The Folk-lore of Plants Part 30

Of the numerous stories connected with the origin of the mistletoe, one is noticed by Lord Bacon, to the effect that a certain bird, known as the "missel-bird," fed upon a particular kind of seed, which, through its incapacity to digest, it evacuated whole, whereupon the seed, falling on the boughs of trees, vegetated and produced the mistletoe.

The magic springwort, which reveals hidden treasures, has a mysterious connection with the woodp.e.c.k.e.r, to which we have already referred. Among further birds which are in some way or other connected with plants is the eagle, which plucks the wild lettuce, with the juice of which it smears its eyes to improve its vision; while the hawk was supposed, for the same purpose, to pluck the hawk-bit.

Similarly, writes Mr. Folkard, [1] pigeons and doves made use of vervain, which was termed "pigeon's-gra.s.s." Once more, the cuckoo, according to an old proverbial rhyme, must eat three meals of cherries before it ceases its song; and it was formerly said that orchids sprang from the seed of the thrush and the blackbird. Further ill.u.s.trations might be added, whereas some of the many plants named after well-known birds are noticed elsewhere.

An old Alsatian belief tells us that bats possessed the power of rendering the eggs of storks unfruitful. Accordingly, when once a stork's egg was touched by a bat it became sterile; and in order to preserve it from the injurious influence, the stork placed in its nest some branches of the maple, which frightened away every intruding bat. [2] There is an amusing legend of the origin of the bramble:--The cormorant was once a wool merchant. He entered into partnership with the bramble and the bat, and they freighted a large ship with wool. She was wrecked, and the firm became bankrupt. Since that disaster the bat skulks about till midnight to avoid his creditors, the cormorant is for ever diving into the deep to discover its foundered vessel, while the bramble seizes hold of every pa.s.sing sheep to make up his loss by stealing the wool.

Returning to the rose, we may quote one or two legendary stories relating to its origin. Thus Sir John Mandeville tells us how when a holy maiden of Bethlehem, "blamed with wrong and slandered," was doomed to death by fire, "she made her prayers to our Lord that He would help her, as she was not guilty of that sin;" whereupon the fire was suddenly quenched, and the burning brands became red "roseres," and the brands that were not kindled became white "roseres" full of roses. "And these were the first roseres and roses, both white and red, that ever any man soughte." Henceforth, says Mr. King,[3] the rose became the flower of martyrs. "It was a basket full of roses that the martyr Saint Dorothea sent to the notary of Theophilus from the garden of Paradise; and roses, says the romance, sprang up all over the field of Ronce-vaux, where Roland and the douze pairs had stained the soil with their blood."

The colour of the rose has been explained by various legends, the Turks attributing its red colour to the blood of Mohammed. Herrick, referring to one of the old cla.s.sic stories of its divine origin, writes:--

"Tis said, as Cupid danced among the G.o.ds, he down the nectar flung, Which, on the white rose being shed, made it for ever after red."

A pretty origin has been a.s.signed to the moss-rose (_Rosa muscosa_):-- "The angel who takes care of flowers, and sprinkles upon them the dew in the still night, slumbered on a spring day in the shade of a rosebush, and when she awoke she said, 'Most beautiful of my children, I thank thee for thy refreshing odour and cooling shade; could you now ask any favour, how willingly would I grant it!' 'Adorn me then with a new charm,' said the spirit of the rose-bush; and the angel adorned the loveliest of flowers with the simple moss."

A further Roumanian legend gives another poetic account of the rose's origin. "It is early morning, and a young princess comes down into her garden to bathe in the silver waves of the sea. The transparent whiteness of her complexion is seen through the slight veil which covers it, and shines through the blue waves like the morning star in the azure sky. She springs into the sea, and mingles with the silvery rays of the sun, which sparkle on the dimples of the laughing waves. The sun stands still to gaze upon her; he covers her with kisses, and forgets his duty.

Once, twice, thrice has the night advanced to take her sceptre and reign over the world; twice had she found the sun upon her way. Since that day the lord of the universe has changed the princess into a rose; and this is why the rose always hangs her head and blushes when the sun gazes on her." There are a variety of rose-legends of this kind in different countries, the universal popularity of this favourite blossom having from the earliest times made it justly in repute; and according to the Hindoo mythologists, PaG.o.da Sin, one of the wives of Vishnu, was discovered in a rose--a not inappropriate locality.

Like the rose, many plants have been extensively a.s.sociated with sacred legendary lore, a circ.u.mstance which frequently explains their origin. A pretty legend, for instance, tells us how an angel was sent to console Eve when mourning over the barren earth. Now, no flower grew in Eden, and the driving snow kept falling to form a pall for earth's untimely funeral after the fall of man. But as the angel spoke, he caught a flake of falling snow, breathed on it, and bade it take a form, and bud and blow. Ere it reached the ground it had turned into a beautiful flower, which Eve prized more than all the other fair plants in Paradise; for the angel said to her:--

"This is an earnest, Eve, to thee, That sun and summer soon shall be."

The angel's mission ended, he departed, but where he had stood a ring of snowdrops formed a lovely posy.

This legend reminds us of one told by the poet Shiraz, respecting the origin of the forget-me-not:--"It was in the golden morning of the early world, when an angel sat weeping outside the closed gates of Eden. He had fallen from his high estate through loving a daughter of earth, nor was he permitted to enter again until she whom he loved had planted the flowers of the forget-me-not in every corner of the world. He returned to earth and a.s.sisted her, and they went hand in hand over the world planting the forget-me-not. When their task was ended, they entered Paradise together; for the fair woman, without tasting the bitterness of death, became immortal like the angel, whose love her beauty had won, when she sat by the river twining the forget-me-not in her hair." This is a more poetic legend than the familiar one given in Mill's "History of Chivalry," which tells how the lover, when trying to pick some blossoms of the myosotis for his lady-love, was drowned, his last words as he threw the flowers on the bank being "Forget me not." Another legend, already noticed, would a.s.sociate it with the magic spring-wort, which revealed treasure-caves hidden in the mountains. The traveller enters such an opening, but after filling his pockets with gold, pays no heed to the fairy's voice, "Forget not the best," _i.e.,_ the spring-wort, and is severed in twain by the mountain clashing together.

In speaking of the various beliefs relative to plant life in a previous chapter, we have enumerated some of the legends which would trace the origin of many plants to the shedding of human blood, a belief which is a distinct survival of a very primitive form of belief, and enters very largely into the stories told in cla.s.sical mythology. The dwarf elder is said to grow where blood has been shed, and it is nicknamed in Wales "Plant of the blood of man," with which may be compared its English name of "death-wort." It is much a.s.sociated in this country with the Danes, and tradition says that wherever their blood was shed in battle, this plant afterwards sprang up; hence its names of Dane-wort, Dane-weed, or Dane's-blood. One of the bell-flower tribe, the cl.u.s.tered bell-flower, has a similar legend attached to it; and according to Miss Pratt, "in the village of Bartlow there are four remarkable hills, supposed to have been thrown up by the Danes as monumental memorials of the battle fought in 1006 between Canute and Edmund Ironside. Some years ago the cl.u.s.tered bell-flower was largely scattered about these mounds, the presence of which the cottagers attributed to its having sprung from the Dane's blood," under which name the flower was known in the neighbourhood.

The rose-coloured lotus or melilot is, from the legend, said to have been sprung from the blood of a lion slain by the Emperor Adrian; and, in short, folk-lore is rich in stories of this kind. Some legends are of a more romantic kind, as that which explains the origin of the wallflower, known in Palestine as the "blood-drops of Christ." In bygone days a castle stood near the river Tweed, in which a fair maiden was kept prisoner, having plighted her troth and given her affection to a young heir of a hostile clan. But blood having been shed between the chiefs on either side, the deadly hatred thus engendered forbade all thoughts of a union. The lover tried various stratagems to obtain his fair one, and at last succeeded in gaining admission attired as a wandering troubadour, and eventually arranged that she should effect her escape, while he awaited her arrival with an armed force. But this plan, as told by Herrick, was unsuccessful:--

"Up she got upon a wall, Attempted down to slide withal; But the silken twist untied, She fell, and, bruised, she died.

Love, in pity to the deed, And her loving luckless speed, Twined her to this plant we call Now the 'flower of the wall.'"

The tea-tree in China, from its marked effect on the human const.i.tution, has long been an agent of superst.i.tion, and been a.s.sociated with the following legend, quoted by Schleiden. It seems that a devout and pious hermit having, much against his will, been overtaken by sleep in the course of his watchings and prayers, so that his eyelids had closed, tore them from his eyes and threw them on the ground in holy wrath. But his act did not escape the notice of a certain G.o.d, who caused a tea-shrub to spring out from them, the leaves of which exhibit, "the form of an eyelid bordered with lashes, and possess the gift of hindering sleep." Sir George Temple, in his "Excursions in the Mediterranean," mentions a legend relative to the origin of the geranium. It is said that the prophet Mohammed having one day washed his shirt, threw it upon a mallow plant to dry; but when it was afterwards taken away, its sacred contact with the mallow was found to have changed the plant into a fine geranium, which now for the first time came into existence.

Footnotes:

1. "Plant-Lore Legends and Lyrics."

2. Folkard's "Plant Lore Legends and Lyrics," p. 430.

3. "Sacred Trees and Flowers," _Quarterly Review_, cxiv. 239.

CHAPTER XXIII.

MYSTIC PLANTS.

The mystic character and history of certain plants meet us in every age and country. The gradual evolution of these curious plants of belief must, no doubt, partly be ascribed to their mythical origin, and in many cases to their sacred a.s.sociations; while, in some instances, it is not surprising that, "any plant which produced a marked effect upon the human const.i.tution should become an object of superst.i.tion." [1] A further reason why sundry plants acquired a mystic notoriety was their peculiar manner of growth, which, through not being understood by early botanists, caused them to be invested with mystery. Hence a variety of combinations have produced those mystic properties of trees and flowers which have inspired them with such superst.i.tious veneration in our own and other countries. According to Mr. Conway, the apple, of all fruits, seems to have had the widest and most mystical history. Thus, "Aphrodite bears it in her hand as well as Eve; the serpent guards it, the dragon watches it. It is the healing fruit of the Arabian tribes. Azrael, the Angel of Death, accomplishes his mission by holding it to the nostrils, and in the prose Edda it is written, 'Iduna keeps in a box apples which the G.o.ds, when they feel old age approaching, have only to taste to become young again.'" Indeed, the legendary mythical lore connected with the apple is most extensive, a circ.u.mstance which fully explains its mystic character. Further, as Mr. Folkard points out,[2] in the popular tales of all countries the apple is represented as the princ.i.p.al magical fruit, in support of which he gives several interesting ill.u.s.trations.

Thus, "In the German folk-tale of 'The Man of Iron,' a princess throws a golden apple as a prize, which the hero catches three times, and carries off and wins." And in a French tale, "A singing apple is one of the marvels which Princess Belle-Etoile and her brothers and her cousin bring from the end of the world." The apple figures in many an Italian tale, and holds a prominent place in the Hungarian story of the Iron Ladislas.[3] But many of these so-called mystic trees and plants have been mentioned in the preceding pages in their a.s.sociation with lightning, witchcraft, demonology, and other branches of folk-lore, although numerous other curious instances are worthy of notice, some of which are collected together in the present chapter. Thus the nettle and milfoil, when carried about the person, were believed to drive away fear, and were, on this account, frequently worn in time of danger. The laurel preserved from misfortune, and in olden times we are told how the superst.i.tious man, to be free from every chance of ill-luck, was wont to carry a bay leaf in his mouth from morning till night.

One of the remarkable virtues of the fruit of the balm was its prolonging the lives of those who partook of it to four or five hundred years, and Albertus Magnus, summing up the mystic qualities of the heliotrope, gives this piece of advice:--"Gather it in August, wrap it in a bay leaf with a wolf's tooth, and it will, if placed under the pillow, show a man who has been robbed where are his goods, and who has taken them. Also, if placed in a church, it will keep fixed in their places all the women present who have broken their marriage vow." It was formerly supposed that the cuc.u.mber had the power of killing by its great coldness, and the larch was considered impenetrable by fire; Evelyn describing it as "a goodly tree, which is of so strange a composition that 'twill hardly burn."

In addition to guarding the homestead from ill, the h.e.l.lebore was regarded as a wonderful antidote against madness, and as such is spoken of by Burton, who introduces it among the emblems of his frontispiece, in his "Anatomie of Melancholy:"--

"Borage and h.e.l.lebore fill two scenes, Sovereign plants to purge the veins Of melancholy, and cheer the heart Of those black fumes which make it smart; To clear the brain of misty fogs, Which dull our senses and Soul clogs; The best medicine that e'er G.o.d made For this malady, if well a.s.say'd."

But, as it has been observed, our forefathers, in strewing their floors with this plant, were introducing a real evil into their houses, instead of an imaginary one, the perfume having been considered highly pernicious to health.

In the many curious tales related of the mystic henbane may be quoted one noticed by Gerarde, who says: "The root boiled with vinegar, and the same holden hot in the mouth, easeth the pain of the teeth. The seed is used by mountebank tooth-drawers, which run about the country, to cause worms to come forth of the teeth, by burning it in a chafing-dish of coles, the party holding his mouth over the fume thereof; but some crafty companions, to gain money, convey small lute-strings into the water, persuading the patient that those small creepers came out of his mouth or other parts which he intended to cure." Shakespeare, it may be remembered, alludes to this superst.i.tion in "Much Ado About Nothing"

(Act iii. sc. 2), where Leonato reproaches Don Pedro for sighing for the toothache, which he adds "is but a tumour or a worm." The notion is still current in Germany, where the following incantation is employed:--

"Pear tree, I complain to thee Three worms sting me."

The henbane, too, according to a German belief, is said to attract rain, and in olden times was thought to produce sterility. Some critics have suggested that it is the plant referred to in "Macbeth" by Banquo (Act i. sc. 3):--

"Have we eaten of the insane root That takes the reason prisoner?"

Although others think it is the hemlock. Anyhow, the henbane has long been in repute as a plant possessed of mysterious attributes, and Douce quotes the subjoined pa.s.sage:--"Henbane, called insana, mad, for the use thereof is perillous, for if it be eate or dronke, it breedeth madness, or slowe lykeness of sleepe." In days gone by, when the mandrake was an object of superst.i.tious veneration by reason of its supernatural character, the Germans made little idols of its root, which were consulted as oracles. Indeed, so much credence was attached to these images, that they were manufactured in very large quant.i.ties for exportation to various other countries, and realised good prices.

Oftentimes subst.i.tuted for the mandrake was the briony, which designing people sold at a good profit. Gerarde informs us, "How the idle drones, that have little or nothing to do but eat and drink, have bestowed some of their time in carving the roots of briony, forming them to the shape of men and women, which falsifying practice hath confirmed the error amongst the simple and unlearned people, who have taken them upon their report to be the true mandrakes." Oftentimes, too, the root of the briony was trained to grow into certain eccentric shapes, which were used as charms. Speaking of the mandrake, we may note that in France it was regarded as a species of elf, and nicknamed _main de gloire_; in connection with which Saint-Palaye describes a curious superst.i.tion:-- "When I asked a peasant one day why he was gathering mistletoe, he told me that at the foot of the oaks on which the mistletoe grew he had a mandrake; that this mandrake had lived in the earth from whence the mistletoe sprang; that he was a kind of mole; that he who found him was obliged to give him food--bread, meat, and some other nourishment; and that he who had once given him food was obliged to give it every day, and in the same quant.i.ty, without which the mandrake would a.s.suredly cause the forgetful one to die. Two of his countrymen, whom he named to me, had, he said, lost their lives; but, as a recompense, this _main de gloire_ returned on the morrow double what he had received the previous day. If one paid cash for the _main de gloire's_ food one day, he would find double the amount the following, and so with anything else. A certain countryman, whom he mentioned as still living, and who had become very rich, was believed to have owed his wealth to the fact that he had found one of these _mains de gloire_." Many other equally curious stories are told of the mandrake, a plant which, for its mystic qualities, has perhaps been unsurpa.s.sed; and it is no wonder that it was a dread object of superst.i.tious fear, for Moore, speaking of its appearance, says:--

"Such rank and deadly l.u.s.tre dwells, As in those h.e.l.lish fires that light The mandrake's charnel leaves at night."

But these mandrake fables are mostly of foreign extraction and of very ancient date. Dr. Daubeny, in his "Roman Husbandry," has given a curious drawing from the Vienna MS. of Dioscorides in the fifth century, representing the G.o.ddess of Discovery presenting to Dioscorides the root of the mandrake (of thoroughly human shape), which she has just pulled up, while the unfortunate dog which had been employed for that purpose is depicted in the agonies of death.

Basil, writes Lord Bacon in his "Natural History," if exposed too much to the sun, changes into wild thyme; and a Bavarian piece of folk-lore tells us that the person who, during an eclipse of the sun, throws an offering of palm with crumbs on the fire, will never be harmed by the sun. In Hesse, it is affirmed that with knots tied in willow one may slay a distant enemy; and according to a belief current in Iceland, the _Caltha pal.u.s.tris_, if taken with certain ceremonies and carried about, will prevent the bearer from having an angry word spoken to him. The virtues of the dittany were famous as far back as Plutarch's time, and Gerarde speaks of its marvellous efficacy in drawing forth splinters of wood, &c., and in the healing of wounds, especially those "made with envenomed weapons, arrows shot out of guns, and such like."

Then there is the old tradition to the effect that if boughs of oak be put into the earth, they will bring forth wild vines; and among the supernatural qualities of the holly recorded by Pliny, we are told that its flowers cause water to freeze, that it repels lightning, and that if a staff of its wood be thrown at any animal, even if it fall short of touching it, the animal will be so subdued by its influence as to return and lie down by it. Speaking, too, of the virtues of the peony, he thus writes:--"It hath been long received, and confirmed by divers trials, that the root of the male peony dried, tied to the necke, doth helpe the falling sickness, and likewise the incubus, which we call the mare. The cause of both these diseases, and especially of the epilepsie from the stomach, is the grossness of the vapours, which rise and enter into the cells of the brain, and therefore the working is by extreme and subtle alternation which that simple hath." Worn as an amulet, the peony was a popular preservative against enchantment.

Footnotes:

1. _Fraser's Magazine_ 1870, p. 709.

2. "Plant Lore Legends and Lyrics," p. 224.

3. See Miss Busk's "Folk-lore of Rome."