The Folk-lore of Plants Part 24

because children blow the ripe fruit from the receptacle to tell the time of day and for various purposes of divination. Thus in the "Sad Shepherd," page 8, it is said:--

"Her treading would not bend a blade of gra.s.s, Or shake the downy blow-ball from his stalk."

In Scotland, one of the popular names of the _Angelica sylvestris_ is "aik-skeiters," or "hear-skeiters," because children shoot oats through the hollow stems, as peas are shot through a pea-shooter. Then there is the goose-gra.s.s (_Galium aparine_), variously called goose-bill, beggar's-lice, scratch-weed, and which has been designated blind-tongue, because "children with the leaves practise phlebotomy upon the tongue of those playmates who are simple enough to endure it," a custom once very general in Scotland. [2]

The catkins of the willow are in some counties known as "goslings," or "goslins,"--children, says Halliwell, [3] sometimes playing with them by putting them in the fire and singeing them brown, repeating verses at the same time. One of the names of the heath-pea (_Lathyrus macrorrhizus_) is liquory-knots, and school-boys in Berwickshire so call them, for when dried their taste is not unlike that of the real liquorice. [4] Again, a children's name of common henbane (_Hyoscyamus niger_) is "loaves of bread," an allusion to which is made by Clare in his "Shepherd's Calendar":--

"Hunting from the stack-yard sod The stinking henbane's belted pod, By youth's warm fancies sweetly led To christen them his loaves of bread."

A Worcestershire name for a horse-chestnut is the "oblionker tree."

According to a correspondent of _Notes and Queries_ (5th Ser. x. 177), in the autumn, when the chestnuts are falling from their trunks, boys thread them on string and play a "cob-nut" game with them. When the striker is taking aim, and preparing for a shot at his adversary's nut, he says:--

"Oblionker!

My first conker (conquer)."

The word oblionker apparently being a meaningless invention to rhyme with the word conquer, which has by degrees become applied to the fruit itself.

The wall peniterry (_Parietaria officinalis_) is known in Ireland as "peniterry," and is thus described in "Father Connell, by the O'Hara Family" (chap, xii.):--

"A weed called, locally at least, peniterry, to which the suddenly terrified [schoolboy] idler might run in his need, grasping it hard and threateningly, and repeating the following 'words of power':--

'Peniterry, peniterry, that grows by the wall, Save me from a whipping, or I'll pull you roots and all.'"

Johnston, who has noticed so many odd superst.i.tions, tells us that the tuberous ground-nut (_Bunium flexuosum_), which has various nicknames, such as "lousy," "loozie," or "lucie arnut," is dug up by children who eat the roots, "but they are hindered from indulging to excess by a cherished belief that the luxury tends to generate vermin in the head." [5]

An old rhyme often in years past used by country children when the daffodils made their annual appearance in early spring, was as follows:--

"Daff-a-down-dill Has now come to town, In a yellow petticoat And a green gown."

A name for the shepherd's purse is "mother's-heart," and in the eastern Border district, says Johnston, children have a sort of game with the seed-pouch. They hold it out to their companions, inviting them to "take a haud o' that." It immediately cracks, and then follows a triumphant shout, "You've broken your mother's heart." In Northamptonshire, children pick the leaves of the herb called pick-folly, one by one, repeating each time the words, "Rich man, poor man, beggar-man, thief,"

&c., fancying that the one which comes to be named at the last plucking will prove the conditions of their future partners. Variations of this custom exist elsewhere, and a correspondent of "Science Gossip" (1876, xi. 94). writes:--"I remember when at school at Birmingham that my playmates manifested a very great repugnance to this plant. Very few of them would touch it, and it was known to us by the two bad names, "haughty-man's plaything," and "pick your mother's heart out." In Hanover, as well as in the Swiss canton of St. Gall, the same plant is offered to uninitiated persons with a request to pluck one of the pods.

Should he do so the others exclaim, "You have stolen a purse of gold from your father and mother."" "It is interesting to find," writes Mr.

Britten in the "Folk-lore Record" (i. 159), "that a common tropical weed, _Ageratum conyzoides_, is employed by children in Venezuela in a very similar manner."

The compilers of the "Dictionary of Plant Names" consider that the double (garden) form of _Saxifraga granulata_, designated "pretty maids," may be referred to in the old nursery rhyme:--

"Mary, Mary, quite contrary, How does your garden grow?

c.o.c.kle-sh.e.l.ls, and silver bells, And pretty maids all in a row."

The old-man's-beard (_Clematis vitalba_) is in many places popularly known as smoke-wood, because "our village-boys smoke pieces of the wood as they do of rattan cane; hence, it is sometimes called smoke-wood, and smoking-cane." [6]

The children of Galloway play at hide-and-seek with a little black-topped flower which is known by them as the Davie-drap, meantime repeating the following rhyme:--

"Within the bounds of this I hap My black and bonnie Davie-drap: Wha is he, the cunning ane, To me my Davie-drap will fin'?"

This plant, it has been suggested, [7] being the cuckoo gra.s.s (_Luzula campestris_), which so often figures in children's games and rhymes.

Once more, there are numerous games played by children in which certain flowers are introduced, as in the following, known as "the three flowers," played in Scotland, and thus described in Chambers's "Popular Rhymes," p. 127:--"A group of lads and la.s.ses being a.s.sembled round the fire, two leave the party and consult together as to the names of three others, young men or girls, whom they designate as the red rose, the pink, and the gillyflower. The two young men then return, and having selected a member of the fairer group, they say to her:--

'My mistress sent me unto thine, Wi' three young flowers baith fair and fine:-- The pink, the rose, and the gillyflower, And as they here do stand, Whilk will ye sink, whilk will ye swim, And whilk bring hame to land?'

The maiden must choose one of the flowers named, on which she pa.s.ses some approving epithet, adding, at the same time, a disapproving rejection of the other two, as in the following terms: 'I will sink the pink, swim the rose, and bring hame the gillyflower to land.' The young men then disclose the names of the parties upon whom they had fixed those appellations respectively, when it may chance she has slighted the person to whom she is most attached, and contrariwise." Games of this kind are very varied, and still afford many an evening's amus.e.m.e.nt among the young people of our country villages during the winter evenings.

Footnotes:

1. _Journal of Horticulture_, 1876, p. 355.

2. Johnston's "Botany of Eastern Borders."

3. "Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words."

4. Johnston's "Botany of Eastern Borders," p. 57.

5. "Botany of Eastern Borders," p. 85.

6. "English Botany," ed. I, iii. p. 3.

7. "Dictionary of Plant Names" (Britten and Holland), p. 145.

CHAPTER XIX.

SACRED PLANTS.

Closely allied with plant-worship is the sacred and superst.i.tious reverence which, from time immemorial, has been paid by various communities to certain trees and plants.

In many cases this sanct.i.ty originated in the olden heathen mythology, when "every flower was the emblem of a G.o.d; every tree the abode of a nymph." From their a.s.sociation, too, with certain events, plants frequently acquired a sacred character, and occasionally their specific virtues enhanced their veneration. In short, the large number of sacred plants found in different countries must be attributed to a variety of causes, ill.u.s.trations of which are given in the present chapter.

Thus going back to mythological times, it may be noticed that trees into which persons were metamorphosed became sacred. The laurel was sacred to Apollo in memory of Daphne, into which tree she was changed when escaping from his advances:--

"Because thou canst not be My mistress, I espouse thee for my tree; Be thou the prize of honour and renown, The deathless poet and the poet's crown; Thou shalt the Roman festivals adorn, And, after poets, be by victors won."

But it is unnecessary to give further instances of such familiar stories, of which early history is full. At the same time it is noteworthy that many of these plants which acquired a sanct.i.ty from heathen mythology still retain their sacred character--a fact which has invested them with various superst.i.tions, in addition to having caused them to be selected for ceremonial usage and homage in modern times.

Thus the pine, with its mythical origin and heathen a.s.sociations, is an important tree on the Continent, being surrounded with a host of legends, most of which, in one shape or another, are relics of early forms of belief. The sacred character of the oak still survives in modern folk-lore, and a host of flowers which grace our fields and hedges have sacred a.s.sociations from their connection with the heathen G.o.ds of old. Thus the anemone, poppy, and violet were dedicated to Venus; and to Diana "all flowers growing in untrodden dells and shady nooks, uncontaminated by the tread of man, more especially belonged."

The narcissus and maidenhair were sacred to Proserpina, and the willow to Ceres. The pink is Jove's flower, and of the flowers a.s.signed to Juno may be mentioned the lily, crocus, and asphodel.

Pa.s.sing on to other countries, we find among the plants most conspicuous for their sacred character the well-known lotus of the East (_Nelunibium speciosum_), around which so many traditions and mythological legends have cl.u.s.tered. According to a Hindu legend, from its blossom Brahma came forth:--

"A form Cerulean fluttered o'er the deep; Brightest of beings, greatest of the great, Who, not as mortals steep Their eyes in dewy sleep, But heavenly pensive on the lotus lay, That blossom'd at his touch, and shed a golden ray.

Hail, primal blossom! hail, empyreal gem, Kemel, or Pedma, [1] or whate'er high name Delight thee, say. What four-formed G.o.dhead came, With graceful stole and beamy diadem, Forth from thy verdant stem." [2]

Buddha, too, whose symbol is the lotus, is said to have first appeared floating on this mystic flower, and, indeed, it would seem that many of the Eastern deities were fond of resting on its leaves; while in China, the G.o.d Pazza is generally represented as occupying this position. Hence the lotus has long been an object of worship, and as a sacred plant holds a most distinguished place, for it is the flower of the,