VI. Plants of the Fairies and Naiades…

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.

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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.Return to passage

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]

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.”

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[Headpiece]

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.

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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.

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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.

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.”

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.”

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.”

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.”

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.”

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.”

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.

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