CHAPTER XVI. PLANT LORE, DRUG CHARMS, AND FOLK MEDICINE.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Thompson, C. J. S. (Charles John Samuel)
It was hung in their dwellings to ward off evil spirits.
Vervain was also one of the sacred plants of the Druids, both in Gaul and Britain. They cut it with much ceremony in the spring of the year, and made offerings to the earth for so doing. They also used it to anoint the body to cure disease.
The ancient Greeks and Romans dedicated it to the god of war, and in Scandinavia it was deemed sacred to Thor. The eye anointed with an ointment of vervain was supposed to possess second sight. Its influence over Venus has doubtless to do with its use as a love token. It is said that the custom is still practised in Germany of presenting a bride with a wreath of vervain.
Other magic wreaths worn by lovers when they wished to see their fate, were composed of rue, crane’s bill, and willow.
The hawkweed commonly seen in our fields was regarded by the Greeks as the emblem of quick-sightedness, believing that the hawk, a bird renowned for its bright eye and quick sight, sharpened its visual organs with the juice of this plant. Thus it became famed in early medical practice as a remedy for dimness of sight, and was employed to feed the hawks used in the old art of falconry.
In Scotland, a twig of the rowan tree or mountain ash is often sewed up in the cow’s tail, to protect the animal from witches and warlocks.
The squill was used by the Egyptians for dropsy, under the mystic name of the “Eye of Typhon”.
An old name for the fruit of the mandrake was “love apples”. They were frequently used in ancient times in philtres and love potions. This plant belongs to the natural order Solanaceæ, which also includes the potato and the tobacco plant. Its leaves spring directly from the root similarly to those of the lettuce, before it shoots into flower, and its purple-coloured blossoms are succeeded by a yellow berry or “apple,” which still ripens in Palestine at the time of the wheat harvest. An overdose of the fruit is said to produce a sort of temporary insanity. From the earliest times it has been credited with magical virtues, and supposed to confer superhuman powers on its possessor. The most valued specimens were those which grew under a gibbet where a malefactor hung in chains. It was believed that on being torn from the earth the mandrake uttered a groan, and that whosoever heard it, dropped dead on the spot. The approved method of gathering it was to fasten the plant to a dog’s tail, and beat the animal till his struggles pulled the root up. The dog heard the groan and died, but those who directed the proceedings escaped by having their ears stopped with pitch or wax.
It was customary in Germany in mediæval times to form or carve small figures out of the mandrake root, which were called abrunes. “These images,” says Phillips, “they dressed regularly every day, consulted as oracles, and their repute was such that they were manufactured in great numbers and sold in cases.”
They appear to have been brought over to England in the time of Henry VIII., and met with ready purchasers, it being pretended that they would, with the assistance of certain mystic words, be able to increase whatever money was placed near them. These roots were said to have been taken from plants which had grown underneath gibbets, and had been influenced by the flesh of the criminals hung thereon.
It is singular how the willow has ever been associated with sorrow and sadness, even from the time the daughters of Israel hung their harps on its branches. Among heathen nations the tree was regarded as an evil omen, and was used as torches at funerals. “The early poets,” says Johns, “made the willow of despairing woe,” and Shakespeare frequently alludes to it as being used to weave garlands for jilted and sorrow-stricken lovers. Benedick says:—
“I offered him my company to a willow tree, either to make him a garland, as being forsaken, or to bind him up a rod as being worthy to be whipped”.
And Bona, in Henry VI., remarks:—
“Tell him, in hope he’ll prove a widower shortly, I’ll wear the willow garland for his sake”.
It seems to have been customary to wear it twined round the head as a symbol of sorrow and mourning, but the origin of the custom is unknown.
A peculiar virtue was supposed to be attached to the eating of almonds, which is still believed in some parts of the country, viz., that it protects the eater from drunkenness.
Gerard says, “Five or six being taken fasting keepe a man from being drunke”.
The pretty flower called the bachelor’s button, which is common in our hedgerows, is said to possess the following peculiar property of divination. “When carried in the pocket by men, and under the apron by women, it will retain or lose its freshness according to the good or bad success of the wearer’s amatory prospects.”
A considerable amount of romantic lore lingers about the bean and nut. The bean was regarded with veneration by both the Greeks and Romans, and on account of its sacred associations became the instrument for voting by ballot in early times. Nuts of various kinds have long been associated with certain love charms, and some of these old customs, such as the cracking of nuts, still survive and are practised on All Hallow Eve. An old charm for nut-testing runs as follows:—
“Two hazel nuts I threw into the flame, And to each nut I gave a sweetheart’s name; This with the loudest bounce me sore amazed, That in a flame of brightest colour blazed; As blazed the nut, so may thy passion glow, For ’twas thy nut that did so brightly glow”.
There is an old tradition that the white hawthorn was used to plait the sacred crown of thorns, and that from that time the tree was endowed with special virtues.
An old writer says: “He that beareth a branch on hym thereof, no thundre, ne, no maner of tempest may dere hym; ne, in the howse that it is ynne may none evil ghost enter”.
A great amount of superstition was associated with various ferns in mediæval times, and fern seed was supposed to possess the wonderful property of rendering those who swallowed it invisible.
According to the doctrine of Signatures, various shaped leaves were used for special diseases. A liver-shaped leaf was used to cure complaints of that organ, and a heart-shaped leaf was used for diseases of the heart, and so on.
The black hellebore was employed by the ancients to purify their dwellings, and they believed that its presence in their rooms drove away evil spirits. It was also customary to bless the cattle with hellebore to keep them free from spells wrought by the wicked.
When dug up for these purposes, certain religious ceremonies were observed. First a circle was drawn round the plant with a sword, and then, turning to the east, a humble prayer was made by the devotee to Apollo and Æsculapius, for permission to dig up the root. If an eagle approached the spot during the performance of the rites, it was supposed to predict the certain death of the person who took up the plant in the course of the year.
It is related by Dioscorides that Carneades, the Cyrenaic philosopher who undertook to answer the books of Zeno, sharpened his wit and quickened his spirit by purging his head with powdered hellebore.
The peony owes its name to Pæon, a famous physician of ancient Greece, who is said to have cured, by the aid of this plant, the wounds which the Greeks received during the Trojan war. It was largely used as an amulet, and demons were supposed to fly from the spot where it was planted. A small piece was worn round the neck to protect the wearer from enchantment.
There is a curious tradition connected with that charming little flower the forget-me-not. It is, that the juice, or decoction of the plant, has the peculiar property of hardening steel, and that if edged tools of that metal be made red hot and then quenched in the juice or decoction, and this be repeated several times, the steel will become so hard as to cut iron without turning the edge.
The elder had a great reputation as an amulet. An old writer states, “if one ride with two little sticks of elder in his pockets he shall not fret nor pant let the horse go never so hard”.
According to the Anatomie of the Elder (1655), “The common people keep as a great secret in curing wounds the leaves of the elder, which they have gathered the last day of April, which, to disappoint the charms of witches, they had applied to their doors and windows”.
A piece cut out between two knots was worn as an amulet against erysipelas.
Lupton says: “Make powder of the flowers of elder gathered on Midsummer Day, being before well dryed, and use a spoonful thereof in a good draught of Borage water, morning and evening, first and last, for the space of a month, and it will make you seem young a great while”.
The elder is still believed in the south of Germany to drive away evil spirits, and in Denmark and Norway it is held in the same veneration. It is customary in the Tyrol to plant an elder bush in the form of a cross on a new grave, and if it blossoms, the soul of the body interred beneath is supposed to be in Paradise.