The Folk lore of Plants - T. F. Thiselton Dyer
Billingsley, in his "Agricultural Survey of the County of Cornwall,"
published in the year 1797, speaks of the belief of the Mendip miners in
the efficacy of the mystic rod:--"The general method of discovering the
situation and direction of those seams of ore (which lie at various
depths, from five to twenty fathoms, in a chasm between two inches of
solid rock) is by the help of the divining-rod, vulgarly called
_josing_; and a variety of strong testimonies are adduced in supporting
this doctrine. So confident are the common miners of the efficacy, that
they scarcely ever sink a shaft but by its direction; and those who are
dexterous in the use of it, will mark on the surface the course and
breadth of the vein; and after that, with the assistance of the rod,
will follow the same course twenty times following blindfolded."
Anecdotes of the kind are very numerous, for there are few subjects in
folk-lore concerning which more has been written than on the
divining-rod, one of the most exhaustive being that of Mr. Baring-Gould
in his "Curious Myths of the Middle Ages." The literature, too, of the
past is rich in allusions to this piece of superstition, and Swift in
his "Virtues of Sid Hamet the Magician's Rod" (1710) thus refers to
it:--
"They tell us something strange and odd
About a certain magic rod
That, bending down its top, divines
Whene'er the soil has golden mines;
Where there are none, it stands erect,
Scorning to show the least respect.
As ready was the wand of Sid
To bend where golden mines were hid.
In Scottish hills found precious ore,
Where none e'er looked for it before;
And by a gentle bow divined,
How well a Cully's purse was lined;
To a forlorn and broken rake,
Stood without motion like a stake."
De Quincey has several amusing allusions to this fallacy, affirming that
he had actually seen on more than one occasion the process applied with
success, and declared that, in spite of all science or scepticism might
say, most of the tea-kettles in the Vale of Wrington, North
Somersetshire, are filled by rhabdomancy. But it must be admitted that
the phenomena of the divining-rod and table-turning are of precisely the
same character, both being referable to an involuntary muscular action
resulting from a fixedness of idea. Moreover, it should be remembered
that experiments with the divining-rod are generally made in a district
known to be metalliferous, and therefore the chances are greatly in
favour of its bending over or near a mineral lode. On the other hand, it
is surprising how many people of culture have, at different times, in
this and other countries, displayed a lamentable weakness in partially
accepting this piece of superstition. Of the many anecdotes related
respecting it, we may quote an amusing one in connection with the
celebrated botanist, Linnaeus:--"When he was on one of his voyages,
hearing his secretary highly extol the virtues of his divining-wand, he
was willing to convince him of its insufficiency, and for that purpose
concealed a purse of one hundred ducats under a ranunculus, which grew
up by itself in a meadow, and bid the secretary find it if he could. The
wand discovered nothing, and Linnaeus' mark was soon trampled down by
the company who were present, so that when he went to finish the
experiment by fetching the gold himself, he was utterly at a loss where
to find it. The man with the wand assisted him, and informed him that it
could not lie in the way they were going, but quite the contrary, so
pursued the direction of the wand, and actually dug out the gold.
Linnaeus thereupon added that such another experiment would be
sufficient to make a proselyte of him." [1]
In 1659, the Jesuit, Gaspard Schott, tells us that this magic rod was at
this period used in every town in Germany, and that he had frequently
had opportunities of seeing it used in the discovery of hidden treasure.
He further adds:--"I searched with the greatest care into the question
whether the hazel rod had any sympathy with gold and silver, and whether
any natural property set it in motion. In like manner, I tried whether a
ring of metal, held suspended by a thread in the midst of a tumbler, and
which strikes the hours, is moved by any similar force." But many of the
mysterious effects of these so-called divining-rods were no doubt due to
clever imposture. In the year 1790, Plunet, a native of Dauphine,
claimed a power over the divining-rod which attracted considerable
attention in Italy. But when carefully tested by scientific men in
Padua, his attempts to discover buried metals completely failed; and at
Florence he was detected trying to find out by night what he had
secreted to test his powers on the morrow. The astrologer Lilly made
sundry experiments with the divining-rod, but was not always successful;
and the Jesuit, Kircher, tried the powers of certain rods which were
said to have sympathetic influences for particular metals, but they
never turned on the approach of these. Once more, in the "Shepherd's
Calendar," we find a receipt to make the "Mosaic wand to find hidden
treasure" without the intervention of a human operator:--"Cut a hazel
wand forked at the upper end like a Y. Peel off the rind, and dry it in
a moderate heat, then steep it in the juice of wake-robin or nightshade,
and cut the single lower end sharp; and where you suppose any rich mine
or hidden treasure is near, place a piece of the same metal you conceive
is hid, or in the earth, to the top of one of the forks by a hair, and
do the like to the other end; pitch the sharp single end lightly to the
ground at the going down of the sun, the moon being in the increase, and
in the morning at sunrise, by a natural sympathy, you will find the
metal inclining, as it were pointing, to the places where the other is
hid."
According to a Tuscany belief, the almond will discover treasures; and
the golden rod has long had the reputation in England of pointing to
hidden springs of water, as well as to treasures of gold and silver.
Similarly, the spring-wort and primrose--the key-flower--revealed the
hidden recesses in mountains where treasures were concealed, and the
mystic fern-seed, termed "wish-seed," was supposed in the Tyrol to make
known hidden gold; and, according to a Lithuanian form of this
superstition, one who secures treasures by this means will be pursued by
adders, the guardians of the gold. Plants of this kind remind us of the
magic "sesame" which, at the command of Ali Baba, in the story of the
"Forty Thieves," gave him immediate admission to the secret
treasure-cave. Once more, among further plants possessing the same
mystic property may be mentioned the sow-thistle, which, when invoked,
discloses hidden treasures. In Sicily a branch of the pomegranate tree
is considered to be a most effectual means of ascertaining the
whereabouts of concealed wealth. Hence it has been invested with an
almost reverential awe, and has been generally employed when search has
been made for some valuable lost property. In Silesia, Thuringia, and
Bohemia the mandrake is, in addition to its many mystic properties,
connected with the idea of hidden treasures.
Numerous plants are said to be either lucky or the reverse, and hence
have given rise to all kinds of odd beliefs, some of which still survive
in our midst, having come down from a remote period.
There is in many places a curious antipathy to uprooting the house-leek,
some persons even disliking to let it blossom, and a similar prejudice
seems to have existed against the cuckoo-flower, for, if found
accidentally inverted in a May garland, it was at once destroyed. In
Prussia it is regarded as ominous for a bride to plant myrtle, although
in this country it has the reputation of being a lucky plant. According
to a Somersetshire saying, "The flowering myrtle is the luckiest plant
to have in your window, water it every morning, and be proud of it." We
may note here that there are many odd beliefs connected with the myrtle.
"Speaking to a lady," says a correspondent of the _Athenaeum_ (Feb. 5,
1848), "of the difficulty which I had always found in getting a slip of
myrtle to grow, she directly accounted for my failure by observing that
perhaps I had not spread the tail or skirt of my dress, and looked proud
during the time I was planting it. It is a popular belief in
Somersetshire that unless a slip of myrtle is so planted, it will never
take root." The deadly nightshade is a plant of ill omen, and Gerarde
describing it says, "if you will follow my counsel, deal not with the
same in any case, and banish it from your gardens, and the use of it
also, being a plant so furious and deadly; for it bringeth such as have
eaten thereof into a dead sleep, wherein many have died." There is a
strong prejudice to sowing parsley, and equally a great dislike to
transplanting it, the latter notion being found in South America.
Likewise, according to a Devonshire belief, it is highly unlucky to
plant a bed of lilies of the valley, as the person doing so will
probably die in the course of the next twelve months.
The withering of plants has long been regarded ominous, and, according
to a Welsh superstition, if there are faded leaves in a room where a
baby is christened it will soon die. Of the many omens afforded by the
oak, we are told that the change of its leaves from their usual colour
gave more than once "fatal premonition" of coming misfortunes during the
great civil wars; and Bacon mentions a tradition that "if the oak-apple,
broken, be full of worms, it is a sign of a pestilent year." In olden
times the decay of the bay-tree was considered an omen of disaster, and
it is stated that, previous to the death of Nero, though the winter was
very mild, all these trees withered to the roots, and that a great
pestilence in Padua was preceded by the same phenomenon. [2] Shakespeare
speaks of this superstition:--
"'Tis thought the king is dead; we will not stay,
The bay-trees in our county are all withered."
Lupton, in his "Notable Things," tells us that,
"If a fir-tree be touched, withered, or burned with lightning, it
signifies that the master or mistress thereof shall shortly die."
It is difficult, as we have already noted in a previous chapter, to
discover why some of our sweetest and fairest spring-flowers should be
associated with ill-luck. In the western counties, for instance, one
should never take less than a handful of primroses or violets into a
farmer's house, as neglect of this rule is said to affect the success of
the ducklings and chickens. A correspondent of _Notes and Queries_ (I.
Ser. vii. 201) writes:--"My gravity was sorely tried by being called on
to settle a quarrel between two old women, arising from one of them
having given one primrose to her neighbour's child, for the purpose of
making her hens hatch but one egg out of each set of eggs, and it was
seriously maintained that the charm had been successful." In the same
way it is held unlucky to introduce the first snowdrop of the year into
a house, for, as a Sussex woman once remarked, "It looks for all the
world like a corpse in its shroud." We may repeat, too, again the
familiar adage:--
"If you sweep the house with blossomed broom in May,
You are sure to sweep the head of the house away."
And there is the common superstition that where roses and violets bloom
in autumn, it is indicative of some epidemic in the following year;
whereas, if a white rose put forth unexpectedly, it is believed in
Germany to be a sign of death in the nearest house; and in some parts of
Essex there is a current belief that sickness or death will inevitably
ensue if blossoms of the whitethorn be brought into a house; the idea in
Norfolk being that no one will be married from the house during the
year. Another ominous sign is that of plants shedding their leaves, or
of their blossoms falling to pieces. Thus the peasantry in some places
affirm that the dropping of the leaves of a peach-tree betokens a
murrain; and in Italy it is held unlucky for a rose to do so. A
well-known illustration of this superstition occurred many years ago in
the case of the unfortunate Miss Bay, who was murdered at the piazza
entrance of Covent Garden by Hackman (April 1779), the following account
of which we quote from the "Life and Correspondence of M. G. Lewis":--
"When the carriage was announced, and she was adjusting her dress, Mr.
Lewis happened to make some remark on a beautiful rose which Miss Kay
wore in her bosom. Just as the words were uttered the flower fell to the
ground. She immediately stooped to regain it, but as she picked it up,
the red leaves scattered themselves on the carpet, and the stalk alone
remained in her hand. The poor girl, who had been depressed in spirits
before, was evidently affected by this incident, and said, in a slightly
faltering voice, 'I trust I am not to consider this as an evil omen!'
But soon rallying, she expressed to Mr. Lewis, in a cheerful tone, her
hope that they would meet again after the theatre--a hope, alas! which
it was decreed should not be realised." According to a German belief,
one who throws a rose into a grave will waste away.
There is a notion prevalent in Dorsetshire that a house wherein the
plant "bergamot" is kept will never be free from sickness; and in
Norfolk it is said to be unlucky to take into a house a bunch of the
grass called "maiden-hair," or, as it is also termed, "dudder-grass."
Among further plants of ill omen may be mentioned the bluebell
(_Campanula rotundifolia_), which in certain parts of Scotland was
called "The aul' man's bell," and was regarded with a sort of dread, and
commonly left unpulled. In Cumberland, about Cockermouth, the red
campion (_Lychnis diurna_) is called "mother-die," and young people
believe that if plucked some misfortune will happen to their parents. A
similar belief attaches to the herb-robert (_Geranium robertianum_) in
West Cumberland, where it is nicknamed "Death come quickly;" and in
certain parts of Yorkshire there is a notion that if a child gather the
germander speedwell (_Veronica chamoedrys_), its mother will die during
the year. Herrick has a pretty allusion to the daffodil:--
"When a daffodil I see
Hanging down her head t'wards me,
Guess I may what I must be:
First, I shall decline my head;
Secondly, I shall be dead;
Lastly, safely buried."
In Germany, the marigold is with the greatest care excluded from the
flowers with which young women test their love-affairs; and in Austria
it is held unlucky to pluck the crocus, as it draws away the strength.
An ash leaf is still frequently employed for invoking good luck, and in
Cornwall we find the old popular formula still in use:--
"Even ash, I do thee pluck,
Hoping thus to meet good luck;
If no good luck I get from thee,
I shall wish thee on the tree."
And there is the following well-known couplet:--
"With a four-leaved clover, a double-leaved ash, and a green-topped
leave,
You may go before the queen's daughter without asking leave."
But, on the other hand, the finder of the five-leaved clover, it is
said, will have bad luck.
In Scotland [3] it was formerly customary to carry on the person a piece
of torch-fir for good luck--a superstition which, Mr. Conway remarks, is
found in the gold-mines of California, where the men tip a cone with the
first gold they discover, and keep it as a charm to ensure good luck
in future.
Nuts, again, have generally been credited with propitious qualities, and
have accordingly been extensively used for divination. In some
mysterious way, too, they are supposed to influence the population, for
when plentiful, there is said to be a corresponding increase of babies.
In Russia the peasantry frequently carry a nut in their purses, from a
belief that it will act as a charm in their efforts to make money.
Sternberg, in his "Northamptonshire Glossary" (163), says that the
discovery of a double nut, "presages well for the finder, and unless he
mars his good fortune by swallowing both kernels, is considered an
infallible sign of approaching 'luck.' The orthodox way in such cases
consists in eating one, and throwing the other over the shoulder."
The Icelanders have a curious idea respecting the mountain-ash,
affirming that it is an enemy of the juniper, and that if one is
planted on one side of a tree, and the other on the other, they will
split it. It is also asserted that if both are kept in the same house it
will be burnt down; but, on the other hand, there is a belief among some
sailors that if rowan-tree be used in a ship, it will sink the vessel
unless juniper be found on board. In the Tyrol, the _Osmunda regalis_,
called "the blooming fern," is placed over the door for good teeth; and
Mr. Conway, too, in his valuable papers, to which we have been often
indebted in the previous chapters, says that there are circumstances
under which all flowers are injurious. "They must not be laid on the bed
of a sick person, according to a Silesian superstition; and in
Westphalia and Thuringia, no child under a year old must be permitted to
wreathe itself with flowers, or it will soon die. Flowers, says a common
German saying, must in no case be laid on the mouth of a corpse, since
the dead man may chew them, which would make him a 'Nachzehrer,' or one
who draws his relatives to the grave after him."
In Hungary, the burnet saxifrage (_Pimpinella saxifraga_) is a mystic
plant, where it is popularly nicknamed Chaba's salve, there being an old
tradition that it was discovered by King Chaba, who cured the wounds of
fifteen thousand of his men after a bloody battle fought against his
brother. In Hesse, it is said that with knots tied in willow one may
slay a distant enemy; and the Bohemians have a belief that
seven-year-old children will become beautiful by dancing in the flax.
But many superstitions have clustered round the latter plant, it having
in years gone by been a popular notion that it will only flower at the
time of day on which it was originally sown. To spin on Saturday is said
in Germany to bring ill fortune, and as a warning the following legend
is among the household tales of the peasantry:--"Two old women, good
friends, were the most industrious spinners in their village, Saturday
finding them as engrossed in their work as on the other days of the
week. At length one of them died, but on the Saturday evening following
she appeared to the other, who, as usual, was busy at her wheel, and
showing her burning hand, said:--
'See what I in hell have won,
Because on Saturday eve I spun.'"
Flax, nevertheless, is a lucky plant, for in Thuringia, when a young
woman gets married, she places flax in her shoes as a charm against
poverty. It is supposed, also, to have health-giving virtues; for in
Germany, when an infant seems weakly and thrives slowly, it is placed
naked upon the turf on Midsummer day, and flax-seed is sprinkled over
it; the idea being that as the flax-seed grows so the infant will
gradually grow stronger. Of the many beliefs attached to the ash-tree,
we are told in the North of England that if the first parings of a
child's nails be buried beneath its roots, it will eventually turn out,
to use the local phrase, a "top-singer," and there is a popular
superstition that wherever the purple honesty (_Lunaria biennis_)
flourishes, the cultivators of the garden are noted for their honesty.
The snapdragon, which in years gone by was much cultivated for its showy
blossoms, was said to have a supernatural influence, and amongst other
qualities to possess the power of destroying charms. Many further
illustrations of this class of superstition might easily be added, so
thickly interwoven are they with the history of most of our familiar
wild-flowers. One further superstition may be noticed, an allusion to
which occurs in "Henry V." (Act i. sc. i):--
"The strawberry grows underneath the nettle,
And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best
Neighbour'd by fruit of baser quality;"
It having been the common notion that plants were affected by the
neighbourhood of other plants to such an extent that they imbibed each
other's virtues and faults. Accordingly sweet flowers were planted near
fruit-trees, with the idea of improving the flavour of the fruit; and,
on the other hand, evil-smelling trees, like the elder, were carefully
cleaned away from fruit-trees, lest they should become tainted. [4]
Further superstitions have been incidentally alluded to throughout the
present volume, necessarily associated as they are with most sections of
plant folk-lore. It should also be noticed that in the various
folk-tales which have been collected together in recent years, many
curious plant superstitions are introduced, although, to suit the
surroundings of the story, they have only too frequently been modified,
or the reverse. At the same time, embellishments of the kind are
interesting, as showing how familiar these traditionary beliefs were in
olden times to the story-teller, and how ready he was to avail
himself of them.
Footnotes:
1. See Baring-Gerald's "Curious Myths of the Middle Ages."
2. Ingram's "Florica Symbolica," p. 326.
3. Stewart's "Popular Superstitions of the Highlanders."
4. See Ellacombe's "Plant-lore of Shakespeare," p. 319.
CHAPTER XXI.
PLANTS IN FOLK-MEDICINE.
From the earliest times plants have been most extensively used in the
cure of disease, although in days of old it was not so much their
inherent medicinal properties which brought them into repute as their
supposed magical virtues. Oftentimes, in truth, the only merit of a
plant lay in the charm formula attached to it, the due utterance of
which ensured relief to the patient. Originally there can be no doubt
that such verbal forms were prayers, "since dwindled into mystic
sentences." [1] Again, before a plant could work its healing powers, due
regard had to be paid to the planet under whose influence it was
supposed to be; [2] for Aubrey mentions an old belief that if a plant "be
not gathered according to the rules of astrology, it hath little or no
virtue in it." Hence, in accordance with this notion, we find numerous
directions for the cutting and preparing of certain plants for medicinal
purposes, a curious list of which occurs in Culpepper's "British Herbal
and Family Physician." This old herbalist, who was a strong believer in
astrology, tells us that such as are of this way of thinking, and none
else, are fit to be physicians. But he was not the only one who had
strict views on this matter, as the literature of his day
proves--astrology, too, having held a prominent place in most of the
gardening books of the same period. Michael Drayton, who has chronicled
so many of the credulities of his time, referring to the longevity of
antediluvian men, writes:--
"Besides, in medicine, simples had the power
That none need then the planetary hour
To help their workinge, they so juiceful were."
The adder's-tongue, if plucked during the wane of the moon, was a cure
for tumours, and there is a Swabian belief that one, "who on Friday of
the full moon pulls up the amaranth by the root, and folding it in a
white cloth, wears it against his naked breast, will be made
bullet-proof." [3] Consumptive patients, in olden times, were three times
passed, "Through a circular wreath of woodbine, cut during the increase
of the March moon, and let down over the body from head to foot." [4] In
France, too, at the present day, the vervain is gathered under the
different changes of the moon, with secret incantations, after which it
is said to possess remarkable curative properties.
In Cornwall, the club-moss, if properly gathered, is considered "good
against all diseases of the eye." The mode of procedure is this:--"On
the third day of the moon, when the thin crescent is seen for the first
time, show it the knife with which the moss is to be cut, and repeat
this formula:--
'As Christ healed the issue of blood,
Do thou cut what thou cuttest for good.'
At sundown, the operator, after carefully washing his hands, is to cut
the club-moss kneeling. It is then to be wrapped in a white cloth, and
subsequently boiled in water taken from the spring nearest to its place
of growth. This may be used as a fomentation, or the club-moss may be
made into an ointment with the butter from the milk of a new cow." [5]
Some plants have, from time immemorial, been much in request from the
season or period of their blooming, beyond which fact it is difficult to
account for the virtues ascribed to them. Thus, among the Romans, the
first anemone of the year, when gathered with this form of incantation,
"I gather thee for a remedy against disease," was regarded as a
preservative from fever; a survival of which belief still prevails in
our own country:--
"The first spring-blown anemone she in his doublet wove,
To keep him safe from pestilence wherever he should rove."
On the other hand, in some countries there is a very strong prejudice
against the wild anemone, the air being said "to be so tainted by them,
that they who inhale it often incur severe sickness." [6] Similarly we
may compare the notion that flowers blooming out of season have a fatal
significance, as we have noted elsewhere.