The Folk lore of Plants - T. F. Thiselton Dyer
"Among dead weeds,
Bloom for St. Michael's valorous deeds,"
and the golden star lily, termed St. Jerome's lily. On St. Luke's Day,
certain flowers, as we have already noticed, have been in request for
love divinations; and on the Continent the chestnut is eaten on the
festival of St. Simon, in Piedmont on All Souls' Day, and in France on
St. Martin's, when old women assemble beneath the windows and sing a
long ballad. Hallowe'en has its use among divinations, at which time
various plants are in request, and among the observance of All Souls'
Day was blessing the beans. It would appear, too, that in days gone by,
on the eve of All Saints' Day, heath was specially burnt by way of a
bonfire:--
"On All Saints' Day bare is the place where the heath is burnt;
The plough is in the furrow, the ox at work."
From the shape of its flower, the trumpet-flowered wood-sorrel has been
called St. Cecilia's flower, whose festival is kept on November 22. The
_Nigella damascena_, popularly known as love-in-a-mist, was designated
St. Catherine's flower, "from its persistent styles," writes Dr.
Prior,[5] "resembling the spokes of her wheel." There was also the
Catherine-pear, to which Gay alludes in his "Pastorals," where
Sparabella, on comparing herself with her rival, says:--
"Her wan complexion's like the withered leek,
While Catherine-pears adorn my ruddy cheek."
Herb-Barbara, or St. Barbara's cress (_Barbarea vulgaris_), was so
called from growing and being eaten about the time of her festival
(December 4).
Coming to Christmas, some of the principal evergreens used in this
country for decorative purposes are the ivy, laurel, bay, arbor vitae,
rosemary, and holly; mistletoe, on account of its connection with
Druidic rites, having been excluded from churches. Speaking of the
holly, Mr. Conway remarks that, "it was to the ancient races of the north
a sign of the life which preserved nature through the desolation of
winter, and was gathered into pagan temples to comfort the sylvan
spirits during the general death." He further adds that "it is a
singular fact that it is used by the wildest Indians of the Pacific
coast in their ceremonies of purification. The ashen-faggot was in
request for the Christmas fire, the ceremonies relating to which are
well known."
Footnotes:
1. By D. Moore and A.G. Moore, 1866.
2. See "Journal of the Arch. Assoc.," 1832, vii. 206.
3. See "British Popular Customs."
4. "Plant Lore Legends and Lyrics," p. 504.
5. "Popular Names of British Plants," 1879, p. 204.
CHAPTER XVIII.
CHILDREN'S RHYMES AND GAMES.
Children are more or less observers of nature, and frequently far more
so than their elders. This, perhaps, is in a great measure to be
accounted for from the fact that childhood is naturally inquisitive, and
fond of having explained whatever seems in any way mysterious. Such
especially is the case in the works of nature, and in a country ramble
with children their little voices are generally busy inquiring why this
bird does this, or that plant grows in such a way--a variety of
questions, indeed, which unmistakably prove that the young mind
instinctively seeks after knowledge. Hence, we find that the works of
nature enter largely into children's pastimes; a few specimens of their
rhymes and games associated with plants we quote below.
In Lincolnshire, the butter-bur (_Petasites vulgaris_) is nicknamed
bog-horns, because the children use the hollow stalks as horns or
trumpets, and the young leaves and shoots of the common hawthorn
(_Cratoegus oxyacantha_), from being commonly eaten by children in
spring, are known as "bread and cheese;" while the ladies-smock
(_Cardamine pratensis_) is termed "bread and milk," from the custom, it
has been suggested, of country people having bread and milk for
breakfast about the season when the flower first comes in. In the North
of England this plant is known as cuckoo-spit, because almost every
flower stem has deposited upon it a frothy patch not unlike human
saliva, in which is enveloped a pale green insect. Few north-country
children will gather these flowers, believing that it is unlucky to do
so, adding that the cuckoo has spit upon it when flying over. [1]
The fruits of the mallow are popularly termed by children cheeses, in
allusion to which Clare writes:--
"The sitting down when school was o'er,
Upon the threshold of the door,
Picking from mallows, sport to please,
The crumpled seed we call a cheese."
A Buckinghamshire name with children for the deadly nightshade (_Atropa
belladonna_) is the naughty-man's cherry, an illustration of which we
may quote from Curtis's "Flora Londinensis":--"On Keep Hill, near High
Wycombe, where we observed it, there chanced to be a little boy. I asked
him if he knew the plant. He answered 'Yes; it was naughty-man's
cherries.'" In the North of England the broad-dock (_Rumex
obtusifolius_), when in seed, is known by children as curly-cows, who
milk it by drawing the stalks through their fingers. Again, in the same
locality, children speaking of the dead-man's thumb, one of the popular
names of the _Orchis mascula_, tell one another with mysterious awe that
the root was once the thumb of some unburied murderer. In one of the
"Roxburghe Ballads" the phrase is referred to:--
"Then round the meadows did she walke,
Catching each flower by the stalke,
Suche as within the meadows grew,
As dead-man's thumbs and harebell blue."
It is to this plant that Shakespeare doubtless alludes in "Hamlet" (Act
iv. sc. 7), where:--
"Long purples
That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,
But our cold maids do dead-men's fingers call them."
In the south of Scotland, the name "doudle," says Jamieson, is applied
to the root of the common reed-grass (_Phragmites communis_), which is
found, partially decayed, in morasses, and of "which the children in the
south of Scotland make a sort of musical instrument, similar to the
oaten pipes of the ancients." In Yorkshire, the water-scrophularia
(_Scrophularia aquatica_), is in children's language known as
"fiddle-wood," so called because the stems are by children stripped of
their leaves, and scraped across each other fiddler-fashion, when they
produce a squeaking sound. This juvenile music is the source of infinite
amusement among children, and is carried on by them with much enthusiasm
in their games. Likewise, the spear-thistle (_Carduus lanceolatus_) is
designated Marian in Scotland, while children blow the pappus from the
receptacle, saying:--
"Marian, Marian, what's the time of day,
One o'clock, two o'clock--it's time we were away."
In Cheshire, when children first see the heads of the ribwort plantain
(_Plantago lanceolata_) in spring, they repeat the following rhyme:--
"Chimney sweeper all in black,
Go to the brook and wash your back,
Wash it clean, or wash it none;
Chimney sweeper, have you done?":--
Being in all probability a mode of divination for insuring good luck.
Another name for the same plant is "cocks," from children fighting the
flower-stems one against another.
The common hazel-nut (_Corylus avellana_) is frequently nicknamed the
"cob-nut," and was so called from being used in an old game played by
children. An old name for the devil's-bit (_Scabiosa succisa_), in the
northern counties, and in Scotland, is "curl-doddy," from the
resemblance of the head of flowers to the curly pate of a boy, this
nickname being often used by children who thus address the plant:--
"Curly-doddy, do my biddin',
Soop my house, and shoal my widden'."
In Ireland, children twist the stalk, and as it slowly untwists in the
hand, thus address it:--
"Curl-doddy on the midden,
Turn round an' take my biddin'."
In Cumberland, the _Primula farinosa_, commonly known as bird's-eye, is
called by children "bird-een."
"The lockety-gowan and bonny bird-een
Are the fairest flowers that ever were seen."
And in many places the _Leontodon taraxacum_ is designated "blow-ball,"
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 grass,
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-grass (_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 superstitions, 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?
Cockle-shells, 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 grass (_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 lasses being assembled 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 passes
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 amusement 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 superstitious
reverence which, from time immemorial, has been paid by various
communities to certain trees and plants.
In many cases this sanctity originated in the olden heathen mythology,
when "every flower was the emblem of a god; every tree the abode of a
nymph." From their association, 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, illustrations 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 sanctity from
heathen mythology still retain their sacred character--a fact which has
invested them with various superstitions, 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 associations, 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 associations from their connection with the heathen
gods 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 assigned to Juno
may be mentioned the lily, crocus, and asphodel.
Passing 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 clustered. 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 godhead 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 god 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,
"Old Hindu mythologies, wherein
The lotus, attribute of Ganga--embling
The world's great reproductive power--was held
In veneration."
We may mention here that the lotus, known also as the sacred bean of
Egypt, and the rose-lily of the Nile, as far back as four thousand years
ago was held in high sanctity by the Egyptian priests, still retaining
its sacred character in China, Japan, and Asiatic Russia.
Another famous sacred plant is the soma or moon-plant of India, the
_Asclepias acida_, a climbing plant with milky juice, which Windischmann
has identified with the "tree of life which grew in paradise." Its milk
juice was said to confer immortality, the plant itself never decaying;
and in a hymn in the _Rig Veda_ the soma sacrifice is thus described:--
"We've quaffed the soma bright
And are immortal grown,
We've entered into light
And all the gods have known.
What mortal can now harm,
Or foeman vex us more?
Through thee beyond alarm,
Immortal God! we soar."
Then there is the peepul or bo-tree (_Ficus religiosa_), which is held
in high veneration by the followers of Buddha, in the vicinity of whose
temples it is generally planted. One of these trees in Ceylon is said to
be of very great antiquity, and according to Sir J. E. Tennant, "to it
kings have even dedicated their dominions in testimony of their belief
that it is a branch of the identical fig-tree under which Gotama Buddha
reclined when he underwent his apotheosis."
The peepul-tree is highly venerated in Java, and by the Buddhists of
Thibet is known as the bridge of safety, over which mortals pass from
the shores of this world to those of the unseen one beyond. Occasionally
confounded with this peepul is the banyan (_Ficus indica_), which is
another sacred tree of the Indians. Under its shade Vishnu is said to
have been born; and by the Chinese, Buddha is represented as sitting
beneath its leaves to receive the homage of the god Brahma. Another
sacred tree is the deodar (_Cedrus deodara_), a species of cedar, being
the Devadara, or tree-god of the Shastras, which in so many of the
ancient Hindu hymns is depicted as the symbol of power and majesty. [3]
The aroka, or _Saraca indica_, is said to preserve chastity, and is
dedicated to Kama, the Indian god of love, while with the negroes of
Senegambia the baobab-tree is an object of worship. In Borneo the
nipa-palm is held in veneration, and the Mexican Indians have their
moriche-palm (_Mauritia flexuosa_). The _Tamarindus Indica_ is in Ceylon
dedicated to Siva, the god of destruction; and in Thibet, the jambu or
rose-apple is believed to be the representative of the divine
amarita-tree which bears ambrosia.
The pomegranate, with its mystic origin and early sacred associations,
was long reverenced by the Persians and Jews, an old tradition having
identified it as the forbidden fruit given by Eve to Adam. Again, as a
sacred plant the basil has from time immemorial been held in high repute
by the Hindus, having been sacred to Vishnu. Indeed it is worshipped as
a deity itself, and is invoked as the goddess Tulasi for the protection
of the human frame. It is further said that "the heart of Vishnu, the
husband of the Tulasi, is agitated and tormented whenever the least
sprig is broken of a plant of Tulasi, his wife."
Among further flowers holding a sacred character may be mentioned the
henna, the Egyptian privet (_Lawsonia alba_), the flower of paradise,
which was pronounced by Mahomet as "chief of the flowers of this world
and the next," the wormwood having been dedicated to the goddess Iris.
By the aborigines of the Canary Islands, the dragon-tree (_Dracoena
draco_) of Orotava was an object of sacred reverence; [4] and in Burmah
at the present day the eugenia is held sacred. [5]
It has been remarked that the life of Christ may be said to fling its
shadow over the whole vegetable world. [6] "From this time the trees and
the flowers which had been associated with heathen rites and deities,
began to be connected with holier names, and not unfrequently with the
events of the crucifixion itself."
Thus, upon the Virgin Mary a wealth of flowers was lavished, all white
ones, having been "considered typical of her purity and holiness, and
consecrated to her festivals." [7] Indeed, not only, "were the finer
flowers wrested from the classic Juno and Diana, and from the Freyja and
Bertha of northern lands given to her, but lovely buds of every hue were
laid upon her shrines." [8] One species, for instance, of the
maiden-hair fern, known also as "Our Lady's hair," is designated in
Iceland "Freyja's hair," and the rose, often styled "Frau rose," or
"Mother rose," the favourite flower of Hulda, was transferred to the
Virgin. On the other hand, many plants bearing the name of Our Lady,
were, writes Mr. Folkard, in Puritan times, "replaced by the name of
Venus, thus recurring to the ancient nomenclature; 'Our Lady's comb'
becoming 'Venus's comb.'" But the two flowers which were specially
connected with the Virgin were the lily and the rose. Accordingly, in
Italian art, a vase of lilies stands by the Virgin's side, with three
flowers crowning three green stems. The flower is generally the large
white lily of our gardens, "the pure white petals signifying her
spotless body, and the golden anthers within typifying her soul
sparkling with divine light." [9]
The rose, both red and white, appears at an early period as an emblem of
the Virgin, "and was specially so recognised by St. Dominic when he
instituted the devotion of the rosary, with direct reference to
her." [10] Among other flowers connected with the Virgin Mary may be
mentioned the flowering-rod, according to which Joseph was chosen for
her husband, because his rod budded into flower, and a dove settled upon
the top of it. In Tuscany a similar legend is attached to the oleander,
and elsewhere the white campanula has been known as the "little staff of
St. Joseph," while a German name for the white double daffodill is
"Joseph's staff."
Then there is "Our Lady's bed-straw," which filled the manger on which
the infant Jesus was laid; while of the plant said to have formed the
Virgin's bed may be mentioned the thyme, woodroof, and groundsel. The
white-spotted green leaves of "Our Lady's thistle" were caused by some
drops of her milk falling upon them, and in Cheshire we find the same
idea connected with the pulmonaria or "lady's milk sile," the word
"sile" being a provincialism for "soil," or "stain." A German tradition
makes the common fern (_Polypodium vulgare_) to have sprung from the
Virgin's milk.