tries, and is gathered on Ascension-day to be angels which flew with her to Paradise. (Mannhung over the door of house and stable as a hardt.) variety. There is, indeed, in the vicinity of Altenburg a superstition that if a farmer take home with him a handful of clover taken from each of the four corners of his neighbor's field, it will go well with his cattle during the whole year; but the normal belief is that the four charm against various evils, but especially The common CLOVER, which was much used against lightning. It was this flower that Em-in ancient Greek festivals, was regarded by the erson laid on the grave of his friend Thoreau. Germans as sacred chiefly in its four-leaved "There is," he said, "a flower known to botanists, one of the same genus with our summer plant called 'life-everlasting,' a gnaphalium, like that, which grows on the most inaccessible cliffs of the Tyrolese Mountains, where the chamois dare hardly venture, and which the hunter, tempted by its beauty and his love (for it is im-leaved clover, on account of its cross-form, is mensely valued by the Swiss maidens), climbs the cliffs to gather, and is sometimes found dead at the foot with the flower in his hand. It is called by the botanists Gnaphalium leontopodium, but by the Swiss Edelweisse, which signifies noble purity. Thoreau seemed to me to be living in the hope to gather this plant, which belonged to him of right." The superstitious value placed on it by the Swiss is for wreaths, which are made on Ascension-day, and said to have power under certain conditions to render the wearer invisible. It is also an old Suabian belief that one who on the Friday of the full moon, or on a fête day before sunset, pulls it up by the root, and, folding it carefully in a white cloth, wears it against the naked breast, will thereby be made bullet-proof and daggerproof. endowed with magical virtues. The general form of the superstition is that one who carries it about him will be successful at play, and will be able to detect the proximity of evil spirits. In Bohemia it is said that if the maiden manages to put it into the shoe of her lover without his knowledge when he is going on any journey, he will be sure to return to her faithfully and safely. In the Tyrol the lover puts it under the pillow to dream of the beloved. On Christmas-eve, especially, one who has it may see witches. Plucked with a gloved hand and taken into the house of a lunatic without any one else perceiving it, it is said to cure madness. The four-leaved clover is also thought in various regions to protect one from witches, especially in the dark; to keep butter pure, on which account it is a good form for a buttermould; and to prevent one from being drafted for military service. The VIOLET (Latin, viola, a little flower; Greek, plóoç) had its greatest reputation among those races of the East whose religions were rather emotional than mystical. The Arabian poets bade the wealthy and ambitious learn humility from this lowly way-side preacher. In Mohammedan countries it has acquired a sanctity on account of their prophet's fondness for it."As my religion is above others,” he said, "so is the excellence of the odor of violets above other odors: it is as warmth in winter and coolness in midsummer." It is likely that it was from some long fore-ground of popular homage that the violet became the badge of the medieval minstrels, as in the poetical contests of Toulouse, where the prize was a golden violet. Its kindred have been translated into interior meanings, as their names show-pansies (pensées), heart's-ease, herb-trinity. The only German superstitions connected with it are to be found in Brandenburg and Silesia, where it is said to cure ague if one chews the first violet he sees; and in Thuringia, where it wields a charm against harm from the black-art. There are few flowers whose popularity is more creditable to human nature. Except that in some rigions of the East it has been used to flavor sherbets, and that in Scotland it has been used as a cosmetic, thought formerly to be favorable to the complexion, it has been universally cherished for its modest beauty and its delicate fra Some beautiful German legends are connected with the STRAWBERRY, which was a favorite fruit of Frigg, or Holla, the goddess of the summer. As was afterward said of the Virgin Mary in Paradise, Holla was said to go a-berrying with the children on St. John's Day. On that day no mother who has lost a child will taste a strawberry, for then her child will get none in Paradise. Mary will say, "Stand behind, your sweet-toothed mother has eaten yours already." Holla and her little companions pick strawberries so rapidly that in a quarter of an hour all their baskets are full. In Bavaria it is said elves come to milk the cows, in return blessing the animals with abundance of milk. These elves being very fond of strawberries, the shepherds tie little baskets of them between the cows' horns. The Gübich, or dwarf-king, is said in Hanover always to have strawberries and raspberries on his table. In Bavaria it is related that a little strawberry girl met an old woman clothed entirely with moss, and soon after found that all her berries had changed to gold. There is a story very popular in the Tyrol, but found with modifications throughout Germany, that a little brother and sister, while picking strawberries, met a noble woman of shining raiment and with a crown brighter than the sun. It was the mother of Christ. The little girl arose respectfully, but the boy went on eating strawberries. The woman gave the sister a golden box, the brother a black one. The boy found in his box two black worms, which, becoming longer and longer, wind them-grance alone. selves around him and lead him forever into the The Germans can not be included in the dark forest. But out of the girl's box came two stolid class defined by Wordsworth, to whom a houses as a charm against storms. In Erzgebirge magical virtue is ascribed to chamomile tea; and in that and various other regions of Germany it is a favorite plant in the divination of love affairs. PRIMROSE is a yellow primrose and nothing the resurrection. In Germany it is called the more. It may not be a very spiritual treasure Tree of Paradise, but being little known to the which they see in its gold, but it is true that no common people, they, like ourselves, are affectflower has had in that country a wider associa-ed by its sanctity only through the formidable tion with the supernatural. Its German name, superstition with which its medicinal virtues "Schlüsselblume," or key-flower, is indeed are still invested in the minds of physicians. strictly referable to its legendary connection CHAMOMILE, still drunk as a tea in English with hidden treasures. The myth, as told in cottages as a cure for various ailments, and a various sagas, affirms that the good Bertha en- favorite medicine with the homeopathists, has tices some favored child by exquisite and fasci- had a place among the magically endowed plants nating primroses to a secret doorway completely as far back as ancient Greece, where it was used overgrown with flowers. This is the door to in religious festivals. Wreaths of it are still an enchanted castle. When the key-flower made in Eastern Prussia, which, having been touches it the door gently opens, and the favor-gathered on St. John's Day, are hung up in ed mortal passes to a room with vessels covered over with primroses, beneath which are treasures of gold or jewels. When the treasure has been taken the primroses must be placed back carefully, otherwise the lucky person will be forever followed by a black dog. The superstition survives in England only in the country name of the cowslip, "fairy-cup"-i. e., a cup holding fairy gifts. Another form which the fable takes is that the flowers are blue-the azure of the sky, which is Bertha's blue eyeand that the treasures are held by forget-menots. When the treasures have been taken, in this case, a voice is heard, saying, "Forget not the flowers"-i. e., to replace them carefully-and thence that flower is named the forget-me-not. As serpents usually guarded such treasures, the names scorpion-grass, viper's bugloss, for similar flowers is significant. In other regions, again, the gold is declared to be found hid under flax, in which form of the myth one may detect a fable of industry, like that of the dying farmer who told his sons of a treasure hidden in the field, which, however, turned out to be gained by industriously working it. In Waldeck it is the rose under whose silence the treasure is concealed; and in yet other places white flowers. The ALOE still preserves its sanctity in various parts of the East. The Persian Dervis sings: "Ah, I flame as aloes do!" and it is still swung from the censers of Egyptian temples. The worshipers often pass a bit of aloe from one to another, each kissing it and touching his forehead with it. The Mussulmans plant it around the most venerated tombs; and if a Mussulman has made a pilgrimage to the shrine of the Prophet, the fact is made known, and the honor claimed, by the appearance of aloe at his door. The Jews of Cairo hang it over their thresholds to keep away evil spirits. The origin of the aloe's sanctity is probably indicated in its Arabic name, saber (patience). The holiest monastery in Syria is probably that on Mount Saber, where the aloe is much venerated. The belief that it blossoms once a century is still cherished in the East; and the certainly long interval between its blossoms, and the little nourishment or aid it demands, added to its character as an evergreen, probably made it a symbol of the sleep of death and In reading accounts of the old witch trials, especially those of the south of England, one can hardly help being struck by the fact that in the antics by which the so-called witches sought to impose upon their neighbors the plants used by them are almost always RUE and VERVAIN. There is now little doubt that the circles and signs of pretended magic shown to have been used by the hags were ghosts of the early pagan rites, which had survived from pre-historic times. Rue was, in many lands, supposed to have a potent effect on the eye-even more than euphrasy, or eyebright, with which eyes are still injured in Scotland-bestowing second-sight, and is still regarded in some regions as a specific for dim eyes. So sacred was the regard in which it was held in Great Britain that we find the earliest Christian missionaries sprinkling holywater from brushes made.of it on their congregations. From which cause it was called "herb of grace." There is a reminiscence of this in Drayton's description of an incantation: "Then sprinkles she the juice of rue, Milton also represents Michael as purging * Lunaria, or moon-wort, somewhat moon-shaped, and once supposed to cure the madness so widely attributed to the influence of the moon. star form, and is to-day the favorite flower of the German maidens in prognosticating their love fortunes. In Thuringia it has a mysterious association with the teeth; the saying there runs that one who has had a tooth taken out must eat the first three daisies he sees, which will secure him from toothache for the future. This Thuringian superstition is, however, an anomaly in the history of the daisy, which, as one of the flowers of Bertha, was adopted for St. Margaret, and became the favorite of the cloisters, where it was called, generally, Margaret, but also Paquerette, or Easter-flower, in France, and Michaelmas-daisy in England. It is regarded in some parts of Great Britain as a cure for sciatica and for swellings. The THISTLE was in former times much valued for magical purposes. It must be gathered in absolute silence when it is to be thus used. It was deemed sacred to Thor, and its blossom receives its color from the lightning, from which it defends. What is known among the poorest classes of Poland and the contiguous regions of Prussia as the elf-lock is supposed to be the Rue, crane's-bill, and willow are the three essen- superstitious regard chiefly on account of its tials of a magic wreath, which generally consists of nine kinds of plants, made by the maidens of Voigtland, with which to test the number of years they are to remain single. Walking backward to a tree they throw the wreath over their heads, until it remains hanging on the tree; each failure in the attempt represents another year in the interval before marriage. The connection of AGRIMONY* with rue in the Tyrol as conferring preternatural vision is curious, when we remember that its name is a corruption of argomony, the flower of Argos, who kept his hundred eyes in good condition with it. In Austria the plants good for the eyes are artemisia, larkspur, goat's-thorn, cat-mint, and corn-flowers, which the weak-eyed make into a wreath, and look through it at a St. John's fire. The renown of vervain may be traced to ancient Greece and Rome, where it was borne by embassadors on treaties of peace. It was sacred to the god of war, representing, however, his more merciful mood, possibly because it is a plant which is always found near human dwellings. It naturally became associated with the war-god of Germany, who, being also a light-work of evil demons; and it is said that if one ning-god, was supposed to avert the thunderbolt from a house protected by it. It is still used thus by some, in connection with artemisia, in Franconia. It is, however, more directly associated with Tyr in the Bohemian superstition that vervain and rue boiled together, and the liquid poured on a gun-flint, will render the shot as sure to take effect as any "Freischütz" could desire. In the same country it is held that vervain which has been touched to a St. John's fire has power to snap iron and chains. The Druids called vervain "holy herb." They gathered it at the rising of the dog-star, from spots upon which neither sun nor moon ever shone, and bestowed on the earth sacrifices of honey to compensate it for the deprivation of so holy an herb. Its reputation was sufficient in Ben Jonson's day for him to write: "Bring your garlands, and with reverence place The vervain on the altar." Even yet, in some districts of England, children may be seen with vervain twined about their necks, little knowing that in earlier times it was sometimes succeeded by a halter. The country people, in naming the little flower that smiles brightly when all other flowers have withered the DAISY, or day's-eye, holding, in England at least, that it springs under the light of the planet Venus, have forestalled the poets. Beyond all other flowers this "unassuming commonplace of nature," as Wordsworth calls it, has been the favorite with poets. Chaucer, Spenser, Shakspeare, Ben Jonson, Burns, Wordsworth, and others of less fame, have celebrated its humble beauty. In early days it was held in In Suabia it is said that he who looks on agrimony as he sows, early or late, will always have stout blood. buries thistle seed it will gradually disappear. It is said by others to be produced by the seed of a thistle; and old wives administer medicines until the elf-lock is ripe, when they crush it off with a sharp stone-a knife, or any thing of iron, being particularly prohibited. In Silesia and Franconia thistle is regarded as a safeguard against witchcraft. In East Prussia, if any domestic animal has a sore or wound in which worms appear, the cure is to gather four red thistle blossoms before daybreak and put one in each of the four directions of the compass, with a stone in the middle between them. The milkthistle was called in England "Our Lady's thistle." The night-blooming flowers have every where been regarded as symbolical. The cereus gained its name from the torches with which Ceres is said to have searched for Proserpine. The superb cactus which is called the torch-thistle in Mexico, is called the steppelight in Russia. The "king's - candles" of Oberfalz are regarded as of great sacredness. The North American and South American Indians seem to have observed the phenomena of sleeping and night-blooming plants, and it has been thought by some that they had to some extent anticipated the floral dial of Linnæus. It is a question which I have not been able to determine satisfactorily when or why orange flowers in England and France displaced the old emblem of love and constancy, myrtle, for the bridal wreath. Some critics, however, incline to the belief that by the famous apples of the Hesperides were really meant oranges, a fruit known in Greece only by reports from the southwest. The myth which chiefly surrounded this beautiful and distant fruit, which may have been called apple simply because that had become a generic name (as we see in Latin pomum also), was, that Ge (Earth) had presented | nips, which must be planted on St. Margaret's the apples, guarded by the dragon Ladon, to Hera at her marriage with Zeus. If the custom came by this route it would have been assisted by the white and shining aspect of the blossoms of the fruit, whose name is probably related to the word for radiance (avptov, morning, whence Aurora, and aurum, or, gold). (The French word orange, however, though evidently influenced by or, preserves in it the Persian name for the fruit, nârandsch, from the Skr., naranga, meaning, strangely enough, "the desire of elephants.") The orange blossoms would easily be connected with the apple of Aphrodite, which was also a golden apple. The arrows of Eros were golden; but they are not so poetic as those of Kamadawa, the Indian Cupid, whose arrow-heads were from the rose-red amra-tree, and were shot from a bow of sugar-cane. Day, and on the edges of the field, care being taken that no leaf be ever taken from the turnip-field lest the vegetable become dry. Grimm has given us a beautiful story of the poorer of two brothers, who could only present the king with a huge turnip, but thereby gained fortune. It is the theme of an old Latin story of the fourteenth century, entitled "Raparius," the MS. of which is at Strasbourg. As for beans, why need I tell their wonderful history to those who have read of Jack climbing his bean-stalk; or the young bride of "The RobberBridegroom," whose beans and pease took root and flourished to guide her back from the lonely wood; or who have taken the homeopathic medicine ignatia, of saintly virtues? The Arabs have a tradition that at Hebron it was that Esau sold his birth-right, and that the pottage was of lentils. From a mosque there the Dervises distribute a daily supply of lentil soup to the poor and travelers. Lentils (Ervum lens) are supposed to have given us the word "Lent," by its use in Catholic countries during that season. Gourds (which must be planted on Ascensionday)—"twopence," or loose-strife, called in France herbe aux cent maladies—the salads, one of which changed folks to asses, the other changing them back again (see Grimm's "Krautesel" and the Gesta Romanorum)-pimpernel, the charm against any epidemic in Thuringia and Bohemia-hemp, the exorcist of fevers in Bohemia, as well as murderers-linseed, in various regions regarded as oracular-fennel, caraway seed, coriander, feared by the dwarfsand many other common plants and seeds have been held in a reverence which now seems to There have been no end of But our catalogue must now be brought to a close, though it might be almost indefinitely extended. A few flower superstitions must be mentioned, however, which, though they are found only in an isolated condition, might, if traceable, be found related to vast theologies. How curious it is to find the Ocymum sanctum of India, the common basil, regarded in the superstitions of Voigtland as the test of chastity, withering in the hands of the impure! In some places it is said that if basil be laid under the plate of an impure girl she will not touch it. The bleeding-nun was formerly a charm against bad weather in Germany, and now is consecrated to the Virgin Mary. Saxifrage, if cut so that there shall be a stem with nine prongs, is supposed to enable him who carries it into a church on Walpurgis - night to see witches. One striking fact about the Ger- us grotesque. man plant superstitions, particularly, is the low-virtues ascribed to the nettle, which was a pet liness of the vegetables about which so many plant of the Thunderer, and was, in Germany, grand things are said. The "Leaves of Grass" the curer of burns and the protector from have, indeed, already found their poet; but the thunder-bolts. Old Culpepper declares that it is faithful potato, which, following man over the a plant of Mars, and excellent against venomworld, has become almost "a man and a broth-ous bites and stings. (So old is the homeoer," still waits for its epic. Yet the popular pathic idea!) The English notion that beer heart has not failed to contribute much toward may be made of nettles can not, I think, be the its apotheosis. Its relation to the stars is af- result of experiment, and is perhaps traceable firmed in the Teutonic belief that one must be to the custom in some parts of Southern Gercareful not to plant it during the ascendency many of laying nettles on casks of beer-i. e., of Pisces, lest it be watery, but in that of to keep the liquid from turning sour under the Gemini, that it may be full. It has been adopt- storms, through Thor's respect for the plant. ed into the Christian year in the belief of the Of some plants and flowers, into whose correLithuanian farmer that it must be planted on spondences we can not enter, it may be at least Maundy-Thursday. If one sells potato seed- suggestive to recall some of the popular names lings before he has planted some himself, heas traveler's-joy, heart's-ease, shepherd's-neemust retain three of them, otherwise his own potatoes will produce no fruits. Its relation to poverty was foretold in the belief of Voigtland that potatoes meant stout blood, but bad luck; and in the same country it is said that when its top-shoots droop a visit is betokened. In Silesia a raw potato is applied to warts; in Friesland it is kept on the flesh till it decays to cure the malady of the rich, gout; and in some parts of England it is carried about to heal rheumatism. Much is said also of tur dle, dandelion (dent-de-lion), wayfarer's-tree, queen-of-the-meadow, wake-robin, cuckoo-cup (out of which the cuckoo was supposed to take its morning draught), maidenhair, humbleplant, honesty, sweet-margery, woodbine, Venus's-looking-glass, dame's-violet, shepherd'spurse, bittersweet, immortelle, wind-witch-thistle (which the Russians call perikatipole, or leap-in-the-field), virgin-bower, dianthus (flower-of-God), star-of-Bethlehem, Solomon's-seal, Jerusalem-oak, Job's-tears, cross-flower, sam phire (corruption of St. Pierre), tansy (St. Athanasie), which I have seen growing on the tops of Finnish hovels, apparently sown there as a protection, brier (Briareus ?), senna (sana), sage (saga), lady's-smock, lady's-slipper, hollyhock (holyoak), daffodil (asphodel), amaranth, and passion-flower. It is plain that "he who spake of trees from the cedar-tree that is in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall" had no wider hospitality than the instinct of mankind for these humble gifts of the field and way-side. In the Norse story it was not the idle princes but the poor dwarf that found the heaps of pearls concealed under the moss; and there is reason to believe that the country "dummlings” who have given the common flowers some of the beautiful names just mentioned have not been left without the purer treasures they conceal from all who are not lowly like themselves. No doubt, too, they have served man well medicinally; for though of the 400 English herbs in the "Complete Herbal" of Nicholas Culpepper, applied "to the cure of all disorders incident to man," many were useless in themselves, and some hurtful, it can not be doubted that the exchange of the herbalist for the apothecary and his drugs was to pass from Dr. Log to Dr. Stork. It is generally supposed that man's earliest worship is represented by these superstitions concerning plants and those concerning animals; that it was from these lower objects that his reverence gradually ascended to the adoration of the sun and stars. But I believe that a careful examination of the superstitions which have been recorded in this paper will furnish many evidences that the case was really the reverse. It is probable that the awe which was the beginning of worship was first excited in the human mind when it gazed upon the mysterious, silent heavens, or witnessed the conflicts of night and day, and the wild power of the elements above him. At a later period, and after he had given greater attention to the cultivation of the fruits of the earth, the scene of his interest would be gradually shifted from the distant heavens to the near earth, from the cold star to the flower unfolding beneath it. Progress of thought would then, as now, be from minding high things toward condescending to things of low estate, from the unattainable to the attainable. And this would be brought about by the increasing perception of the correspondence between the heavens and the earth, each change of the sky being responded to by a change in the growths of earth. That many of the flowers and trees were reverenced because of their real or supposed relation to the heavens we know. The Hindoos say that the banyan is a tree growing downward, its roots being fed from above, where they lie. The myth of Daphne is a particularly striking illustration of the same thing. Daphne is plainly the Sanscrit Dahana, the dawn. Before the advances of Apollo (the sun) the dawn of course perishes, but its light remains with the laurel. The peculiar crackling 1 of the laurel when burned (Pliny, lib. xv.) is thought to have occasioned the Roman superstitions concerning it. A laurel was preserved with great awe in the villa of the Cæsars, on account of the legend that an eagle let fall a hen, which fell into the lap of the Empress Livia, unhurt, and bearing in its beak the stem from which the tree had been reared. A very important fact also is one of which there can be no doubt, that the flowers chosen by the German peasants, by which to divine their fortunes, are always those which are star-shaped-as the crysanthemon and the daisy. One after another petal is pulled off to a set of phrases, as, "Young man, widower, husband;" "He loves me, from his heart, with pain, beyond measure, can not leave me, loves me little, not at all;" "Single, married, convent ;" and the phrase which represents the destiny is that with which the last petal falls. Another fact of importance is that all the virtues ascribed to flowers, plants, etc., were strictly connected with times, seasons, and planetary influences. Since the introduction of Christianity the old astronomical periods and festivals have become disguised in the saints' days as we now know them; but we know that the Christian year conforms very closely to the pagan year, which was divided according to the changes of the moon and the relative position of the sun. The significance of the prescription that the potent plants must be gathered under the full moon, or when the sun does not shine, or on St. John's Day, can not be misunderstood. The poetic phrase "stars of earth" was anciently realistic. The same thing might be shown in relation to the sacred animals. It is very doubtful if the serpent was ever worshiped independently; it was as the earthly symbol of "the heavenly serpent," the rainbow, or the lightning, that it was venerated. We must then regard the reverence paid to trees and flowers not as fetich-worship, but as a sacred regard paid to them as oracles of beings higher than themselves, of whose energies they were the only appreciable manifestations. UNDER THE ROSE. SHE thinketh thee dead, O rose! I kissed a thought-that was thy soul! Be mine the shadow, hers the shine, One more look at the face so fair! |