after each, and then scatter them upon the
water; that which sinks the last representing her future husband.
It was a common belief formerly, that when Roses or Violets flourished
in Autumn, there would be a plague or some pestiferous disease during
the ensuing year. Lord Bacon points out that a profusion of Roses in
their season predicts a severe Winter, and the belief is still extant.
“The Thorns and Briars, vermilion hue,
Now full of Hips and Haws are seen;
If village prophecies be true,
They prove that Winter will be keen.”
A writer in the _Gardener’s Chronicle_ tells us, that “in some parts of
Germany it is customary to throw Rose-leaves on a coal-fire as a means
of ensuring good luck. In Germany, as well as in France and Italy, it
is believed that if a drop of one’s blood be buried under a Rose-tree,
it will ensure rosy cheeks. The Rose is also associated in Westphalia
with a charm against nose-bleeding and other hæmorrhages. This charm
consists in the repetition of the words: ‘In Christ’s Garden stand
three Roses, one for the good God, the other for God’s blood, the third
for the angel Gabriel: blood, I pray you, cease to flow.’ In Suabia,
it is somewhat different: ‘On our Lord’s grave spring three Roses; the
first is Hope, the second is Patience, the third is the will of God:
blood, I pray you be still.’”
Strangely enough, the Rose has the reputation of being a death portent.
In England, it is on that account deemed very unlucky to scatter the
leaves of a red Rose on the ground. In Italy, this flower is deemed an
emblem of an early death; and it is thought an evil omen if its leaves
perchance fall to the ground. In Ireland, there is a legend of a sick
man who saw a Rose pass across the panes of the window of his room: it
was a death warning, and the man died. Roses not only act as portents
of death, but in some cases they spring up as memorials of the dead.
Thus, at Roncevalles, where Roland and the _douze pairs_ stained the
soil with their blood, Roses are popularly believed to have sprung up:--
“When Roland brave and Olivier,
And every paladin and peer,
On Roncevalles died.”
And again, in our own country, a tradition relates that after the
battle of Towton, there sprang up in the field where the Yorkists and
Lancastrians fell, a peculiar kind of wild Rose, only there to be
found, and which will not bear being transplanted from “the bloody
meadow.”
“There still wild Roses growing,
Frail tokens of the fray;
And the hedgerow green bears witness
Of Towton field that day.”
A white Provins Rose was the emblem of the Stuarts upon the accession
of the Duke of York to the throne of England as James II. It was
said to come into flower on the 10th of June, a day interesting to
Jacobites, as being the birthday of the Chevalier St. George.
“Of all the days that’s in the year,
The tenth of June I love most dear,
When sweet White Roses do appear,
For the sake of James the Rover.”
Under the title of _Roisin dubh_, the “Little Black Rose,” we find
Ireland symbolised in a song composed in the reign of Queen Elizabeth.
“There’s no flower that e’er bloomed can my Rose excel,
There’s no tongue that e’er moved half my love can tell.
Had I strength, had I skill the wide world to subdue,
Oh, the queen of that wide world should be Roisin dubh!”
Dream oracles tell us that nothing can be more favourable than to
dream of Roses, as they are certain emblems of happiness, prosperity,
and long life. To a lover, they foretell he will marry the object of
his choice, and that happiness and joy will result from the union.
To the farmer and sailor, the appearance of these flowers in a dream
is said to predict great prosperity and ultimate independence. To
dream of withered Roses, however, is ominous of decay of fortune and
disappointment.
Astrologers state that red Roses are under the government of Jupiter,
Damask Roses under Venus, and white Roses under the rule of the Moon.
=ROSE-BRIAR.=--The Rose-briar, or _Rosa canina_, according to
tradition, is the plant from which was formed the crown of Thorns
placed on our Saviour’s brow at the Crucifixion. It has attached to
it the legend that when the sacred drops of blood trickling from the
wounded Saviour fell to the ground, they blossomed into Roses.
“Men saw the Thorns on Jesus’ brow,
But angels saw the Roses.”
The Wild, or Dog, Rose, it has also been supposed, composed the thicket
in which Abraham caught the ram, as well as the bush in the midst of
which the angel of the Lord appeared to Moses in a flame of fire, and
from which God addressed him. It is probably the plant alluded to in
the prophecy of Isaiah concerning the desolation of Jerusalem (v.,
6): “I will lay it waste; it shall not be pruned or digged; but there
shall come up Briars and Thorns.” Chandler tells us that he saw no
other tree nor shrub within the walls of the Holy City when he visited
it.----The Rose-briar is connected with an incident in the life of St.
Benedict. This godly man, in his early life, lived for three years a
solitary existence among the rocks of Subiaco, a wilderness forty miles
from Rome. During this time he underwent many temptations, and on one
occasion was so disturbed by the recollection of a beautiful woman whom
he had seen in Rome, that he was well-nigh quitting his retreat and
returning to the city. He felt, however, that the temptation proceeded
from the devil, and, tormented by his distracting desires, he rushed
from his cave, and flinging himself into a thicket of Briars, he rolled
himself in them until the blood flowed freely from his lacerated flesh;
then the fiends left him, and he was never again assailed by the same
temptation. In the garden of the monastery at Subiaco they show the
Rose-bushes which have been propagated from those very briars.
=ROSEMARY.=--_Rosmarinus_, the botanical name of Rosemary, signifies
the “dew of the sea,” and has been applied to the plant on account of
its fondness for the sea-shore. Formerly it was called _Rosmarinus
coronarius_ because of its use in chaplets and garlands, with which
the principal guests at feasts were crowned. In place of more costly
incense, the ancients often employed Rosemary in their religious
ceremonies, and especially at funeral rites. The Romans ornamented
their Lares, or household gods, with this plant, and at the Palilia,
or festival held in honour of Pales, the purification of the flocks
was made with the smoke of Rosemary. But the plant is essentially
funereal in its character: its aroma serves to preserve the corpse of
the departed, and its leaves, ever green, symbolise immortality: hence,
like the Asphodel and Mallow, it was frequently planted near tombs:--
“Come funeral flower! who lov’st to dwell,
With the pale corse in lonely tomb,
And throw across the desert gloom
A sweet decaying smell.”--_Kirke White._
In the Northern counties, mourners at funerals often carry a branch
of Rosemary, and it is still customary in some rural districts to
distribute sprigs of the plant at funerals, in order that those
attending may cast them into the grave. Gay refers to this custom in
his ‘Shepherd’s Week’:--
“Sprigg’d Rosemary the lads and lasses bore,
While dismally the parson walked before.
Upon her grave the Rosemary they threw,
The Daisy, Butter-flower, and Endive blue.”
Sprigs of Rosemary were, however, in olden times, worn at weddings, as
well as at funerals. Herrick says:--
“Grow for two ends, it matters not at all,
Be’t for my bridal or my burial.”
Shakspeare and others of our old poets make frequent mention of
Rosemary as an emblem of remembrance, and as being worn at weddings,
possibly to signify the fidelity of the lovers. Thus Ophelia says:--
“There’s Rosemary for you, that’s for remembrance;
pray you, love, remember.”
Sprigs of Rosemary mingled in the coronal which bound the hair of the
unfortunate Anne of Cleves on the occasion of her nuptials with King
Henry VIII. In olden times, Rosemary garlanded the wassail bowl, and at
Christmas the dish of roast beef, decked with Rosemary and Bays, was
ushered in with the carol beginning--
“The boar’s head in hand bring I,
With garlands gay and Rosemary.”
The silvery foliage of this favourite plant mingled well with the
Holly, Mistletoe, and Bays employed in decking rooms, &c., at
Christmas-tide--a custom which may perhaps be accounted for by a
Spanish tradition that the Rosemary (like the Juniper in other legends)
afforded shelter and protection to the Virgin Mary during her flight
with the infant Saviour into Egypt. The plant is said to flower on
the day of the Passion of our Lord because the Virgin Mary spread on
a shrub of Rosemary the under linen and little frocks of the infant
Jesus; and according to tradition, it brings happiness on those
families who employ it in perfuming the house on Christmas night.----In
Germany, there exists a curious custom of demanding presents from
women on Good Friday, at the same time striking them with a branch of
Rosemary or Fir.----It is a common saying in Sicily, that Rosemary is
the favourite plant of the fairies, and that the young fairies, under
the guise of snakes, lie concealed under its branches.----In the rural
districts of Portugal, it is called _Alecrim_, a word of Scandinavian
origin (_Ellegrim_), signifying Elfin-plant.----Rosemary occupied
a prominent place in monastic gardens, on account of its curative
properties, and in Queen Elizabeth’s time, its silvery foliage grew
all over the walls of the gardens at Hampton Court. Now-a-days the
plant is rarely seen out of the kitchen garden, and indeed a common
saying has arisen that “Rosemary only grows where the mistress is
master.” The plant was formerly held in high estimation as a “comforter
of the brain,” and a strengthener of the memory. In England, Rosemary
worn about the body is said to strengthen the memory, and to afford
successful assistance to the wearer in anything he may undertake.----In
an ancient Italian recipe, the flowers of Rosemary, Rue, Sage,
Marjoram, Fennel, Quince, &c., are recommended for the preservation of
youth. In Bologna, there is an old belief that the flowers of Rosemary,
if placed in contact with the skin, and especially, with the heart,
give gaiety and sprightliness. Spirit of wine distilled from Rosemary
produces the true Hungary water. By many persons Rosemary is used as
tea for headaches and nervous disorders.----An Italian legend, given
in the _Mythologie des Plantes_, tells that a certain queen, who was
childless, one day, whilst walking in the palace gardens, was troubled
with a feeling of envy whilst contemplating a vigorous Rosemary-bush,
because of its numerous branches and offshoots. Strange to relate, she
afterwards gave birth to a Rosemary-bush, which she planted in a pot
and carefully supplied with milk four times a day. The king of Spain,
nephew of the queen, having stolen this pot of Rosemary, sustained
it with goat’s milk. One day, whilst playing on the flute, he saw to
his astonishment a beautiful princess emerge from the Rosemary-bush.
Captivated by her beauty, he fell desperately in love with this strange
visitor; but being obliged to depart to fight for his country, he
commended the Rosemary-bush to the special care of his head gardener.
In his absence, his sisters one day amused themselves by playing on the
king’s flute, and forthwith the beautiful princess emerged once more
from the Rosemary. The king’s sisters, tormented by jealousy, struck
her; the princess forthwith vanished, the Rosemary began to droop,
and the gardener, afraid of the king’s wrath, fled into the woods. At
the midnight hour, he heard a dragon talking to its mate, and telling
her the story of the mystic Rosemary-bush. The dragon let fall the
fact, that if the Rosemary was to be restored, it could only be by
being fed or sprinkled with dragons’ blood: no sooner did the gardener
hear this, than he fell upon the male and female dragons, slew them,
and carrying off some of their blood, applied it to the roots of the
king’s Rosemary. So the spell was broken: the king returned, and soon
after married the charming Princess Rosa Marina.----A curious charm, or
dream-divination, is still extant in which Rosemary plays an important
part; the mode of procedure is as follows:--On the eve of St. Magdalen,
three maidens, under the age of twenty-one, are to assemble in an upper
room, and between them prepare a potion, consisting of wine, rum, gin,
vinegar, and water, in a ground-glass vessel. Into this each maid is
then to dip a sprig of Rosemary, and fasten it in her bosom; and after
taking three sips of the potion, the three maids are silently to go to
sleep in the same bed. As a result, the dreams of each will reveal
their destiny. Another elaborate spell for effecting the same result on
the first of July, consists in the gathering of a sprig of Rosemary, a
red Rose, a white Rose, a blue flower, a yellow flower, nine blades of
long Grass, and a sprig of Rue, all of which are to be bound together
with a lock of the maiden’s hair who wishes to work the spell. This
nosegay is to be sprinkled with the blood of a white pigeon and some
salt, and laid beneath the maid’s head when she retires to rest. Her
dreams will then portend her fate.----Rosemary is deemed a herb of the
Sun.
=ROSE OF JERICHO.=--From the Casa Nuova Convent of Jerusalem pilgrims
bring away little dried-up plants, which after a time appear to be
quite dead, but if they are placed in water their branches will
soon be covered with fresh bursting buds. These are the Roses of
Jericho, or Resurrection Flowers, which grow among the sands of Egypt,
Palestine, and Syria, and are also found in Barbary. The _Anastatica
Hierochuntina_ is cruciform; and when its flowers and leaves have
withered and fallen off, the branches as they dry curl inwards, and
form a round mass, thence called a Rose. The roots die; the winds tear
the plant up, and blow it about the sands till it lodges in a moist
spot, or is wetted with the rain; then the curled-up globe expands, and
suffers the seeds to escape from the seed vessel in which they were
enclosed, and becoming embedded in the sands, they germinate anew;
hence its name _Anastatica_--Resurrection. The Holy Rose of Jericho is
regarded with peculiar reverence in Palestine and other places in the
East, and is supposed to be the plant alluded to in Ecclesiasticus: “I
was ... as a Rose-plant in Jericho.” The Arabs call this plant _Kaf
Maryam_ (_i.e._, Mary’s hand); it is also known as _Rosa-Mariæ_ (Rose
of the Virgin). The pilgrims to the Holy Sepulchre fancied it sprang
up wherever the Holy Family rested in their flight into the Egypt, and
called it the _Rosa Hierosolymitana_. There is a cherished legend that
it first blossomed at our Saviour’s birth, closed at the crucifixion,
and opened again at Easter, whence its name of Resurrection Flower.
The tradition that it blossomed at the moment when our Lord was born,
and was endowed with qualities propitious to nativity, caused the
plant to be greatly esteemed by the Eastern women, who, when occasion
requires, are anxious to have one of these dried plants expanding in a
vase of water beside them, firmly believing it has a salutary effect.
In like manner, the matrons of Bologna, who call the plant the Rose of
the Madonna, believe in its efficacy at the birth of children. They
place the plant in water at the bedside with the conviction that at the
moment when it has fully expanded itself the expected infant will first
see the light.----In Germany, a similar belief exists, and the Rose of
Jericho is called (after its Arabic name) Mary’s Hand, in allusion to
the office assigned to the Madonna of patroness of matrons.
=ROSE OF SHARON.=--The Hebrew word rendered in Canticles ii., 1, and
Isaiah xxxv., 1, as “Rose,” is thought by some to signify “Tulip.”
Interpreters, indeed vary between Rose, Lily, Narcissus, and Tulip;
so that it is impossible to say with any certainty what flower we are
to understand by the Rose of Sharon. According to travellers, the
Narcissus, or Jonquil (_Narcissus Jonquila_), grows abundantly on the
plain of Sharon, yet so low that it may be unobserved among more showy
plants; and again we find it stated that, in the season, the plain is
literally covered with Tulips. Though Palestine abounds in flowers, it
is doubtful whether the Rose of our gardens is alluded to in the Bible.
In the Apocrypha (Wisdom xi., 8), it may, perhaps, be intended, but
more probably the Oleander is there referred to.
=ROWAN-TREE, or MOUNTAIN-ASH.=--The Mountain Ash (_Pyrus Aucuparia_),
called also by the old names of Rodden, Rowan-tree, Quicken-tree, and
Witchen-tree, is a tree of good omen. In Scandinavian mythology, it
is Thor’s Helper, because it bent to his grasp when he was crossing
the river Vimur, on his way to the land of the Frost Giants. The wood
of the Rowan was also used to preserve the Norse ships from Ran, who
delighted in drowning mariners. The Rowan is generally considered to
have been one of the sacred trees of the Druids. Stumps of the Mountain
Ash have frequently been found within or near the circle of a Druid
temple, thus proving that the tree must have been an object of great
veneration with the Druids, who doubtless practised their sacred rites
beneath its shade. This connection of the tree with Druidic customs
affords some explanation of the many superstitious ideas appertaining
to the Mountain Ash which are still extant. Lightfoot tells us that
the Rowan-tree is discovered in the Druidic circles of North Britain
more frequently than any other, and that even now pieces of it are
carried about by superstitious people as charms to protect them from
witchcraft. Like the Indian Mimosa (a tree of the same genus and of a
similar character), or the Palasa, which it resembles in its graceful
foliage and berries, the Mountain Ash has for ages been held in high
repute as a preservative against magic and sorceries. Thus we find in
Jamieson’s ‘Scottish Dictionary,’ that “the most approved charm against
cantrips and spells was a branch of the Rowan-tree planted and placed
over the byre. This sacred tree cannot be removed by unholy fingers.”
The Scotch peasantry considered the Rowan a complete antidote against
the effects of witchcraft and the Evil Eye, and, in consequence, a twig
of it was very commonly carried in the pocket; but that it might have
complete efficacy, it was necessary that it should be accompanied by
the following couplet, written on paper, wrapped round the wood and
secured by a red silk thread:--
“Rowan Ash and red thread
Keep the devils frae their speed.”
Another version of this charm renders it thus:--
“Roan-tree and red thread,
Haud the witches a’ in dread.”
Pennant remarks that the Scotch farmers carefully preserve their cattle
against witchcraft by placing branches of Honeysuckle and Mountain
Ash in the cowhouses on the 2nd of May; the milkmaids of Westmoreland
often carry in their hands or attached to their milking-pails a branch
of the Rowan-tree, from a similar superstitious belief; the dairymaids
of Lancashire prefer a churn-staff of Rowan-wood to that of any other
tree, as it saves the butter from evil influences; and in the North of
England a branch of “Wiggin” (Mountain Ash) is frequently hung up in
stables, it being deemed a most efficacious charm against witchcraft.
Formerly, in some parts of the country, it was considered that a branch
or twig held up in the presence of a witch was sufficient to render
her deadliest wishes of no avail.----In an ancient song, called the
“Laidly Worm of Spindlestone Heughs” is an allusion to this power of
the Rowan-tree over witches:--
“Their spells were vain; the hags return’d
To the queen in sorrowful mood,
Crying that witches have no power
Where there is Roan-tree wood.”
In Cornwall, the Mountain Ash is called “Care,” and if there is a
suspicion of a cow being bewitched or subjected to the Evil Eye, the
herdsmen will suspend a branch over her stall, or twine it round
her horns. Evelyn says that the Mountain Ash was reputed to be a
preservative against fascination and evil spirits, “whence, perhaps,
we call it ‘Witchen;’ the boughs being stuck about the door or used
for walking-staves.” In Wales, this tree was considered so sacred in
his time, that there was not, he tells us, a churchyard without one
of them planted in it.----At the present time, in Montgomeryshire, it
is customary to rest the corpse on its way to the churchyard under a
Mountain Ash, as that tree is credited with having furnished the wood
of the Cross.----In olden times, collars of the wood of the Rowan-tree
were put upon the necks of cattle, in order to protect them from spells
or witchcraft. In many parts of England, it was formerly the custom in
cases of the death of animals supposed to be bewitched, to take out the
heart of one of the victims, stick it over with pins, and burn it to a
cinder over a fire composed of the wood of a Rowan-tree, which, as we
have seen, has always been considered a terror and dread to witches.
“Black luggie, lammer bead,
Rowan-tree and red thread,
Put the witches to their speed.”
A witch touched with a branch of this sacred tree by a christened
man was deemed doomed to be the victim carried off by the Devil,
when he next came to claim his tribute.----Like the Hazel, Thorn,
and Mistletoe, it was deemed, according to Aryan tradition, to be
an embodiment of the lightning, from which it sprang, and was,
moreover, thought to possess the magical power of discovering hidden
treasure.----In the days of the Fenians, according to the Gaelic
legend, of ‘The Pursuit of Diarmuid and Grainne,’ there grew in Ireland
a celebrated Mountain Ash, called the Quicken-tree of Dubhros, which
bore some wonderful berries. The legend informs us that, “There is in
every berry of them the exhilaration of wine, and the satisfying of old
mead, and whoever shall eat three berries of them, has he completed
a hundred years, he will return to the age of thirty years.” These
famed berries of the Quicken-tree of Dubhros were jealously guarded by
one Searbhan Lochlannach, “a giant, hideous and foul to behold,” who
would allow no one to pluck them: he was, however, slain by Diarmuid
O’Duibhne, and the berries placed at the disposal of his wife Grainne,
who had incited her husband to obtain them for her.----At Modrufell,
on the north coast of Ireland, is or was a large Rowan, always on
Christmas Eve stuck full of torches, which no wind could possibly
extinguish; and one of the Orkneys possessed a still more mysterious
tree with which the fate of the islands was bound up, since, if a leaf
was carried away, they would pass to some foreign lord.
=RUDRÂKSHA.=--De Gubernatis tells us, that _Rudrâksha_, which means
literally the Eye of Rudra (Siva), or the Tear of Rudra, is a name
given, in India, to the fruit of the _Eleocarpus_, of which the natives
manufacture their Rosaries, which are specially used in the worship
of the god Siva. It is said that during the war of the gods with the
Asuras, or demons, Siva burnt three towns; but he was grieved, and wept
went he was told that he had also burnt the inhabitants. From the tears
he then shed, and which fell to the earth, sprang the climbing plants
whose fruits are to this day called by the faithful, _Rudrâkshas_.
=RUE.=--It has been conjectured that the Moly, which, according to
Homer, Mercury gave to Ulysses as an antidote to the enchantress
Circe’s beverage, was the root of the wild Rue. In olden times, Rue
(_Ruta graveolens_) was called Herb of Grace, from the fact that the
word _rue_ means also “repentance,” which is needful to obtain the
grace of God. It was also known as the Serving-men’s Joy, but was
specially held in high repute by women, who attributed to it all sorts
of miraculous qualities. R. Turner states that “it preserves chastity,
being eaten; it quickeneth the sight, stirs up the spirits, and
sharpeneth the wit.... It is an excellent antidote against poisons and
infections; the very smell thereof is a preservation against the plague
in the time of infection.” Its virtues as a disinfectant are noted in
the quaint rhyme of old Tusser:--
“What savour is better, if physicke be true,
For places infected, than Wormwood and Rue?”
Dioscorides recommended the seed as a counterpoison against deadly
medicines, the bitings of serpents, scorpions, wasps, &c.: and Gerarde
adds, “It is reported that if a man bee anointed with the juice of Rue,
these will not hurt him, and that the serpent is driven away at the
smell thereof when it is burned: insomuch that when the weasell is to
fight with the serpent, shee armeth her selfe by eating Rue, against
the might of the serpent.”----The famous counter-poison of Mithridates,
King of Pontus, was composed of twenty leaves of Rue, two Figs, two
Walnuts, twenty Juniper-berries, and a little salt. Rue entered into
the composition of the once noted “vinegar of the four thieves.” It
is said that four thieves, during the Plague of Marseilles, invented
this anti-pestilential vinegar, by means of which they entered infected
houses without danger, and stole all property worth removing. Piperno,
a Neapolitan physician, in 1625, recommended Rue as a specific against
epilepsy and vertigo: it sufficed for the patient to suspend some round
his neck, renouncing at the time, in a stated formula, the devil and
all his works, and invoking the Lord Jesus. This same doctor advocated
the employment of Rue to cure dumbness caused by enchantment.----In
England, Rue was thought to be efficacious in the cure of madness.
Drayton gives the magic potion:--
“Then sprinkled she the juice of Rue
With nine drops of the midnight dew
From Lunarie distilling.”
In combination with Euphrasy, the herb appears to have been considered
potent as an eye lotion.
“Then purged with Euphrasy and Rue
The visual nerve, for he had much to see.”--_Milton._
In olden times, there was a tradition that Rue always throve best
when stolen from a neighbour’s garden; and it was popularly believed
that the gun-flint boiled in Vervain and Rue ensured the shot
taking effect.----In Venice, Rue is kept as a charm in a house,
to maintain its good fortune; but it is reserved for the single
members of the family; with it goes the luck of the house. When a
plant cannot be procured, care is taken that at least a sprig is
worn by some one between the stocking and leg.----In some parts of
Italy, Rue is considered to be a protection against the Evil Eye
and witchcraft.----In the Tyrol, anyone bearing a bundle of herbs,
comprising Rue, Broom, Maiden-hair, Agrimony, and Ground Ivy, is
enabled to see witches.----Astrologers claim Rue as a herb of the Sun,
under Leo.
=RUSH.=--The sea-nymph Galatea was devotedly attached to Acis, a young
shepherd of Sicily, who warmly returned her affection. Unfortunately
Galatea was passionately loved by the Cyclops Polyphemus, whom she
treated with the greatest disdain. One day the Cyclops surprised the
lovers who fled from his jealous wrath. The giant, however, hurled a
mass of broken rock after Acis, and a fragment striking him, he was
crushed to death. Galatea, inconsolable for the loss of her lover,
determined to change him into a stream. The blood of the mangled
shepherd issuing from the fragment of rock which had overwhelmed him
gradually changed into flowing water. Simultaneously
“The stone was cleft, and through the yawning chink
New Reeds arose on the new river’s brink;
The rock from out its hollow womb disclosed
A sound like water in its course opposed.
When (wondrous to behold) full in the flood
Up starts a youth, and navel-high he stood.
Horns from his temples rise; and either horn
Thick wreaths of Reeds (his native growth) adorn.”
The Flowering-rush (_Butomus umbellatus_) is considered to be the plant
which sprang from the blood of Acis. The ancients knew it under name of
the _Juncus floridus_, and Gerarde calls it the water Gladiole.----The
flower now known as Acis is a dwarf Amaryllid.----In olden times,
before carpets were known, it was usual to strew the floor with sweet
Rushes, which diffused a fragrance. When William the Conqueror was
born in Normandy, where that custom prevailed, at the very moment when
the infant first saw the light and touched the ground, he filled both
hands with the Rushes strewn on the floor, firmly grasping what he
had taken up. This was regarded as a propitious omen, and the persons
present declared the boy would become a king. This custom of strewing
sweet Rushes was in vogue during Elizabeth’s reign, for we find several
allusions to it in Shakspeare’s plays. Cardinal Wolsey, when in the
zenith of his power, had the strewings of his great hall at Hampton
Court renewed every day. It was customary formerly to strew Rushes on
the floors of Churches on the Feast of Dedication, and on all high
days. Till recently the floor of Norwich Cathedral was strewn with
_Acorus Calamus_ on feast days, or, if the _Acorus_ was scarce, then
with yellow Iris-leaves. At the Church of St. Mary Redcliffe, Bristol,
Rushes are strewn every Whitsuntide.----In Yorkshire, Cheshire, and
Westmoreland, the old custom of Rush-bearing is observed, which
apparently had for its origin the ancient practice of carrying Rushes
to adorn the Church on the Feast of Dedication. The following account
of a Rush-bearing at Ambleside is taken from ‘Time’s Telescope,’ for
1824:--“July 26, 1823.--On this and the following day, the antient
custom of Rush-bearing took place at Ambleside. At seven o’clock on
Saturday evening, a party of about forty young girls went in procession
to the Church, preceded by a band of music. Each of the girls bore in
her hands the usual Rush-bearings, the origin and signification of
which have so long puzzled the researches of our antiquarians. These
elegant little trophies were disposed in the Church, round the pulpit,
reading-desk, pews, &c., and had a really beautiful and imposing
effect. They thus remained during the Sunday, till the service was
finished in the afternoon, when a similar procession was formed to
convey these trophies home again. We understand that formerly, in
some parts of Lancashire, a similar ceremony prevailed, under the
same designation, in which the Rush-bearings were made in the form
of females, with a fanciful rosette for the head; and on looking at
these in Ambleside, some faint resemblance of the female form may be
traced in the outline. No satisfactory explanation of this ceremony
has ever yet been given: the attempt at one is, that it is a remnant
of an antient custom, which formerly prevailed, of strewing the
church-floors with Rushes to preserve the feet from damp; but we cannot
perceive what resemblance there is between the practice of strewing
the church with Rushes, and the trophies which are now carried from
time immemorial.”----To dream of Rushes portends unpleasantness between
friends.
=RYE.=--The Rye-fields are thought by the superstitious German
peasantry to be infested by an evil spirit known as the _Roggenwolf_,
or Rye-wolf, and in some districts the last sheaf of Rye is left as a
shelter for this field demon during the winter.----In Germany, when a
horse is tired, the peasantry will place on his back some crumbs of Rye
bread, with a sure conviction that his fatigue will vanish.
=SAD TREE.=--The Indian Sad Tree (_Nyctanthes Arbor-tristis_) is a
species of Jasmine whose sweet-smelling flowers open at sunset and
fall at sunrise, so that it is unadorned during the day, and has
thus obtained the name of the Sad Tree. Its flowers, which resemble
Orange-blossoms, are much used in temples.----Thunberg relates that
the ladies of Batavia, when in the evening they pay visits to one
another, are decorated in a particular manner about the head with a
wreath of flowers of the Nyctanthes, run upon a thread. “These flowers
are brought every day fresh to town for sale. The smell of them is
inconceivably delightful, like that of Orange and Lemon-flowers: the
whole house is filled with the fragrant scent, enhancing, if possible,
the charms of the ladies’ company.”----At Goa, this flower is called
Parizataco, a name given to it from the following circumstances:--A
governor, named Parizatacos, had a beautiful daughter, who inspired
the Sun with passionate love; but after a time he transferred his
affections to another, and the poor deserted one was seized with such
despair, that at last she put an end to her existence. Over her grave
sprang up the Parizataco, or Night Jasmine, the flowers of which have
such a horror of the Sun, that they always avoid gazing on it.
SAFFRON.--See Crocus.
=SAGE.=--Many species of Sage are highly esteemed in European countries
for their medicinal qualities, and most of the continental names of the
plant are like the botanical one of _Salvia_, from _Salvo_, to save or
heal. The ancients ascribed to the herb manifold virtues, and regarded
it as a preserver of the human race (“_Salvia_, _Salvatvix_, _naturæ
conciliatrix_.”).----In mediæval times, the plant, on account of its
numerous properties, obtained the name of _Officinalis Christi_, and
was reported to have been blessed by the Virgin Mary.----So wholesome
was the herb considered, that the school of Salerno summed up its
surpassing merits in the line--
“_Cur morietur homo cui Salvia crescit in horto?_”
“How can a man die who grows Sage in his garden?”
Probably this saying gave rise to the piece of advice contained in the
old English proverb--
“He that would live for aye
Must eat Sage in May.”
Parkinson remarks that “Sage is much used in the month of May, fasting,
with butter and Parsley, and is held of most to conduce much to the
health of man,” and Turner says that “it restores natural heat, and
comforts the vital spirits, and helps the memory, and quickens the
senses; it is very healthful to be eaten in May with butter, and
also to be drank in ale.” The Greeks of Crete (where Sage is grown
abundantly) are very careful to gather the herb either on the first
or second day of May, before sunrise.----In Sussex, to charm away
ague fits, the peasantry eat Sage-leaves fasting for nine mornings
consecutively. In Franche-Comté, the herb is believed to mitigate
grief, moral as well as physical.----In Piedmont, there exists a
tradition that if Sage is placed in a glass phial and buried beneath a
dung-heap, a certain animal will grow, the blood of which, if tasted
by dogs, will cause them to lose consciousness. There exists, also, a
belief among Piedmontese girls that in every Sage-leaf is concealed a
little toad; and Robert Turner, in his work on English plants (1687),
states that “Rue is good to be planted amongst Sage, to prevent the
poison which may be in it by toads frequenting amongst it, to relieve
themselves of their poison, as is supposed; but Rue being amongst it,
they will not come near it.”----There is an old superstition that,
with the aid of Sage, young women may see their future husbands by
practising the following extraordinary spell:--On Midsummer Eve, just
after sunset, three, five, or seven young women are to go into a
garden, where there is no other person, and each is to gather a sprig
of Red Sage, and then, going into a room by themselves, set a stool in
the middle of the room, and on it a clean bason full of Rose-water, on
which the sprigs of Sage are to be put; and tying a line across the
room, on one side of the stool, each maiden is to hang on it a clean
smock, turned the wrong side outwards; then all are to sit down in a
row, on the opposite side of the stool, as far distant as the room will
allow, in perfect silence. At a few minutes after twelve, each maid’s
future husband will take her sprig of Sage out of the Rose-water and
sprinkle her smock with it.----Sage is held to be a herb of Jupiter.
=SAINFOIN.=--As at present applied, the name Sainfoin appertains to
_Hedysarum Onobrychis_, but the name was first given to the Lucerne
_Medicago sativa_. Sainfoin was, in earlier times, called Holy Hay; the
smell of this plant is supposed to excite the braying of asses; hence
the specific name is taken from two Greek words, signifying an ass,
and to bray. An Indian species (_H. gyrans_), which grows on the banks
of the Ganges, exhibits a singular instance of spontaneous motion: its
leaves constantly move up and down, now with sudden jerks, anon with a
gentle waving motion. By day or night, and in whatever weather, this
plant is never at rest.
=SAINTS’ PLANTS.=--In monastic days, certain plants received the names
of saints either from some peculiarity in their structure, or from
their association with the objects of which the saint whose name the
particular plant bore was patron. Thus St. Anthony, the patron saint
of pigs, gave his name to the _Bunium flexuosum_ (St. Anthony’s Nut),
and the _Ranunculus bulbosus_ (St. Anthony’s Rape). St. James’s-wort
was so called because it was used for the diseases of horses, of which
the saint was patron. St. Thomas, St. Christopher, and St. Benedict
have each given their names to plants. The _Nigella Damascena_ is St.
Katherine’s Flower, from its resemblance to her wheel. The _Saxifraga
umbrosa_ obtained the name of St. Patrick’s Cabbage because it grew
in the West of Ireland, where St. Patrick lived. The _Primula veris_
is St. Peter’s-wort from its resemblance to a bunch of keys. Most
of these saintly names were, however, given to the plants because
their day of flowering is connected with the feast day of the saint.
Hence _Hypericum quadrangulare_ is the St. Peter’s-wort of the modern
floras, from its flowering on the twenty-ninth of June; _Hypericum
perforatum_ is St. John’s-wort, being gathered to scare away demons
on St. John’s Eve; _Barbarea vulgaris_, growing in the winter, is St.
Barbara’s-cress, her day being the fourth of December, old style; and
_Centaurea solstitialis_ derives its specific Latin name, as well
as its popular name, St. Barnaby’s Thistle, from its flourishing on
the longest day, the eleventh of June, old style, which is now the
twenty-second.
=SAINT JOHN’S WORT.=--The common St. John’s Wort (_Hypericum
perforatum_) has leaves marked with red blood-like spots, which
tradition avers always appear on the 29th August, the day on which
St. John was beheaded; but the plant derived its name from its being,
according to ancient custom, gathered with great ceremony on the eve
of St. John’s Day, the 24th of June, to be hung up in windows as a
preservative against evil spirits, phantoms, spectres, storms, and
thunder; whence it derived its ancient name of _Fuga Dæmonum_ (Devil’s
Flight).
“St. John’s Wort, scaring from the midnight heath
The witch and goblin with its spicy breath.”
For the same reason, the plant was also called _Sol Terrestris_, the
Terrestrial Sun, because it was superstitiously believed that all the
spirits of darkness vanish at the approach of the sun; and St. John’s
Day falls on the summer solstice, the 24th day of June, the last of the
three days which mark the culminating point of the solar ascension--the
day when, in some latitudes, the sun never sets, and the heavens are
illuminated and radiant with its glory through the night. The bright
yellow blossom of the _Hypericum perforatum_, with its glittering
golden stamens, was not inappropriately called _Sol Terrestris_, as
symbolising the sun (which, by its effulgence, disperses all evil
spirits), and St. John the Baptist, of whom the Scriptures say he was
“a light to them which sit in darkness.”----At the present time this
plant is almost everywhere known by the name connecting it with the
saint. The peasantry of France and Germany still gather it on St.
John’s Day to hang over their cottage doors or in the windows, in the
belief that its sanctity will drive away evil spirits of all kinds,
and will also propitiate their patron saint.----In Switzerland, young
girls on the Eve of St. John make nosegays composed of nine different
flowers, of which the principal one is the _Hypericum_, or St. John’s
Wort. These nine flowers are plucked from nine different places. The
posy is placed beneath the maiden’s pillow before she retires to bed,
and she then endeavours to sleep and dream: should she, in her dream,
see a young man, he will not fail soon to arrive and to make her his
wife.----Somewhat similar customs to this, in connection with the
Rose, the Moss-Rose, and the Sage, exist in England, one of which is,
perhaps, referred to by Harte, who, when alluding to certain flowers,
adds:--
“And that which on the Baptist’s vigil sends
To nymphs and swains the vision of their friends.”
In Lower Saxony, the peasant girls on the Eve of St. John hang sprigs
of _Hypericum_ against the head of their bed or the walls of their
chambers; if it remains fresh on the following morning, they are
persuaded they will be married within a year; but if, on the contrary,
it droops and fades, they have no hope of marriage within that time.
“The young maid stole through the cottage-door,
And blush’d as she sought the plant of power;
‘Thou silver glow-worm, O lend me thy light!
I must gather the mystic St. John’s Wort to-night,
The wonderful herb whose leaf will decide
If the coming year will make me a bride.’”
In Italy, the _Hypericum_ is called both St. John’s Wort and the
Devil-chaser. On the Night of St. John it is worn about the person,
as a preservative from witchcraft and sorcery, and it is suspended
over doorways and windows with the same object.----In Scotland, it is
carried about as a charm against witchcraft and enchantment, and the
peasantry fancy it cures ropy milk, which they suppose to be under
some malignant influence. According to Pennant, it is customary in
Wales to stick sprigs of St. John’s Wort over every door on the Eve
of St. John’s; and Stowe, in his ‘Survey of London,’ tells us that,
“on the Vigil of St. John the Baptist, every man’s door being shadowed
with green Birch, long Fennel, St. John’s Wort, Orpine, white Lilies,
and such like, garnished upon with garlands of beautiful flowers, had
also lamps of glass with oil burning in them all the night.”----The
peasantry of the Isle of Man have a tradition that if you tread on the
St. John’s Wort after sunset, a fairy horse will rise from the earth,
and, after carrying you about all night, will leave you in the morning
wherever you may chance to be at sunrise.----St. John’s Wort was by old
medical writers deemed of great utility in the cure of hypochondriacal
disorders, and B. Visontius commends the herb to one troubled with
heart-melancholy. For this purpose it was to be gathered on a Friday,
in the hour of Jupiter, when he comes to his effectual operation (that
is, about the full moon in July); “so gathered, and borne or hung
about the neck, it mightily helps this affection, and drives away all
phantastical spirits.” Another remarkable quality ascribed to the plant
was its power of curing all sorts of wounds: hence originated its old
name of Tutsan, a corruption of its French cognomen _la Toute-saine_,
or All-heal. In Sicily, they gather _Hypericum perforatum_, and immerse
it in Olive-oil, which is by this means transformed into an infallible
balm for wounds. A salve made from the flowers, and known as St. John’s
Wort salve, is still much used and valued in English villages: it is
a very old remedy, whose praises have been spoken by Dioscorides and
Pliny, Gerarde, Culpeper, and all the old English herbalists. As these
flowers, when rubbed between the fingers, yield a red juice, it has,
among fanciful medical men, obtained the name of _sanguis hominis_
(human blood).
=SALLOW.=--The Sallow (_Salix caprea_) is the _Selja_ of the Norsemen,
an ill-omened plant possessing many magical properties. No child can
be born in safety where a branch of this sinister tree is suspended;
and no spirit can depart in peace from its earthly frame, if it be near
them. It is the badge of the Scottish Clan Cumming.
=SAL-TREE.=--The Sâla or Sâl (_Shorea robusta_) is one of the sacred
trees of India. According to the Buddhists’ belief, it was while
holding in her hand a branch of the sacred Sâla, that the mother of
Buddha gave birth to the divine infant prince. It was beneath the
shelter of two twin Sâl-trees, that Buddha passed his last night on
earth, near Kuçinagara, “beneath a rain of flowers, with which the
Sâl-tree growing there covered his venerated body.” Thus we read in Da
Cunha’s ‘Life of Buddha’--“He then retired to Kuçinagara, and entered
a grove of Sâl-trees (_Shorea robusta_); there, during the night, he
received a gift of food from an artizan named Chanda, and was seized
with illness. At early dawn next day, as he turned on to his right
side with his head to the north, the Sâl-trees bending down to form
a canopy over his body, he ceased to breathe.” It was not the season
for Sâl-trees to bloom, but the twin trees beneath which he lay were
covered with blossoms from crown to foot. Blossoms fell down on him, a
shower of flowers fell from heaven, and heavenly melodies sounded over
head as the Perfect One passed away. At the moment of his death, the
earth quaked, thunders rolled, and the wife of Brahma announced the
entry of Buddha into Paradise.
=SAMI.=--The Indians employ the wood of Sami (_Mimosa Suma_) a species
of Acacia for the production of fire in their sacrifices. For this
purpose they rub a stick of Asvattha (representing the male element)
against a stick of the Acacia Sami (regarded as the female symbol),
in accordance with the Indian legend which relates how Pururavas,
the Indian Prometheus, created fire by rubbing two woods together.
At Indian weddings, after the sacrifice has been made, the husband
and wife take in their hands some Rice (symbol of abundance) and some
leaves of Sami (symbol of generation). Before building a house, it is
customary to sprinkle the site by dipping a branch of Sami into some
holy water. In the same way, the Indians sprinkle the spot when a grave
is to be made.
=SAMPHIRE.=--Samphire (_Crithmum maritimum_) grows on the rocky cliffs
of our Southern shores, the name being a corruption of St. Pierre.
The plant, from its love of sea-cliffs, was long ago dedicated to the
fisherman saint, whose name in Greek (_petros_) signifies a rock.
Samphire used formerly to be gathered from the cliffs at Dover by men
suspended from the summit by a rope: hence Shakspeare’s lines in ‘King
Lear’:--
“How fearful
And dizzy ’tis to cast one’s eyes so low!
The crows and choughs that wing the midway air
Show scarce so gross as beetles: half-way down
Hangs one that gathers Samphire--dreadful trade!
Methinks he seems no bigger than his head.”
By astrologers Samphire is placed under the influence of Jupiter.
=SAMOLUS.=--The Samolus was a plant held in high esteem by the Druids.
It grew in damp places, and was only to be gathered by a person
fasting--without looking behind him--and with his left hand. It was
laid in troughs and cisterns where cattle drank, and when bruised was a
cure for various distempers.
=SANDAL.=--The Sandal-wood of India (_Santalum album_) is a small tree
celebrated by the poets on account of its beauty and the perfume of
its wood, which is used as incense in temples and also for medicinal
purposes. In Hindu temples, the Du, or god, is, before the services,
anointed with oil of Sandal-wood or with Sandal dust and water, and
adorned with flowers; he is also presented with Betel-leaves. The
Chinese Buddhists give the Sandal a place in the celebrated groves
of their Paradise, and they say that the chariot of the Sun is made
of gold and Sandal-wood. In an Indian religious fête called _Mariatta
Codam_, the devotees anoint themselves with Saffron ointment, and go
about collecting alms, in return for which they distribute scented
sticks, partly composed of Sandal-wood, which are received with great
veneration. In the Burman empire, it is customary on the 12th of April
(the last day of their calendar) for ladies to sprinkle with Rose-water
and Sandal-wood all they meet, to wash away the impurities of the past
year, and commence the new one free from sin. The Mussulmans of India
in all their religious ceremonies burn _ood_, an incense compound of
Sandal-wood, Aloe, Patchouli, Benzoin, &c. _Sundul_, or Sandal-wood
ointment, is likewise used in innumerable instances for religious
purposes; and it is employed to exorcise evil spirits. Magic circles,
squares, and figures are drawn on a plank with _Sundul_, and the
individual supposed to be possessed of a demon is made to sit in the
centre: then the exorciser pronounces an incantation in Arabic, and
burns some incense under the nose of the patient, who solemnly inhales
the fumes, and by that means smokes out the demon. The Parsis, who are
followers of Zoroaster, renew the undying sacred fire of their altars
with Sandal and other precious woods.
=SANICLE.=--The healing virtues of the Sanicle (_Sanicula_) have,
in England, passed into a proverb: “He that hath Sanicle needeth no
surgeon;” whilst the French have a corresponding old saying, recording
its curative powers:--
“_Qui a la Bugle et la Sanicle
Fait au chirurgions la nicle._”
“Who Bugle and Sanicle hath
May safely at the surgeons laugh.”
In England, it was in former days called Self-heal, for according to
one old herbalist, it would “make whole and sound all wounds and hurts,
both inward and outward.”----Sanicle is held to be under the rule of
Venus.
=SARDEA.=--It is considered that the _Sium latifolium_ is the plant
known by the ancients as Sardea, which was supposed to grow in
Sardinia, and which possessed the singular power of provoking sardonic
laughter. Sallust speaks of this mystic plant as resembling Celery.
=SATYRION.=--The appellation of Satyrion (from the Greek _Saturos_,
a Satyr) is applied to several species of Orchis, from their reputed
aphrodisiac character. The Romans believed that the roots of these
plants formed the food of the Satyrs, and, on account of its exciting
nature, prompted them to commit those excesses which were one of their
characteristics.----In Gerarde’s ‘Herbal,’ we read that most of these
plants were used for the purpose of exciting the amatory passions: some
of them were called Serapiades, because “sundry of them do bring forth
floures resembling flies and such like fruitful and lascivious insects,
as taking their name from Serapias [Serapis], the god of the citizens
of Alexandria, in Egypt, who had a most famous temple at Canopus, where
he was worshipped with all kinds of lascivious wantonnesse, songs and
dances.” Turner says of the roots of Satyrion, that all the species
have a double root, which alter every year, “when one waxeth full, the
other perisheth and groweth lank.” The full root, he says, powerfully
excites the passions, but the lank ones have exactly the opposite
effect.----Astronomers place Satyrion under the rule of Venus.
=SAVIN.=--The Savin (_Juniperus Sabina_), in some parts of Italy, is
held in great abhorrence as a plant of evil repute: it is called the
“Devil’s-tree,” and the “Magician’s Cypress,” on account of the great
use of it made in olden times by sorcerers and witches when working
their spells.----Savin is reputed by astrologers to be a herb of Mars.
=SAVORY.=--Savory or _Satureia_ was considered by the ancients as a
herb belonging to the Satyrs; hence matrons were specially warned
to have nothing to do with it, as the plant was supposed to have
disastrous effects on those about to become mothers.----Savory is held
to be under the dominion of Mercury.
=SAXIFRAGE.=--Of the genus _Saxifraga_, twenty species are indigenous
to Great Britain. In olden times, it was noticed that these plants
split rocks by growing in their cracks, so, on the doctrine of
signatures, certain of the species were supposed to be efficacious in
cases of calculus, and were indeed highly esteemed on that account by
the Roman physicians. In England, the name Breakstone was bestowed on
them for the same reason; the plants most employed by the herbalists
being the Meadow Saxifrage, or Mead Parsley, the White Saxifrage, and
the Burnet Saxifrage. To this family of plants belongs _S. umbrosa_,
the familiar London Pride, known also by the names of None-so-pretty,
Prattling Parnell, and St. Patrick’s Cabbage (from its growing in
the West of Ireland).----Astrologers state that the Moon governs the
Saxifrages.
SCORPION GRASS.--See Forget-me-Not.
SEA HOLLY.--See Eryngo.
=SEA POPPY.=--The Sea Poppy or Horned Poppy (_Glaucium_) is named
after Glaucus, a Bœotian fisherman, who, whilst pursuing his calling,
observed that all the fishes which he laid on the grass received fresh
vigour as they touched the ground, and immediately escaped from him
by leaping back into the sea. He attributed the cause of it to some
herb growing among the grass, and upon tasting the foliage of the Sea
Poppy, he found himself suddenly moved with an intense desire to live
in the sea. Upon this he leaped into the water, and was made a sea
god by Oceanus and Tethys. This _Glaucium_ or Sea Poppy was called in
the middle ages _Ficus infernalis_: it was supposed to possess magical
properties, and was prized by witches and sorcerers, who used it in
their incantations. Ben Jonson, in the ‘Witches’ Song,’ says:--
“Yes, I have brought to help our vows,
Horned Poppy, Cypress-boughs,
The Fig-tree wild that grows on tombs,
And juice that from the Larch-tree comes.”
Borlase tells us that, in the Scilly Isles, “this root (the Sea Poppy),
so much valued for removing all pains in the breast, stomach, and
intestines, is good also for disordered lungs, and is so much better
here than in other places, that the apothecaries of Cornwall send
hither for it; and some people plant them in their gardens in Cornwall,
and will not part with them under sixpence a root. A very simple
notion they have with regard to this root, which falls not much short
of the Druids’ superstition in gathering and preparing their Selago
and Samolus. This root, you must know, is accounted very good both
as an emetic and cathartic. If, therefore, they design that it shall
operate as the former, their constant opinion is that it should be
scraped and sliced upwards--that is, beginning from the root, the knife
is to ascend towards the leaf; but if it is intended to operate as a
cathartic, they must scrape the root downwards.”
=SELAGO.=--Selago was the name of a herb held in great repute by the
Druids, and intimately connected with some of their mysterious rites.
It was known as the Golden Herb or Cloth of Gold, and was reputed to
confer the power of understanding the language of birds and beasts.
It is variously supposed to have been the Club-Moss (_Lycopodium
Selago_), the _Camphorosma Monspeliaca_, or a kind of Hedge Hyssop,
which used in olden times to be called _Gratiola_ and _Dei Gratia_,
and was regarded as a charm as well as a medicine. Pliny, in his
‘Natural History’ (xxiv., 62), tells us with respect to the Druidic
Selago, that it resembles Savin; and that it is gathered as if by
stealth, without the use of iron. The person who gathers it must go
barefoot, with feet washed, clad in white, having previously offered a
sacrifice of bread and wine, and must pluck the plant with his right
hand through the _left_ sleeve of his tunic. It is carried in a new
cloth. The Druids of the Gauls asserted that it was to be regarded as
useful against all diseases, and that its smoke was a remedy for all
affections of the eyes.----In Johnson’s edition of Gerarde’s ‘Herbal,’
it is said that the Club Moss, or Heath Cypress, is thought to be the
_Selago_ mentioned by Pliny. “The catkins of this plant are described
as being of a yellowish colour; and it is stated to be found growing in
divers woody, mountainous places of Germany, where they call it _Wald
Seuenbaum_, or Wilde Savine.”----In his work on the Druids, called the
‘Veil of Isis,’ Mr. Reade gives a similar account of the gathering of
the _Selago_, excepting that he states it was cut with a brazen hook.
He further tells of a mysterious sisterhood of Druidesses who inhabited
the island of Sena (now Sain) at the mouth of the River Loire, where
there was a Druidic oracle. These Sibyls devoted themselves chiefly to
the service of the Moon, and worshipped her under the name of Kêd or
Ceridwen, the Northern name for the Egyptian Isis. They consecrated a
herb to her called _Belinuncia_, in the poisonous sap of which they
dipped their arrows to render them deadly. It was one of their rites
to procure a virgin, and to denude her as an emblem of the moon in
an unclouded sky. Then they sought for the mystic Selago, or Golden
Herb. She who pressed it with her foot slept, and heard the language
of animals. If she touched it with iron, the sky grew dark and a
misfortune fell upon the world.
“The herb of gold is cut: a cloud
Across the sky hath spread its shroud
To war.”
When they had found the precious herb, the virgin traced the circle
round it, and covering her hand in a white linen cloth which had never
before been used, rooted it out with the tip of her little finger--a
symbol of the crescent moon. Then they washed it in a running spring,
and having gathered green branches, plunged into a river and splashed
the virgin, who was thus supposed to resemble the moon clouded with
vapours. When they retired, the virgin walked backwards, “that the moon
might not return upon its path in the plain of the heavens.”
SELF-HEAL.--See Sanicle.
=SENSITIVE-PLANT.=--The leaves of most species of the genus Mimosa
are more or less sensitive to the touch, but _M. pudica_ is the true
Sensitive Plant, of which Browne writes:--
“Looke at the Feeling-plant, which learned swaines
Relate to growe on the East Indian plaines,
Shrinkes up his dainty leaves if any sand
You throw thereon, or touch it with your hand.”
=SERVICE-TREE.=--The true Service-tree is thought by some to have
obtained its name from the Latin word _cervisia_, because from
ancient times its fruit has been used for making a fermented liquor
of the nature of beer. In France, the Service or Sorb-tree is called
_Sorbier_ or _Cormier_, and an excellent drink, something like Cider,
is made from its berries.----De Gubernatis tells us that among the
Fins the Sorb is specially reverenced above all trees. In the poem
‘_Kalevala_’ allusion is made to a nymph of the Sorb-tree (_Sorbus
terminalis_), who is regarded as the protectress of cattle. The Finnish
shepherd sticks his staff of Sorb-wood in the middle of a field, and
offers up his prayers for the safety of his flock. A branch of the
Sorb-tree is the symbol of the lightning, which, according to the
Vedic legend, first brought fire to the earth, whilst imparting it to
certain privileged trees--on which it fell, not to destroy them, but
to conceal itself.----Among the superstitious Scandinavian and German
peasantry the Sorb is esteemed a magical tree, typical of fecundity
and generation; it is also regarded as a funereal tree, and Mannhardt
relates an Icelandic legend, according to which the Sorb sprang from
the bodies of two young men, who, although quite innocent, had been
condemned to death.
=SESAME.=--It is from the delightful story of ‘The Forty Thieves,’ in
the ‘Arabian Nights’ Entertainment,’ that most English people have
become acquainted with the Sesame--the wondrous plant that at the
command of Ali Baba--“Open, Sesame!”--gained him an entrance to the
secret treasure-cave. In this capacity of opening the doors of caverns,
&c., the Sesamum-flower resembles the Springwort, and, like that mystic
plant, would seem to be an embodiment of lightning, if we may judge
from its Indian name of _Vajrapushpa_, Thunderbolt-flower.----Gerarde,
in his ‘Herbal,’ speaks of it as “the oily pulse called Sesamum” (or
_Sesama_), and says “it is one of the summer grains, and is sown before
the rising of the seven stars, as Pliny writeth.”----The plant is a
native of the East Indies, and the Hindus say that it was created
by Yama, the god of death, after a lengthy penance. They employ it
specially in funeral and expiatory ceremonies as a purificator and
as a symbol of immortality. In their funeral rites in honour of the
departed, they pour Sesame grain into the three sacrificial vases,
wherein the sacred Kusa and the holy oil have already been placed,
the while invoking the pulse as “the Sesame consecrated to the god
Soma.” At the annual festival in honour of the childless god Bhishma,
the four Indian castes pray for the departed god, and by this act of
piety procure for themselves absolution for all sins committed during
the past year, provided that, at the conclusion of the ceremony, an
offering is made of water, Sesame, and Rice. Sesame, with Rice and
honey, enters into the composition of certain funeral cakes offered
to the Manes in the ceremonies, but eaten by the persons present. The
Indian funeral offering, made at six different periods, is called “the
offering of six Sesames,” and if this is faithfully made, the natives
hope to be delivered from misfortune on earth and to be rewarded with
a place in the heaven of Indra. At an Indian funeral, when the corpse
has been burnt, the devotees bathe in a neighbouring river, and leave
on its banks two handfuls of Sesame, as nourishment for the soul of the
departed whilst on its funeral journey, and as a symbol of the eternal
life offered to the deceased.
=SHAMROCK.=--The word Shamrock (which means Little Trefoil) is from the
Erse _seamrog_, a diminutive of _seamar_, Trefoil. The Shamrock, or
Trefoil, in heraldry, is the badge of the kingdom of Ireland, and St.
Patrick, the patron saint of that isle, is represented in the habit of
a bishop, holding a Trefoil--St. Patrick’s Cross, as it is called by
Irishmen. It is said that St. Patrick, when on an evangelising mission
in Ireland, made the doctrine of the Trinity, one day, the subject of
his discourse. Finding his hearers unable to understand it, he plucked
a leaf of Shamrock, and used it as an illustration. So easy and simple
was the application, that their difficulties were removed, and they
accepted Christianity. Ever since, the Shamrock has been the national
emblem of Irishmen, and has been worn by them for many centuries on the
17th of March, which is the anniversary of St. Patrick. As to what was
the herb which furnished the saint with so excellent an illustration
of the Three in One, there is amongst botanists much dispute, but the
plants that for a long time past have been sold in Dublin and London
on St. Patrick’s Day as the national badge are the Black Nonsuch
(_Medicago lupulina_), and the Dutch Clover (_Trifolium repens_).
Several writers have advocated the claims of the Wood Sorrel (_Oxalis
acetosella_), which is called by the old herbalists _Shamrog_, and is
proved in olden times to have been eaten by the Irish,--one old writer,
who visited their country in the sixteenth century, stating that it was
eaten, and that it was a _sour_ plant. Wood Sorrel is a sour-tasting
plant, is indigenous to Ireland, and is trifoliated. It grows in woods,
where the people used to assemble, and where the priests taught and
performed their mystic rites; and therefore it may have been the plant
plucked by St. Patrick. It has also been contended that the Watercress
(called “Shamrock” by Holinshed in 1586) was the plant gathered by the
saint, but as its leaf is not trifoliate, this claim has not found much
favour. The plant which is figured upon our coins, both English and
Irish, is an ordinary Trefoil. Queen Victoria placed the Trefoil in her
royal diadem in lieu of the French Fleur-de-lis.
=SHEPHERD’S PURSE.=--The _Capsella Bursa_ is commonly known as
Pickpocket or Pickpurse, from its robbing the farmer by stealing the
goodness of his land. It was known to our forefathers by the names
of St. James’s-wort, Poor Man’s Parmacetty, Toywort, and Caseweed,
and was considered to be “marvellous good for inflammation.” (See
CLAPPEDEPOUCH.)
=SHOLOA.=--The Sholoa is a medicinal plant, employed by the Bushmen
of South Africa. Before going into battle, they rub their hands with
Sholoa, in order to be able to chafe the badly wounded to preserve
their life. When they dig up this plant, they deem it necessary, to
avert danger from themselves, to replant immediately a portion of the
root, so that it may spring up again. Tradition says that a man who
neglected this precaution was found speechless and motionless enveloped
in the toils of serpents. These serpents were killed by the Bushmen
in order to regain possession of the root, which was replanted. Their
women are afraid of these roots, when freshly dug up; they are,
therefore, always put into a bag before being taken into a hut.
=SNOWDROP.=--The Snowdrop (_Galanthus nivalis_) was formerly held
sacred to virgins, and this may account for its being so generally
found in the orchards attached to convents and old monastic buildings.
“A flow’r that first in this sweet garden smiled,
To virgins sacred, and the Snowdrop styled.”--_Tickell._
It is also dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and a monkish tradition
asserts that it blooms on the second of February, or Candlemas Day,
the day kept in celebration as that on which the holy Virgin took the
child Jesus to the Jewish Temple and there presented an offering. Hence
the flower is called the Fair Maid of February; as on the Day of the
Purification of the Virgin Mary her image used to be removed from the
altar, and Snowdrops strewed over the vacant place.----The legendary
account of the flower’s creation is as follows:--“An angel went to
console Eve when mourning over the barren earth, when no flowers in
Eden grew, and the driving snow was falling to form a pall for earth’s
untimeous funeral after the fall of man; the angel, catching as he
spoke a flake of falling snow, breathed on it, and bade it take a form,
and bud and blow. Ere the flake reached the earth Eve smiled upon the
beauteous plant, and prized it more than all the other flowers in
Paradise, for the angel said to her:--
“‘This is an earnest, Eve, to thee,
that sun and summer soon shall be.’”
The angel’s mission being ended, away up to heaven he flew; but where
on earth he stood, a ring of Snowdrops formed a posey.”----An old name
for the plant was the Winter Gilliflower. Dr. Prior thinks that the
name Snowdrop was derived from the German _Schneetropfen_, and that
the “drop” does not refer to snow, but to the long pendants, or drops,
worn by the ladies in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, both as
earrings and hangings to their brooches, and which we see represented
so often by Dutch and Italian painters of that period.----In some parts
of England it is considered by the peasantry unlucky to take the first
Snowdrop into a house--the flower being regarded as a death-token,
inasmuch as it looks like a corpse in its shroud.
=SOLANUM.=--To this family belong the Love Apple, the Mad Apple, and
the Bitter-Sweet. Several species of the genus _Solanum_ are poisonous
and highly dangerous plants. It is related that when Sweno, king of
Norway, was besieging Duncan of Scotland in the town of Betha, Macbeth,
his cousin, managed to leave the town, whereupon Duncan began to treat
with the enemy as to the terms of a surrender, promising them a supply
of provender. The Danes accepted the terms, and Duncan sent them their
provisions, which they duly partook of; but soon after they were
overcome by a profound lethargic sleep, for their wine and ale had
been drugged with _Solanum_. In this condition they fell an easy prey
to Macbeth, who attacked them and utterly routed their forces. Ten only
of the soldiers, who had entertained suspicions with regard to Duncan’s
gift of supplies, remained in their senses, and these carried off King
Sweno, in a lifeless condition, to the mouth of the river Tay, and
thence conveyed him home in a fishing-boat.
=SOLOMON’S SEAL.=--The appellation of Solomon’s Seal has been given
to the _Convallaria Polygonatum_, because, on cutting the roots
transversely, some scars are seen resembling the device known as
Solomon’s Seal--a name given by the Arabs to a six-pointed star,
formed by two equilateral triangles intersecting each other. To the
old herbalists these marks (according to the doctrine of signatures)
were an indication of the plant’s virtues or uses: it was sent to seal
or consolidate wounds. Gerarde says: “That which might be written of
the herbe as touching the knitting of bones, and that truely, would
seeme with some incredible; but common experience teacheth that in the
world there is not to be found another herbe comparable to it for the
purposes aforesaid; and therefore, in briefe, if it be for bruises
inward, the roots must be stamped, some ale or wine put thereto,
strained, and given to drink. It must be given in the same manner
to knit broken bones, against bruises, black or blew marks gotten
by stripes, falls, or such like; against inflammation, tumours, or
swellings, that happen unto members whose bones are broken, or members
out of joynt, after restauration: the roots are to be stamped small,
and applied pultesse or plaister wise, wherewith many great workes
have been performed beyond credit.”----The plant is also known by the
name of Lady’s Seal, Seal-wort, White-root, Ladder-to-heaven, and
Jacob’s-ladder.----By astrologers it is held to be under the rule of
Saturn.
=SOMA.=--The Soma, or Moon Plant, is one of the most sacred plants of
India. It is supposed to be the _Sarcostemma viminale_, or _Cyanchum
viminale_ (_Asclepias acida_), which grows on the Coromandel hills and
in the Punjâb. According to Dr. Haug, the plant at present used by the
sacrificial priests of the Dekhan is not the sacred Soma of the Vedas,
although it appears to belong to the same order. In the Hindu religion,
by a truly mystic combination, Soma represents at once the moon or
moon-god, the genius presiding over the Soma, and the plant itself.
In the Vedic hymns to Soma, the notion of the plant predominates,
but intermixed are references which are only applicable to the lunar
character of the divinity. The description of the plant given in
Garrett’s ‘Classical Dictionary of India’ is as follows:--“It grows
to the height of about four or five feet, and forms a kind of bush
consisting of a number of shoots, all coming from the same root; their
stem is solid, like wood, the bark greyish, they are without leaves,
the sap appears whitish, has a very stringent taste, is bitter but not
sour; it is a very nasty drink, but has some intoxicating effect. The
sap referred to is sharp and acid, and, according to Decandolle, would
be poisonous if taken in large quantities; in many cases the nerves
are affected by it, as if by a narcotic; but it is benumbing in its
influence, as it hinders the activity of the nerves, without inducing
sleep.” From this sacred plant, which has the mystic five white petals,
is obtained a milky exudation (symbolising the motherhood of Nature),
out of which is made the Vedic _Amrita_, a divine beverage that confers
immortality; and, probably on this account, the plant itself is
worshipped as a god. Thus we find it so addressed in a hymn from the
Rigveda, translated by Muir:--
“We’ve quaffed the Soma bright,
And are immortal grown;
We’ve entered into light,
And all the gods have known.
What mortal now can harm,
Or foeman vex us more?
Through thee beyond alarm,
Immortal god! we soar.”
The Soma sap is used as the Soma drink for the initiation of the Djoga;
it is said to produce the magical condition in which, raised above the
universe to the great centre, and united with Brahma, the seer beholds
everything.----In the Hindu worship, libations to the gods were of
three kinds--butter, honey, and the fermented juice of the Soma-plant.
The butter and honey were poured upon the sacrificial fire; the Soma
juice was presented in ladles to the deities invoked, part sprinkled on
the fire, part on the Kusa, or Sacred Grass, strewed upon the floor,
and the rest invariably drunk by those who had conducted the ceremony.
The exhilarating properties of the fermented juice of the Soma filled
the worshippers with delight and astonishment; and the offering of
this sacred liquid was deemed to be especially pleasing to the Hindu
gods.----In the lunar sacrifices, the Soma drink was prepared with
mystical ceremonies, with invocations of blessings and curses, by
which the powers of the world above and below were incorporated with
it. According to their intended use, various herbs were mixed with the
principal ingredient. Windischmann remarks that the use of the Soma
was looked upon in early ages as a holy action, and as a sacrament, by
which the union with Brahma was produced; thus, in Indian writings,
passages similar to the following, often occur: “Prâjapati himself
drinks this milk, the essence of all nourishment and knowledge--the
milk of immortality.”----The Gandharvas, a race of demigods, are
represented in certain of the Vedic legends as custodians of the Soma
or Amrita, and as keeping such close watch over the divine beverage,
that only by force or cunning can the thirsty gods obtain a supply
of the immortalising drink.----One of the Hindu synonymes of Soma is
_madhu_, which means a mixed drink; and this word is the _methu_ of
the Greeks, and the mead of our own Saxon, Norse, and Celtic ancestors.
=SORREL.=--From May to August the meadows are often ruddy with the
Sorrel (_Rumex Acetosa_), the red leaves of which point out the graves
of the Irish rebels who fell on Tara Hill, in the “Ninety-Eight;” the
popular and local tradition being that the plants sprang from the blood
of the patriots shed on that occasion.----Sorrel is under the planetary
influence of Venus.
=SOW-THISTLE.=--Theseus, king of Athens, is said to have received as a
gift from the hands of Hecate, the Sow-thistle (_Sonchus oleraceus_)
and the Sea Fennel (_Crithmum maritimum_). Like the Sesame, the
Sow-thistle, according to tradition, sometimes conceals marvels or
treasures; and in Italian stories are found the exclamation, “Open
Sow-thistle,” used with the same magical results as attend the
invocation of the Sesame. A Russian legend states that the Devil
considers the Sow-thistle to be peculiarly his property, although in
so doing he is in error (see OATS and REED).----The Sow-thistle is
considered by astrologers to be under the dominion of Venus.
=SOUTHERNWOOD.=--The _Abrotanum_ (Southernwood) is a species of
Wormwood, to which the Greeks and Romans, and in more recent times the
Germans and French, attributed wonderful magic properties. According
to Pliny, it should be classed as an aphrodisiac plant, for, if it
be placed under a mattress, it will evoke sensual passions. Gerarde
says the same thing; and adds that “it helpeth against the stinging of
scorpions,” and that, “being strewed upon the bed, or a fume made of it
upon hot embers, it driveth away serpents.” Lucan refers to this latter
quality in the following lines (Book 9):--
“There the large branches of the long-lived hart,
With Southernwood their odours strong impart;
The monsters of the land, the serpents fell,
Fly far away, and shun the hostile smell.”
Macer Floridus states that it will drive away serpents; and Bauhin
narrates that it used to be employed against epilepsy.----From an
ointment made with its ashes, and used by young men to promote
the growth of a beard, the plant obtained the name of Lad’s
Love.----Astrologers place Southernwood under the rule of Mercury. (See
also MUGWORT and WORMWOOD.)
=SPEEDWELL.=--The _Veronica Chamædrys_ appears in olden times to have
been called “Forget-me-Not,” a name that has since been universally
applied to the Myosotis. Now-a-days it is sometimes called by country
folk Cat’s-eye. The plant derives its name of Speedwell from the fact
of its corolla falling off and flying away as soon as it is gathered;
“Speedwell” being the old-fashioned equivalent of “Good-bye!” The
bright blue blossom of the Germander Speedwell is in some places
better known as Veronica, an appellation derived from _Vera_ (Latin)
and _Icon_ (Greek), and signifying “true image.”----When our Saviour
was on his way to Mount Calvary, bearing his cross, he passed by the
door of Veronica, a compassionate woman, who beholding with pity the
Lord’s distressed condition, and the drops of agony on His brow, wiped
His face with a kerchief, or napkin, and the features of the Redeemer
remained miraculously impressed upon the linen. The kerchief itself
was styled the _Sudarium_, and from some resemblance of the blossom of
the Germander Speedwell to this saintly relic, bearing the features
of Christ, the plant received the name of Veronica.----Francus wrote
an entire work on the virtues of the _Veronica orientalis_, which is
said to have cured a King of France of the leprosy and to have given
children to a barren wife. R. Turner calls the plant Fluellin, or
Lluellin--a name, he remarks, “the Shentleman of Wales have given it
because it saved her nose, which disease had almost gotten from her.”
=SPIGNEL.=--Spignel (_Meum athamanticum_) is also known as Mew,
Bear-wort, or Bald-money. The latter name is of obscure etymology, but
we may safely reject the derivation which some writers have suggested
from the name of the god Baldr, the Scandinavian Apollo.----Spignel is
held to be under the rule of Venus. (See BALDMONEY).
=SPIKENARD.=--We read in Canticles: “While the king sitteth at his
table, my Spikenard sendeth forth the smell thereof.” And again: “Thy
plants are an orchard of Pomegranates, with pleasant fruits; Camphire,
with Spikenard, Spikenard and Saffron.” The true nature of Spikenard
has for ages been the subject of much controversy; but it is now
generally accepted that it was obtained from the _Valeriana Jatamansi_.
Ptolemy notices these odoriferous plants, the best of which grew at
Rangamati, and on the borders of the country now called Bootan. Pliny
says there are twelve varieties of it--the best being the Indian,
the next in quality the Syriac, then the Gallic, and in the fourth
place, that of Crete. He thus describes the Indian Spikenard: “It is
a shrub with a heavy thick root, but short, black, brittle, and yet
unctuous as well; it has a musty smell, too, very much like that of
the Cyperus, with a sharp acrid taste, the leaves being small, and
growing in tufts. The heads of the Nard spread out into ears; hence
it is that Nard is so famous for its two-fold production, the spike
or ear, and the leaf.” The price of genuine Spikenard was then one
hundred denarii per pound, and all the other sorts, which were merely
herbs, were infinitely cheaper, some being only worth three denarii
per pound. Galen and Dioscorides give a somewhat similar account of
Spikenard or _Nardostachys_, but the latter states that the so-called
Syrian Nard came in reality from India, whence it was brought to Syria
for shipment. Mr. E. Rimmel, in his ‘Book of Perfumes,’ points out
that “the ancients appear to have confounded Spikenard with some of
the fragrant Grasses of India, which would account for the report that
Alexander the Great, when he invaded Gedrosia, could smell from the
back of his elephant the fragrance of the Nard as it was trod upon by
the horses feet. This error was shared by Linnæus, who did not attempt
to classify the plant, but was inclined to think it was the same as the
_Andropogon Nardus_, commonly called Ginger Grass. Sir William Jones,
the learned orientalist, turned his serious attention to this question,
and after a laborious investigation succeeded in establishing beyond
doubt that the Spikenard of the ancients was a plant of the Valerianic
order, called by the Arabs _Sumbul_, which means ‘spike,’ and by the
Hindus _Jatamansi_, which signifies ‘locks of hair,’ both appellations
being derived from its having a stem which somewhat resembles the tail
of an ermine, or of a small weasel. He, consequently, gave it the name
of _Valeriana Jatamansi_, under which it is now generally classed by
botanists. It is found in the mountainous regions of India, principally
in Bootan and Nepaul. Its name appears to be derived from the Tamil
language, in which the syllable _nár_ denotes any thing possessing
fragrance, such as _nártum pillu_, ‘Lemon Grass;’ _nárum panei_,
‘Indian Jasmine;’ _nártum manum_, ‘Wild Orange,’ &c. It is highly
probable, however, that the word Spikenard was often applied by the
ancients as a generic name for every sort of perfume, as the Chinese
now designate all their scents by the name of _hëang_, which properly
means _incense_, it being for them the type of all perfumes.”----In an
Indian poem, the hero, compelled to go upon his travels immediately
after wedding the girl of his heart, takes leave of her in his garden,
and showing her a Spikenard of his own planting, enjoins her to watch
over it with loving care; for as long as it thrives all will go well
with him, but should it wither some fatal misfortune will certainly
befall him. Years pass away before he can turn his steps homewards.
Then he assumes the garb of a mendicant, goes to his home, gains
admission to the garden, and there sees his faithful wife weeping over
the precious Spikenard, grown into a mighty plant, telling its own
tale. The finish can well be guessed.
=SPRINGWORT.=--The Springwort, or Blasting-root, is famed in German
legends for its magical power of opening locks, however strong,
hidden doors, rocks, and secret entrances to caves where are stored
inexhaustible treasures. In Kelly’s ‘Indo-European Tradition,’ we
read that as a rule the Springwort has been regarded as an unknown
species of plants, and therefore most difficult to find; but some
few accounts specify known plants, and Grimm mentions the _Euphorbia
Lathyris_, which he identifies with the _Sferracavallo_ of the
Italians, so named because it acts so potently on metals, that horses,
if they tread on it, have their shoes drawn off. (The _Sferracavallo_,
however, was stated by Mentzel in 1682 to be a Vetch now known as the
_Hippocrepis_). The Springwort is procured by plugging up the hole in a
tree in which a green or black woodpecker has its nest with young ones
in it. As soon as the bird is aware of what has been done, it flies
off in quest of a wondrous plant, which men might look for in vain,
and returning with it in its bill, holds it before the plug, which
immediately shoots out from the tree, as if driven by the most violent
force. But if one conceals himself before the woodpecker returns, and
scares it when it approaches, the bird will let the root fall; or a
white or red cloth (representing water or fire) may be spread below
the nest, and the bird will drop the root upon the cloth after it has
served its own turn. This is Grimm’s version of the matter, and Pliny’s
account coincides, except that he adds that the plug is driven out
with an explosion, caused, as one may conclude, by the electricity
contained in the plant which is applied to it by the bird. Now it
is worthy of remark that the woodpecker is mythically alleged to be
a fire- or lightning-bearer; and so is called by the Romans _Picus
Martius_, after the god Mars, and _Picus Feronius_, from the Sabine
goddess Feronia, who had a certain control over fire. In the Sanscrit,
a species of _Euphorbia_ is called the Thunderbolt Thorn, and some
others are termed Thunderbolt-wood. It is curious to notice, by the
way, that the Indian name of the Sesame-flower, _Vajrapushpa_, connects
with the thunderbolt the flower that opens treasure-caves. In Swabia,
they say that the hoopoe brings the Springwort, and lets it fall into
water or fire to destroy it: to obtain it, therefore, one must have
in readiness a pan of water, or kindle a fire; the original notion
having been that the bird must return the plant to the element from
which it springs,--that being either the water of the clouds, or the
lightning-fire enclosed therein. The connection between the Springwort
and the lightning is also manifested in an old Swabian tradition, that
when the plant is buried in the ground at the summit of a mountain, it
draws down the lightning, and divides the storm, causing it to pass
off to right and left.----In the Oberpfalz, the Springwort is called
_Johanniswurzel_, because it is there believed that it can only be
found among the Fern on St. John’s Night. It is said to be of a yellow
colour, and to shine in the night like a candle, resembling in this
respect the Mandrake. Moreover, it never stands still, but darts about
continually to avoid the grasp of men. Here then, in the luminosity
and the power of rapid movement attributed to the Springwort, we see
the embodiment of electricity in the plant.----In Switzerland, the
_Spreng-wurzel_ is carried in the right pocket, to render the bearer
invulnerable to dagger or bullet; and in the Harz mountains it is
said to reveal treasures.----With regard to this magical property of
disclosing concealed treasures, a story is related by Kuhn in his North
German Legends, from which we learn that a shepherd who was driving
his flock over the Ilsenstein, having stopped to rest, leaning on his
staff, the mountain suddenly opened, for there was a Springwort in his
staff without his knowing it. Inside the mountain he discovered an
enchanted princess, who bade him take as much gold as he pleased; so he
filled his pockets, and then prepared to retire; but he had forgotten
his staff with the Springwort in it, which he had laid against the wall
when he stepped in; so that just as he was on the point of stepping out
of the opening, the rock suddenly slammed together, and cut him in two.
In this version of the German legend, the Luckflower is identified with
the Springwort.
=SPURGE LAUREL.=--The Spurge Laurel, called in Denmark _Ty-ved_, is
sacred to Tyr, the god of war. This plant is the badge of the Scottish
Clan Graham.
=SQUILL.=--The _Scilla maritima_, or Sea Onion, was of old consecrated
in Egypt to the god Typhon. The mummies of Egyptian women often hold
the Squill in one hand, probably as an emblem of generation. The
Egyptians planted the Squill in groves, and hung it in their houses to
preserve them from evil spirits. In Arcadia, at the festival of the god
Pan, the statue of the deity was decorated with Squills.
=STAR OF BETHLEHEM.=--The _Ornithogalum umbellatum_ is called the
Star of Bethlehem on account of its white stellate flowers resembling
the pictures of the star that indicated the birth of the Saviour of
mankind. As the plant is abundant in the neighbourhood of Samaria, it
was thought by Linnæus and also by several biblical commentators to be
the “dove’s dung” mentioned as the food of the famished inhabitants of
that city during the siege recorded in the Book of Kings. The Star of
Bethlehem is horological--it never unfolds its petals before eleven
o’clock, and hence has acquired the nickname of the Eleven o’Clock Lady.
=STOCK.=--The Stock, or Stock-Gilliflower (_Mathiola_), was one of
the earliest inmates of English gardens, where it was known as the
Gilliflower, a word corrupted from the French name of the flower,
_Giroflée_.
“The white and purple Gillyflowers, that stay
In blossom--lingering summer half away.”
The principal kinds grown in gardens are the Queen’s Stock-Gilliflower,
of which the Brompton Stock and the White Stock are varieties, and
the annual, or Ten-weeks’ Stock (_M. annua_). The old English name
of Gilliflower was familiarly given to several other plants dear to
early English gardeners: thus we find it applied to the Carnation, the
Pink, the Rocket, the Wall-flower, the Ragged Robin, and some others.
Parkinson (who is the first writer to mention the double Stock) remarks
of the flower: “We call it in English generally Stock-Gilloflower (or
as others do, Stock Gillover), to put a difference between them and the
Gilloflowers and Carnations, which are quite of another kindred.” The
word Gilliflower afterwards became corrupted to July-flower, and was so
written by the poet Drayton.----Baron Cuvier had a great partiality
for the double Stock: it had been the favourite flower of his mother,
and the great naturalist, on that account, always prized the fragrant
plant, and whilst it was in season made it a rule to have a bunch on
his table, that he might inhale its grand perfume.
=STONECROP.=--Like the House-leek, the Stonecrop was supposed to be a
protective against thunder and lightning, and hence was planted on the
roofs of cottages, stables, &c. The old herbalists valued the small
Houseleek, or Stonecrop, as a cure for ague and expeller of poisons.
It was used as an outward application, and, when boiled in beer, was
considered good for pestilential fevers. Among country folks the plant
was known as Wall Pepper (from its pungent flavour), Jack of the
Buttery, Gold Chain, and Prick Madam, the last name being a corruption
of the French _Trique Madame._----Stonecrop is held by astrologers to
be under the dominion of the Moon.
=STORAX.=--The Styrax, or Storax-tree, has been held in great
estimation from the time of Dioscorides and Pliny, both of whom
described it. Although the tree is indigenous to many of the southern
parts of Europe, yet the precious and deliciously fragrant gum
that exudes from it, known as Storax-tears, can only be obtained
in perfection from Asiatic Turkey. Old Gerarde says “of this gum,
there are made sundry excellent perfumes, pomanders, sweet waters,
sweet bags, sweet washing-balls, and divers other sweet chains and
bracelets.”----Storax-tears are still used as incense in the churches
and mosques of Asia Minor.
=STRAW.=--In the _Hávamál_, or the ‘Divine Discourse of Odin,’ who
gave these precepts of wisdom to mankind, it is stated that “Straws
dissolve enchantment.” Hence, probably, was derived the custom of
laying two Straws crosswise in the path where a witch was expected to
pass, under the belief that by stepping over Straws, arranged so as to
form the sign of the Cross, a witch was rendered powerless. In Ireland,
on May-eve (_neen na Beal tina_), the ceremony is practised of making
the cows leap over lighted Straw or faggots.----In Cornwall, lasses
desirous of knowing when they are to be married, are accustomed to
repair either to Madron Well, or to a well at St. Austell: there two
pieces of Straw, about an inch long, are crossed and fastened by a pin.
This Straw cross is then dropped into the water, and the rising bubbles
carefully counted, as they mark the number of years which will pass ere
the arrival of the happy day.----In Devonshire, to charm warts away,
they take a Wheat Straw with as many knots as there are warts on the
hand to be dealt with, name over the Straw the person afflicted, and
then bury it: as it decays, the warts will disappear.----In the county
of Donegal, Ireland, a sufferer from warts procures ten Straws, ties a
knot in each, throws the tenth away, and carefully rubs the warts with
the other nine knotted Straws; this done, he makes a white paper parcel
of the Straws, and throws it upon the high road, sure that the person
who picks up and opens the parcel will become the possessor of the
warts.----An old German cure for sleeplessness was to place beneath the
pillow a “composing wisp,” that is Straw which workwomen put under the
burdens on their backs; but taken from people unknown to them.----If
a hen wants to sit, the German peasants make her nest of Straw out of
the bed of the husband and wife: if cock chickens are wished, from the
man’s side; if hen chickens, from the wife’s side.----A Swedish popular
tale narrates how a king’s son, passing a cottage one day, saw a pretty
girl sitting on the roof spinning. Curious to know why she chose so
unusual a place, he enquired of the girl’s mother, who told him that
she sat there to let the people see how clever she was; adding, “She is
so clever that she can spin gold from clay and long Straw.” The truth
was, the girl, although good-looking, was idle in the extreme, and had
been set to spin on the roof of the cot so that all the world might
judge of her sloth. The king’s son, however, knew naught of this, and
being captivated by the girl’s pretty face, he resolved, if she could
really spin gold from long Straw and clay, to take her to the palace,
and make her his consort. The mother having given her consent, the girl
accompanied the prince to the royal residence, where she was given a
bundle of Straw, and a pailful of clay, in order to prove if she were
so skilful at spinning as her mother had said. The poor girl, knowing
her incompetence, soon began to weep when left by herself in her
chamber; whereupon suddenly a little ugly and deformed old man stood
before her, and demanded to know the cause of her grief. The girl told
him; and forthwith the old man produced a pair of gloves, which he gave
to the girl, saying, “Fair maiden, weep not: here is a pair of gloves;
when thou hast them on, thou wilt be able to spin from long Straw and
clay. To-morrow night I will return, when, if thou hast not found out
my name, thou shalt accompany me home, and be my bride.” The brave girl
shuddered, but agreed to the old man’s condition, and he went his way.
Then she pulled on the gloves, and, without difficulty, soon spun up
all the Straw and clay into the finest gold. There was great joy in
the palace, and the king’s son was delighted that he had obtained so
charming and so skilful a wife; but the young maiden did nothing but
weep at the dread prospect of being claimed by the ugly, undersized
old man. Late in the day, the king’s son returned from the chase, and
seeing his bride so melancholy, began to tell her of an adventure he
had just met with in the forest. Said he: “I suddenly came upon a very
little ugly old man dancing round a Juniper-bush, singing a curious
song, at the end of which he loudly bawled, ‘I am called _Titteli
Ture_.’” Then the pretty maid’s face brightened up, for she knew that
she had learnt the name of her mysterious visitor. So she set to work
to spin more gold from Straw and clay alone in her chamber, and kept
repeating the old man’s name, so that she might not forget it. At
midnight the door of her room noiselessly opened, and the hideous old
man entered with beaming eyes. On beholding him the girl sprang up, and
said: “Titteli Ture, Titteli Ture, here are thy gloves.” When the dwarf
heard his name pronounced, he was overcome with passion, and bursting
through the roof of the apartment, hastened away through the air. The
maiden was espoused by the king’s son the following day, and nothing
more was ever seen of Titteli Ture.
=STRAWBERRY.=--Strawberries were reputed to be the favourite fruit of
the goddess Frigg, who presided over marriages. In German legends,
Strawberries symbolise little children who have died when young.
According to one of these legends, before St. John’s Day mothers
who have lost their little ones take care not to eat Strawberries,
because they think that young children ascend to heaven concealed in
Strawberries. Mothers who eat Strawberries are considered to have
wronged the Virgin Mary, to whom the Strawberry is dedicated, and
who would assuredly refuse an entry into heaven to those children
whose mothers had defrauded her of the fruit specially set apart for
her.----A representation of the leaf of the Strawberry is set in
the gold coronets worn by certain of the English nobility: a duke’s
coronet has eight leaves, an earl’s eight, and that of a marquis four.
Strawberry-leaves and the Flower-de-luce are used in the coronets of
the younger members of the royal family. Don John, son of King John
I. of Portugal, adopted the Strawberry as his device, to show his
devotion to St. John the Baptist, who lived on fruits. It is mentioned
by Hollinshed, and the fact has been dramatised by Shakspeare, that
Glo’ster, when he was contemplating the death of Hastings, asked the
Bishop of Ely for Strawberries.
“My lord of Ely, when I was last in Holborn,
I saw good Strawberries in your garden there.”
Linnæus was cured of frequent attacks of gout by the use of
Strawberries, and the fruit is accounted an excellent remedy in putrid
fevers.----To dream of Strawberries is reputed to be a good omen:
to a youth they are supposed to denote that “his wife will be sweet
tempered, and bear him many children, all boys.”----A legend of the
Fichtelgebirge (a mountain range at the junction of Saxony, Bavaria,
and Bohemia) records that one Midsummer Day a woman went with her child
to look for Strawberries in a wood. She chanced to light upon some
plants, which when plucked in the night, were not to be exhausted; and
after awhile she perceived a cavern which she entered with her child.
Here, to her astonishment, lay heaps of gold scattered about; and three
white maidens gave her permission to take as much of the treasure as
she could collect with one grasp. Her greed, however, induced her
to make three swoops, and then, fearful of the consequences, and
forgetting her child, she rushed out of the hollow, when the entrance
was immediately closed upon her, and a warning voice informed her that
she could not regain her child until the next St. John’s Day. When this
day arrived, the woman repaired to the cave, and found to her joy the
entrance once more open, and her little one awaiting her with a rosy
Apple in its hand. Disregarding the treasures scattered in the cave,
the mother rushed with outstretched arms towards her child, and the
white maidens finding that the mother’s love was stronger than her
greed handed over the little one to her.----There is, in this district,
another legend anent the gathering of Strawberries, which will be found
under the head of CLUB MOSS.
=SUGAR-CANE.=--In the Sugar plantations of the Indies, several
superstitious ceremonies are preserved. It being customary to reserve
a few plants, it sometimes happens after the fields are planted,
that there remain several superfluous canes. Whenever this happens,
the husbandman repairs to the spot on the 11th of June, and having
sacrificed to the Nagbele, the tutelar deity of the Sugar-cane, he
immediately kindles a fire, and consumes the whole. If a Sugar-cane
should flower again at the end of the season, and produce seeds, it is
looked upon as a funereal flower, and as portending misfortune to the
owner of the estate or his family. If, therefore, a husbandman sees one
of these late-flowering canes, he plucks it up, and buries it without
allowing his master to know anything of the unfortunate occurrence,
willingly taking to himself any ill-luck which may accrue.----The bow
of Kâmadeva, the Indian Cupid, is sometimes represented as being formed
of Sugar-cane, sometimes of flowers, with a string composed of bees.
His five arrows were each tipped with a blossom, presented to Kâmadeva
by Vasanta (Spring).
“He bends the luscious cane, and twists the string
With bees; how sweet! but ah! how keen their sting.
He, with five flow’rets tips thy ruthless darts,
Which through five senses pierce enraptured hearts;
Strong _Champa_, rich in odorous gold;
Warm _Amer_, nursed in heavenly mould;
Dry _Makeser_, in silver smiling;
Hot _Kitticum_ our sense beguiling;
And last, to kindle fierce the scorching flame,
_Love Shaft_, which gods bright _Bela_ name.”--_Sir W. Jones._
=SUNFLOWER.=--The _Helianthus annuus_ derived its name of Sunflower
from its resemblance to the radiant beams of the Sun, and not, as is
popularly supposed and celebrated by poets, from its flowers turning to
face the Sun--a delusion fostered by Darwin, Moore, and Thompson, the
latter of whom tells us that unlike most of the flowery race--
“The lofty follower of the Sun,
Sad when he sets, shuts up her yellow leaves,
Drooping all night, and, when he warm returns,
Points her enamour’d bosom to his ray.”
The Helianthus has also been falsely identified with the Sunflower
of classical story--the flower into which poor Clytie was transformed
when, heart-broken at the desertion of her lover Phœbus, she remained
rooted to the ground, and became, according to Ovid, metamorphosed
into a flower resembling a Violet. “Held firmly by the root, she still
turns to the Sun she loves, and, changed herself, she keeps her love
unchanged.” Now the Helianthus, or modern Sunflower, could not have
been the blossom mentioned by Ovid, inasmuch as it is not a European
plant, was not known in his day, and first came to us from North
America. In its native country of Peru, the Helianthus is said to have
been much reverenced on account of the resemblance borne by its radiant
blossoms to the Sun, which luminary was worshipped by the Peruvians.
In their Temple of the Sun, the officiating priestesses were crowned
with Sunflowers of pure gold, and they wore them in their bosoms, and
carried them in their hands. The early Spanish invaders of Peru found
in these temples of the Sun numerous representations of the Sunflower
in virgin gold, the workmanship of which was so exquisite, that it
far out-valued the precious metal of which they were formed. Gerarde,
writing in 1597, remarks:--“The floure of the Sun is called in Latine
_Flos Solis_; for that some have reported it to turn with the Sunne,
which I could never observe, although I have endeavoured to finde
out the truth of it: but I rather thinke it was so called because it
resembles the radiant beams of the Sunne, whereupon some have called
_Corona Solis_ and _Sol Indianus_, the Indian Sunne-floure: others
_Chrysanthemum Peruvianum_, or the Golden Flower of Peru: in English,
the Floure of the Sun, or the Sun-floure.” (See HELIOTROPE.)
=SYCAMORE.=--Sycamore is properly the name of an Egyptian tree, the
leaves of which resemble those of the Mulberry and the fruit that
of the wild Fig; whence it was named from both _Sukomoros_; _sukon_
signifying a Fig, and _moros_ a Mulberry-tree.----Thevenot gives an
interesting tradition relating to one of these trees. He writes:--“At
Matharee is a large Sycamore, or Pharaoh’s Fig, very old, but which
bears fruit every year. They say, that upon the Virgin passing that
way with her son Jesus, and being pursued by the people, this Fig-tree
opened to receive her, and closed her in, until the people had passed
by, when it re-opened; and that it remained open ever after to the year
1656, when the part of the trunk that had separated itself was broken
away.” The tree is still shown to travellers a few miles north-east
of Cairo.----Another version relates that the Holy Family, at the
conclusion of their flight into Egypt, finally rested in the village
of Matarea, beyond the city of Hermopolis, and took up their residence
in a grove of Sycamores, a circumstance which gave the Sycamore-tree
a certain degree of interest in early Christian times. The Crusaders
imported it into Europe, and Mary Stuart, probably on account of its
sacred associations, brought from France and planted in her garden
the first Sycamores which grew in Scotland.----From the wood of this
Egyptian Fig-tree or Sycamore (_Ficus Sycomorus_), which is very
indestructible, the coffins of the Egyptian mummies were made.----By
a mistake of Ruellius the name Sycamore became transferred to the
Great Maple (_Acer pseudoplatanus_), which is the tree commonly known
in England as the Sycamore or Mock-Plane. This mistake, Dr. Prior
considers, may perhaps have arisen from the Great Maple having been,
on account of the density of its foliage, used in the sacred dramas of
the Middle Ages to represent the Fig-tree into which Zaccheus climbed
on the day of our Saviour’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem--the _Ficus
Sycomorus_ mentioned above.
“Here a sure shade
Of barren Sycamores, which the all-seeing sun
Could not pierce through.”--_Massinger._
In Scotland, the most remarkable Sycamores are those called Dool-trees
or Grief-trees. They were used by the powerful barons in the west of
Scotland for hanging their enemies and refractory vassals on.----The
Great Maple is called in France, as with us, _Sycomore_ or _Faux
Platane_ (Mock-Plane); the Italians call the same tree _Acero Fico_
(Fig-Maple); but in both these countries there grows the _Melia
Azadirachta_, or False Sycamore, which is called the Sacred Tree in
France, and the Tree of Our Father in Italy. In Sicily, it is known
as the Tree of Patience, and is regarded as emblematic of a wife’s
infidelity and a husband’s patience.----To dream of the Sycamore-tree
portends jealousy to the married; but to the virgin it prognosticates a
speedy marriage. (See also MAPLE).
=SYRINGA.=--The Arcadian nymph Syrinx pursued by Pan, who was enamoured
of her, fled to the banks of the river Ladon. Her flight being there
stopped, she implored relief from the water-nymphs, and was changed
into a Reed, just as Pan was on the point of catching her. Ovid thus
describes her transformation:--
“Now while the lustful god, with speedy pace,
Just thought to strain her in a strict embrace,
He filled his arms with Reeds, new rising on the place;
And while he sighs his ill-success to find,
The tender canes were shaken by the wind,
And breathed a mournful air, unheard before;
That much surprising Pan, yet pleased him more.
Admiring this new music, ‘Thou,’ he said,
‘Who can’st not be the partner of my bed,
At least shall be the consort of my mind;
And often, often to my lips be joined.’
He formed the Reeds, proportioned as they are,
Unequal in their length, and waxed with care,
They still retain the name of his ungrateful fair.”--_Dryden._
The _Philadelphus coronarius_ is the shrub into which, according to
Ovid, the nymph Syrinx was metamorphosed. The stems of this shrub are
used in Turkey for making pipe-sticks. Evelyn applied the name Syringa
also to the Lilac, which for the same reason was called “Pipe-tree.”
=TAMARIND.=--The _Tamarindus Indica_ is in Ceylon dedicated to Siva,
as the god of destruction. The natives of India have a prejudice
against sleeping under the Tamarind, and the acid damp from the tree
is known to affect the cloth of tents that are pitched under them for
any length of time. So strong is the prejudice of the natives against
the Tamarind-tree, that it is difficult to prevent them from destroying
it, as they believe it hurtful to vegetation. It is chiefly cultivated
for its seed-pods, which are used medicinally, and for food.----Dreams
connected with Tamarinds are of ill omen, portending trouble, loss, and
disappointment.----The Tamarind is held to be under the dominion of
Venus.
=TAMARISK.=--The _Tamarix orientalis_ is also known as the Tamarisk
of Osiris. The ancient Egyptians believed that at the commencement of
the world Osiris was born from the midst of chaos, from whence also
proceeded his wife Isis, the Queen of Light, and Typhon, the Spirit
of Darkness. Osiris was the ruler of all the earth; but Typhon, being
jealous of him, seized him by strategy, nailed him in a chest, and
cast it into the Nile, that it might float out to sea. Isis in despair
wandered all over the country, searching for the dead body of her
husband, and at length heard that the chest had been cast on shore at
Byblos, and had there lodged in the branches of a Tamarisk-bush, which
quickly shot up and became a large and beautiful tree, growing round
the chest so that it could not be seen. The king of the country, amazed
at the vast size of the Tamarisk-tree, ordered it to be cut down and
hewn into a pillar to support the roof of his palace, the chest being
still concealed in the trunk. Here it was discovered by Isis, who cut
open the pillar, and took the coffin with her to Egypt, where she hid
it in a remote place; but Typhon found it, and divided the corpse of
Osiris into fourteen pieces. After a long and weary search, in which
Isis sailed over the fenny parts of the land in a boat made of Papyrus,
she recovered all the fragments except one, which had been thrown into
the sea.----The _Tamarix Gallica_ is called the Tamarisk of Apollo:
the Apollo of Lesbos is represented with a branch of Tamarisk in his
hand. Nicander called the Tamarisk the Tree of Prophecy. In Persia, the
Magian priests (who claimed supernatural power) arrived at a knowledge
of future events by means of certain manipulations of the mystic
_baresma_, or bundle of thin Tamarisk twigs, the employment of which
was enjoined in the Zendavesta books as essential to every sacrificial
ceremony.----Herodotus informs us that the Tamarisk was employed for
a similar purpose by other nations of antiquity; and Pliny states
that the Egyptian priests were crowned with its foliage.----According
to tradition, it was from Tamarisk-trees that the showers of Manna
descended on the famishing Israelites in the desert.----At the present
day, the Manna of Mount Sinai is produced by a variety of _Tamarix
Gallica_: it consists of pure mucilaginous sugar.----Astrologers state
that the Tamarisk is under the rule of Saturn.
=TANSY.=--The herb Tansy (_Tanacetum_) has derived its name from the
Greek _athanasia_, immortality, it being supposed that this herb was
referred to in a passage in Lucian’s Dialogues of the Gods, where
Jupiter, speaking of Ganymede, says to Mercury, “Take him away, and
when he has drunk of immortality [_athanasia_], bring him back as
cup-bearer to us.” In the Catholic Church the herb is dedicated to
St. Athanasius, and in Lent cakes are flavoured with it. Gerarde says
that the name _athanasia_ was given to the plant because the flowers
do not speedily wither: he also tells us that “in the Spring time are
made with the leaves hereof newly sprung up, and with egs, cakes or
tansies, which be pleasant on taste, and good for the stomacke.”----In
some country places, it is customary to eat Tansy pudding at Easter,
in allusion to the “bitter herbs” at the Passover. In Sussex, a charm
against ague is to wear Tansy leaves in the shoe.----In some parts of
Italy, people present stalks of the Wild Tansy to those whom they mean
to insult.----The Tansy is held to be a herb of Venus.
=TEA.=--A Japanese Buddhist legend attributes the origin of the
Tea-plant (_Thea Sinensis_) to the eyelids of a devotee, which fell
to the ground and took root. The legend relates that about A.D.
519 a Buddhist priest went to China; and, in order to dedicate his
soul entirely to God, he made a vow to pass the day and night in
an uninterrupted and unbroken meditation. After many years of such
continual watching, he was at length so tired, that he fell asleep. On
awaking the following morning, he was so grieved that he had broken his
vow, that he cut off both his eyelids and threw them on the ground.
Returning to the same spot on the following day, he was astonished
to find that each eyelid had become a shrub. This was the Tea-shrub
(until then unknown in China)--the leaves of which exhibit the form
of an eyelid bordered with lashes, and possess the gift of hindering
sleep.--One Ibn Wahab, who travelled in China some time in the ninth
century, makes the first authentic mention of Tea as a favourite
beverage of the Chinese. He describes it as the leaf of a shrub more
bushy than the Pomegranate; and says that an infusion is made by
pouring boiling water upon it.
=TEREBINTH.=--The Terebinth (_Pistacia Terebinthus_) is a tree much
venerated by the Jews. Abraham pitched his tent beneath the shade
of a Terebinth at Mamre, in the valley of Hebron, and an altar was
afterwards erected close by. The spot whereon the tree of Abraham had
flourished was in the time of Eusebius still held in great reverence
and sanctity, and a Christian church was erected there. Josephus, in
his ‘History of the Jews,’ recounts that the Terebinth of Abraham had
flourished ever since the creation of the world; but a second legend
states that it sprang from the staff of one the angels who visited
Abraham. At Sichem is shown the Terebinth of Jacob, near which Joshua
raised an altar. The angel appeared to Gideon to encourage him to
engage in battle near a Terebinth-tree at Ophra, and on this spot,
after the victory, Gideon raised an altar. The Jews, by preference,
bury their dead beneath the shadow of a Terebinth.
=THISTLE.=--The Thistle (_Carduus_), in the first days of man, was
sent by the Almighty as a portion of the curse passed upon him when he
was made a tiller of the soil. God said, “Thorns and Thistles shall
it bring forth to thee (Gen. iv.). One species, the Milk Thistle
(_Carduus Marianus_), is distinguishable by the milky veins of its
leaves, which were supposed to have derived their peculiar colour from
the milk of the Virgin Mary having fallen upon them. This is sometimes
called the Scotch Thistle, but it is not so: it grows on the rocky
cliffs near Dumbarton Castle, where, if tradition be true, it was
originally planted by the unfortunate Mary, Queen of Scots. The Thistle
of Scotland is believed to be the _Onopordum Acanthium_, the Cotton
Thistle, which grows by the highways: this is the national insignia,
and its flower-cup and bristling leaves accord well with the motto,
“_Nemo me impune lacessit_.” Tradition says that the Thistle, with
the motto rendered in homely Scotch, “_Wha daur meddle wi’ me?_” was
adopted as the symbol of Scotland from the following circumstance:--A
party of invading Danes attempted to surprise the Scotch army by night.
Under cover of darkness, they approached the slumbering camp, but one
of them trod upon a prickly Thistle, and his involuntary cry of pain
roused some of the Scots, who flew to arms, and chased the foe from the
field. The _Onicus acaulis_, or stemless Thistle, is by some considered
to be the true Scotch Thistle, as it accords best with the legend of
the defeated Norsemen, and is, besides, the Thistle seen in the gold
bonnet-piece of James V. _Carduus acanthoides_ and _C. nutans_ are by
others supposed to be the
“Proud Thistle, emblem dear to Scotland’s sons,
Begirt with threatening points, strong in defence,
Unwilling to assault.”
The Thistle has given its title to a Scotch order of knighthood,
which is said to have been instituted by Achaius, king of the Scots,
when he obtained a victory over Athelstan. The insignia borne by the
knights of the Order of the Thistle is a gold collar, with Thistles
and a sprig of Rue interlaced. A gold medal is also worn, bearing a
figure of St. Andrew.----Mannhardt states that in Mecklenburg there
is a legend current which relates that in a certain wild and barren
spot, where once a murder had been committed, there grows every day
at noon a strangely-formed Thistle: on the weird plant are to be seen
human arms, hands, and heads, and when twelve heads have appeared, the
ghastly plant mysteriously vanishes. A shepherd, one day, passed the
spot where the mystic Thistle was growing. His staff became tinder, and
his arms were struck with paralysis.----According to Apuleius, the wild
Thistle, carried about the person, possessed the magical property of
averting all ills from the bearer.----In Esthonia, they place Thistles
on the Corn that has first ripened, to drive away any evil spirit that
may come to it.----In divining, by an old English rite, a girl, to find
out which of three or four persons loves her best, takes three or four
heads of Thistles, cuts off their points, gives each Thistle the name
of one of these persons, and lays them under her pillow. That Thistle
which bears the name of the person loving her most will put forth a
fresh sprout.----To dream of being surrounded by Thistles is a lucky
omen, portending that the dreamer will be rejoiced by some pleasing
intelligence in a short time.----Astrologers state that Thistles are
under the rule of Mars.
=THORN.=--According to a German tradition, the Black Thorn springs
from the blood of the corpse of a heathen slain in battle. In Germany,
the Easter fire was anciently called Buckthorn because it was always
kindled with that wood, as it is to this day at Dassel, in Westphalia.
Kuhn thinks the tree itself (_Bocksdorn_) was so called from the
sacrificial buck-goat which was burned upon its wood in heathen
times.----The Celts have always reverenced the Thorn-bush, and its wood
was used by the Greeks for the drilling-stick of their _pyreia_, an
instrument employed for kindling the sacred fire. The Thorn was also
held by the Greeks to be a preservative against witchcraft and sorcery.
Nevertheless, in some parts of England, witches were formerly reputed
to be fond of a Thorn-bush, and both in Brittany and in some parts of
Ireland it is considered unsafe to gather even a leaf from certain old
and solitary Thorns, which grow in sheltered hollows of the moorland,
and are the fairies’ trysting places. To this day, it is thought in
many rural districts to be a death-token, and therefore to take a
branch or blossom into a house is deemed to be unlucky.----Josephus
tells us that the “bush” out of which the Lord appeared to Moses in a
flame of fire was a Thorn. He writes: “A wonderful prodigy happened to
Moses: for a fire fed upon a Thorn-bush; yet did the green leaves and
the flowers continue untouched, and the fire did not at all consume
the fruit branches.”----According to Aryan tradition, the Hawthorn
sprang from the lightning, and as with other trees of like mythical
descent, it was considered a protective against fire, thunderbolts,
and lightning. Sir John Maundevile bears witness to this old belief,
when, speaking of the Albespyne, or Whitethorn, he says:--“For he that
beareth a braunche on hym thereof, no thondre, ne no maner of tempest
may dere [harm] hym; ne in the hows that yt is ynne may non evil ghost
entre.”----The Whitethorn or Hawthorn has long had the reputation of
being a sacred tree, and the plant which had the mournful distinction
of supplying the crown of Thorns worn by our Saviour at His
crucifixion. Many other plants, however, have been credited with this
distinction, including the Buckthorns (_Rhamnus Paliurus_ and _Rhamnus
Spina Christi_), and the _Paliurus aculeatus_, or Christ Thorn.----In
the thirteenth century, there existed among Christians a strong passion
for relics, and when the Emperor Baldwin II. came to beg aid from Louis
IX. (St. Louis of France), he secured his goodwill at once by offering
him the holy Crown of Thorns, which for several centuries had been
preserved at Constantinople, and had been pledged to the Venetians
for a large sum of money. Louis redeemed this precious and venerable
relic, aided Baldwin with men and money, and then triumphantly brought
the crown of Thorns to Paris, carrying it himself from Sens, barefoot
and bareheaded. Having also been so fortunate as to obtain a small
piece of the true Cross, he built in honour of these treasures the
exquisite chapel since called _La Sainte Chapelle_. In pictures of St.
Louis, he is usually depicted with his special attribute, the Crown
of Thorns, which he reverently holds in one hand.----In Brittany,
there is a superstition current which will explain the cause why the
robin has always been a favourite and protégé of man. It is said that
while our Saviour was bearing His Cross, one of these little birds
took from His Crown one of the Thorns steeped in His blood, which
dyed the robin’s breast; and ever since the redbreasts have been the
friends of man.----St. Catherine of Siena is frequently represented
with the Crown of Thorns, in reference to the legend that, having been
persecuted and vilified by certain nuns, she laid her wrongs, weeping,
at the feet of Christ. He appeared to her, bearing in one hand a
crown of gold and jewels, in the other His Crown of Thorns, and bade
her choose between them. She took from His hand the Crown of Thorns,
and pressed it hastily on her own head, but with such force that the
Thorns penetrated to her brain, and she cried out with the agony.----In
a painting of Murillo, Santa Rosa de Lima is depicted crowned with
Thorns, in allusion to the legend that when compelled by her mother to
wear a crown of Roses, she so adjusted it on her brow that it became
a veritable crown of Thorns.----In representations of St. Francis of
Assisi, the Crown of Thorns is sometimes introduced, the saint having
been considered by his followers as a type of the Redeemer.----In many
parts of England charms or incantations are employed to prevent a Thorn
from festering in the flesh. The following are some of the magic verses
recited:--
“Happy man that Christ was born,
He was crowned with a Thorn.
He was pierced through the skin,
For to let the poison in.
But his five wounds, so they say,
Closed before He passed away.
In with healing, out with Thorn,
Happy man that Christ was born.”
“Unto the Virgin Mary our Saviour was born,
And on His head He wore a crown of Thorn:
If you believe this true and mind it well,
This hurt will never fester nor swell.”
“Our Saviour was of a virgin born,
His head was crowned with a crown of Thorn;
It never canker’d nor fester’d at all,
And I hope in Christ Jesus this never shall.”
“Christ was of a virgin born,
And He was pricked by a Thorn,
And it did never bell [throb] nor swell,
As I trust in Jesus this never will.”
“Christ was crown’d with Thorns,
The Thorns did bleed, but did not rot,
No more shall thy finger.
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.”
In Herefordshire, the burning of a Thorn-bush is supposed to act as a
charm against smut or mildew in Wheat. When the crop is just springing
out of the ground, the farmer’s servants rise before daybreak, and cut
a branch of some particular Thorn; they then make a large fire in the
field, in which they burn a portion of it, and hang up the remaining
portion in the homestead.----Tradition affirms that, at Hemer, in
Westphalia, a man was engaged in fencing his field on Good Friday, and
had just poised a bunch of Thorns on his fork, when he was at once
transported to the Moon. Some of the Hemer peasants declare that the
Moon is not only inhabited by this man with his Thorn-bush, but also by
a woman who was churning her butter one Sabbath during Divine Service.
Another legend relates how the Man in the Moon is none other than Cain
with a bundle of Briars.----To dream you are surrounded by Thorns,
signifies that you will be rejoiced by some pleasing intelligence in a
very short time.
=THORN APPLE.=--Gerarde, in his ‘Herbal,’ calls the _Datura Stramonium_
Thorny Apple of Peru: he speaks of it as a plant of a drowsy and
numbing quality, resembling in its effects the Mandrake, and he tells
us that it is thought to be the _Hippomanes_, which Theocritus mentions
as causing horses to go mad. The words of the poet are thus translated
by the old herbalist:--
“Hippomanes ’mongst th’ Arcadian springs, by which ev’n all
The colts and agile mares in mountains mad do fall.”
The juice of Thorn-Apples Gerarde guarantees, when boiled with hog’s
grease and made into a salve, will cure inflammations, burnings and
scaldings, “as well of fire, water, boiling lead, gunpowder, as that
which comes by lightning.” In India, the _Datura_ is sometimes employed
by robbers as a magical means of depriving their victims of all power
of resistance: their mode of operation being to induce them to chew and
swallow a portion of the plant, because those who eat it lose their
proper senses, become silly and given to inordinate laughter, feel a
strong desire to be generous and open-handed, and finally will allow
anyone to pillage them. The Indians apply to the _Datura_ the epithets
of the Drunkard, the Madman, the Deceiver, and the Fool-maker. It is
also called the tuft of Siva (god of destruction). The Rajpoot mothers
are said to besmear their breasts with the juice of the leaves, in
order to destroy their new-born infant children. Acosta states that
the Indian dancing girls drug wine with the seeds of the _Datura
Stramonium_. He adds that whoever is so unfortunate as to partake of
it is for some time perfectly unconscious. He often, however, speaks
with others, and gives answers as if he were in full possession of
his senses, although he has no control over his actions, is perfectly
ignorant of whom he is with, and loses all remembrance of what has
taken places when he awakes.----The Stramonium, or Thorn-Apple, is one
of the plants commonly connected with witchcraft, death, and horror.
Harte, describing the plants growing about the Palace of Death, says:--
“Nor were the Nightshades wanting, nor the power
Of thorn’d Stramonium, nor the sickly flower
Of cloying Mandrakes, the deceitful root
Of the monk’s fraudful cowl, and Plinian fruit” [_Amomum Plinii_].
=THYME.=--Among the Greeks, Thyme denoted the graceful elegance of
the Attic style, because it covered Mount Hymettus, and gave to the
honey made there the aromatic flavour of which the ancients were so
fond. “To smell of Thyme” was, therefore, a commendation bestowed
on those writers who had mastered the Attic style.----With the
Greeks, also, Thyme was an emblem of activity; and as this virtue is
eminently associated with true courage, the ladies of chivalrous times
embroidered on the scarfs which they presented to their knights, the
figure of a bee hovering about a spray of Thyme, in order to inculcate
the union of the amiable with the active.----In olden times, it was
believed that Thyme renewed the spirits of both man and beast; and the
old herbalists recommended it is a powerful aid in melancholic and
splenetic diseases.----Fairies and elves were reputed to be specially
fond of Wild Thyme. Oberon exclaims with delight:--
“I know a bank whereon the Wild Thyme blows,
Where Oxlips and the woody Violet grows,
Quite over-canopied with lush Woodbine.
With sweet Musk-Roses, and with Eglantine.”
The fairy king’s musical hounds would willingly forsake the richest
blossoms of the garden in order to hunt for the golden dew in the
flowery tufts of Thyme. Of witches it is said, that when they
“Won’t do penance for their crime,
They bathed themselves in Oregane and Thyme.”
In the South of France, when a summons to attend a meeting of the
votaries of _Marianne_ is sent, it is accompanied by tufts of Wild
Thyme, or _Ferigoule_, that being the symbol of advanced Republicanism.
=TOADSTOOL.=--The name of Toadstool was originally applied to all
descriptions of unwholesome Fungi, from the popular belief that toads
sit on them. Thus Spenser, in his ‘Shepherd’s Calendar,’ says:--
“The griesly Todestool grown there mought I see,
And loathed paddocks lording on the same.”
Fungi are in some parts of the country called Paddock-stools from
the same notion that toads are fond of sitting on them; and in the
Western counties they bear the name of Pixie-stools. In Sussex, the
Puff-ball (_Lycoperdon_) is called Puck’s-stool; and in other places
these fungi are known among country folks as Puckfists. These names
tend to identify Puck, the mischievous king of the fairies, with the
toad (_pogge_), which is popularly believed to be the impersonation of
the Devil himself: hence Toad-stools, Paddock-stools, Puck’s-stools,
Puckfists, and Pixie-stools have been superstitiously thought to be
the droppings of elves or of Satan, and in some districts are known as
Devil’s droppings.
=TOBACCO.=--With the Aborigines of Southern America, the Tobacco
(_Nicotiana_) was regarded as a sacred plant, and Darwin has described
how, in the pampas of Patagonia, he saw the sacred tree of Wallitchon.
This tree grew on a hill in the midst of a vast plain, and when the
Indians perceived it afar off, they saluted it with loud cries. The
branches were covered with cords, from which were suspended votive
offerings, consisting of cigars, bread, meat, pieces of cloth, &c. In
a fissure of the tree they found spirits and vegetable extracts. When
smoking, they blew the Tobacco smoke towards the branches. All around
lay the bleached bones of horses that they had sacrificed to the sacred
tree.----The Indians believe that this worship ensures good luck to
themselves and their horses. In other parts of America, the Indians
throw Tobacco as an offering to the spirit supposed to inhabit the
waterfalls and whirlpools.----M. Cochet, a French traveller, recounts
that the Indians of Upper Peru, entertain a religious reverence for
Tobacco. They consider it an infallible remedy for the sting of
serpents, and each year a festival-day is consecrated to the plant.
On that day they construct, in the most secluded portion of the
forest, a round hut, adorned with flowers and feathers. At the foot of
the central pillar which supports the hut is placed a basket richly
decorated, containing a roll of Tobacco. Into this hut troop in one by
one the Indians of the district, and before the shrine of the sacred
Tobacco perform their customary acts of worship.----In reference to
the use of Tobacco by pagan priests in the delivery of their oracles,
Gerarde tells us that the “priests and enchanters of hot countries do
take the fume thereof until they be drunke, that after they have lien
for dead three or foure houres, they may tell the people what wonders,
visions, or illusions they have seen, and so give them a prophetical
direction or foretelling (if we may trust to the Divell) of the
successe of their businesse.”----In the Ukraine, Tobacco is looked
upon as an ill-omened plant, and the Raskolniks call it the Herb of
the Devil, and make offerings of it to appease “genis, spirits, and
demons of the forest.”----Until the time of Peter the Great, the use of
Tobacco was forbidden in Russia, and those who transgressed the law had
their noses split.
=TREACLE-MUSTARD.=--The names of French Mustard, Treacle-Mustard, and
Treacle Worm-seed were given to the _Erysimum cheiranthoides_, the two
last because, in mediæval times, the seed of this plant formed one of
the seventy-three ingredients of the far-famed “Venice treacle,” a
noted antidote to all poisons, believed to cure “all those that were
bitten or stung of venomous beastes, or had drunk poisons, or were
infected with the pestilence.” The origin of this counter-poison was
the famous _Mithridaticum_, a preparation invented by Mithridates, king
of Pontus. Andromachus added to this comparatively simple compound
other ingredients, and especially vipers; changing, on that account,
the name to _Theriaca_ (from the Greek _therion_, a small animal). Dr.
Prior tells us that this remedy, which was known in England originally
as Triacle, was the source of many popular tales of sorcerers eating
poison, and was retained in the London Pharmacopœia till about a
century ago.
=TREFOIL.=--Among the Romans, the Grass crown made of Trefoil-leaves
was esteemed a mark of very high honour. (See CLOVER and SHAMROCK).
=TROLL-FLOWER.=--The Globe-flower (_Trollius Europæus_) acquired the
sobriquet of Troll-flower in allusion to the Trolls, who were malignant
elves, and because of the plant’s acrid poisonous qualities. (See GLOBE
FLOWER).
TRUE-LOVE.--See Herb Paris.
=TUBEROSE.=--The name Tuberose is simply a corruption of the plant’s
botanical title _Polianthes tuberosa_. The Malayans call this
sweet-scented flower “The Mistress of Night:” when worn in the hair by
a Malayan lady, the blossom is an indication to her lover that his suit
is pleasing to her. The Tuberose is a native of India, whence it was
first brought to Europe towards the close of the sixteenth century. Its
blossoms were at first single, but La Cour, a Dutch florist, obtained
the double-flowering variety from seed. So tenacious was he of the
roots, that even after he had propagated them so freely as to have more
than he could plant, he caused them to be cut to pieces in order that
he might have the pleasure of boasting that he was the only person in
Europe who possessed this flower.
=TULASI.=--The Indian name of the Holy Basil (_Ocimum sanctum_) is
Tulasi, under which appellation this sacred plant is worshipped as a
goddess. (See BASIL).
=TULIP.=--The origin of the brilliant and dazzling Tulip has been
given us by the poet Rapin, who relates that the flower was a modest
Dalmatian nymph, metamorphosed into a Tulip to save her from the
importunities of Vertumnus. The story is thus told by the Jesuit poet:--
“Dalmatia claims the nymph, whom heretofore
A bright Timavian dame to Proteus bore;
To her the changing sire his gift conveys,
In every dress and every form to please:
Disguised Vertumnus, wandering round the world,
On the Dalmatian coast by Fate was hurled,
Where by her mother’s stream the virgin played;
The courting god with all his arts assayed
(But unsuccessful still) the haughty maid.
Yet, as the changing colours pleased her eyes,
He put on every form that might surprise,
Dres’t in all Nature’s sweet varieties:
To suit his mind to her wild humour strove,
No complaisance forgot, no policy of love;
But when he saw his prayers and arts had failed,
Bold with desire his passion he revealed,
Confessed the secret god, and force applied.
To heaven for aid the modest virgin cried:
‘Ye rural powers, preserve a nymph from shame!’
And, worthy of her wish, a flower became.
Her golden caul that shone with sparkling hair,
The lace and ribbons which adorned the fair,
To leaves are changed; her breast a stem is made,
Slender and long, with fragrant greens arrayed;
Six gaudy leaves a painted cup compose,
On which kind nature every dye bestows;
For though the nymph transformed, the love she bore
To colours still delights her as before.”
The Tulip is a favourite flower of the East, and is believed
originally to have come from Persia. The French formerly called the
flower Tulipan, which, as well as the English name, is derived from
_Thoulyban_, the word used in Persia for turban.----The Tulip is
considered to be one of the flowers loved by fairies and elves, who
protect those that cultivate them.----In Turkey, the flower is held in
the highest estimation, and a Feast of Tulips used to be celebrated
annually in the Sultan’s seraglio, when the gardens were brilliantly
illuminated and decorated with Oriental magnificence, and the fête was
attended by the Sultan and his harem.----The garden Tulip is a native
of the Levant: Linnæus says of Cappadocia. It is very common in Syria,
and is supposed by some persons to be the “Lily of the field” alluded
to by Jesus Christ.----In Persia, the Tulip is considered as the emblem
of consuming love. When a young man presents one to his mistress, he
gives her to understand, by the general colour of the flower, that
he is impressed with her beauty, and by the black base of it that
his heart is burnt to a coal.----In India, the Tulip seems to typify
unhappy love. In the ‘Rose of Bakawali,’ a Hindustani story, the
author, while describing the beautiful fairy of the heaven, Bakawali,
says “the Tulip immersed itself in blood because of the jealousy it
entertained of her charming lips!” When bidding adieu to the fairy,
Taj-ul-muluk says: ‘I quit this garden carrying in my heart, like the
Tulip, the wound of unhappy love--I go, my head covered with dust,
my heart bleeding, my breast fevered.’----The Tulip is supposed to
have been brought from Persia to the Levant, and it was introduced
into Western Europe about the middle of the sixteenth century by
Busbeck, ambassador from the Emperor of Germany to the Sublime Porte,
who to his astonishment found Tulips on the road between Adrianople
and Constantinople blooming in the middle of winter. In Europe, they
soon became universal favourites, and were imported into England in
1577.----In Holland, about the middle of the seventeenth century, a
perfect mania for possessing rare sorts seized all classes of persons.
From 1634 to 1637 inclusive all classes in all the great cities of
Holland became infected with the Tulipomania. A single root of a
particular species, called the _Viceroy_, was exchanged, in the true
Dutch taste, for the following articles:--2 lasts of Wheat, 4 of Rye,
4 fat oxen, 3 fat swine, 12 fat sheep, 2 hogsheads of wine, 4 tuns of
beer, 2 tons of butter, 1000 pounds of cheese, a complete bed, a suit
of clothes, and a silver beaker--value of the whole, 2500 florins.
These Tulips afterwards were sold according to the weight of the
roots. Four hundred perits (something less than a grain) of _Admiral
Liefken_, cost 4400 florins; 446 ditto of _Admiral Van der Eyk_, 1620
florins; 106 perits _Schilder_ cost 1615 florins; 200 ditto _Semper
Augustus_, 5500 florins; 410 ditto _Viceroy_, 3000 florins, &c. The
species _Semper Augustus_ has been often sold for 2000 florins; and
it once happened that there were only two roots of it to be had, the
one at Amsterdam, and the other at Haarlem. For a root of this species
one agreed to give 4600 florins, together with a new carriage, two
grey horses, and a complete harness. Another agreed to give for a root
twelve acres of land; for those who had not ready money promised their
moveable and immoveable goods, houses and lands, cattle and clothes.
The trade was followed not only by mercantile people, but also by all
classes of society. At first, everyone won and no one lost. Some of the
poorest people gained, in a few months, houses, coaches and horses, and
figured away like the first characters in the land. In every town some
tavern was selected which served as an exchange, where high and low
traded in flowers, and confirmed their bargains with the most sumptuous
entertainments. They formed laws for themselves, and had their notaries
and clerks. During the time of the Tulipomania, a speculator often
offered and paid large sums for a root which he never received, nor
ever wished to receive. Another sold roots which he never possessed
or delivered. Often did a nobleman purchase of a chimney-sweep Tulips
to the amount of 2000 florins, and sell them at the same time to a
farmer, and neither the nobleman, chimney-sweep, nor farmer had roots
in their possession, or wished to possess them. Before the Tulip season
was over, more roots were sold and purchased, bespoke, and promised
to be delivered, than in all probability were to be found in the
gardens of Holland; and when _Semper Augustus_ was not to be had, which
happened twice, no species perhaps was oftener purchased and sold. In
the space of three years, as Munting tells us, more than ten millions
were expended in this trade, in only one town of Holland. The evil rose
to such a pitch, that the States of Holland were under the necessity of
interfering; the buyers took the alarm; the bubble, like the South Sea
scheme, suddenly burst; and as, in the outset, all were winners, in the
winding up, very few escaped without loss.
=TUTSAN.=--The _Hypericum Androsæmum_ was in former days called Tutsan,
or Tutsayne, a word derived from the French name, _Toute-saine_, which
was applied to the plant, according to Lobel, “because, like the
Panacea, it cures all sickness and diseases.” The St. John’s Wort (_H.
perforatum_) was also called Tutsan.
=TURNIP.=--The Turnip (_Brassica Rapa_) was considered by Columella
and Pliny as next to corn in value and utility. Pliny mentions some
of the Turnips of his times as weighing forty pounds each.----In
Westphalia, when a young peasant goes wooing, if Turnips be set before
him, they signify that he is totally unacceptable to the girl he would
court.----To dream of Turnips denotes fruitless toil.
=UNSHOE-THE-HORSE.=--The _Hippocrepis comosa_, from its
horseshoe-shaped legumes, is supposed, upon the doctrine of signatures,
to have the magical power of causing horses to cast their shoes. This
Vetch is the _Sferracavallo_ of the Italians, who ascribe to it the
same magical property. Grimm, however, considers that the Springwort
(_Euphorbia Lathyris_) is, from its powerful action on metals, the
Italian _Sferracavallo_. The French give a similar extraordinary
property to the Rest-Harrow (_Ononis arvensis_); and it is also
allotted to the Moonwort (_Botrychium Lunaria_):--
“Whose virtue’s such,
It in the pasture, only with a touch,
Unshoes the new-shod steed.”--_Withers._
=UPAS.=--The deadly Upas of Java has the terrible reputation of being
a tree which poisons by means of its noxious exhalations. Two totally
distinct trees have been called the Upas,--one, the Antjar (_Autiaris
toxicaria_), is a tree attaining a height of one hundred feet; the
other, the Chetik, is a large creeping shrub peculiar to Java. Neither
of them, however, answers to the description of the poisonous Upas,
which rises in the “Valley of Death,” and which was seen and reported
on by Foersch, a Dutch physician, who travelled in Java at the end
of the last century. Foersch wrote that this deadly Upas grew in the
midst of a frightful desert. No bird could rest in its branches, no
plant could subsist, no animal live in its neighbourhood: it blighted
everything near with its malaria, and caused the birds of the air
that flew over it to drop lifelessly down. Leagues away, its noxious
emanations, borne by the winds, proved fatal. When a Javanese was
condemned to death, as a last chance, his pardon was offered to him if
he would consent to go into the Valley of Death, and gather, by means
of a long Bamboo-rod, some drops of the poison of the Upas. Hundreds of
unhappy creatures are said to have submitted to this trial, and to have
miserably perished.
=VALERIAN.=--The ancient name of this plant, according to Dioscorides,
was _Phu_, and in botanical phraseology Garden Valerian is still
_Valeriana Phu_. The Latins called the plant _Valeriana_, some say from
its medicinal value, others from one Valerius, who is reputed first to
have used the herb in medicine; but the derivation is really uncertain.
The old English name of the plant was Setewale, Setwal, or Set-wall.
Chaucer writes:--
“Ther springen herbes grete and smale,
The Licoris and the Setewale.”
And, speaking of the Clerk of Oxenforde, he says:--
“And he himself was swete as is the rote
Of Licoris, or any Setewale.”
Gerarde tells us that the plant was known in his day by the name of
Valerian, Capon’s Tail, and Setwall, but that the last name really
belonged to the _Zedoaria_, which is not Valerian. The old herbalist
also records that the medicinal virtues of Valerian were, among the
poorer classes in the North, held in such veneration, “that no broths,
pottage, or physical meats are worth anything if Setwall were not at an
end: whereupon some woman poet or other hath made these verses:--
‘They that will have their heale
Must put Setwall in their keale.’”
Cats are so fond of the perfume of Valerian, that they are said to
dig up the roots, rolling on them with ecstatic delight, and gnawing
them to pieces. The action of the Valerian-root (which the herbalists
found out was very like a cat’s eye) on the nervous system of some cats
undoubtedly produces in time a kind of pleasant intoxication. Rats are
also attracted by the odour of this plant.----Astrologers say that
Valerian is under the rule of Mercury.
VENUS’ PLANTS.--See Lady’s Plants.
VERONICA.--See Speedwell.
=VERVAIN.=--The Vervain, or Verbena, has from time immemorial been
the symbol of enchantment, and the most ancient nations employed
this plant in their divinations, sacrificial and other rites, and in
incantations. It bore the names of the Tears of Isis, Tears of Juno,
Mercury’s Blood, Persephonion, Demetria, and Cerealis. The Magi of
the ancient Elamites or Persians made great use of the Vervain in the
worship of the Sun, always carrying branches of it in their hands when
they approached the altar. The magicians also employed the mystic herb
in their pretended divinations, and affirmed that, by smearing the body
over with the juice of this plant, the person would obtain whatever
he set his heart upon, and be able to reconcile the most inveterate
enemies, make friends with whom he pleased, and gain the affections,
and cure the disease of whom he listed. When they cut Vervain, it was
always at a time when both sun and moon were invisible, and they poured
honey and honeycomb on the earth, as an atonement for robbing it of so
precious a herb.----The Greeks called it the Sacred Herb, and it was
with this plant only that they cleansed the festival-table of Jupiter
before any great solemnity took place; and hence, according to Pliny,
the name of Verbena is derived. It was, also, one of the plants which
was dedicated to Venus. Venus Victrix wore a crown of Myrtle interwoven
with Vervain.----With the Romans, the Vervain was a plant of good omen,
and considered strictly sacred:--
“Bring your garlands, and with reverence place
The Vervain on the altar.”
They employed it in their religious rites, swept their temples and
cleansed their altars with it, and sprinkled holy water with its
branches. They also purified their houses with it, to keep off
evil spirits; and in order to make themselves invulnerable, they
carried about their persons a blade of Grass and some Vervain. Their
ambassadors, or heralds-at-arms, wore crowns of Vervain when they went
to offer terms of reconciliation, or to give defiance to their enemies,
a custom thus noticed by Drayton:--
“A wreath of Vervain heralds wear,
Amongst our garlands named;
Being sent that dreadful news to bear,
Offensive war proclaimed.”
Virgil mentions Vervain as one of the charms used by an enchantress:--
“Bring running water, bind those altars round
With fillets, and with Vervain strew the ground.”
The Druids, both in Gaul and in Britain, regarded the Vervain with the
same veneration as the Hindus do the _Kusa_ or _Tulasi_, and, like
the Magi of the East, they offered sacrifices to the earth before
they cut this plant. This ceremony took place in Spring, at about
the rising of the Great Dog Star, but so that neither sun nor moon
would be at that time above the earth to see the sacred herb cut. It
was to be dug up with an iron instrument, and to be waved aloft in
the air, the left hand only being used. It was also ordained by the
Druidical priests, for those who collected it, “that before they take
up the herb, they bestow upon the ground where it groweth honey with
the combs, in token of satisfaction and amends for the wrong and
violence done in depriving her of so holy a herb. The leaves, stalks,
and flowers were dried separately in the shade, and were used for
the bites of serpents infused in wine.” Another account states that
the Druidesses held Vervain in as great veneration as the Druids did
the Mistletoe. They were never permitted to touch it. It was to be
gathered at midnight, at the full of the moon, in this manner:--A long
string with a loop in it was thrown over the Vervain-plant, and the
other end fastened to the left great toe of a young virgin, who was
then to drag at it till she had uprooted it. The eldest Druidess then
received it in a cloth, and carried it home, to use it for medicinal
purposes and offerings to their gods. In the Druidic procession, to
the gathering of the Mistletoe, the white-clad herald carried a branch
of Vervain in his hand, encircled by two serpents. The priests, when
performing their daily functions of feeding the never-dying fires in
the Druidic temples, prayed for the space of an hour, holding branches
of Vervain in their hands. Pliny tells us that the Druids made use of
it in casting lots, as well as in drawing omens and in other pretended
magical arts; he also says that if the hall or dining chamber be
sprinkled with the water wherein Vervain lay steeped, all that sat at
the table should be “very pleasant and make merry more jocundly.”
“Lift up your boughs of Vervain blue,
Dipt in cold September dew;
And dash the moisture, chaste and clear,
O’er the ground and through the air.”--_Mason._
In mediæval days, the sacred character of Vervain was still maintained,
and the plant was greatly prized, and used in compounding charms and
love-philtres. Known in our country as Holy Herb and Simpler’s Joy, it
was credited with great medicinal virtues.
“Black melancholy rusts, that fed despair
Through wounds’ long rage, with sprinkled Vervain cleared.”--_Davenant._
Its juice was given as a cure for the plague, and the plant was
prescribed as a remedy in some thirty different maladies, and was
suspended round the neck as an amulet. Gerarde, however, tells us
that “the devil did reveal it as a secret and divine medicine;” and
R. Turner writes (1687):--“It is said to be used by witches to do
mischief, and so may all other herbs if by wicked astrologers used to
accomplish their wretched ends.” But notwithstanding that it was used
by witches and wizards in their incantations and spells, and was in
fact called the Enchanter’s Plant, Vervain was considered to possess
the power of combating witches: thus Aubrey says:--
“Vervain and Dill
Hinder witches from their will.”
and Michael Drayton writes:--
“Here holy Vervayne, and here Dill,
’Gainst witchcraft much avayling.”
and again--
“The Nightshade strews to work him ill,
Therewith the Vervain and the Dill
That hindreth witches of their will.”
On the Eve of St. John (June 23rd), Vervain was for a long time
associated with the observances of Midsummer Eve. Thus we read in ‘Ye
Popish Kingdome:’--
“Then doth ye joyfull feast of John ye Baptist take his turne
When bonfires great with loftie flame in every towne doe burne,
And young men round about with maides doe dance in every streete,
With garlands wrought of Mother-wort, or else with Vervain sweete.”
J. White, Minister of God’s Word, writes in 1624:--“Many also use to
weare Vervein against blasts; and when they gather it for this purpose
firste they crosse the herb with their hand, and then they blesse it
thus:--
‘Hallowed be thou, Vervein,
As thou growest on the ground,
For on the Mount of Calvary
There thou wast first found
Thou healedst our Saviour Jesus Christ,
And staunchedst his bleeding wound,
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,
I take thee from the ground.’”
In many rural districts, Vervain is still regarded as a plant
possessing magical virtues as a love philtre. It has the reputation of
securing affection from those who take it to those who administer it.
The gun-flint boiled in Vervain and Rue ensures the shot taking effect.
The root of Vervain tied with a white satin ribbon round the neck
acts as a charm against ague. Vervain and baked toads, worn in silken
bags around the neck, are a cure for the evil.----In the northern
provinces of France, the peasants still continue to gather Vervain
under the different phases of the moon, using certain mysterious
ejaculations known only to themselves whilst in the act of collecting
the mystic herb, by whose assistance they hope to effect cures, and
charm both the flocks and the rustic beauties of the village.----The
Germans present a hat of Vervain to the newly-married bride, as though
placing her under the protection of Venus Victrix, the patroness of
the plant.----Gerarde tells us that in his time it was called “Holie
Herbe, Juno’s Teares, Mercurie’s Moist Bloude, and Pigeon’s Grasse, or
Columbine, because Pigeons are delighted to be amongst it, as also to
eate thereof.”----Astrologers place Vervain under the dominion of Venus.
=VINE.=--The Vine was held by the ancients sacred to Bacchus, and the
old historians all connect the jovial god with the “life-giving tree”:
he is crowned with Vine-leaves, and he holds in his hand a bunch of
Grapes, whilst his merry followers are decked with garlands of the
trailing Vine, and love to quaff with their master the divine juice of
its luscious violet and golden fruit, styled by Anacreon “the liquor
of Bacchus.” The old heathen writers all paid honour to the Vine, and
attributed to the earliest deified sovereigns of each country the gift
of this ambrosial tree. Thus Saturn is said to have bestowed it upon
Crete; Janus bore it with him to Latium; Osiris similarly benefitted
Egypt; and Spain obtained it through Geryon, her most ancient monarch.
Old traditions all point to Greece as the native place of the Vine,
and there it is still to be found growing wild.----There are many
allusions to the Vine in the Scriptures. Noah, we find, planted a
Vineyard (Gen. ix., 20); enormous bunches of Grapes were brought by
the Israelitish spies out of Palestine; Solomon had a Vineyard at
Baalhamon. “He let out the Vineyard unto keepers; every one for the
fruit thereof was to bring one thousand pieces of silver” (Cant, viii.,
11). The Bible contains many illustrations borrowed from the husbandry
of the Vineyard, showing that Vine culture was sedulously pursued, and
formed a fruitful source of wealth. In Leviticus xxv., 4, 5, we find
a command that every seventh year the Vines were to be left untouched
by the pruning knife, and the Grapes were not to be gathered.----Of
the ancient pagan writers who have alluded to the Vine in their works,
Cato has left abundant information as to the Roman Vine-craft, and
Columella, Varro, Palladius, Pliny, and Tacitus have all given details
of the Vine culture of the ancients. More than sixty varieties of the
Vine appear to have been known to the Greeks and Romans, one of which,
called by Columella and Pliny the Amethystine, has certainly been
lost, for they record that the wine from its Grapes never occasioned
drunkenness.----The Elm was preferred to any other tree by the ancients
as a prop for Vines, and this connexion has led to numerous fanciful
notices by the poets of all ages. Statius calls it the “Nuptial Elm;”
Ovid speaks of “the lofty Elm, with creeping Vines o’erspread;” Tasso
says:--
“As the high Elm, whom his dear Vine hath twined
Fast in her hundred arms, and holds embraced,
Bears down to earth his spouse and darling kind,
If storm or cruel steel the tree down cast,
And her full grapes to nought doth bruise and grind,
Spoils his own leaves, faints, withers, dies at last,
And seems to mourn and die, not for his own
But for her loss, with him that lies o’erthrown.”--_Fairfax._
Beaumont tells us that--
“The amorous Vine,
Did with the fair and straight-limbed Elm entwine.”
Cowley speaks of the “beauteous marriageable Vine,” and Browne writes
of “the amorous Vine that in the Elm still weaves.” Horace, however,
connects the Vine with the Poplar, instead of the Elm. Milton,
describing the pursuits of our first parents in Eden, says:--
“They led the Vine
To wed her Elm; she, spoused about him twines
Her marriageable arms, and with her brings
Her dower, the adopted clusters, to adorn
His barren leaves.”
In the _Mythologie des Plantes_, we find it stated that the Persians
trace the use of wine in Persia to the reign of the blessed Jemshîd.
A woman who wished to poison herself drank some wine, thinking that
it was poison; but she only fell into a profound sleep, and thus the
Persians learnt in Jemshîd’s reign the use of the juice of the Grape.
Olearius, in 1637, heard in Persia the following legend:--To console
the poor and unhappy, God sent on earth the angels Aroth and Maroth,
with the injunctions not to kill anyone, not to do any injustice, and
not to drink any wine. A beautiful woman, who had quarrelled with
her husband, appealed for justice to the two angels, and asked them
to partake of some wine. The angels not only consented, but, after
having indulged rather freely, began to ask other favours of the lovely
woman. After a little hesitation, she agreed to comply, provided that
the angels should first show her the way to ascend to heaven, and to
descend again to the earth. The angels assented; but when the woman,
who was as virtuous as she was beautiful, reached heaven, she would
not descend again to earth, and there she remains, changed into the
most brilliant star in the skies.----With the Mandans, a tribe of
American Indians, the Vine is connected with the tradition concerning
their origin. They believe that the whole nation resided in one large
village, underground, near a subterraneous lake. A Grape Vine extended
its roots down to their habitation, and gave them a view of the light.
Some of the most adventurous climbed up the Vine, and were delighted
with the sight of the earth, which they found covered with buffaloes,
and rich with all kinds of fruit. Returning with the Grapes they had
gathered, their countrymen were so pleased with the taste of them, that
the whole nation resolved to leave their dull residence for the charms
of the upper region. Men, women, and children, therefore forthwith
proceeded to ascend by means of the Vine, but when about half the
nation had reached the surface of the earth, a very stout woman, who
was laboriously clambering up the Vine, broke it with her weight, and
debarred herself and the rest of the nation from seeing the light of
the sun. Those who had reached the earth’s surface made themselves
a village, and formed the tribe of the Mandans, who, when they die,
expect to return to the original settlement of their forefathers; the
good reaching the ancient village by means of the subterranean lake,
which the burden of the sins of the wicked will not enable them to
cross.----Wild Vines differ in many respects from the cultivated Vine;
several distinct species are found in Java, India, and America; one
first found on the banks of the Catawba, from which the famous Catawba
wine is made, is now extensively cultivated on the Ohio, or La Belle
Rivière; its product has been lauded by Longfellow, who sings--
“There grows no Vine
By the haunted Rhine,
By Danube or Guadalquiver,
Nor an island or cape
That bears such a Grape
As grown by the Beautiful River.”
The wood of the _Vitis sylvestris_ was used by the Greeks in the
instrument they employed for producing fire. The Aryan method of
kindling sacred fire by wood friction was practised both by Greeks
and Romans down to a late period. The Greeks called their kindling
instrument _pyreia_, and the drilling stick which worked in it
_trupanon_; and according to Theophrastus and Pliny, the lower part
of the _pyreia_ was formed of the wood of the wild Vine, Ivy, or
Athragene.----To dream of Vines denotes health, prosperity, abundance,
and fertility, “for which,” says a dream oracle, “we have the example
of Astyages, King of the Medes, who dreamed that his daughter brought
forth a Vine, which was a prognostic of the grandeur, riches,
and felicity of the great Cyrus, who was born of her after this
dream.”----Culpeper states that the Vine is “a gallant tree of the Sun,
very sympathetical with the body of man; and that is the reason spirits
of wine is the greatest cordial among all vegetables.”
=VIOLET.=--According to Rapin, the Violet was once a fair nymph, who
was changed by Diana into this flower to avoid the importunities of
Apollo. The poet thus describes the metamorphosis:--
“Next from the Vi’let choice perfumes exhale;
She now disguised in a blue dusky veil
Springs through the humble grass an humble flow’r,
Her stature little and her raiment poor.
If truth in ancient poems is convey’d,
This modest flower was once a charming maid,
Her name Ianthis, of Diana’s train,
The brightest nymph that ever graced a plain;
Whom (while Pherean herds the virgin fed)
Apollo saw, and courted to his bed;
But, lov’d in vain, the frighted virgin fled
To woods herself and her complaints she bore
And sought protection from Diana’s pow’r,
Who thus advis’d: ‘From mountains, sister, fly;
Phœbus loves mountains and an open sky.’
To vales and shady springs she bashful ran,
In thickets hid her charms, but all in vain:
For he her virtue and her flight admir’d,
The more she blush’d, the more the god was fired.
And now his love and wit new frauds prepare,
The goddess cried, ‘Since beauty’s such a snare,
Ah, rather perish that destructive grace.’
Then stain’d with dusky blue the virgin’s face:
Discolour’d thus an humbler state she prov’d,
Less fair, but by the goddess more belov’d;
Changed to a Violet with this praise she meets,
Chaste she retires to keep her former sweets.
The lowest places with this flower abound,
The valuable gift of untill’d ground;
Nor yet disgraced, though amongst Briars brought forth,
So rich her odour is, so true her worth.”
_Ion_, the Greek name for the Violet, is reputed to have been bestowed
on it because, when Jupiter had metamorphosed Io into a white heifer,
he caused sweet Violets to spring from the earth, in order to present
her with herbage worthy of her.
“We are Violets blue,
For our sweetness found,
Careless in the morning shades,
Looking on the ground;
Love’s dropp’d eyelids and a kiss,
Such our breath and blueness is.
Io, the mild shape,
Hidden by Jove’s fears,
Found us first i’ the sward, when she
For hunger stooped in tears;
Wheresoe’er her lips she sets
Said Jove, be breaths called Violets.”
In one of the poems of his ‘Hesperides,’ however, Herrick gives a
different version of the origin of Violets. According to the wayward
fancy of this old poet, Violets are the descendants of some unfortunate
girls, who, having defeated Venus in a dispute she had with Cupid on
the delicate point as to whether she or they surpassed in sweetness,
were beaten blue by the goddess in her jealous rage.----Some
etymologists trace the Greek names _Ion_ to _Ia_, the daughter of
Midas, who was betrothed to Atys, and transformed by Diana into a
Violet in order conceal her from Phœbus.----Another derivation of
the name is found in the story that some nymphs of Ionia, who lived
on the banks of the river Cytherus, first presented these flowers to
Ion, who had led an Ionian colony into Attica.----The Greek grammarian
Lycophron, who lived in the time of Ptolemy Philadelphus (about 280
years B.C.), was fond of making anagrams, and from the name of the
Queen Arsinoe extracted “Violet of Juno.” Shakspeare, calls these
favourite flowers
“Violets dim,
But sweeter than the lids of Juno’s eyes,
Or Cytherea’s breath.”--_Winter’s Tale._
In all eastern countries, the Violet is a favourite flower, and a
sherbet flavoured with its blossoms is a common drink at Persian
and Arabian banquets. So delicious is this beverage, that Tavernier
specially remembers that it is drunk by the Grand Seignior himself.
There is a legend, that Mahomet once remarked: “The excellence of the
extract of Violets above all other extracts is as the excellence of
me above all the rest of the creation: it is cold in Summer, and it
is hot in Winter.” Another Oriental saying is, “The excellence of the
Violet is as the excellence of El Islam above all other religions.”--At
the floral games, instituted at Toulouse by Clemence Isaure in the
early part of the fourteenth century, in the time of the Troubadours,
the prize awarded to the author of the best poetical composition
consisted of a golden Violet. The fair founder of these games is
stated, whilst undergoing a weary imprisonment, to have sent her chosen
flower, the Violet, to her knight, that he might wear the emblem of
her constancy; and the flower thus became, with the Troubadours, a
symbol of this virtue. These floral games are still celebrated every
year.----Along with other flowers, the Violet was assigned by the
ancients to Venus.----It is said that Proserpine was gathering Violets
as well as Narcissus when she was seized by Pluto.----The Athenians
more especially affected the Violet; everywhere throughout the city
of Athens they set up tablets engraven with the name, and preferred
for themselves above all other names, that of “Athenian crowned with
Violets.” The Romans, also, were extremely partial to the Violet, and
cultivated it largely in their gardens. A favourite beverage of theirs
was a wine made from the flower.----The Violet was, in olden days,
regarded in England as an emblem of constancy, as we find by an old
sonnet:--
“Violet is for faithfulnesse,
Which in me shall abide;
Hoping likewise that from your heart
You will not let it slide.”
The Violet is considered to be a funeral flower, and we find that in
mediæval times it was among the flowers used in the old ceremony called
“Creeping to the Crosse,” when on Good Friday priests clad in crimson,
and “singing dolefully,” carried the image of the Cross, accompanied by
another image representing a person just dead--
“With tapers all the people come,
And at the barriers stay,
Where down upon their knees they fall,
And night and day they pray;
And Violets and ev’ry kind
Of flowers about the grave
They strawe, and bring in all
The presents that they have.”
It was formerly commonly believed in England that when Violets and
Roses flourished in Autumn, there would be some epidemic in the ensuing
year. In Worcestershire, the safety of the farmer’s young broods of
chickens and ducks is thought to be sadly endangered by anyone taking
less than a handful of Violets or Primroses into his house.----Pliny
had so high an opinion of the medicinal virtues of the Violet, as
to assert that a garland of Violets worn about the head prevented
headache or dizziness. In the time of Charles II., a conserve, called
Violet-sugar or Violet-plate, was recommended by physicians to
consumptive patients.----The Violet has always been in high favour with
the French, and is now the recognised badge of the Imperial party.
The flower became identified with the Bonapartists during Napoleon
the First’s exile at Elba. When about to depart for that island, he
comforted his adherents by promising to return with the Violets:--
“Farewell to thee, France! but when liberty rallies
Once more in thy regions, remember me then;
The Violet grows in the depths of thy valleys,
Though withered, thy tears will unfold it again.”--_Byron._
His followers, perhaps remembering that “Violet is for faithfulness,”
henceforth adopted the flower as their badge, and during his exile were
accustomed to toast his health under the name of Caporal Violette, or
“the flower that returns with the Spring.” So well understood did the
political significance of the flower become, that when Mddle. Mars
appeared on the stage wearing Violets on her dress, she was loudly
hissed by the body-guard of King Louis. It is said that the Empress
Eugénie, when wooed by Napoleon III., signified her willingness to
share with him the throne of France by appearing one evening wearing
Violets in her dress and hair, and carrying Violets in her hands.
Afterwards, when living at Chiselhurst, Violet bouquets were sent in
profusion to the Imperial exiles, and, mingled with immortelles, were
piled upon the tomb of Napoleon III.----The famous actress, Clairon,
was so fond of the Violet, that one of her worshippers took pains to
cultivate it for her sake, and for thirty-seven years never failed to
send her a bouquet of Violets every morning during their season of
bloom; an offering so greatly appreciated by its recipient, that she
used to strip off the petals every evening, make an infusion of them,
and drink it like tea.----To dream of admiring the Violet in a garden
is deemed a prognostic of advancement in life.----By astrologers the
Violet is held to be under the dominion of Venus.
=VIPER’S BUGLOSS.=--The _Echium vulgare_, or Viper’s Bugloss, is one
of the handsomest of English wild flowers. Its seed resembling the
head of the viper, it was supposed on the doctrine of signatures to
cure the bite of that reptile: whilst its spotted stem indicated to
the old herbalists and simplers that the plant was specially created
to counteract the poison of speckled vipers and snakes. Dioscorides
affirmed that anyone who had taken the herb before being bitten would
not be hurt by the poison of any serpent. The French call it _la
Vipérine_, and the Italians _Viperina_.----In England it is also known
as Snake’s Bugloss and Cat’s Tail.----According to astrologers, the
Viper’s Bugloss is a herb of the Sun.
=VIPER’S GRASS.=--_Scorzonera edulis_ has obtained its Latin name
from the Italian _Scorzone_, a venomous serpent whose bite the grass
is supposed to heal, and whose form its twisted roots are thought
to resemble. According to Monardus, a Spanish physician, quoted by
Parkinson, the English name of Viper’s Grass was given to it because “a
Moor, a bond-slave, did help those that were bitten of that venomous
beast, the viper, which they of Catalonia called _Escuerso_, with the
juice of this herbe, which both took away the poison, and healed the
bitten place very quickly, when Treakle and other things would do no
good.”
VIRGIN MARY’S PLANTS.--See Lady’s Plants.
VIRGIN’S BOWER.--See Clematis.
WAKE ROBIN.--See Arum.
=WALLFLOWER.=--The Wallflower (_Cheiranthus Cheiri_) belongs to the
family of Stocks, and was, in fact, introduced from Spain under the
name of Wall Stock-Gillofer, which afterwards became Wall Gilliflower,
and finally Wallflower. In Turner’s ‘Herbal,’ it is called Wall-Gelover
and Hartis Ease.----Tradition gives a poetical origin to this flower.
It tells that, in bygone days, a castle stood near the river Tweed,
in which a fair maiden was kept a prisoner, having plighted her troth
and given her heart’s affection to the young heir of a hostile clan;
but blood having been shed between the chiefs on either side, the
deadly hatred cherished in those lawless days forbade all thoughts of
the union. The gallant tried various stratagems to get possession of
his betrothed, all of which failed, until at last he gained admission
to the castle disguised in the garb of a wandering troubadour, and as
such he sang before his lady-love, and finally arranged, with the aid
of a serving-woman, that the maiden should effect her escape, while he
should await her arrival with a noble courser and armed men. Herrick
tells us the conclusion of the story in the following lines:--
“Up she got upon a wall,
Attempted down to slide withal.
But the silken twist untied,
So she fell and, bruised, she died.
Love in pity of the deed,
And her loving luckless speed,
Turn’d her to this plant we call
Now the Flower of the Wall.”
From the fact that Wallflowers grew upon old walls, and were seen on
the casements and battlements of ancient castles, and among the ruins
of abbeys, the minstrels and troubadours were accustomed to wear a
bouquet of these flowers as the emblem of an affection which is proof
against time and misfortune.----Dreams of Wallflowers imply--to a lover
that the object of his affection will be true and constant; to a sickly
person that recovery will shortly follow; to a lady who dreams that
she is plucking the flower for her bouquet, that the worthiest of her
admirers has yet to propose to her.----According to astrologers, the
Moon governs the Wallflower.
=WALNUT.=--The origin of the Walnut-tree is to be found in the story of
Carya, the youngest of the three daughters of Dion, king of Laconia.
These sisters had received the gift of prophecy from Apollo as a reward
for the hospitality their father had shown to the god, but on the
condition that they were never to misuse the divine gift, and never to
enquire into matters of which it became their sex to remain ignorant.
This promise was broken when Bacchus convinced Carya of his love for
her. The elder sisters, being jealous, endeavoured to prevent Bacchus
from meeting Carya, and he in revenge turned them into stones, and
transformed his beloved Carya into the tree so called in Greek--the
_Nux_, or Walnut-tree of the Latins, the fruit of which was considered
by the ancients, in consequence of these intrigues, to promote the
powers of love.----It is necessary, in considering the folk-lore of the
Walnut, to separate the tree from the nut. The tree is feared as a tree
of ill omen, and is regarded as a favourite haunt of witches. The shade
of the Walnut-tree was held by the Romans to be particularly baneful.
The Black Walnut will not let anything grow under it, and if planted in
an orchard will kill all the Apple-trees in its neighbourhood. The Nut
is, on the contrary, considered propitious, favourable to marriage, and
the symbol of fecundity and abundance. The ceremony of throwing Nuts at
a wedding, for which boys scrambled, is said to have been of Athenian
origin. A similar custom obtained among the Romans, at whose marriage
festivities Walnuts were commonly strewed. Catullus exclaims:--
“Let the air with Hymen ring
Hymen, Io Hymen, sing.
Soon the Nuts will now be flung;
Soon the wanton verses sung;
Soon the bridegroom will be told
Of the tricks he played of old.
License then his love had got,
But a husband has it not:
Let the air with Hymen ring,
Hymen, Io Hymen, sing.”--_Leigh Hunt._
Virgil alludes to the custom of scrambling for Nuts at weddings, in his
Eighth Pastoral:--
“Prepare the lights
O Mopsus! and perform the bridal rites;
Scatter thy Nuts among the scrambling boys.”
Prof. De Gubernatis says, that the young bridegroom of modern Rome
throws Nuts on the pathway, evidently as a symbol of fecundity.
In Piedmont, there is a saying that “Bread and Nuts are food for
married people.” In Sicily, at Modica, they strew Nuts and Corn
in the path of the newly-married couple. In Greece, the bride and
bridegroom distribute Nuts among those assisting at the marriage
rites. In Roumania, Nuts are distributed at weddings; and among
the Lettish peasantry, Nuts and Gingerbread-Nuts are presented to
wedding-guests.----A Lithuanian legend recounts that at the deluge, as
men were being drowned, Perkun (the chief deity of the race) was eating
Nuts. He dropped the shells in the raging waters, and in the shells
certain virtuous people escaped, and afterward repeopled the earth. De
Gubernatis, referring to this legend, says that here the Walnut becomes
undoubtedly an emblem of regeneration: “This is the reason why, in
Belgium, on Michaelmas Day (a funereal day), young girls take marriage
auguries from Nuts. Having mingled some full Nuts with others which
have been emptied, and the shells carefully fastened together again,
they shut their eyes, and select one at hazard. If it happens to be
a full Nut, it betokens that they will soon be happily married, for
it is St. Michael who has given them good husbands.” In Italy, a Nut
with three segments is considered most lucky. Carried in the pocket,
it preserves its owner from lightning, witchcraft, the Evil Eye, and
fever; it facilitates conquest, gives happiness, and performs other
benign services. In Bologna, it is thought that if one of these Nuts
be placed under the chair of a witch, she will be unable to get up;
and it thus becomes an infallible means of discovering witches.----The
Walnut has become in Europe, and especially in Italy, an accursed
tree. The ancients thought it was dear to Proserpine and all the
deities of the infernal regions. In Germany, the Black Walnut is
regarded as a sinister tree, just as the Oak is looked upon as a tree
of good omen.----At Rome, there is a tradition that the church Santa
Maria del Popolo was built by order of Paschal II., on the spot where
formerly grew a Walnut-tree, round which troops of demons danced during
the night. Near Prescia, in Tuscany, we are told by Prof. Giuliani,
there is a Walnut-tree where witches are popularly supposed to sleep:
the people of the district say that witches love Walnut-trees. At
Bologna, the peasantry think that witches hold a nocturnal meeting
beneath the Walnut-trees on the Vigil of St. John. But among all other
Walnut-trees, the most infamous and the most accursed is the Walnut of
Benevento, regarding which there are many tales of its being haunted
by the Devil and witches. It is said that St. Barbatus, the patron of
Benevento, who lived in the time of Duke Romuald, was a priest who
was endowed with the power of exorcising devils by his prayers. At
that time the inhabitants still worshipped a Walnut-tree on which was
to be distinguished the effigy of a viper, and beneath this tree the
people performed many superstitious and heathenish rites. The Emperor
Constantius laid siege to Benevento; the citizens were in despair,
but Barbatus rebuked them, and persuaded them that God had taken this
means to punish them for their idolatry; so, with Romuald, they agreed
to be converted to Christianity, and made Barbatus bishop of the town.
Then Barbatus uprooted the accursed Walnut-tree, and the Devil was
seen in the form of a serpent crawling away from beneath its roots.
Upon being sprinkled with holy water, however, he disappeared; but
through his satanic power, whenever a meeting of demons is desired,
or a witches’ sabbath is to be held, a Walnut-tree as large and as
verdant as the original appears by magic on the precise spot where it
stood.----A Walnut-tree with very different associations once grew in
the churchyard on the north side of St. Joseph’s Chapel at Glastonbury.
This miraculous tree never budded before the feast of St. Barnabas
(June 11th), and on that very day shot forth leaves and flourished
like others of its species. Queen Anne, King James and many high
personages are said to have given large sums of money for cuttings from
the original tree, which has long since disappeared, and has been
succeeded by a fine Walnut of the ordinary sort.----According to an old
custom (which at one time prevailed in England), every household in the
district of Lechrain, in Bavaria, brings to the sacred fire which is
lighted at Easter a Walnut-branch, which, after being partially burned,
is carried home to be laid on the hearth-fire during tempests, as a
protection against lightning.----In Flanders, as a charm against ague,
the patient catches a large black spider, and imprisons it between the
two halves of a Walnut-shell, and then wears it round his neck.----In
our own land, it is a common belief among country people that whipping
a Walnut-tree tends to increase the crop and improve the flavour of the
Nuts. This belief is found embodied in the following curious distich:--
“A woman, a spaniel, and a Walnut-tree,
The more you whip them, the better they be.”
Evelyn, alluding to this custom, says it is thought better to beat
the Nuts off than to gather them from the tree by hand. “In Italy,”
he tells us, “they arm the tops of long poles with nails and iron for
the purpose, and believe the beating improves the tree, which I no
more believe than I do that discipline would reform a shrew.”----The
Brahmans of the Himalaya observe a festival called the Walnut Festival,
_Akrot-ka-pooja_, at which, after offering a sacrifice, the priest,
with a few companions, takes his place in the balcony of the temple,
and all the young men present pelt them liberally with Walnuts and
green Pine-cones, which the group in the balcony rapidly collect
and return in plentiful volleys.----To dream of Walnuts portends
difficulties and misfortunes in life: in love affairs, such a vision
implies infidelity and disappointment.
WATER LILY.--See Nymphæa.
WAYBREAD.--See Plantain.
=WHORTLEBERRY.=--Whort or Whortleberry (the Anglo-Saxon _Heorutberge_
is another name for the Bilberry or Blaeberry, (_Vaccinium Myrtillus_).
A species of Whortleberry, called Ohelo (_Vaccinium reticulatum_), is
found in Hawaii, springing up from the decomposed lava of the volcanoes
of that island. Its flame-coloured berries are sacred to Pélé, the
goddess of the volcano, and in heathen days no Hawaiian dared taste
one till he had offered some to the goddess, and craved her permission
to eat them. Miss Gordon Cumming relates that when Mr. Ellis visited
the island in 1822, he and his trusty friends rejoiced on discovering
these large juicy berries, but the natives implored them not to touch
them lest some dire calamity should follow. Though themselves faint and
parched, they dared not touch one till they reached the edge of the
crater, where, gathering branches loaded with the tempting clusters,
they broke them in two, and throwing half over the precipice, they
called Pélé’s attention to the offering, and to the fact that they
craved her permission to eat of her _Ohelos_. (See also BILBERRY.)
=WIDOW’S FLOWER.=--The Indian or Sweet Scabious (_Scabiosa
atropurpurea_) is called by the Italians _Fior della Vedova_, and by
the French _Fleur de Veuve_, or Widow’s Flower. Phillips says of these
flowers that they present us with “corollas of so dark a purple, that
they nearly match the sable hue of the widow’s weeds; these being
contrasted with anthers of pure white gives the idea of its being an
appropriate bouquet for those who mourn for their deceased husbands,
and this we presume gave rise to the Italian and French name of Widow’s
Flower.”
=WILLOW.=--The Willow seems from the remotest times to have been
considered a funereal tree and an emblem of grief. So universal is
the association of sadness and grief with the Willow, that “to wear
the Willow” has become a familiar proverb. Under Willows the captive
Children of Israel wept and mourned in Babylon. Fuller, referring to
this melancholy episode in their history, says of the Willow:--“A
sad tree, whereof such as have lost their love make their mourning
garlands; and we know that exiles hung their harps on such doleful
supports. The very leaves of the Willow are of a mournful hue.” Virgil
remarks on
“The Willow with hoary bluish leaves;”
and Shakspeare, when describing the scene of poor Ophelia’s death,
says:--
“There is a Willow grows ascant the brook,
That shows his hoar leaves in the grassy stream.”
Chatterton has a song of which the burden runs:--
“Mie love ys dedde,
Gone to his death-bedde
Al under the Wyllowe-tree.”
Spenser designates the gruesome tree as “the Willow worn of forlorn
paramours;” and there are several songs in which despairing lovers
invoke the Willow-tree.
“Ah, Willow, Willow!
The Willow shall be
A garland for me,
Ah, Willow! Willow.”
Herrick tells us how garlands of Willow were worn by neglected or
bereaved lovers, and how love-sick youths and maids came to weep out
the night beneath the Willow’s cold shade. The following wail of a
heart-broken lover is also from the pen of the old poet:--
“A Willow garland thou did’st send
Perfumed, last day, to me,
Which did but only this portend--
I was forsook by thee.
Since it is so, I’ll tell thee what:
To-morrow thou shalt see
Me wear the Willow; after that,
To die upon the tree.
As hearts unto the altars go,
With garlands dressed, so I,
With my Willow-wreath, also
Come forth and sweetly die.”
Jason, in his voyage in search of the golden fleece, passed the weird
grove of Circe, planted with funereal Willows, on the tops of which the
voyagers could perceive corpses hanging. Pausanias speaks of a grove
consecrated to Proserpine, planted with Black Poplars and Willows; and
the same author represents Orpheus, whilst in the infernal regions, as
carrying a Willow-branch in his hand. Shakspeare, in allusion to Dido’s
being forsaken by Æneas, says:--
“In such a night,
Stood Dido, with a Willow in her hand,
Upon the wild sea-banks, and waved her love
To come again to Carthage.”
The Willow was considered to be the tree of Saturn. The Weeping Willow
(_Salix Babylonica_), as being a remedy for fluxes, was, however,
consecrated to Juno Fluonia, who was invoked by Roman matrons to stop
excessive hemorrhage.----The Flemish peasantry have a curious custom
to charm away the ague. The sufferer goes early in the morning to an
old Willow, makes three knots in one of its branches, and says “Good
morning Old One; I give thee the cold, Old One.”----The Willow wand
has long been a favourite instrument of divination. The directions
are as follows:--Let a maiden take a Willow-branch in her left hand,
and, without being observed, slip out of the house and run three times
round it, whispering all the time, “He that’s to be my gude man come
and grip the end of it.” During the third run, the likeness of her
future husband will appear and grasp the other end of the wand.----De
Gubernatis says that at Brie (Ile-de-France), on St. John’s Eve, the
people burn a figure made of Willow-boughs. At Luchon, on the same
anniversary, they throw snakes on a huge effigy of a Willow-tree made
with branches of Willow; this is set on fire, and while it is burning
the people dance around the tree.----In China, the Willow is employed
in their funeral rites, the tree having been there considered, from
the remotest ages, to be a symbol of immortality and eternity. On
this account they cover the coffin with branches of Willow, and plant
Willows near the tombs of the departed. They also have a custom of
decorating the doors of their houses with Willow-branches on Midsummer
Day. With them the Willow is supposed to be possessed of marvellous
properties, amongst which is the power of averting the ill effects of
miasma and pestilential disorders.----To dream of mourning beneath a
Willow over some calamity is considered a happy omen, implying the
speedy receipt of intelligence that will cause much satisfaction.----By
astrologers the Willow is placed under the dominion of the moon.
WIND FLOWER.--See Anemone.
WITCH-HAZEL.--See Hornbeam. WITCH- or WYCH-ELM, _Ulmus montana_.
WOLF’S BANE.--See Monk’s Hood.
WOODBINE.--See Honeysuckle.
=WORMWOOD.=--The old Latin name of Wormwood was _Absinthium_, and
a variety known as _A. Ponticum_ is alluded to by Ovid as being
particularly bitter:--
“Untilled barren ground the loathsome Wormwood yields,
And well ’tis known how, through its root, bitter become the fields.”
Johnston, in his _Thaumatographia naturalis_, notes a curious
superstition, according to which we are assured that an infant will
not during its life be either hot or cold provided that its hands are
rubbed over with the juice of Wormwood before the twelfth week of its
life has expired. The ancients mingled Wormwood in their luscious
wines, or used it before or after drinking them in order to counteract
their effects. Sprays of Wormwood are often seen suspended in cottages
to drive away moths and other insects.
“Where chamber is sweeped, and Wormwood is throwne,
No flea for his life dare abide to be knowne.”
Its powerful odour is so disliked by all kinds of insects that
country people often place Wormwood in their drawers to protect
their clothes, &c., from moths: hence its French name, _Garde-robe_.
Gerarde says that, mixed with vinegar, it is a good antidote to the
poison of Mushrooms or Toadstools, and taken with wine counteracts
the poisonous effects of Hemlock and the bites of the shrew mouse
and sea dragon.----Branches of Sea Wormwood (_Absinthium marinum_)
were, according to Pliny, carried in processions by Egyptian priests
dedicated to the service of the goddess Isis. A species called
_Sementina_ was formerly called Holy Wormwood, and its seed Holy
Wormseed (_semen sanctum_)--for what reason is not known.----Dreams
connected with Wormwood are considered of good augury, implying
happiness and domestic enjoyment. Astrologers adjudge Wormwood to be a
herb of Mars.
=YARROW.=--The Yarrow, or Milfoil (_Achillea Millefolium_), is a
plant which delights to find a home for itself in churchyards.
Probably on account of this peculiarity it has been selected to play
an important part in several rustic incantations and charms. In the
South and West of England, damsels resort to the following mode of
love-divination:--The girl must first pluck some Yarrow from a young
man’s grave, repeating the while these words:--
“Yarrow, sweet Yarrow, the first that I have found,
In the name of Jesus Christ I pluck it from the ground;
As Jesus loved sweet Mary, and took her for His dear,
So in a dream this night, I hope my true love will appear.”
She must then sleep with the Yarrow under her pillow, and in her dreams
her future husband will appear.----Another formula states: The Yarrow
must be plucked exactly on the first hour of morn: place three sprigs
in your shoe or glove, saying:--
“Good morning, good morning, good Yarrow,
And thrice good morning to thee;
Tell me, before this time to-morrow,
Who my true love is to be.”
Observe, a young man must pluck the Yarrow off a young maiden’s grave,
and a female must select that off a bachelor’s. Retire home to bed
without speaking another word, or it dissolves the spell; put the
Yarrow under your pillow, and it will procure a sure dream on which
you may depend.----In another spell to procure for a maiden a dream of
the future, she is to make a posey of various coloured flowers, one
of a sort, some Yarrow off a grave, and a sprig of Rue, and bind all
together with a little hair from her head. She is then to sprinkle the
nosegay with a few drops of the oil of amber, using her left hand,
and bind the flowers round her head when she retires to rest in a bed
supplied with clean linen. This spell it is stated will ensure the
maid’s future fate to appear in a dream.----The Yarrow acquired the
name of Nosebleed from its having been put into the nose to cause
bleeding, and to cure the megrim, as we learn from Gerarde. Dr. Prior
adds, that it was also called Nosebleed from its being used as a means
of testing a lover’s fidelity, and he quotes from Forby, who, in his
‘East Anglia,’ says that, in that part of England, a girl will tickle
the inside of the nostril with a leaf of this plant, crying:--
“Yarroway, Yarroway, bear a white blow;
If my love love me, my nose will bleed now.”
By a blunder of the mediæval herbalists, the name and remedial
character of the Horse-tail, which was formerly called _Herba
sanguinaria_ and Nosebleed, were transferred without reason to the
Yarrow, which has since retained them.----The Yarrow is also known as
Old Man’s Pepper, and was formerly called the Souldier’s Woundwort. The
Highlanders make an ointment from it; and it was similarly employed
by the ancient Greeks, who said that Achilles first made use of this
plant as a wound herb, having learnt its virtues of Chiron, the
Centaur--hence its scientific name _Achillea_.----Astrologers place
the herb under the dominion of Venus.----To dream of gathering Yarrow
for medicinal purposes denotes that the dreamer will shortly hear of
something that will give him or her extreme pleasure.
=YEW.=--The dark and sombre Yew-tree has from the remote past been
invested with an essentially funereal character, and hence is
appropriately found in the shade of churchyards and in propinquity to
tombs. Blair, addressing himself to the grave, says:--
“Well do I know thee by thy trusty Yew,
Cheerless, unsocial plant, that loves to dwell
’Midst skulls and coffins, epitaphs, and worms;
Where light-heeled ghosts, and visionary shades,
Beneath the wan cold moon (so fame reports),
Embody’d, thick, perform their mystic rounds.
No other merriment, dull tree, is thine.”
The Egyptians regarded it as a symbol of mourning, and the idea
descended to the Greeks and Romans, who employed the wood as fuel for
their funeral pyres. The Britons probably learned from the Romans to
attach a funereal signification to the Yew, and inasmuch as it had
been employed in ancient funeral rites, they regarded the tree with
reverence and probably looked upon it as sacred. Hence, in course of
time, the Yew came to be planted in churchyards, and, on account of its
perpetual verdure, was, like the Cypress, considered as a symbol of the
resurrection and immortality.
“Dark Cypresses the skirting sides adorned,
And gloomy Yew-trees, which for ever mourned.”--_Harte._
R. Turner remarks that if the Yew “be set in a place subject to
poysonous vapours, the very branches will draw and imbibe them: hence
it is conceived that the judicious in former times planted it in
churchyards on the west side, because those places being fuller of
putrefaction and gross oleaginous vapours exhaled out of the graves by
the setting sun, and sometimes drawn into those meteors called _ignes
fatui_, divers have been frightened, supposing some dead bodies to
walk; others have been blasted, &c.” Prof. Martyn points out that a
Yew was evidently planted near the church for some religious purpose;
for in the ancient laws of Wales the value of a _consecrated_ Yew is
set down as £1, whilst that of an ordinary Yew-tree is stated as only
fifteen pence. “Our forefathers,” says he, “were particularly careful
to preserve this funereal tree, whose branches it was usual to carry in
solemn procession to the grave, and afterwards to deposit therein under
the bodies of their departed friends. Our learned Ray says, that our
ancestors planted the Yew in churchyards because it was an evergreen
tree, as a symbol of that immortality which they hoped and expected
for the persons there deposited. For the same reason this and other
evergreen trees are even yet carried in funerals, and thrown into the
grave with the body; in some parts of England and in Wales, planted
with flowers upon the grave itself.” Shakspeare speaks of a “shroud
of white, stuck all with Yew,” from which one would infer that sprigs
of Yew were placed on corpses before burial. Branches of Yew were, in
olden times, often carried in procession on Palm Sunday, instead of
Palm, and as an evergreen Yew was sometimes used to decorate churches
and houses at Christmas-time.----Parkinson remarks that in his time it
was used “to deck up houses in Winter; but ancient writers have ever
reckoned it to be dangerous at the least, if not deadly.” Many of the
old writers were of Parkinson’s opinion as to the poisonous character
of the Yew. Cæsar tells how Cativulcus, king of the Eburones, poisoned
himself by drinking a draught of Yew. Dioscorides says that a decoction
of the leaves occasions death; Galen pronounces the tree to be of a
venomous quality and against man’s nature; and White, in his ‘History
of Selborne,’ gives numerous instances in which the Yew has proved
fatal to animals. Gerarde does not consider the berries poisonous, but
thinks non-ruminating animals are injured by eating the foliage. He
tells us that “Nicander, in his booke of counter-poisons, doth reckon
the Yew-tree among the venomous plants, setting downe also a remedy,
and that in these words, as Gorræus hath translated them:--
‘Shun the poys’nous Yew, the which on Oeata grows,
Like to the Firre, it causes bitter death,
Unlesse besides they use pure wine that flowes
From empty’d cups, thou drinke, when as thy breath
Begins to fade, and passage of thy life
Grows straight.’”
Virgil attributed the notoriously unwholesome qualities of the honey of
Corsica to the bees feeding upon the Yew, and he warns bee-keepers to
be careful that no Yew-trees grow near their hives. Owing to its being
so frequently found in churchyards, a ghastly superstition has arisen
respecting this sinister tree: it is said that it preys and invigorates
itself upon the dead who lie beneath its sombre shade. Thus, in ‘_In
Memoriam_,’ we read:--
“Old Yew, which graspest at the stones
That name the underlying dead,
Thy fibres net the dreamless head,
Thy roots are wrapt about the bones.”
Even in the principal use the Yew was put to, the tree maintained its
connection with death, for from its wood man fashioned an instrument
of warfare and destruction. Its great pliancy and toughness made it
particularly suitable for bows, and for this purpose it was unrivalled.
Virgil tells us that in his time “the Yews were bent into Ituræan
bows”; Chaucer speaks of “the Shooter Yew;” and Browne writes of
“The warlike Yewgh by which more than the lance
The strong-armed English spirits conquered France.”
Camden has recorded a grim legend in connection with the name of
Halifax. It seems that a certain amorous clergyman fell in love with
a pretty maid who refused his addresses. Maddened by her refusal he
cut off her head, which being hung upon a Yew-tree till it was quite
decayed, the tree was reputed as sacred, not only whilst the virgin’s
head hung on it, but as long as the tree itself lasted: to which the
people went in pilgrimage, plucking and bearing away branches of it
as a holy relique, whilst there remained any of the trunk; persuading
themselves that those small veins and filaments resembling hairs were
the hairs of the virgin. But what is yet stranger, the resort to
this place, then called Houton, a despicable village, occasioned the
building of the now famous town of Halifax, in Yorkshire, the name of
which imports “holy hair.”----In the cloister of Vreton, in Brittany,
there grew a Yew-tree which was said to have sprung from the staff of
St. Martin. Beneath it the Breton princes were accustomed to offer up
a prayer before entering the church. This tree was regarded with the
highest reverence; no one ever plucked a leaf from its sombre boughs,
and even the birds refrained from pecking the scarlet berries. A band
of pirates, however, happening to visit the locality, two of them
spied the tree, and forthwith climbed into its venerable boughs and
proceeded to cut bow-staves for themselves: their audacity speedily
brought about its own punishment, for they both fell and were killed
on the spot.----Both in old Celtic and in Anglo-Saxon the Yew-tree was
called _Iw_. By early English authors its name was variously spelt
Yew, Yeugh, Ewgh, Ugh, and Ewe. In Switzerland, it is known as William
Tell’s Tree.----Dream oracles state that there is but one signification
to dreams concerning the Yew, viz., that it is the certain forerunner
of the demise of an aged person, through which the dreamer will derive
substantial benefits.
=YGGDRASILL.=--The mythical Scandinavian World-tree, or Mundane Ash,
is the greatest and best of all trees: beneath it the gods assemble
in counsel; its branches spread over the whole world and reach above
heaven; and its roots penetrate to the infernal regions. On its summit
is perched an all-seeing eagle, with a hawk between his eyes. A
squirrel continually carries news to him, while serpents coiled round
the vast trunk endeavour to destroy him. Serpents, also, constantly
gnaw the roots, from which come the fountains of wisdom and futurity.
The Norns always keep a watch upon the Yggdrasill: they fix the
lifetime of all men, and dispense destinies. Under the tree is hidden
the horn which shall be sounded and rouse the world at the last great
conflict.
[Tailpiece]
[Headpiece]
Index to Legends and Myths.
Acis and Galatea, 532
Adam, Eve, the Wolf, and the Dog, 362
Adam’s Tree, 303
Ajax, 404
Albertus Magnus, 133
Ali Baba and the Sesame, 544
Amaracus, 433
Amaranthus, 212
Andromeda, 214
Arabian Priests and Cinnamon, 283
Argonauts, 81, 249
Arjuna, the Betel Thief, 251
Aroth, Maroth, and the Beauty, 577
Aspen and the Flight into Egypt, 230
„ „ Passion, 229
Aspic and Balm-tree, 239
Asses and Hemlock, 145
Atalanta and Hippomenes, 218
Atys and Agdistis, 210
„ „ Cybele, 495
Baldr and the Mistletoe, 440
Balm Trees of Cairo, 124
Bachelier and the Anemone, 216
Bacchus and the Pomegranate, 499
Batou and the Cedar, 275
Bertram and the Heartsease, 484
Birth of Vishnu, 241
Blacksmith changed to a Bear, 250
Bonze and the Mouse, 513
Bosworth Field, 360
Buddha, 4, 420, 491
„ and Mâra, 4
Bushman Rice, 514
Callimachus and the Acanthus, 206
Calchas and Mopsus, 335
Ceres and Proserpine, 504
Chang Ching and the Fairy, 449
Charlemagne and the Thistle, 269
Chinese Trees of Love, 274
Clairon and the Violets, 581
Clovis, 387
Clytie and Phœbus, 365
Cosmogonic Lotus, 419
Cossacks and Tartars, 286
Crocus and Smilax, 299
Crown Imperial, 347
Cyanus and the Cornflower, 277
Cyparissus, 302
Czekanka, 326
Danes and the Thistle, 562
Daphne and Phœbus, 404
Daughter of the Laurel, 408
Death of Buddha, 539
Devil and Blackberries, 258
„ „ the Oats, 472
„ „ the Reed, 512
Devil’s Brother, 451
Dewadat and Buddha, 268
Diarmuid and Grainne, 531
Duke of Tuscany’s Gardener, 392
Dryope, 417
Earl of Essex’s Horses, 445
Elm of Ethiopia, 131
Emperor of China, 447
Envious Sisters, 436
Erisichthon, 77
Esthonian Peasant, 254
Eugénie and Napoleon III., 581
Eve and the Snowdrop, 546
Fairy Wife, 356
„ Widower, 333
Faithful Wife, 551
Falcon and Soma, 439
Fatal Elopement, 582
Father Garnet’s Straw, 134
Fig of Paradise, 127
Fir-tree Elf, 65
First Roses, 515
Flora and Zephyr, 215
Forget-me-not, 342
Fulke and the Plantagenets, 260
Garden of the Lower Regions, 223
Gefroi and the Broom, 260
Glastonbury Thorn, 352
Glaucus, 541
Golden Apples, 477
Grey Horse, 265
Hanpang and Ho, 274
Hercules and Cerberus, 442
Holy Family and Date Palm, 312
„ Rose of Jericho, 528
Honor Garrigan and the Blackberries, 259
Hoopoe and Springwort, 142
Hop-o’-my-Thumb, 263
Hulda and the Selige Fräulein, 340
Hyacinthus, 383
Ianthis, 578
Ice Mountain, 223
Iduna and the Apples, 217
Indra and Namuchi, 207
Io, 578
Iosbert, 519
Isabella and the Basil, 246
Iseult and Tristan, 389
Isis and Osiris, 560
James, Duke of Monmouth, 257
Jehanghir and Attar of Roses, 521
Jesus Christ and the Broom, 260
„ „ „ Apples, 222
Juno and Hercules, 397, 412
Jussieu and the Cedar, 274
Kang Wou and the Cassia, 271
Khatties, The, 116
King Midas and the Barber, 511
„ Oswald and the Moss, 445
Kissos, 388
La Cour and the Tuberose, 568
Ladislas and the Plague, 350
Laurel Maiden, 75
Leucothea, 346
Lieschi, the Geni of the Forest, 253
Life-giving Herb, 144
Lords of Linden, 416
Lotus and Priapus, 417
Luckflower, 112
Lycurgus and the Cabbage, 264
Macbeth and Sweno, 546
Magic Fern-seed, 330
„ Flute, 431
„ Mustard-seed, 453
„ Pumpkin, 507
„ Thistle, 562
„ Violin-bow, 81
Main de Gloire, 428
Malvina and Oscar, 308
Mandrake, 426
Maria Theresa and the Camellia, 266
Maschia and Maschiäna, 301
McDonough’s Baby, 361
Melampus and Hellebore, 368
Melius and the Apple, 218
Mercury and his Rod, 362
Mexican Water Age, 435
Mignonette, 437
Milkmaid and Enchanted Cow, 288
Millet-thief, 438
Milto, 518
Minerva and the Olive, 473
Monastery of St. Christine, 257
Murdered Virgin, 591
Myrene, 454
Myrrha, 453
Narcissus, 457
Novice and the Styrax, 131
Oak of Signa, 469
Olive-bearing Birds, 143
Ominous Red Rose, 199
Orchis and Acolasia, 478
Origin of the Tea-shrub, 561
Orpheus and the Elms, 323
Osmund and the Danes, 479
Pæon and Æsculapius, 493
Pæonia and Phœbus, 493
Parizataco, 534
Pales and the Fishermen, 209
Pelops and Myrtillus, 252
Pélé, Goddess of the Volcano, 585
Perkun and the Deluge, 583
Phaethon and the Heliades, 502
Philemon and Baucis, 414
Phyllis and Demophoon, 210
Picts and Heather Beer, 365
Pilgrim and the Palm, 481
Polydorus and Polymnestor, 295
Postomani, 505
Prophetic Trees of Basle, 198
Proserpine and the Pomegranate, 500
Pyramus and Thisbe, 447
Pythagoras and the Beans, 247
Queen Christiania’s Diamonds, 213
„ of Sheba and Solomon, 18, 19, 303
„ of the Serpents, 451
Ranunculus, 510
Rhodanthe, 515
Rhœcus and Jupiter, 463
Rosa Marina, 527
Rose and the Sun, 516
„ Elf, 66
„ of Bakawali, 570
Rübezahl, 509
Russalka and Basilek, 278
Sacaibu and the First Men, 296
Santon Akyazli, 381
Sappho and Phaon, 327
Satan and the Eglantine, 317
Sâvitri, 65
Seth and the Angel, 18, 19
Seven Oaks, 471
„ Sisters, 324
Shepherd of Ilsenstein, 552
Shepherdess and the Oak, 468
Side, 500
Sister of the Flowers, 76
Sivika and the Magic Wheat, 293
Stone Tree, 126
St. Benedict and Antidotes to Poison, 374
St. Benedict and the Rose-briar, 525
St. Brigid, 468
St. Cecilia, 133
St. Christopher, 482
St. Dorothea, 133, 222
St. Dunstan and the Devil, 223
St. Dunstan and the Apple-trees, 223
St. Elizabeth of Hungary, 133, 519
St. Francis of Assisi, 519
St. Leonard and the Dragon, 414
St. Margaret of Cortona, 432
St. Martin’s Yew, 591
St. Patrick and the Shamrock, 545
St. Peter’s Mother, 410
St. Rosa di Lima, 519
St. Serf, 219
St. Thomas and the Madonna, 413
St. Thomas and his Tree, 130
Syrinx and Pan, 559
Thlaspis, 268
Thorn of Cawdor Castle, 362
Titteli Ture, 555
Tree of Adam, 17, 19
„ „ Tiberias, 132
Trees and the Cross, 386
„ and the Crucifixion, 48
„ and their Monarch, 474
„ of the Sun and Moon, 123
Ulysses and the Lotos Eaters, 418
„ and the Moly, 442
Venus and Adonis, 214, 341, 411
„ „ the Rose, 516
„ „ the Violet Nymphs, 579
Venus’ Mirror, 267
Veronica, 550
Vertumnus and the Nymph, 307
Virgin Mary and St. John, 483
„ „ „ the Cherry-tree, 279
„ „ „ the Fig-tree, 558
„ „ „ the Juniper, 395
„ „ „ the Lupine, 423
„ „ „ the Orange-tree, 478
„ „ „ the Palm, 481
„ „ „ the Pine, 496
„ „ „ the Rosemary, 526
„ „ „ the Strawberry, 556
Walnut-tree of Benevento, 584
Wandering Jew, 238
Wang Chih and the Date-stone, 312
Watcher of the Roads, 325, 498
Water Lily of Paradise, 463
White Maidens of the Fichtelgebirge, 556
Wild Woman and the Shepherdess, 253
William the Conqueror, 533
Willow Nymph, 81
Witches and Alder Wood, 209
Withered Tree of the Sun, 130, 131
Wonderful Linden-tree, 415
Woodpecker and the Spring-wort, 141, 551
World of the Lower Regions, 577
Xerxes and the Plane-tree, 497
Zoroaster, 521
General Index.
Aaron, 130, 342, 501
Abraham, 20, 61, 561
Adam, 115, 240, 311, 335, 362, 456, 475, 501
Adam in Eden, 15
„ Tree of, 17, _et seq._
Africans, 80
All Saints’, or All Hallows’, Day, 60
Almanacks, 137, 167
Animal-bearing Tree, 210
Animals, 145, _et seq._
Annunciation, 56, 269
Anthropological Trees, 116
Antiochus Epiphanes, 27
Antony, 27, 517, 522
Apollo, 24, 295, 384, 481, 560
Apple Lore, 217
Argonauts, 81, 249, 408, 465
Arvales, 292, 335
Ascension Day, 58, 213
Asgard, 9
Asherah, 6
Asoka, 5, 229
Assyrians, 24, 346, 387
„ Sacred Tree of the, 6
Astrology, 164
Asvattha, 5, 236
Atalanta, 477
Augury by Birds, 138
Avalon, 9, 218, 490
Bacchus, 25, 388, 435, 496, 499, 517
Baldr, 24
Balm, 123, 124, 239
Barnacle Tree, 118
Barometz, 121, 243
Battle Field Flowers, 505, 524, 549
Bertha, 24, 40, 339
Bethlehem, 41, 43
Birds, 137, _et seq._
Black Dwarfs, 67
Bongos, 80
Brahma, 22, 106, 180, 252, 419
Bridal Floral Ceremonies, 33
Buddha, 4, 229, 241, 419, 490, 538
Buddhists, 4, 5, 22, 293, 300, 419, 490, 538, 539
Buddhists, World Tree of the, 4
Bujan, 10
Burial Customs, 194, 196, 497
Burmans, 22, 79, 268
Butterfly Tree, 121
Calumny-destroyer, 109
Calvary, 48, 228, 375, 479, 550
Candlemas Day, 256, 546
Centaurs, 25
Cerberus, 94
Ceremonies, Floral, 26, _et seq._
Ceres, 25, 292, 306, 455, 458, 500, 504
Chaldæans, 107, 113, 176, 294
Chaplets, 36
Charles II., 471
Charms and Spells, 96, 234, 259, 261, 287, 288, 309, 313, 318,
_et seq._, 327, 332, 339, 349, 357, 364, 368, 369, 370, 372, 377,
383, 396, 399, 400, 407, 417, 427, 431, 439, 442, 450, 460, 463,
489, 490, 493, 498, 506, 511, 512, 523, 527, 528, 530, 532, 537,
554, 564, 567, 573
Cheese-colouring, 249
Chinese, 23, 113, 117, 178, 226, 240, 241, 271, 289, 351, 425, 437,
459
Chiron, 25, 277
Christian Church, Plants of the, 40, 55, 57, 440, 533
Christmas, 44, 60, 377, 462
Christmas-tree, 337
Churchyards, 192, 590
Circe, 91, 94, 325, 358, 426
Cleopatra, 27, 517, 522
Coffins, 192
Corn Spirits, 81
Corpus Christi Day, 59
Corpus Domini Procession, 32
Cosmogonic Trees, 1-8
Cross Oaks, 61, 469
Cross, Wood of the, 46, 273, 304, 386, 471, 475, 483, 503, 530
Crown of Thorns, 44, 359, 377, 512, 524, 564
Crucifixion, 47, 374, 385, 479
Cruciform Flowers, 55, 180
Cuckoo, 137, 300
Cupid, 267, 305, 517, 579
Cybele, 24, 28, 292, 517
Danes, 310, 479, 546
David, 17, 303
Dead Sea Fruit, 124, 225
Dead, The, 193, 230, 246, 247, 248, 358, 488
Death Portents, 198
Deborah, 190, 464
Dedication, Feast of, 57
Demons, 4, 16, 80, 83, 279, 331, 336, 396, 451, 490, 534
Devil, Plants of the, 82, _et seq._, 332, 462, 472, 549
Dew, 30, 59
Diana, 24, 228, 440, 444
Dictionary of Flowers, 185
Disease-bearing Trees, 81, 97, 259, 386, 470
Distillatory Plant, 127
Divination by Plants, 52, 101, 108, 138, 188, 221, 231, 248, 258, 264,
290, 291, 294, 295, 309, 370, 377, 381, 383, 398, 446, 450, 462,
476, 479, 489, 498, 504, 506, 513, 522, 523, 527, 535, 537, 563
Divining Rod, 113, 354, 363, 501
Doctrine of Plant Signatures, 154, _et seq._
Dragons, 152, 314
Dream-procuring Plants, 102, 105, 107, 324
Dreams, 211, 225, 226, 249, 257, 260, 265, 271, 280, 288, 290, 295,
300, 301, 306, 308, 310, 322, 336, 337, 338, 349, 355, 357, 364,
372, 385, 392, 397, 408, 413, 429, 433, 436, 449, 452, 457, 460,
461, 463, 472, 473, 476, 477, 478, 483, 486, 490, 497, 499, 502,
508, 509, 510, 511, 512, 524, 527, 534, 559, 560, 563, 565, 571,
578, 581, 582, 585, 587, 588, 589, 592
Druids, 107, 113, 137, 181, 218, 250, 289, 441, 467, 529, 539, 542,
573
Dryads, 74, 307
Easter, 58, 486
Ecstasies, 105, 178, 371, 406
Eden, 11
Egyptians, 23, 26, 105, 181, 195, 215, 299, 346, 349, 371, 373, 387,
421, 459, 476, 485, 488, 553, 560
Eiresione, 31, 32
Elder Mother, 80, 318
„ Queen, 80, 318
Eleusinian Mysteries, 292
Elves, 64, _et seq._, 318, 470
Elysian Fields, 189, 457
Embalming, 178, 195
Eve, 15, 16, 18, 240, 362
Evil Eye, 91, 102, 108, 110, 212, 227, 253, 333, 357, 450, 509, 513,
529, 532
Fabulous, Wondrous, and Miraculous Plants, 116, _et seq._
Fairies, 50, 64, _et seq._, 264, 288, 333, 344, 356, 361, 526, 538, 566
Fairy Revels, 67
Fairy Plants, 69
„ Unguent, 71
Fates, The, 25, 385, 426, 458
Father Garnet’s Straw, 134, _et seq._
Fauns, 74, 497
Festaroli, 39
Festivals, Floral, 34
„ Church, 57
Fijians, 290
Fire, 236, 347, 359, 376, 394, 396, 460, 467, 480, 489, 501, 513, 514,
540, 543, 552
Fire Generator, 236, 491, 539
Flora, 28
Floralia, Festival of, 29
Floral Ceremonies, Wreaths, and Garlands, 26, _et seq._
Floral Symbols, 180
„ Games and Festivals, 34, 212, 520
„ Vocabulary, 185
Flowers, Dictionary of, 185
Flowers of the Saints, 53, _et seq._
„ of the Church’s Festivals, 57, _et seq._
Forbidden Fruit, 16
Frau Holda’s Tree, 7
Freemasonry, 195, 295
Freyja, 24, 40, 42, 499
Frigg, 24, 440, 479, 556
Funeral Pyre, 39, 195, 359
„ Trees and Plants, 189, _et seq._, 473, 485, 494, 497, 503, 504,
507, 522, 525, 544
Furies, The, 25
Games, Greek and Roman, 38
Gandharvas, 25, 236, 548
Garland of Julia, 184
Garlands, Chaplets, and Wreaths, 36, _et seq._
Garnet’s Straw, 134
Garofalo, 270
Gipsies, 47
Glastonbury, 63, 352, 362
Gold, 111
Golden Herb, 289, 542
„ Apple, 123, 477, 501, 508
„ Rose, 518
Good Friday, 44, 254
Goose Tree, 118
Gospel Oaks, 60, 468
Graces, The, 517
Graves, 193, 379, 485
Greeks, Mother Tree of the, 6
„ Floral Ceremonies of the, 27
„ Games of the, 38
„ Passion for Flowers among the, 177
„ Sacred Plants of the, 24
„ Wreaths and Garlands of the, 37
Groves, Sacred, 76
Hags, 91, 94, 97, 358, 449
Hallowe’en, 220, 264, 462
Hamadryads, 74
Haoma, 5, 9, 378
Hecate, 91, 385, 549
Heliogabalus, 27, 517
Herbalists, 97, 161
Herbals, 160
Hercules, 25, 217, 305, 397, 474, 477, 481, 485, 508
Hesperides, 9, 123, 217, 477, 508
Hindus, 3, 22, 39, 79, 173, 177, 180, 188, 213, 214, 227, 228, 229,
236, 237, 239, 241, 245, 251, 252, 293, 296, 312, 313, 315, 339,
356, 373, 391, 398, 400, 419, 423, 428, 439, 473, 480, 513, 539,
544, 547
Hindu World Tree, 3
Holdikens, 92
Holy Family, 41
Hulda, 24, 318, 319, 339, 340
Huzza, 206
Hyacinthia, 384
Iduna, 217
Ilpa, 3
Incense, 26, 178, 346, 395, 454, 525, 539, 551
Indians, 79, 240, 289, 315, 488, 560
„ South American, 263, 265, 271, 281, 297, 311
Indra, 22, 293
Inscriptions in Plants, 127
Iranians, World Tree of the, 5
Iris, 387
Irminsul, 7, 23, 471
Isis, 337, 341, 346, 421, 560
Janus, 25
Japanese, 36, 124, 178, 266, 282, 446, 488, 499
Japanese New Year’s Festival, 36
Jerusalem, 393
Jesus Christ, 41, 43, 386, 478, 481, 496
Jews, 8, 11, 13, 21, 23, 24, 50, 61, 131, 180, 181, 190, 205, 211,
225, 238, 240, 247, 256, 258, 263, 270, 271, 273, 282, 283, 291,
300, 303, 311, 321, 336, 339, 346, 349, 355, 359, 362, 364, 365,
370, 373, 380, 385, 386, 393, 394, 396, 405, 409, 426, 452, 453,
456, 459, 464, 474, 476, 483, 497, 501, 525, 528, 558, 560
Job, 340, 393
Jonah, 393
Joseph, 40, 41, 342, 473, 478, 481
Joseph of Arimathea, 352, 362
Judas Iscariot, 49, 317, 321, 394
Julie de Rambouillet, 348
Juno, 24, 25, 40, 217, 385, 397, 424, 444, 477, 500
Jupiter, 24, 25, 217, 305, 385, 397, 474, 477, 481
Kalpadruma, 3
Kâmadeva, 39, 177, 420, 429, 557
Khatties, 117
Krishna, 245
Language of Flowers, 176, 185
Lamb-bearing Tree, 122
Lamb, Vegetable, 121, 243
Leap Year, 248
Lent, 411, 458
Lepers, 285
Lightning, 111, 138, 142, 235, 359, 363, 376, 382, 407, 440, 460, 461,
480, 489, 530, 543, 544, 552, 554, 563
Loki, 82, 217, 461, 472
Lotos-eaters, 418
Love, 101, 108
Love Charms, 101, 107, 108, 231, 301, 302, 326, 370, 381, 383, 446,
462, 479, 506, 522, 523, 575
Love Philtres, 94, 107
Luckflower, 422, 553
Lunacy, 248
Lunar Herb, 125
„ Influence on Plants, 167
Madness, 88, 100, 368
Madonna, 43
Magi, 347
Magical Plants, 105
Magic Wands and Divining Rods, 113, _et seq._
Mahâdeva, 39, 242
Mahomet, 10, 24, 425, 514, 516
Man in the Moon, 174, 265, 271, 565
Manna, 429, 448
Marcon, 341
Marriages, 33, 251, 293, 295, 315, 329, 359, 433, 455, 461, 466, 478,
501, 513, 525
Mars, 24
Martyrs, 54
Mary Magdalene, 43, 296, 424, 444
Mary. _See_ Virgin Mary.
May-day Customs, 29, 30, 31, 58, 360
May Tree, 31, 359, 435
Medea, 91, 329
Memorial Trees, 60
Mercury, 25, 362
Michaelmas, 258
Midsummer, 50, 60, 69, 83, 96, 111, 295, 331, 361, 370, 479, 489,
522, 535
Minerva, 25, 473
Miraculous Trees and Plants, 129, _et seq._
Mithridates, 161, 532, 568
Moly, 442, 531
Moon, Man in the, 174, 265, 271, 565
„ and Gardening, 167
„ and Seed Sowing, 170
Moon Plants, 125, 166, 172, 271, 444
„ Tree, Hindu, 4
Monstrosities, 129
Moses, 17, 115, 262, 283, 485
Moss Folk, 66, 289, 445
Mother Tree of the Greeks, Romans, and Teutons, 6, _et seq._
Mundane Tree, Norse, 2
Naiades, 72
Neptune, 24, 25, 473
Nero, 27, 517
Nightingale, 138
Noah, 115, 475, 576
Norse Gods, Plants of, 24
„ World Tree, 2
Noxious, Deadly, and Ill-omened Plants, 86, _et seq._
Odin, 24
Old English Funeral Customs, 196, _et seq._
Old Herbals, The, and Herbalists, 160, _et seq._
Oracles, 106, 249, 406, 465, 475
Ordeal by Fire, 434
Ormuzd, 1, 9, 21, 301
Osiris, 346, 421, 560
Oyster-bearing Tree, 120
Palasa, 5, 480
Palm Sunday, 58
Pan, 25, 344
Paradise, 12, 319
„ Celtic, 9
„ Græco-Roman, 9
„ Hindu, 10
„ Iranian, 9
„ Mosaic, 10
„ of Mahomet, 10
„ Russian, 9
Parsis, 9, 21, 293, 306, 378
Peascod Wooing, 489
Persians, 24, 79, 193, 226, 306, 376, 572
Phœnix, 284
Phooka, 258
Pixies, 64, _et seq._, 567
Planetary Government of Plants
Planets, 164, _et seq._
Plants of the Christian Church, 40, _et seq._
„ of the Crucifixion, 47, _et seq._
„ of the Virgin Mary, 41, _et seq._
„ of St. John the Baptist, 50, _et seq._
„ of the Devil, 82, _et seq._
„ of the Fairies and Naiades, 65, _et seq._
„ of the Water Nymphs and Fays, 71, _et seq._
„ of the Witches, 90, _et seq._
„ used for Charms and Spells, 96, _et seq._
„ antagonistic to Witchcraft, 102, _et seq._
„ bearing Inscriptions and Figures, 127, _et seq._
„ connected with Birds and Animals, 137, _et seq._
„ of Our Saviour, 43, _et seq._
„ and the Planets, 164, _et seq._
„ of the Moon, 172, _et seq._
„ as Death Portents, 198, _et seq._
Plant Signatures, 154
„ Symbolism and Language, 176, _et seq._
Pluto, 24, 316, 424
Poisonous Trees, 86
Pomona, 76
Portents, 198, 407, 414, 435, 452, 471, 486, 490, 506, 523, 557, 563
Priapus, 25, 305
Procca, 67
Prophecy, 370, 406
Prophets, 106, 406
Proserpine, 24, 25, 292, 424, 458, 500, 504
Puck, 82, 484, 567
Purification, 43, 56
Quack Doctors, 97
Rhabdomancy, 113
Robin, 140, 564
Rogation Week, 58, 220, 348, 437
Romans, Anthropological Tree of the, 7
„ Floral Ceremonies of the, 27
„ Sacred Plants of the, 24
„ Wreaths and Garlands of the, 36
Rosary, 43, 519, 531
Rose Elf, 66
Rose-pelting, 35
Rosière, 35, 519
Royal Oak Day, 59, 471
Russalkis, 71
Russalka, 278
Rush-bearing, 58, 533
Sacred Groves and their Denizens, 76, _et seq._
Sacred Trees and Plants of the Ancients, 21, _et seq._
Saffron Walden, 300
Saint Andrew, 56
„ Anne, 54
„ Athanasius, 561
„ Barbara, 54, 375, 475
„ Barbatus, 584
„ Barnabas, 54, 56, 59, 584
„ Bartholomew, 56
„ Benedict, 53, 374, 525
„ Bernard, 413
„ Cecilia, 133
„ Christopher, 53, 374
„ Clara, 413
„ David, 410
„ Dominic, 43, 413
„ Dorothea, 133, 518
„ Dunstan, 223
„ Elizabeth of Hungary, 133, 519
„ Francis, 53, 413
„ George, 53
„ Gerard, 53, 374
„ Hilarion, 411
„ James, 53, 56, 59, 510
„ Jerome, 413
„ John the Baptist, 50, 60, 270, 330, 423, 536, 556
„ John the Evangelist, 56, 483
„ Joseph, 40, 413
„ Joseph of Arimathea, 62
„ Jude, 56
„ Katherine, 54, 398, 413
„ Leonard, 414
„ Louis de Gonzague, 413
„ Louis de Vincennes, 62
„ Luke, 56
„ Margaret, 54, 374, 424, 431
„ Mark, 56
„ Martin, 62, 130, 280
„ Matthew, 56
„ Médard, 35, 519
„ Michael, 18, 54, 56
„ Mungo, 73
„ Nicholas, 413, 489
„ Patrick, 54, 363, 541, 544
„ Paul, 54, 56, 59
„ Peter, 54, 56, 279, 539
„ „ of Vincennes, 62
„ Philip, 59
„ Robert, 54, 375
„ Rosa, 519
„ Rosalia, 519
„ Serf, 130
„ Simon, 56, 280, 475
„ Stephen, 56
„ Thomas, 54, 56, 130, 268, 413
„ Urban, 133
„ Veronica, 48
„ Winifred, 55
„ John’s Eve and Day, 50, 60, 69, 83, 96, 111, 331, 361, 400, 409,
489, 490, 536
Saints, Flowers of, 53, 536
Saints’ Floral Directory, 56
Sardanapalus, 27
Saturn, 24
Satyrs, 74, 540, 541
Saxons and Apples, 218
Scriptures, Floral Symbols of the, 181
Serpents, 2, 18, 84, 121, 152, 153, 155, 160, 161, 162, 163, 206, 208,
226, 227, 231, 232, 233, 251, 258, 262, 299, 313, 328, 329, 359,
364, 369, 376, 380, 396, 397, 409, 415, 450, 485, 531, 549, 568,
574, 581, 584, 587, 592
Seed-sowing and the Moon, 170
Selenite, 173
Serpent-bearing Tree, 121
Seth, 17, 18, 19, 303
Shakspeare, Floral Emblems of, 184
Sheba, Queen of, 18, 19, 303
Shefro, 344
Sif, 24
Signatures of Plants, 154
Siva, 245, 560
Skull, Moss on Human, 445
Solomon, 17, 19, 62, 111, 263, 273, 283, 303
Soma, 3, 106
Somnus, 25
Spells, 96
Spirits, 78, 83
Still Folk, 67
Stone Tree, 126
Strömkarl, 71
Sun, 126, 166, 228, 309, 326, 366, 481, 558
Superstitions connected with Plants, 97
Sybarites, 521
Sylvans, Wood Nymphs, and Tree
Spirits, 74, _et seq._
Symbolism, 176
Teutons, Mother Tree of the, 7
„ Sacred Plants of the, 24
Tooba, 10, 13
Tree of Life, 13
„ Knowledge, 15, 241, 355
„ Adam, 17, _et seq._
„ Death, 190
„ Judas Iscariot, 49, _et seq._
Trees of Paradise, and Tree of Adam, 9, _et seq._
Trees, Celebrated, 61
„ Memorial, 60
„ Fabulous, 116
Toulouse, Floral Games of, 34, 212, 520, 579
Triumphs, Roman, 28
Toads, 82, 153, 566
Trinity, 287, 375, 545
Trinity Sunday, 59, 287
Tree Spirits, 58
„ „ Indian, 59
„ „ Burman, 59
„ „ African, 60
„ „ German, 60
Trolls, 64, 353, 568
Tombs, 189, 193, 379, 522
Thunder, 111, 361, 460, 544, 552, 554
Treasure-Caves, 112, 544, 552, 556
Tyr, 24
Thor, 24, 293, 305, 318, 362, 389, 460, 461, 489, 529
Tulipomania, 570
Tulasî, 245, 568
Unshoeing Horses, 113, 381, 444, 445, 551, 571
Vegetable Monstrosities, 129
Virgin Mary, 40, 41, 142, 362, 363, 395, 402, 412, 433, 437, 469, 518,
519, 526, 535, 546, 556
Venice Treacle, 162, 568
Venus, 24, 40, 42, 216, 218, 402, 411, 454, 477, 516
Vishnu, 22, 177, 241, 245, 419
Wassail Bowl, 220, 526
Wassailing, 219
Wreaths, 36
Weddings. _See_ Marriages.
Well-flowering, 32
Whitsuntide, 59, 254, 256, 261
Water Nymphs, 71
Wells, Nymphs of, 72
Wells, 33, 73, 554
Wands, 113, 363
Waterloo, 505
War of the Roses, 520
Witches, Plants of, 91, _et seq._, 209, 277, 358, 369, 373, 403, 444,
492, 509, 541, 542
Witches, Plants antagonistic to, 102, 252, 258, 287, 313, 333, 374,
377, 495, 532, 537, 554
Witches’ Children, 92
„ Chain, 101
„ Charms, 101
„ Gowan, 353
„ Potions, 93
„ Spells, 96
„ Steeds, 92
Widows, Hindu, 250, 285
Wise Women, 97
Woden, 24
Wood of the Cross, 46, _et seq._
Wood Nymphs, 74
Wondrous Plants, 123
World Trees of the Ancients, 1, _et seq._
Yama, 188
Yule Log, 235
Yggdrasill, 2, 7, 189, 232, 592
Zoroaster, 5, 21, 26, 306, 376, 378, 521, 540
Index of Plant Names.
[_For Plants named after Birds and Animals, refer to chapter on that
subject, p. 136._]
Aaron, 228
Acacia, 23, 37, 158, 195, 205, 539
Acanthus, 46, 206
_Achillea matricaria_, 174
_Achyranthes_, 206
Acis, 532
Aconite, 443
Acorn, 101, 102
_Acorus_, 155, 159, 207
Adder’s Tongue, 93, 95, 158, 207
Adonis, 341
_Ægopodium Podagraria_, 53, 374
Affodilly, 458
African Marigold, 198
Agaric, 56
_Agnus Castus_, 100, 106, 159, 208
Agrimony, 104, 159, 161, 208, 328
Air-bell, 358
Aish-weed, 374
_Aj’amoda_, 372
Albespyne, 45, 218, 360
_Albranke_, 96
Alder, 24, 92, 209
_Alecrim_, 526
Alehoof, 391
Alexandrian Laurel, 263
_Alisma_, 236
Alisson, 212
Alkanet, 255
Aller, 209
Allgood, 355
All-heal, 162, 442, 538
Almond, 43, 181, 210
Aloe, 158, 191, 211
_Alyssum_, 212
Amaracus, 27
Amaranth, 56, 58, 194, 212
Ambrose, 213
_Ambrosia_, 213
Amellus, 43, 213
Ameos, 376
_Amorphophallus_, 214
_Amrita_, 213
_Amyris_, 238
_Anagallis_, 367
_Andhas_, 214
Andromeda, 214
Anemone, 37, 70, 108, 193, 198, 214
Angelica, 162, 216
_Angelica Archangelica_, 227
Anise, 158
_Antchar_, 87
_Anthyllis_, 217
_Antirrhinum_, 95, 158
_Apamarga_, 206
_Apium risus_, 90
Apple, 16, 24, 44, 60, 113, 116, 167, 199, 217, _et seq._
„ of Sodom, 125, 225
„ of Jerusalem, 237
Apricot, 225
_Aquapura_, 88
_Aralda_, 345
_Arbol de Leche_, 298
_Arbor Vitæ_, 43, 60, 191, 226
_Arbutus_, 226
Archangel, 54, 227
Areca, 227
_Argentina_, 109
_Aristolochia_, 227
_Arjunî_, 214
_Arka_, 228
_Aronswurzel_, 228
_Artemisia_, 113, 228
Arum, 90, 95, 228
_Arundhati_, 228
_Asclepias acida_, 106
Ash, 6, 24, 47, 62, 96, 103, 116, 126, 159, 231
_Ashur_, 256
_Asoka_, 5, 22, 107, 229
Asparagus, 158
Aspen, 47, 49, 50, 229, 503
Asphodel, 181, 189, 230
Ass-bane, 87
Ass-Parsley, 145
Ass’s Foot, 145
Aster, 231
_Asvattha_, 5, 236
_Auguilanneuf_, 441
Auricula, 236
_Avaka_, 236
Avens, 53, 373
Azalea, 91, 236
Baccharis, 236
Bachelor’s Buttons, 56, 510
_Bacia-Nicola_, 246
_Baharas_, 111
_Balbaja_, 237
Baldmoney, 237, 350, 550
_Balis_, 237
Balm, 44, 123, 124, 237
„ of Gilead, 238
Balsam, 207, 237
„ Apple, 237
Bamboo, 36, 239
Banana, 14, 15, 179, 240
Baneberry, 53
Bank-cress, 327
Banyan, 16, 240
Baobab, 23, 242
Barberry, 46, 243
Barley, 138, 168, 243
Barnacle-tree, 118
Barometz, 121, 243
_Bärwurzel_, 96
Basil, 22, 195, 244
_Basilek_, 278
Basilica, 51
_Bauhinia_, 247
Bawm, 238
Bay, 24, 37, 60, 110, 111, 199
Beans, 41, 158, 159, 168, 195, 200, 247
Bear-wort, 550
Bear’s Breech, 206
„ Ear, 158
„ Garlic, 349
_Bech_, 451
Bedstraw, 41, 249
Beech, 24, 38, 111, 249
Beet, 158
_Beh_, 369
_Belinuncia_, 250
_Bella Giulia_, 514
Bell-flowers, 266
Bel-tree, 250
Belt of St. John, 52
Betel, 251
Betony, 95, 161, 251
_Bignonia_, 252
Bilberry, 252, 585
Bindweed, 158
Birch, 31, 51, 60, 191, 252
Birk, 255
Bishop’s Leaves, 252
„ Weed, 376
„ Wort, 398
Bittersweet, 159, 546
Bitter Vetch, 255
Blackberry, 83, 200, 258
Black-thorn, 113
Bladder-wort, 158
Blaeberry, 252, 585
Blasting-root, 551
Blessed Herb, 54, 373
_Blitz-mehl_, 288
Blood-drops of Christ, 48
Blood-root, 155
Bloody Men’s Fingers, 228
Blue-bell, 255
Blue-bottle, 277
Bluet, 278
_Blutströpfchen_, 341
_Bohdda Tharanat_, 268
_Bois béni_, 194
_Bombax_, 159, 192
Borage, 158, 255
Borgie-weed, 88
_Boriza_, 126
Bo-tree, 22, 491, 492
Botrys, 158
Box, 46, 58, 59, 60, 194, 197, 256
Boxthorn, 46
Bracken Fern, 179, 257
Bramble, 46, 258
Brank-ursine, 46, 206
_Brassica_, 158
Breakstone, 156
Briony, 156, 159, 261
_Britalzar Ægyptiaca_, 157
Brompton Stock, 553
Broom, 58, 95, 104, 159, 200, 260
Brown John or Jolly, 317
Brown-wort, 156
Buckrams, 349
Buck-thorn, 46, 261, 564
Bugloss, 261
Bullock’s Eye, 382
„ Lung-wort, 155, 449
Bull’s Blood, 380
Bulrush, 92, 262, 512
Burdock, 262
_Buriti_, 263
Burnet, 263
Burst-wort, 156
Bussorah Gall-nut, 225
_Butea frondosa_, 5
Butcher’s Broom, 263
Buttercup, 510
Cabbage, 60, 68, 170, 174, 264
Cactus, 265
Calf’s Snout, 217
_Calla Æthiopica_, 228
Call-me-to-you, 484
Camellia, 266
_Campanula_, 40, 54, 266
Camphor, 173, 267
Campion, 56
_Candelaria_, 449
_Candelabrum ingens_, 52, 423
Candie Mustard, 267
Candleweek-flower, 449
Candy-tuft, 267
Canker-weed, 179
Canna, 268
Canterbury Bells, 54, 156, 267, 268
_Capillus Veneris_, 424
_Caprifolium_, 379
Cardamine, 268
Cardamom, 91
Cardinal-flower, 269
Cardon, 170
Care, 530
Care-tree, 102
Carline Thistle, 269
Carnation, 44, 198, 269
Carob, 49, 270
Carpenter’s Herb, 156
Carrion-flower, 88
Carrot, 108, 270
Case-weed, 545
Cashew, 46, 271
Cassava, 271
Cassia, 196, 271
_Cassolette_, 514
Cast-me-down, 409
_Casuarina_, 191
Catch-fly, 272
Cat Mint or Nep, 272
Cat’s Eye, 549
„ Foot, 391
„ Tail, 512, 581
Cedar, 17, 23, 46, 47, 60, 192, 196, 272
Celandine, 95, 100, 143, 155, 276
Centaury, 277
Centinode, 399
_Centocchio_, 108
Cerealis, 572
Cereus, 278
_Certagon_, 86, 109
Ceterach, 159
_Châbairje_, 263
_Cha-Hwa_, 266
Chamelæa, 278
Chamomile, 159, 198, 278
Champak, 107, 193, 279
_Chenomychon_, 111, 144
Chervil, 95
Cherry, 41, 44, 137, 279
Chesnut, 280
_Chèvrefeuille_, 379
Chickweed, 145, 159
Chicory, 325
Chinchona, 282
Chives, 159
Chohobba, 281
Choke Pear, 281
_Chora_, 142
Christmas, 377
„ Rose, 368
_Christ-dorn_, 46, 377
_Christ-wurzel_, 44
Christ’s Blood drops, 375
„ Herb, 281
„ Ladder, 281
„ Palm, 281
„ Thorn, 46, 281
Chrysanthemum, 37, 56, 91, 282
Cinnamon, 27, 95, 283
Cinquefoil, 159, 284
_Circeium_, 110
Cistus, 284
Citron, 284
Clappedepouch, 285
_Clavis Diaboli_, 85
Clear-eye, 156
Clematis, 286
Close Sciences, 514
Clot-bur, 263
Cloth of Gold, 542
Clove, 286
„ Gilliflower, 269
Clover, 181, 287, 288, 379
„ Four-leaved, 71, 110, 159, 287
Club Moss, 288
Cock’s Comb, 145, 213
„ Head, 145
„ Foot, 145
Cocoa-nut Palm, 289
Cockle, 290
_Cœlifolium_, 341
Coffee, 290
_Cohobba_, 88
Colchicum, 290
Colewort, 170, 264
Coltsfoot, 291
Columbine, 291, 575
Comfrey, 297
_Concordia_, 109, 291
_Conjugalis Herba_, 291
Convolvulus, 37
Coriander, 99, 291
Corn, 16, 292
Corn Feverfew, 91
„ Flag, 352
„ Flower, 158, 277, 295
Corn Marigold, 282
„ Rose, 504
Cornel, 24, 295
Coronation, 269
Costmary, 174, 296
Costus, 271, 296
Cotton, 296
_Couronne Impériale_, 348
Coventry-bells, 267
Cows-and-Calves, 228
Cowslip, 30, 54, 70, 297
„ of Jerusalem, 297
Cow-tree, 297
Cranberry, 298
Cranesbill, 145, 298
Cress, 158, 298
Crocus, 27, 156, 158, 299
Cross-flower, 58, 375, 437
„ wort, 375
„ of Malta, 423
Crow Bells, 145
„ Berry, 145
„ Flowers, 184, 510
„ Foot, 145, 510
„ Garlic, 145
„ Leeks, 145
„ Needles, 145
„ Toes, 145
Crown Imperial, 183
Cuckoo-buds, 30, 137, 268, 300, 510
Cuckoo-flower, 95, 137, 268, 300
Cuckoo Gilliflower, 300
Cuckoo’s Bread-and-Cheese-tree, 138
Cuckoo’s Bread-and-Meat, 137, 300
Cuckoo’s Grass, 137, 300
„ Pint, 228, 300
„ Pintle, 228, 300
„ Sorrel, 137
Cucumber, 300
Cuddle-me-to-you, 484
Cudweed, Alpine, 316
Cumin, 301
Currant, 159, 301
Cycory, 170
Cyclamen, 91, 99, 103, 108, 159, 301
Cypress, 17, 24, 44, 46, 47, 91, 93, 95, 189, 191, 192, 195, 302
_Czekanka_, 326
Daffadowndilly, 458
Daffodil, 55, 58, 199, 458
Daffodilly, 307, 458
Dahlia, 307
Daisy, 24, 158, 184, 307
Damascus Violet, 308
Damask Violet, 308, 514
Dame’s Rocket, 514
„ Violet, 308, 350, 514
_Damouch_, 87
Dandelion, 151, 158, 159, 309
Dane-weed, 310
„ wort, 310
Dane’s Blood, 310
_Daoun Setan_, 459
Daphne, 310
Darnel, 356
Date, 311, 482
_Datura_, 90, 565
Day’s-eye, 308
Dead Tongue, 312
Deadman’s Flower, 345
Deadly Nightshade, 91, 95, 460
Death’s Herb, 85, 460
Demetria, 572
_Dent de Lion_, 151, 309
Deodar, 312
Devil’s Apron, 459
„ Berry, 85
„ Bit, 85, 359
„ Bit Scabious, 85
„ Butter, 86
„ Candle, 85
„ Cherry, 85
„ Claws, 85
„ Darning-needles, 85
„ Droppings, 82
„ Dung, 84
„ Dye, 85
„ Guts, 85
„ Key, 85
„ Milk, 86
„ Snuff-boxes, 86
„ Tree, 85, 541
Devil-chaser, 86, 109, 537
„ in-the-Bush, 85
Dewberry, 355
_Dhak_, 313
Dill, 103, 313, 574
_Discipline des Religieuses_, 213
_Discordia_, 109
Distilling-plant, 127
Dittander, 313
Dittany, 24, 173, 313
Dock, 313
Dodder, 159
_Dodecatheon_, 297
Dog-grass, 24
Dog’s-mouth, 217
_Doigts de la Vierge_, 344
_Donderbloem_, 382
_Donnerbesen_, 440
_Donnerkraut_, 111
Dracæna, 314
Dragon’s Blood, 314
„ Tears, 314
Dragon-tree, 23, 314
Dream Herb, 107
„ Tree, 324
Dryas, 314
Duckweed, 145
Durian, 314
_Durva_, 315
Dwale-berry, 85
Dwarf Bay, 310
„ Elder, 310
Dyer’s Alkanet, 91
Earth-Apple, 279
„ Nut, 159
_Eberwurzel_, 96
Ebony, 315
Edelweiss, 58, 316
Egg-plant, 317
Eglantine, 45, 317
Eglatere, 317
_Eisenkraut_, 511
Elder, 47, 49, 80, 87, 92, 103, 110, 318
Elecampane, 159, 322
_Elfenkraut_, 69
Elfgras, 69
Elf-grass, 69
Elfin-plant, 526
_Elichrysum_, 323
Elm, 31, 192, 323
Enchanter’s Nightshade, 325
„ plant, 574
Endive, 158, 325
_Epine Noble_, 359
Eragrostis, 327
Eryngo, 327
Erysimum, 327
_Erythrina Indica_, 213
Ethiopian Pepper, 91
_Eugenia_, 79, 109, 328
Eupatorium, 328
Euphorbia, 328
Euphrasy, 158, 329
_Euphrosynum_, 255
Everlasting-flower, 111, 194, 328
Ewe, 592
Ewgh, 592
Eye of the Star, 380
Eyebright, 143, 179, 329
Fair Maids of France, 329
„ „ „ February, 54, 329, 546
Fairy Bath, 70
„ Butter, 70
„ Cap, 70, 344
„ Cup, 69
„ Fire, 70
„ Flax, 70
„ Herb, 70
„ Rings, 68, 356
„ Steeds, 68
Fairies’ Horse, 92
Feaberry, 355
Feldwode, 94, 329, 350
Fennel, 51, 60, 158, 162, 329
„ flower, 398
Fenugreek, 27, 159
Fern, 50, 53, 68, 95, 157, 159, 330
Fern of God, 179
Fern, Maidenhair, 424
Fever-few, 282
_Ficus Indica_, 240
„ _Religiosa_, 490
Fig, 14, 15, 49, 62, 93, 95, 159, 334
Fig-wort, 156
Filbert, 337
_Filius ante Patrem_, 300
_Fingerhut_, 344
_Fior di morto_, 195
Fir, 24, 60, 65, 158, 195, 337
Five-finger Grass, 356
Flame-tree, 339
Flamy, 484
Flax, 51, 52, 158, 339
Fleabane, 53, 179, 340
Fleawort, 91
_Fleur-de-Luce_ or _Lys_, 341, 387
_Flor de las cinco llagas_, 48, 488
_Flor de Pesadilla_, 93
Floramor, 213
Flos Adonis, 341
Flower of Constantinople, 423
„ of Bristow, 423
„ of St. John, 52
„ Gentle, 213
„ Velure, 213
„ de Luce, 341, 388, 556
Flowers of Heaven, 341
Forget-me-not, 156, 342, 484, 549
_Forglemm mig icke_, 342
Foxglove, 70, 344
Frangipanni, 345
Frankincense, 27, 345
Fraxinella, 347
Freyja’s Hair, 445
Friar’s Cowl, 228
Frigg’s Grass, 479
Fritillary, 347
Frog Bit, 158
_Fuga Dæmonum_, 103, 110, 368, 536
Fumitory, 348
Furrs, 356
Furze, 356
Furze-bush, 356
Gang-flower, 58, 348, 437
_Gants de Notre Dame_, 344
Galingale, 159
Gall-Apple, 95, 225
Garlic, 23, 110, 154, 159, 349
_Gelotophyllis_, 90
_Genêt_, 260
Gentian, 158, 350
_Gentiana amarella_, 96
Geranium, 24, 158, 159
Gethsemane, 228, 375, 479
Gill-by-the-Ground, 390
Gilliflower, 198, 269, 350
„ Clove, 269, 350
„ Marsh, 350
„ Queen’s, 350, 514
„ Rogue’s, 350, 514
„ Stock, 350, 553
„ Wall, 350
„ Water, 350
„ Winter, 514, 546
Gilofre, 269, 350
Ginger, 159
„ grass, 551
Ginseng, 351
Gipsy-plant, 286
_Giroflée_, 350, 553
Gith, 290
Gladiolus, 352
Glastonbury-thorn, 62, 352
Globe Amaranth, 213
„ Flower, 39, 353
Goat’s Beard, 158, 354
„ Joy, 372
„ Rue, 144
Goblin Gloves, 70, 345
God’s Floure, 323
Godeseie, 156
Gold, 432
„ Cup, 510
„ Knob, 510
„ of Pleasure, 354
Golden Flower, 323
„ Flower Gentle, 354
„ Herb, 111, 542
„ Maidenhair, 354
„ Mothwort, 323
„ Rod, 113, 354
Goldilocks, 354
Golding, 454
Goldy Flower, 373
_Golubetz_, 354
Good Henry, or Good King Harry, 355
Good-night, 387
Gool-achin, 355
Gooseberry, 355
Goose-grass, 144
„ Tansy, 144
_Gopher_, 305
Gorse, 356
Gory Dew, 356
Goss, 356
Go-to-bed-at-noon, 354
Goules or Goulan, 432
Gout-wort, 374
Gowan, 353, 354
Grace of God, 55
Grapes, 16, 169, 355
„ of St. John, 52
Grass, 68, 356
„ of Parnassus, 158
Great Bur, 263
„ Dragon, 155
„ Herb, 70
„ Maple, 559
Grim the Collier, 359
Grip-grass, 356
Ground-heele, 357
Ground Ivy, 95, 104, 159, 390
Groundsel, 43, 357
_Guabana_ or _Guarabana_, 358
Guelder-Rose, 59, 358
Guinea Hen, 145
Gyllofer, 269, 350
Hæmanthus, 358
Hag Taper, 94, 358
Hair-bell, 358
Half-Moon, 173
Hallelujah, 358
Hard-head, 381
Harebell, 53, 55, 67, 358, 385
Hart’s Tongue, 158
Hartis Ease, 582
Hassocks, 356
Hawkweed, 144, 159, 359
Hawthorn, 58, 93, 195, 359, 563
Haymaids, 362, 390
Hazel, 103, 110, 114, 362
Heart’s-ease, 434
Heath, 56
„ Bell, 267
Heather, 365
Hedge Maids, 362
„ Mustard, 327
„ Taper, 358
_Hederich_, 509
_Heermännchen_, 279
_Heide_, 365
Helenium, 322, 365
Heliotrope, 23, 24, 343, 365
Hellebore, 56, 158, 159, 368
Helmet-flower, 369
Hemlock, 53, 93, 95, 312, 369
Hemp, 22, 52, 105, 370
Hen Bit, 145
„ Foot, 145
Henbane, 93, 95, 372
Henna, 24, 373
Henne-bush, 373
Hepatica, 59, 158
Herb Bennett, 373
„ Carpenter, 374
„ Christopher, 56, 374
„ Gerarde, 374
„ Margaret, 54, 374
„ Paris, 103, 375
„ Peter, 54, 375
„ Robert, 54, 375
„ St. Barbara, 375
„ Trinity, 55, 376, 484
„ Twopence, 376
„ William, 376
„ of Forgetfulness, 451
„ of Mary, 42
„ of Oblivion, 110
„ of St. John, 51, 52
„ of the Blessed Mary, 42
„ „ Cross, 47, 374
„ „ Devil, 84
„ „ Madonna, 42
„ „ Witches, 84
_Herba benedicta_, 54, 369, 373
„ _bona_ and _sancta_, 439
„ _Britannica_, 111
„ _Clavorum_, 113
„ _Clytiæ_, 366
„ _Impia_, 329
„ _Sanctæ Mariæ_, 440
_Herbe au Chantre_, 327
„ _au Dragon_, 153
„ _aux Ladres_, 357
„ _d’Amour_, 436
„ _de Marie Magdalene_, 43
Heron’s Bill, 145
Hig or High Taper, 358
Hindberry, 511
_Hirschwursel_, 96
Holly, 44, 46, 56, 60, 101, 110, 376
Holm Oak, 385
Holme, 376
Holy Ghost, 162, 378
„ Grass, 58, 356, 378
„ Hay, 378, 536
„ Herb, 574
„ Hock, or Hoke, 55, 378
„ Rope, 55, 378
„ Seed, 378
„ Thistle, 378
„ Tree, 60, 378
Homa, or Haoma, 378
Honesty, 378
Honeysuckle, 96, 159, 287, 379
Hook-weed, 374
Hop, 380
Horehound, 380
Hornbeam, 31
„ or Hardbeam, 380
Horned Poppy, 93, 95, 541
Horn flower, 228
Horse Beech, 380
„ Chesnut, 380
„ Killer, 87
„ Knot, 381
„ Radish, 381
„ Shoe Vetch, 381, 571
„ Tail, 24
„ Tongue, 158
Hound’s Tongue, 158, 159, 382
Houseleek, 111, 382
Hulver, or Hulfeere, 376
Hunger-Grass, 179
Hur Bur, 263
Hurt-sickle, 278
Hyacinth, 158, 383
_Hypericum_, 51, 158
Hyssop, 46, 198, 385
Ilex, 385
_Immortelles_, 194, 328
_Impatiens_, 237
_Ingudi_, 386
Ipecacuanha, 386
Ipomœa, 386
Iris, 24, 43, 158, 159, 387
Iron-head, 381
_Irrkraut_, 333
_Irrwurzel_, 498
Ivy, 24, 30, 59, 388
Jacinth, 358, 385
Jack-by-the-Hedge, 327
Jacob’s Ladder, 391, 547
_Jambi_, 227
Jamboa, 23
Jambu, 391
Jasmine, 39, 107, 159, 193, 391
_Jatropha urens_, 87
Jerusalem Artichoke, 393
„ Cowslip, 393
„ Cross, 393
„ Oak, 393
„ Sage, 393
„ Star, 393
Jesuit’s Bark, 282
Jew’s Ears, 393
„ Myrtle, 263
Joan’s Silver Pin, 393
Job’s Tears, 340, 393
_Johannis-blut_, 51
_Johannis-wurzel_, 111
Jonah’s Gourd, 393
Joseph’s Flower, 354
Jove’s Flower, 397
Judas-tree, 50, 92, 394
Jujube, 395
_Julienne_, 514
July-flower, 553
Jump-up-and-kiss-me, 484
Juniper, 25, 41, 44, 91, 101, 110, 158, 181, 195, 395
Juno’s Rose, 397
„ Tears, 397, 572
Jupiter’s Beard, 217, 382, 397
„ Distaff, 398
„ Eye, 382, 397
„ Staff, 398
Kail, 60, 398
_Kâmalatâ_, 386
Kataka, 398
Katherine’s Flower, 54, 398
Kecksies, 370
Kernel-wort, 399
Kerzereh, 399
Ketaki, 399
Kex, 370
Key-flower, 112
_Kidda_, 271
Kidney-vetch, 156, 217
„ wort, 159
King Cup, 59, 399, 510
Kiss-me-at-the-garden-gate, 484
Kiss-me-ere-I-rise, 484
Kiss-me-twice-before-I-rise, 398
Knee-holly, 263
„ holme, 263
„ hulver, 263
Knight’s Spurs, 404
Knot-grass, 399
_Kovidara_, 400
_Kuddum_, 400
_Kunalnitza_, 51
Kusa-grass, 22, 400
_Kushtha_, 296, 401
Ladder to Heaven, 547
Lad’s Love, 549
Lady Laurel, 310
Lady’s Bedstraw, 41, 249
„ Bower, 402
„ Bunch of Keys, 42
„ Comb, 42
„ Cushion, 42
„ Fingers, 42, 217
„ Garters, 402
„ Hair, 42
„ Laces, 402
„ Looking-glass, 42
„ Mantle, 42, 43
„ Nightcap, 402
„ Seal, 42, 402, 547
„ Slipper, 42
„ Smock, 42, 55, 268
„ Tears, 43
„ Thimble, 402
„ Thistle, 41, 158
„ Tresses, 42, 402
Lamb Toe, 217
_Lamium album_, 227
„ _Galeobdolon_, 227
_Lâng Fredags Ris_, 44
Larch, 93, 95, 403
Lark’s Claw, 145, 404
„ Heel, 145, 404
„ Spur, 145, 404
„ Toe, 145, 404
_Larmes de Ste. Marie_, 43
Laurel, 23, 24, 32, 60, 75, 106, 404
Laurustine, 56
Lavender, 59, 91, 409
Leek, 409
Lentil, 23, 411
Lent Lily, 411
Leopard’s Bane, 159
„ Foot, 510
Le’pan-tree, 79
Lettuce, 157, 158, 195, 411
Libbard’s Bane, 93
Life Everlasting, 416
Lilac, 59
Lily, 24, 27, 43, 51, 55, 59, 412
Lily of the May, 59
„ „ Valley, 43, 53, 59, 101, 158, 199, 414
Lime, 158, 414
Linden, 415
Ling, 365
Lion-foot Cudweed, 91
Lion’s Snap, 217
Live-for-ever, 328
Live-in-Idleness, 484
Live-long, 111, 319, 328, 416
Liver-wort, 155, 158, 208
_Llysan gwaed gwyr_, 310
_Loco_, 88
Locust, 205
London Pride, 416, 541
„ Rocket, 514
Long Purples, 184
Loosestrife, 376, 417
Lords-and-Ladies, 228
Lotos, 110, 417
Lotus, 23, 26, 37, 107, 158, 180, 418
Love, 422
Loveage, 422
Love-and-Idle, 422, 484
Love Apple, 422, 546
Love Grass, 327
Love-in-a-Mist, 422
Love-in-Idleness, 422, 484
Love-lies-bleeding, 213, 422
Loveman, 422
Luckan Gowan, 353
Luck-flower, 112, 343, 422
Lucky Hands, 333
Lunary, 378
„ Lesser, 444
Lungwort, 155, 158, 297
Lupine, 159, 422
Lusmore, 70, 344
Lychnis, 55, 56, 423
Lycoris, 193
_Lythrum Silicaria_, 96
Mad Apple, 317, 546
Maghet, 174, 424
Magician’s Cypress, 541
Magnolia, 87, 423
Mahwah, 423
_Mai-blume_, 31
Maidenhair, 24, 91, 104, 108, 424
Maids, or Maithes, 424
_Main de Gloire_, 428
_Main de Ste. Marie_, 43
Mallow, 158, 425
_Malobathrum_, 155
_Malus Henricus_, 355
Manchineel, 87, 425
Mandrake, 91, 93, 95, 108, 110, 113, 157, 425
Mango, 107, 428
Manna, 429
Maple, 429
Maracot, 181
Marguerite, 174, 424, 431
_Marien-blumen_, 42
_Marien-gras_, 42
_Marien Magdalenen Kraut_ and _Apfel_, 43
Marigold, 39, 56, 367, 432
_Máríu Stakkr_, 42
Marjoram, 158, 433
Marsh Mallow, 433
„ Marigold, 434
Martagon, 113
Mary-buds, 42
Mary Gowles, 432
Mastic, 434
Mather, 174, 424
_Matza Franca_, 225
Maudeline-wort, 174, 424
Mauritia, 435
May, 29, 31, 58, 360, 435
Maydweed, 174, 424, 435
May-flower, 31, 435
May Lily, 31
May-weed, 174, 424, 435
Meadow-cress, 269
Meadow Pink, or Campion, 509
Mead Parsley, 541
Medusa Head, 328
_Meisterwurzel_, 96
Melon, 156, 159, 436
_Menthe de Notre Dame_, 42
Mercury, 162, 355
Mercury’s Blood, 572
Mew, 237, 550
Mezereon, 310
Michaelmas Daisy, 56
Midsummer Daisy, 56
„ Men, 479
Mignonette, 198, 436
_Milium solis_, 157
Milk Thistle, 437, 562
Milk-wort, 348, 437
Millefoil, 95
Millet, 437
Miltwaste, 145
_Mimosa_, 23, 438
Mimusops, 439
_Mindi_, 373
Mint, 91, 439
Mistletoe, 47, 95, 101, 102, 103, 107, 113, 141, 440
Mistress of Night, 568
Mock-plane, 559
Moly, 442
_Mondveilchen_, 172
Money-flower, 378
„ wort, 376
Monkey Cactus, 278
Monkshood, 24, 93, 443
_Moo-le-hua_, 392
Moon-Daisy, 174
Moon’s Beloved, 173
„ Flower, 173
„ Laughter, 173
Moonwort, 93, 95, 113, 378, 444, 571
Moriche Palm, 23, 435
Moss, 44, 60, 445
„ Rose, 52, 446
Mother-wort, 158, 446
Mountain Ash, 47, 192, 529
Mouse-ear, 113, 343, 447
„ „ Scorpion-Grass, 343
Mugwort, 173, 449
Mulberry, 22, 447
Mullein, 94, 449
„ Petty, 297
_Musa sapientum_, 5
Mushroom, 451
Musk, 158
„ Mallow, 91
Mustard, 452
Myrobalan, 453
Myrtle, 24, 37, 39, 60, 181, 193, 194, 454
Myrrh, 27, 196, 453
_Nabkha_, 46, 205
_Napellus_, 157
Narcissus, 25, 158, 457
Nard, 550
Nasturtium, 158, 159, 459
Navel-wort, 108, 159
Neem, 459
Nelumbo, 23, 459
Nettle, 184, 459
_Nigella_, 158
Nightshade, 91, 93, 157, 460
_Nimbu_, 461
Nipa Palm, 461
Nipple-wort, 156
Nit-grass, 179
_Nitraria tridentata_, 87
Noble Liver-wort, 158
_Noli me tangere_, 237
None-so-pretty, 541
Nonsuch, 423, 545
_Nontiscordar di me_, 343
Noon-day-flower, 354
Nopal-plant, 266
Nosebleed, 589
Nutmeg, 136, 461
Nuts, 60, 157, 199, 461
_Nyctegredum_, 111
_Nyctilopa_, 111
Nymphæa, 463
Oak, 21, 25, 46, 59, 61, 65, 77, 107, 190, 192, 463
Oaks, Gospel, 61
„ Celebrated, 61
„ Cross, 61
Oats, 472
_Oculus Christi_, 156
_Œil de Christ_, 231
_Officinalis Christi_, 534
Ohelo, 585
Old Man’s Beard, 286, 398
„ „ Head, 278
„ „ Pepper, 589
Oleander, 40, 87, 473
Olibanum, 346
Olive, 17, 25, 37, 38, 39, 46, 47, 142, 473
One-berry, 375
Onion, 23, 476
_Ophiusa_, 89
Ophrys, 159
Opium, 105
Orach, 156
Orange, 39, 193, 195, 477
Orchis, 24, 99, 478
Organy, 158
_Origanum_, 95, 101, 158
Orpine, 51, 52, 60, 111, 479
Osier, 113
Osmund Fern, 53, 56, 374, 479
Our Lady’s Bedstraw, 41, 249
„ „ Bunch of Keys, 42
„ „ Comb, 42
„ „ Cushion, 42
„ „ Fingers, 42
„ „ Hair, 42
„ „ Looking-glass, 42
„ „ Mantle, 42, 143
„ „ Seal, 42, 547
„ „ Slipper, 42
„ „ Smock, 42, 55, 268, 269
„ „ Tears, 43
„ „ Thistle, 41, 158
„ „ Tresses, 42, 402
Ox-eye Daisy, 52, 282
Paddock-stool, 82, 567
Pagod-tree, 242
Paigle, 297
_Palasa_, 5, 480
Palm, 23, 25, 38, 58, 62, 124, 481
„ Palmyra, 5
_Palma Christi_, 109
_Palo de Vaca_, 297
_Panacæa_, 157
Pansy, 70, 483
_Paporot_, 50, 112
Papyrus, 484
_Paralytica_, 236
Parsley, 38, 157, 198, 485
Parsnip, 159
Pasque-flower, 58, 486
Passion-flower, 48, 56, 181, 486
Passion-flower, English, 228
Paulownia, 488
_Pavetta Indica_, 488
Pawnce, 483
Pea, 168, 488
Peach, 23, 99, 490
Pear, 116, 490
Peascod, 489
_Peci_, 110
Peepul, 5, 14, 22, 79, 490
Pellitory, 100
Pennyroyal, 95, 492
Peony, 53, 100, 110, 141, 158, 198, 492
Pepper-wort, 313
Periwinkle, 390, 494
Persephonion, 572
Persicaria, 158
Pestilence-weed, 494
Pettigree, 263
_Phallus impudicus_, 88
Pharaoh’s Fig, 62, 123
Pharisees’ Rings, 357
Pheasant’s Eye, 145
Phlox, 95
_Phu_, 572
Phytolacca, 494
Pickpocket, 545
Pigeon’s-grass, 575
Pile-wort, 179, 277
Pimpernel, 103, 494
_Pimpinella_, 263
Pine, 24, 25, 36, 38, 46, 60, 495
Pink, 25, 194, 497
Pink-of-my-John, 484
Pipe-tree, 561
Pixie Stool, 82, 567
_Pizzu’ngurdu_, 107
_Plakun_, 50, 112
Plane, 497
Plantain, 79, 159, 498
Ploughman’s Spikenard, 237
Plum, 499
Poa, 142
Pook Needle, 82
Poley, 91
Polyanthus, 194
_Polygala_, 157
_Polypodium dichotomon_, 36
„ _vulgare_, 41, 499
Polypody, 159
Pomegranate, 16, 24, 25, 158, 499
_Pommier de Marie Magdaleine_, 43
Pompion, 170
Pompon, 282
_Pomum mirabile_, 257
Poor Man’s Parmacetty, 286, 545
„ „ Pepper, 313
„ „ Treacle, 349
Poplar, 25, 116, 502
Poppy, 25, 93, 108, 157, 158, 159, 504
Portulaca, 158
Potato, 506
Prattling Parnell, 541
Prickly Pear, 266
Priest’s Pintle, 228
_Prikrit_, 109
Primrose, 506
Prince’s Feathers, 213
Procession Flower, 58, 348, 437
_Provinsa_, 107, 109
_Prunella_, 158
_Pteris Esculenta_, 507
Puckfist, 82, 567
Puck’s Stool, 82, 567
Puff-ball, 82
_Pulsatilla_, 507
Pumpkin, 22, 507
Purslane, 108, 508
Queen’s Stock Gilliflower, 553
Quick-beam, 508
Quicken-tree, 508, 529
Quince, 99, 508
Radish, 159, 509
Ragged Robin, 509
Raging Apple, 317
Rag-wort, or Rag-weed, 92, 509
Ram of Libya, 281
Ramp, 228
Rampion, 510
Ramsies, or Ramsins, 349
_Ranunculus_, 55, 158, 159, 510
Raspberry, 511
_Rasrivtrava_, 112, 511
Rattle Weed, 88
_Rayhan_, 246
Reed, 511
Reed Mace, 46, 512
_Reine Marguerite_, 231
Rest Harrow, 571
Rhamnus, 25, 512
Rhubarb, 158
Rice, 513
Robin Redbreast’s Cushion, 100
Rocket, 25, 514
Rodden, 529
Rogation Flower, 58, 348, 437
_Roodselken_, 48
Root of the Holy Ghost, 55
_Rosa Mariæ_, 41
Rose, 24, 25, 43, 54, 59, 138, 158, 181, 183, 193, 195, 199, 515
„ Apple, 23
„ de Noel, 44
„ of Jericho, 44, 528
„ „ Sharon, 528
Rose-bay, 87
Rose-briar, 46, 49, 524
Rosemary, 60, 196, 197, 198, 525
Rowan, 23, 102, 529
Ruddes, 432
_Rudrâksha_, 531
Rue, 104, 531
Rush, 44, 57, 532
Rye, 534
_Saber_, 181, 211
Sacred Bean, 459
Sad Tree, 534
Saffron, 27, 91, 299
Sage, 158, 161, 534
„ of Jerusalem, 297
„ of Bethlehem, 297
Sainfoin, 43, 535
St. Andrew’s Cross, 56
„ Anne’s Needlework, 54
„ Anthony’s Nut, 53, 536
„ „ Turnip, 511, 536
„ Barbara’s Hedge-mustard, 327
„ Barbara’s Cress, 54, 375, 536
„ Barnaby’s Thistle, 54, 536
„ Francis’ Thorn, 53
„ George’s Tree, 53
„ „ Violet, 53
„ James’s Wort, 53, 286, 510, 536, 545
„ John’s Wort, 51, 52, 56, 60, 95, 103, 536
„ John’s Hands, 333
„ Katharine’s Wheel, 536
„ Patrick’s Cabbage, 54, 536, 541
„ Paul’s Betony, 54
„ Peter’s Wort, 54, 536
„ Thomas’s Onion, 476
„ Winifred’s Hair, 55
Sallow, 58, 109, 538
Salsafy, 367
Sal-tree, 538
_Salutaris_, 173
_Sambac_, 392
_Sami_, 113, 205, 236, 539
Samolus, 539
Samphire, 54, 539
_Sanct Benedicten-Kraut_, 374
Sandal, 539
_Sanguis hominis_, 52
Sanicle, 158, 159, 540
_Sanicula Alpina_, 236
Sardea, 540
Satyrion, 108, 159, 540
Savell, 170
Savin, 95, 157, 541
Savory, 541
Saxifrage, 157, 541
Scabious, 158, 159
_Schlüsselblume_, 112
Scorpion-grass, 156, 342
Scotch Thistle, 562
Screw Moss, 56
Scurvy-grass, 160
Sea Fennel, 549
„ Holly, 327
„ Moss, 158
„ Poppy, 541
Seal-wort, 547
Seebright, 156
Seed of Horus, 380
„ „ the Sun, 226
Selago, 111, 137, 542
Selenite, 173
Self-heal, 374
_Selja_, 538
_Sempervivum_, 158
Sengreene, 382
Senna, 158, 271
Sensitive-plant, 543
_Serpentaria_, 376
Service-tree, 543
Sesame, 91, 112, 544
Setwall, or Setewale, 572
_Sferracavallo_, 113, 382, 551, 571
Shamrock, 180, 544
She-Devil, 85
Shepherd’s Purse, 159, 545
Shittah Tree, 60
Sholoa, 545
Sickle-wood, 374
_Sidj_, 328
Silver Bush, 217
„ Plate, 378
„ Weed, 109
Simpler’s Joy, 574
Singer’s Plant, 327
Sistra, 237
Skull-cap-flower, 369
Slayer of Monsters, 173, 349
Sleep-Apple, 93
„ Thorn, 93
Sloe, 200
Smilax, 91, 157
Snake’s Bugloss, 581
Snap Dragon, 217
Sneeze-wort, 153
Snowdrop, 43, 54, 56, 546
Soap-wort, 159
_Solanum_, 546
_Solisequus_, 367
Solomon’s Seal, 547
Solstice, 325
_Sol Terrestris_, 537
Soma, 2, 22, 106, 173, 547
_Sonchus_, 157
_Sonnenkraut_, 325
_Son-trava_, 107
Sops-in-Wine, 269
Sorb, 111, 543
Sorcerer’s Violet, 108
Sorrel, 549
Southernwood, 52, 549, 588
Sow Bread, 301
Sow Thistle, 44, 549
Sparages, 170
Sparrow-wort, 56
„ Tongue, 145
Speedwell, 48, 342, 549
Sperage, 170
Spignel, 24, 550
Spikenard, 27, 550
_Spina Christi_, 46
Spleen-wort, 156, 159
_Sponsa Solis_, 326
_Sposa di Sole_, 434
_Spreng-wurzel_, 552
Spring-wort, 113, 141, 551, 571
Spurge, 310, 367
„ Laurel, 553
„ Olive, 278, 310
Squill, 553
_Stachys Sylvatica_, 227
Stapelia, 88
Star Apple, 298
„ of Bethlehem, 43, 553
„ of Jerusalem, 354
„ of the Earth, 373
Star-wort, 56, 367
Starch-wort, 228
Staunch, 217
Stepmother, 484
Sticadove, 409
Stock, 553
„ Gilliflower, 169
Stonecrop, 111, 554
Storax, 554
_Stramonium_, 106
Straw, 554
Strawberry, 41, 158, 556
„ tree, 226
_Strumea_, 501
_Strychnos Tienté_, 86
Succory, 325
Sugar-cane, 557
Sunflower, 56, 158, 166, 366, 557
_Supercilium Veneris_, 24
_Supyari_, 227
Swallow-herb, 276
„ wort, 159
Sweet Basil, 55
„ Calamus, 217
„ Cicely, 55
„ Flag, 207
„ John, 416
„ Margery, 55
„ William, 198
Swine-Bread, 301
Sword-Flag, 352
Sycamore, 558
Syringa, 559
Tamarind, 560
Tamarisk, 49, 192, 560
Tansy, 101, 561
Tea, 561
Tears of Isis, 572
Teasel, 158
_Té-na-tsa-li_, 109
Terebinth, 61, 346, 561
_Teufelsmilch_, 85
_Theomat_, 109
_Therionarca_, 90
Thistle, 41, 562
Thorn, 46, 95, 114, 174, 563
„ Apple, 565
Three-faces-under-a-hood, 484
Throat-wort, 156, 267
Thunder-flower, 382
Thunderbolt-flower, 544
„ thorn, 552
„ wood, 552
_Thya_, 226
Thyme, 43, 198, 566
_Tirlic_, 50
_Tithymallus_, 157, 158, 367
Tittle-my-fancy, 484
Toad-Flax, 156
Toad’s Mouth, 217
Toadstool, 82, 566
Tobacco, 567
Tooth-cress, 179
Toothed Moss, 158
„ Violet, 158
_Tormentilla_, 159
Toy-wort, 545
Treacle Mustard, 159, 162, 568
Trefoil, 180, 287, 568
Triacle, 162, 568
_Triphera_, 157
_Tripolium_, 157
Troll-flower, 82, 353, 568
True-love, 375
Trumpet-flower, 252
Tuberose, 568
_Tulasi_, 109, 244, 568
Tulip, 56, 569
Tunhoof, 391
Turmeric, 79
Turnesole, 198, 366
Turnip, 156, 159, 571
Tussack-grass, 356
Tutsan, 52, 156, 538, 571
Twopenny-grass, 376
_Typha_, 262
_Tziganka_, 286
Ugh, 592
_Unser Frauen Milch_, 41
„ „ _Müntz_, 42
„ „ _Rauch_, 42
Unshoe-the-Horse, 571
Upas, 86, 571
„ Antjar, 86, 571
Vakula-tree, 79
Valerian, 53, 108, 109, 158, 572
Velvet-flower, 213
Venus’ Comb, 42
„ Looking-glass, 267
_Verfluchte Jungfer_, 325
_Vergiss mein nicht_, 342
Veronica, 550
Vervain, 39, 47, 51, 95, 103, 113, 572
_Vibro_, 111
Vine, 25, 112, 158, 575
Violet, 158, 578
_Violette de Damas_, 308
„ _des Sorciers_, 108
Viper’s Bugloss, 158, 581
„ Grass, 581
Virgin’s Bower, 43, 55, 286
„ Pinch, 55
Wake Robin, 228
_Wak Wak_, 117
Wallflower, 582
Wall Gilliflower, 582
„ Stock Gillofer, 582
Walnut, 63, 158, 192, 582
_Walpurgiskraut_, 333
Wart-wort, 366
Water Gladiole, 533
„ Lily, 463
Waybread, 498
_Wegeleuchte_, 325
_Wegewarte_, 325
Wheat, 52, 168
Whin, 356
White-root, 547
„ Satin-flower, 378
„ Thorn, 32, 44, 138, 563
Whortleberry, 585
Widow’s Flower, 585
Widow-wail, 278
Wiggin, 530
William Tell’s Tree, 592
Willow, 25, 157, 197, 586
Wind-flower, 70, 215
Wine-berry, 355
Winter Cherry, 158
Wishing Thorn, 114
Witchen or Wicken, 508, 529
Witch-Hazel, 380
Witches’ Butter, 86
„ Bells, 345
„ Gowan, 353
„ Herb, 84
„ Thimble, 359
Wolf’s Bane, 53, 91, 93, 159, 443
Woodbine, 96, 379
Woodroof, 43, 59
Wood Sorrel, 48, 545
Wormwood, 51, 52, 378, 578
Wound-wort, 217
„ weed, 354
Yarrow, 102, 588
Yellow Rattle, 56
Yeugh, 592
Yew, 58, 62, 95, 191, 195, 197, 589
Yggdrasill, 592
Yoke-Elm, 380
_Zaclon_, 112
_Zauberwurzel_, 110
_Zedoaria_, 572
[Tailpiece]
* * * * *
Transcriber’s Notes.
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_ and bold text by =equals signs=.
The index entry “Planetary Government of Plants” was printed without a
page number. A duplicate index entry for “Bech” has been removed.
Variant spelling and inconsistent hyphenation have been preserved as
printed; simple typographical errors such as doubled words and letters
have been corrected. Punctuation has been standardised, and unbalanced
quotation marks and parentheses have been repaired.
The following changes have also been made (the changed text follows the
original):
Page 11:
that is mortal ne dare not enter
that is mortal he dare not enter
Page 19:
is not suprising
is not surprising
Page 38:
arlands, wreaths, and festoons of flowers
garlands, wreaths, and festoons of flowers
Page 70:
the Fairies of Skakspeare
the Fairies of Shakspeare
Page 82:
surprislng to find
surprising to find
Page 82:
the Globe-flower (Trollins)
the Globe-flower (Trollius)
Page 83:
hecause by some means
because by some means
Page 84:
on accouut of the fœtid odour
on account of the fœtid odour
Page 87:
a vivid descripition
a vivid description
Page 104:
repugant to them
repugnant to them
Page 106:
supposed to be incorporared
supposed to be incorporated
Page 115:
Too boldy usurping
Too boldly usurping
Page 116:
and at muturity
and at maturity
Page 148:
has been misundertood
has been misunderstood
Page 161:
witchcraft an the malignant influence
witchcraft and the malignant influence
Page 177:
The Hindu racs
The Hindu races
Page 180:
tha symbolic flowers
the symbolic flowers
Page 180:
end fruit symbolism
and fruit symbolism
Page 194:
her father Agamenon
her father Agamemnon
Page 205:
ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF PLANTS
ENCYCLOPÆDIA OF PLANTS
Page 237:
slighest touch
slightest touch
Page 240:
with great ccuracy
with great accuracy
Page 248:
lunacy occur that
lunacy occur than
Page 257:
as long as your’re able
as long as you’re able
Page 258:
Devil thows his cloak
Devil throws his cloak
Page 270:
feed on these cods
feed on these pods
Page 289:
as a fomeutation
as a fomentation
Page 306:
It is not surpising
It is not surprising
Page 315:
animal subtances
animal substances
Page 333:
evil sprits
evil spirits
Page 342:
Algæ Gloiocladeœ
Algæ Gloiocladeæ
Page 426:
Shakspeare thus decribes
Shakspeare thus describes
Page 459:
Te shield-like form
The shield-like form
Page 497:
The town of Augburg
The town of Augsburg
Page 514:
carring a basket
carrying a basket
Page 526:
it it called
it is called
Page 539:
near Kucinagara,
near Kuçinagara,
Page 552:
It is highly propable,
It is highly probable,
Page 560:
The ancient Eyptians
The ancient Egyptians
Page 560:
sacrifical ceremony
sacrificial ceremony
Page 566:
Of witches is is said
Of witches it is said
Page 605:
Ipomæa, 386
Ipomœa, 386
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Plant Lore, Legends, and Lyrics - Embracing the Myths, Traditions, Superstitions, and - Folk-Lore of the Plant Kingdom" ***
Copyright 2023 LibraryBlog. All rights reserved.