The only suggestion from this story is that the mandrake was supposed to
bring 'devil's luck,' although, if so, it is difficult to understand why
the _erdmanns_ were so carefully preserved from generation to
generation. One German writer, Rist, says that he has seen one more than
a century old, which had been kept in a coffin, on which was a cloth
bearing a picture of a thief on the gallows and a mandrake growing
underneath.

Coles, who wrote The Art of Simpling, in 1656, says the witches use the
mandrake-roots, 'according to some, or, as I rather suppose, the roots
of briony, which simple people take for the true mandrake, and make
thereof an ugly image, by which they represent the person on whom they
intend to exercise their witchcraft.' But their professions must at
times have been even larger, for it is on record that a witch was
executed near Orleans, in France, about 1605, who was charged with
having kept a living mandrake-fiend, having the form of a female ape!

So much for the mandrake, of which, however, a good deal more might be
said. But what has been said serves to establish that it was identical
with the mandragora, and with the mandragoras of the Greeks; that it was
probably also the briony; that superstitions have attached to it in all
countries and from time immemorial, which ascribed to it occult virtues;
that the powers it exercised varied a good deal according to locality
and time, but that two main conceptions have almost universally
prevailed, viz., that it was a stimulant, and a potent instrument in
affairs of the heart.

What, then, is the Soma, or Homa, of the Hindu mythology--the ambrosia
of the Indian gods? It has been the subject of much discussion and some
difference among comparative mythologists. Soma was the chief deity
among the ancient Hindus--the author of life, the giver of health, the
protector of the weak, and the guide to immortality. Once he took upon
himself the form of man, but was slain by men and braised in a mortar.
The similarity with the Christian legend is remarkable, and the method
of death should be borne in mind. After his death, Soma rose in flame to
heaven, 'to be the benefactor of the world and the mediator between God
and man.'

One of the articles of faith with the Hindus, therefore, is that they
must hold communion with Soma, and they are taught thus to pray to him:
'O Soma! thou art the strength of our heroes and the death of our
enemies, invincible in war! Fulfil our vows in battle, fight for us!
None can resist thee; give us superiority! O Soma immortal! May we drink
to thee and be immortal like thee!' Mr. Baring-Gould says that the whole
legend of Soma is but the allegorical history of the plant _Sarcostemma
viminalis_, which is associated with passionate love 'because of the
intoxicating liquor which is derived from its juice. It is regarded as a
godsend. The way in which it is prepared is by crushing it in a mortar;
the juice is then thrown on the sacrificial flame and so rises to
heaven.' The same writer tells us that a similar worship prevailed among
the Iranians, who called the juice Homa, but they did not ferment it,
and although they ascribed to it divine attributes, they did not make
Homa a supreme deity. But both with them and with the Hindus, 'the
partaking of the juice was regarded as a sacramental act, by virtue of
which the receiver was embued with a portion of the divine nature.'

Another writer, the author of Bible Folklore, says that the 'old Soma
was the same as the Persian Homa, a brilliant god, who gives sons to
heroes, and husbands to maidens. The juice of the plant, pounded in an
iron mortar, is greenish in colour, and is strained through a cloth and
mixed with the sap of a pomegranate branch; the yellow juice is then
strained through a vessel with nine holes. Among the Parsees it is
drunk, not as by the Brahmins in large quantities by sixteen priests,
but in small quantities by the two chief priests, and is thus not
intoxicating.'

The symbol is confused with the deity, and 'Soma is at once the
life-giving spring of the juice of immortality, and the juice itself'--a
confusion not without analogy in some of the superstitions narrated of
the mandrake. But of old Soma was drunk as mead was drunk by the
Scandinavians, before and after battle. It gave power and good fortune
as well as light and happiness, and when elevated into a god was
supposed to be the origin of all creation.

Now, of the _Sarcostemma_ it is to be noted that it belongs to the
family of _Asclepiadaceæ_, which have all something more or less
'fleshy' looking about some parts of them, which, like the _Apocyneæ_,
were in the old world credited with medicinal properties, and which are
generally acrid, stimulating, and astringent. There are many poisonous
members of the family, such as the dog's-bane and wolf's-bane of our own
country, favourite plants with the enchanters, while the cowplant of
Ceylon is of the same species.

In Garrett's Dictionary of India it is stated that the Soma of the Vedas
is no longer known in India, and the same statement is repeated by many
writers. It is certainly not indubitable that the _Sarcostemma
viminalis_ was the plant of wondrous virtues that was deified. On the
other hand, we find that these ascribed virtues closely resemble those
attributed to the mandrake, and it is known that the Aryan people
received many of their ideas and superstitions from the old Jewish
tribes.

We have seen, further, that belief in the peculiar power of the mandrake
in certain directions was a settled belief at a very early period of the
Jewish history, and we thus arrive at the very probable suggestion that
the original Soma was neither more nor less than the mandrake of Reuben,
the 'Baaras root' of Josephus, the mandragoras of the Greeks, the moly
of Homer, the mandragora of Shakespeare, the mandragen of Germany, and
the mandrake, again, of England.

CHAPTER VI.

THE SEA AND ITS LEGENDS.

One of the oldest superstitions connected with the sea is undoubtedly
that which associated peril with the malefic influence of some
individual on shipboard. We find it in the case of the seamen of Joppa,
who, when overtaken by a 'mighty tempest' on the voyage to Tarshish,
said to each other, 'Come and let us cast lots, that we may know for
whose cause this evil is cast upon us.' The lot, as we know, fell upon
Jonah, and after some vain wrestling with the inevitable, the men at
last 'took up Jonah and cast him forth into the sea, and the sea ceased
from her raging.'

Without offering here any comment on, or explanation of, the Scriptural
narrative, let us compare it with the following remarkable story, which
that indefatigable delver after old-world wonders, Charles Kirkpatrick
Sharpe, reproduced.

Somewhere about midsummer of the year 1480, a ship, sailing out of the
Forth for a port in Holland, was assailed by a furious tempest, which
increased to such a remarkable degree for the mild season of the year,
that the sailors were overcome with fear, and gave themselves up for
lost. At length an old woman, who was a passenger by the vessel, came on
deck and entreated them to throw her overboard as the only means of
preserving their own lives, saying that she had long been haunted by an
'incubus' in the shape of a man, from whose grasp she could not free
herself. Fortunately for all parties there was another passenger on
board--a priest--who was called to the rescue. After a long admonition,
and many sighs and prayers, 'there issued forth of the pumpe of the
ship,' says Hollinshed, 'a foul and evil-favoured blacke cloud, with a
mightie terrible noise, flame, smoke, and stinke, which presentlie fell
into the sea, and suddenlie, thereupon, the tempest ceassed, and the
ship passing in great quiet the residue of her journie, arrived in
safetie at the place whither she was bound.'

There is doubtless some association between this class of superstition
and the old Talmudic legend, according to which the devils were
specially angered when, at the creation, man received dominion over the
things of the sea. This was a realm of unrest and tempest, which the
devils claimed as belonging to themselves. But, says the legend,
although denied control of the life that is in the sea, the devils were
permitted a large degree of power over its waters, while over the winds
their rule was supreme.

There is scarcely a current legend or superstition which cannot be
traced to very remote sources. Thus, in the Chaldæo-Babylonian
cosmogony there was a Triad which ruled the three zones of the
universe: the heaven, by Anu; the surface of the earth and the
atmosphere, by Bel; and the under-world, by Nonah. Now, Nonah is held to
be both the same as the Assyrian Hea, or Saviour, and as the Noah of the
Bible. So when Tiamat, the dragon, or leviathan, opens 'the fountains of
the great deep,' and Anu, 'the windows of heaven,' it is Hea, or Noah,
who saves the life of man.

This legend is supposed by M. François Lenormant to explain an allusion
in one of the most ancient Accadian manuscripts in the British Museum to
'the serpent of seven heads, that beats the sea.' This Hydra was the
type of the destructive water-demon who figures in the legends of all
countries.

In the same way, to the Syrian fish deities, Dagon and Artergatis, must
we look for the origin of our Undines and fish-maidens, and mermaidens.

The 'Nixy' of Germany has by some been supposed traceable to 'Old Nick';
but this is not probable, since St. Nicholas has been the patron-saint
of sailors for many centuries. It was during the time of the Crusades
that a vessel on the way to the Holy Land was in great peril, and St.
Nicholas assuaged a tempest by his prayers. Since then he has been
supposed to be the protector of mariners, even as Neptune was in ancient
times; and in most Roman Catholic countries you will find in seaport
towns churches dedicated to St. Nicholas, to which sailors resort to
return thanks for preservation at sea, and to make votive offerings.

The German Nixy was, no doubt, a later form of the old Norse water-god
Nikke. You meet with him again, in another form, in Neckan, the
soulless, of whom Matthew Arnold sings:

  'In summer on the headlands
    The Baltic sea along
  Sits Neckan with his harp of gold,
    And sings his plaintive song.'

The 'Nixa' along the Baltic coast was once, however, much feared by the
fishermen. It was the same spirit which appears as the Kelpie in
Scotland--a water-demon which caused sudden floods to carry away the
unwary, and then devoured them.

There was a river-goddess in Germany, whose temple stood at Magdeburg,
of whom a legend exists that she also once visited earth and went to
market in a Christian costume, where she was detected by a continual
dripping of water from the corner of her apron. Generally speaking,
however, the Nixies may be described as the descendants of the Naiads of
ancient times, and as somewhat resembling the Russian Rusalkas, of which
the peasantry live in much dread.

A Russian peasant, it is said, is so afraid of the water-spirits that he
will not bathe without a cross round his neck, nor ford a stream on
horseback without signing a cross on the water with a scythe or knife.
In some parts these water-spirits are supposed to be the transformed
souls of Pharaoh and his host, when they were drowned, and the number is
always being increased by the souls of those who drown themselves.

It is said that 'in Bohemia' fishermen have been known to refuse aid to
drowning persons lest 'Vodyany' would be offended and prevent the fish
from entering the nets.

This 'Vodyany,' however, seems rather a variant of the old Hydra, who
reappears in the diabolical names so frequently given to boiling springs
and dangerous torrents. The 'Devil's Tea-kettles' and 'Devil's
Punch-bowls' of England and America have the same association as the
weird legends connected with the Strudel and Wirbel whirlpools of the
Danube, and with the rapids of the Rhine, and other rivers. Curiously
enough, we find the same idea in The Arabian Nights, when 'The sea
became troubled before them, and there arose from it a black pillar
ascending towards the sky, and approaching the meadow, and behold it was
a Jinn of gigantic stature.'

This demon was a waterspout, and waterspouts in China are attributed to
the battles of dragons. 'The Chinese,' says Mr. Moncure Conway, 'have
canonised of recent times a special protectress against the storm-demons
of the coast, in obedience to the wishes of the sailors.'

The swan-maidens, who figure in so many legends, are mere varieties of
the mer-maiden, and, according to the Icelandic superstition, they and
all fairies were children of Eve, whom she hid away on one occasion when
the Lord came to visit her, because they were not washed and
presentable! They were, therefore, condemned to be invisible for ever.

A Scotch story, quoted by Mr. Moncure Conway, rather bears against this
theory. One day, it seems, as a fisherman sat reading his Bible, a
beautiful nymph, lightly clad in green, came to him out of the sea, and
asked if the book contained any promise of mercy for her. He replied
that it contained an offer of salvation to 'all the children of Adam,'
whereupon she fled away with a loud shriek, and disappeared in the sea.
But the beautiful stories of water-nymphs, of Undines and Loreleis, and
mer-women, are too numerous to be even mentioned, and too beautiful, in
many cases, to make one care to analyze.

There is a tradition in Holland that when, in 1440, the dikes were
broken down by a violent tempest, the sea overflowed the meadows. Some
women of the town of Edam, going one day in a boat to milk their cows,
discovered a mermaid in shallow water floundering about with her tail in
the mud. They took her into the boat, brought her to Edam, dressed her
in women's clothes, and taught her to spin, and to eat as they did. They
even taught her something of religion, or, at any rate, to bow
reverently when she passed a crucifix; but they could not teach her to
speak. What was the ultimate fate of this remarkable creature is not
disclosed.

Everybody, of course, is familiar with the old sea-legend of the _Flying
Dutchman_, whether in stories of phantom ships, or in the opera of
Wagner. The spirit of Vanderdecken, which is still supposed to roam the
waters, is merely the modern version of our old friend, Nikke, the
Norwegian water-demon. This is a deathless legend, and used to be as
devoutedly believed in as the existence of Mother Carey, sitting away up
in the north, despatching her 'chickens' in all directions to work
destruction for poor Jack. But Mother Carey really turns out on inquiry
to be a most estimable being, as we shall presently see.

'Sailors,' says Brand, in his Popular Antiquities, 'usually the boldest
Men alive, are yet frequently the very abject slaves of superstitious
Fear. They have various puerile Apprehensions concerning Whistling on
Shipboard, carrying a Corpse, etc., all which are Vestiges of the old
Woman in human Nature, and can only be erased by the united Efforts of
Philosophy and Religion.'

It is to be regretted, however, that the good Brand did not devote as
much attention to the superstitions of sailors as he did to those of
some other folks.

As is the case with almost all folk-lore, little variety is to be found
in the sea superstitions of different nations. The ideas of the
supernatural on shipboard are pretty much the same, whether the flag
flown be the Union Jack, the German Eagle, the French Tricolor, the
American Stars and Stripes, or even the Chinese Dragon. These
superstitions are numerous, and are tenaciously preserved, but yet it
would not be fair to say that seamen are, as a class, more superstitious
than landsmen of their own rank. The great mystery of the sea; the
uncertainty of life upon its bosom; the isolation and frequent
loneliness; the wonder of the storms, and calms, and lights--everything
connected with a sailor's occupation is calculated to impress him with
the significance of signs and omens.

That mariners do not like to have a corpse on board is not remarkable,
for many people ashore get rather 'creepy' if they have to sleep in a
house where lies a dead body. Moreover, the old idea of bad luck which
led to the throwing overboard of Jonah, is in this case transferred from
the living to the dead. The objection to whistling is also explainable
by the time-honoured practice of 'whistling for a wind,' for an
injudicious whistler might easily bring down a blow from the wrong
quarter.

There are some animals and birds which have a peculiar significance at
sea. The cat, for instance, is generally disliked, and many sailors will
not have one on board at any price. If there is one which becomes
unusually frisky, they will say the cat has got a gale of wind in her
tail. On one part of the Yorkshire coast, it is said, sailors' wives
were in the habit of keeping black cats to insure the safety of their
husbands at sea, until black cats became so scarce and dear that few
could afford to buy one. Although Jack does not like a cat in the ship,
he will not throw one overboard, for that would bring on a storm.

Miss L. A. Smith, in her book about the Music of the Waters, states that
a dead hare on a ship is considered a sign of an approaching hurricane;
and Cornish fishermen declare that a white hare seen about the quays at
night indicates that there will be rough weather.

The pig is an object of aversion to Japanese seamen, and also to Filey
fishermen, who will not go to sea if they meet one in the early morning.
But, indeed, the pig seems to be generally disliked by all
seafarers--except in the form of salt pork and bacon.

Rats, however, are not objected to; indeed, it would be useless to
object, for they overrun all ships. And rats are supposed to leave a
vessel only when it is going to sink. A Welsh skipper, however, once
cleared his ship of them without the risk of a watery grave, by drawing
her up to a cheese-laden ship in harbour. He quietly moored alongside,
and, having left the hatches open all night, cast off with a chuckle in
the morning, leaving a liberal legacy to his neighbour.

The stormy petrel is supposed to herald bad weather, and the great auk
to tell that land is very near. This is true enough as regards the auk,
which never ventures beyond soundings; but one doubts the truth of the
popular belief that when the sea-gulls hover near the shore, a storm is
at hand. The Scotch rhyme runs:

  'Seagull, seagull, sit on the sand;
  It's never good weather when you're on the land!'

Mr. Thiselton-Dyer quotes from Sinclair's Statistical Account of
Scotland, in confirmation of this belief, that in the county of Forfar,
'when they appear in the fields, a storm from the southeast generally
follows; and when the storm begins to abate, they fly back to the
shore.' This does not accord with the present writer's experience of the
west coast of Scotland, where the sea-gulls frequent the lochs and
hillsides far inland all the summer. Naturally there are storms
sometimes after their appearance, but just as often fine weather
continues. As well say that the flocks of these beautiful birds that
follow in the wake of a tourist steamer, to pick up unconsidered
trifles, presage sea-sickness to the passengers!

One has heard that in Cornwall sailors will not walk at night along
portions of the shore where there have been many wrecks, because they
believe that the souls of the drowned haunt such localities, and that
the 'calling of the dead' is frequently audible. Some even say that they
have heard the voices of dead sailors hailing them by name. One can
readily excuse a timorousness in Jack in such circumstances. Many
persons besides sailors shrink from localities which have been the
scenes of murder or sudden death.

Friday is the sailor's pet aversion, as an unlucky day on which to sail
or begin work. But this is not surprising, when we remember that Friday
has everywhere more superstition and folk-lore attached to it than any
other day in the week, originating, perhaps, as Mr. Thiselton-Dyer
suggests, from the fact that it was the day on which Christ was
crucified. Lord Byron had the superstitious aversion to Friday; and even
among the Brahmins no business must be commenced on this day. In
Lancashire a man will not 'go a-courting on Friday'; and Brand says: 'A
respectable merchant of the city of London informed me that no person
will begin any business, that is, open his shop for the first time, on a
Friday.' The 'respectable merchant' might be hard to find nowadays, but
still one does not need to go to sailors to find a prejudice against
Friday.

Other things which are accounted unlucky by superstitious seamen are: to
sneeze on the left side at the moment of embarking; to count the men on
board; to ask fishermen, before they start, where they are bound for; to
point with the finger to a ship when at sea; to lose a mop or
water-bucket; to cut the hair or nails at sea, except during a storm.

These are a few of the sea superstitions as preserved in rhyme:

  'The evening gray, and the morning red,
  Put on your hat or you'll wet your head.'

(Meaning that it will rain.)

  'When the wind shifts against the sun,
  Trust it not, for it will run.'

(That is, soon change again.)

  'When the sun sets in the clear,
  An easterly wind you need not fear.

  'The evening red and morning gray
  Are sure signs of a fine day.'

(A distich not peculiar to followers of the sea.)

  'But the evening gray and morning red
  Makes the sailor shake his head.'

This refers to the barometer:

  'First rise, after low,
  Indicates a stronger blow.'

And this:

  'Long foretold, long last;
  Short notice, soon past.'

These, however, are hardly superstitions, but maxims based on
experience. Of the same character are the following:

                  'In squalls
  When the rain's before the wind
  Halyards, sheets, and braces mind.'

Also,

  'When the wind's before the rain
  Soon you may make sail again.'

And

  'When the glass falls low,
  Prepare for a blow;
  When it rises high,
  Let all your kites fly.

  'A rainbow in the morning,
  Sailors take warning;
  A rainbow at night
  Is the sailor's delight.'

The Manx fishermen have some curious sayings about herrings. Thus the
common expression, 'As dead as a herring,' is due to them. They say
also, 'Every herring must hang by its own gills'; and their favourite
toast is, 'Life to man and death to fish.' They count one hundred and
twenty-four fish to the hundred, thus: they first sort out lots of one
hundred and twenty, then add three to each lot, which is called 'warp,'
and then a single herring, which is called 'tally.' Before shooting the
nets at sea, every man goes down on his knees at a sign from the skipper
of the boat, and, with his head uncovered, prays for a blessing on the
fishing. This, at least, used to be the general practice, but in how
prevailing at the present day is doubtful.

The sound of the death-bell is often supposed to be heard at sea before
a wreck, and this idea may be either associated with the bell-buoy which
marks many sunken, dangerous rocks, or with the religious ceremonies of
the old days.

At Malta it is, or was, usual to ring the church bells for an hour
during a storm 'that the wind may cease and the sea be calmed,' and the
same custom prevails both in Sicily and Sardinia.

A Cornish legend of the bells of a church, which were sent by ship that
was lost in sight of the town, owing to the blasphemy of the captain,
says that the bells are supposed to be in the bay, and they announce by
strange sounds the approach of a storm.

There is a suggestion of Sir Ralph the Rover in this legend; but,
indeed, the superstitions of those connected with the sea are so
interwoven, that it is not easy to disentangle them, and they are
numerous enough to need a book to themselves. No doubt our mariners
derived many of them from the old Spanish navigators who once swayed the
main, for the Spaniards are one of the most superstitious peoples in the
world.

CHAPTER VII.

MOTHER CAREY AND HER CHICKENS.

Who was Mother Carey the appearance of whose 'chickens' is supposed by
the mariner to foretell a coming storm? This question is often asked,
but seldom answered, and so a little light on the subject is desirable.

Charles Kingsley gives a very vivid picture of her. In his charming book
about The Water-Babies, he tells how little Tom, in search of his old
master, Grimes, is instructed to find his way to Peacepool and Mother
Carey's Haven, where the good whales go when they die. On his way he
meets a flock of petrels, who invite him to go with them, saying: 'We
are Mother Carey's own chickens, and she sends us out over all the seas
to show the good birds the way home.' So he comes to Peacepool at last,
which is miles and miles across; and there the air is clear and
transparent, and the water calm and lovely; and there the good whales
rest in happy sleep upon the slumbering sea.

In the midst of Peacepool was one large peaked iceberg. 'When Tom came
near it, it took the form of the grandest old lady he had ever seen--a
white marble lady, sitting on a white marble throne. And from the foot
of the throne there swam away, out and in, and into the sea, millions of
new-born creatures, of more shapes and colours than man ever dreamed.
And they were Mother Carey's chickens, whom she makes out of the
sea-water all the day long.'

Now, this beautiful fancy of Kingsley's--and how beautiful it is can
only be realized by a reading of the whole story--is based upon fact, as
all beautiful fancies must be.

The fundamental idea of Kingsley's picture is that of a fruitful and
beneficent mother. And Mother Carey is just the Mater Cara of the
medieval sailors. Our Mother Carey's chickens are the 'Birds of the Holy
Virgin,' of the South of Europe, the 'Oiseaux de Nôtre Dame' of the
French seamen.

One reason for associating the petrel with the Holy Mother may possibly
have been found in its supposed sleeplessness. The bird was believed
never to rest, to hatch its eggs under its wings, and to be incessantly
flying to and fro on the face of the waters on messages of warning to
mariners. Even to this day sailors believe that the albatross, the
aristocratic relative of the petrel, sleeps on the wing; and the power
of the albatross, for good and evil, readers of the Ancient Mariner will
remember. We say for good and evil, because opinion fluctuated. Thus:

  'At length did cross an albatross,
  Through the fog it came;
  As if it had been a Christian soul,
  We hailed it in God's name.'

When the mariner with his crossbow did shoot the albatross, the crew
said:

  'I had done a hellish thing,
  And it would work them woe;
  For all averred I had killed the bird
  That made the breeze to blow.
  "Ah, wretch!" said they, "the bird to slay,
  That made the breeze to blow!"'

And once more, when the weather cleared, they changed:

  'Then all averred I had killed the bird
  That brought the fog and mist;
  "'Twas right," said they, "such birds to slay,
  That bring the fog and mist!"'

Coleridge got his idea from Wordsworth, who got it from a passage in
Shelvocke's voyages, where a long spell of bad weather was attributed to
an albatross following the ship.

The poet who sang,

  'Oh, stormy, stormy peterel!
    Thou art a bird of woe,
  Yet would I thou could'st tell me half
    Of the misery thou dost know!'

has, however, misunderstood the feeling with which that little harbinger
is regarded. So have many other persons. The petrel is not a bird of
woe, but a bird of warning.

The Virgin Mary--Mater Cara--was the special protectress of the early
Christian seamen, just as Amphitrite had been the tutelary genius of
his Greek, and Venus of his Roman, progenitors, and just as Isis, the
moon goddess, had been the patroness of the Egyptian navigators. The
Catholic mariner still believes that the Virgin has especial power over
the winds and the sea.

At Marseilles is the shrine of the Nôtre Dame de la Garde, greatly
venerated by all the Provençal sailors; at Caen is the shrine of Nôtre
Dame de Deliverance; at Havre, that of Nôtre Dame des Neiges. Brand
tells, in his book of Antiquities, that on Good Friday Catholic mariners
'cock-bill' their yards in mourning and hang and scourge an effigy of
Judas Iscariot. The practice still continues, and as recently as 1881 a
London newspaper contained an account of the ceremony performed on board
several Portuguese vessels in the London Docks. The proceedings always
closed with a Hymn to the Virgin Mary.

In Rome, at the Church of Santa Maria della Navicella, there is a small
marble ship which was offered by Pope Leo the Tenth in execution of a
vow after his escape from shipwreck. The first thing done by Magellan
and his crew after their safe return to Seville was to perform penance
barefooted, clad only in their shirts, and bearing lighted tapers in
their hands, at the shrine of Our Lady of Victory. And it is related of
Columbus, that on safe arrival after a storm at the Azores, 'The Admiral
and all the crew, bearing in remembrance the vow which they had made the
Thursday before, to go barefooted, and in their shirts, to some church
of Our Lady at the first land, were of opinion that they ought to
discharge this vow. They accordingly landed, and proceeded, according to
their vow, barefooted, and in their shirts, toward the hermitage.'

Countless instances might be cited, but these will suffice to show the
estimation in which Mater Cara was held by Catholic seamen.

How it came to be supposed that the smaller _Procellariæ_ are only
visible before a storm is not very apparent. In point of fact, there is
no more reason for associating the petrel specially with storms than
there is for the belief expressed in the old Scotch couplet quoted in
the last chapter:

  'Seagull, seagull, sit in the sand;
  It's never good weather when you're on the land!'

As a matter of fact, seagulls do fly far inland in fine weather, and
especially during ploughing-time. And also, as a matter of fact, the
petrel lives at sea both in fine weather and foul, because he is
uncomfortable on land. It is only the breeding season that he spends on
shore; while the seagull is just as much at home on the land as on the
sea.

The scientific name of the petrel tribe is _Procellariæ_, from the Latin
_procella_--a storm. It is a large family, all the members of which are
distinguished by a peculiar tube-like arrangement of the nostrils. Their
feet, also, are peculiar in being without any back toe, so that they can
only with great difficulty rise on the wing from dry land.

Mother Carey's chickens are among the smaller species of this family,
and they have both a shorter bill and a longer leg than their relatives.
But all the _Procellariæ_ are noted for ranging further from land than
any other of the sea-birds. Thus they are often visible from ship-board
when no other animal life can be sighted; and thus it was, doubtless,
that their appearance suggested safe harbour, and consequent thanks to
Mater Cara, to the devout seaman.

Why the petrels are associated with storms is thus not easily explained,
seeing that they are abroad in all weathers; but a feasible suggestion
was advanced by Pennant. It is that they gather from the water
sea-animals which are most abundant before or after a storm, when the
sea is in a state of unusual commotion. All birds are highly sensitive
to atmospheric changes, and all sea-birds seem to develop extra activity
in threatening and 'dirty' weather.

There is another interesting thing about Mother Carey's chicken, and
that is, that he is also called petrel, from the Italian 'Petrello,' or
Little Peter. This is because he is supposed to be able, like the
apostle, to walk on the water, and as in fact he does after a fashion,
with the aid of his wings.

Now, St. Peter, both as a fisherman and for his sea-walking, was always
a favourite saint with sailors, and was often invoked during storms. He
was the patron saint of Cortez, as he was also of the Thames watermen.
There is an old legend that St. Peter went on board a fisherman's boat
somewhere about the Nore, and that it carried him, without sails or
oars, to the very spot which he selected as the site for Westminster
Abbey.

In the Russian ports of the Baltic there is firm belief in a species of
water-spirits called Rusalkas, who raise storms and cause much damage to
the shipping. The great anniversary of these storm-spirits is St.
Peter's Day. The John Dory is St. Peter's fish, and it is said that the
spots on each side of its mouth are the marks of the apostle's thumb and
forefinger. It was called 'janitore,' or doorkeeper, because in its
mouth was found the penny with which the temple-tax was paid. Now, St.
Peter also was the doorkeeper of heaven, and from janitore to John Dory
was an easy transition.

With fishermen, as was natural, St. Peter was held in high honour; and
in Cornwall and Yorkshire, until recently, it was customary to light
bonfires, and to hold other ceremonies, on St. Peter's Day, to signalize
the opening of the fishing season, and to bespeak luck. An old writer
says of these customs at Guisboro', in Yorkshire, that:

'The fishermen, on St. Peter's daye, invited their friends and kinfolk
to a festivall kept after their fashion, with a free hearte, and no show
of niggardnesse. That day their boats are dressed curiously for the
showe, their masts are painted, and certain rytes observed amongst them
with sprinkling their bows with good liquor, which custome or
superstition, sucked from their ancestors, even continueth down unto
this present tyme.'

Perhaps at 'this present tyme' the ceremonies are not so elaborate; but
survivals of the 'custome or superstition' are to be found yet in our
fishing villages.

It is probable that the observers of St. Peter's Day do not know the
origin of their curious customs. It is certain that sailors, as a class,
do not now know why their favourite little bird is called petrel. We
have tried to remove the stigma which in modern times has come to rest
upon Mother Carey's chickens. Let us no longer do them wrong by
supposing that they are always the harbingers of woe. They have a busy
and a useful life, and it is one, as we have seen, with tender, even
sacred, associations.

It may be recalled as an interesting, although not an agreeable item,
that in the days of the French Revolution there was a notorious brood of
Mother Carey's chickens in Paris. They were the female rag-tag-and-bobtail
of the city, whose appearance in the streets was understood to forebode
a fresh political tumult. What an insult to our feathered friends to
bestow their honoured name on such human fiends!

The real Mother Carey is she who appeared to Tom and Ella in Peacepool,
after they had learned a few things about themselves and the world. They
heard her voice calling to them, and they looked, crying:

'"Oh, who are you, after all? You are our dear Mrs.
Do-as-you-would-be-done-by."

'"No, you are good Mrs. Be-done-by-as-you-did; but you are grown quite
beautiful now!"

'"To you," said the Fairy; "but look again."

'"You are Mother Carey," said Tom, in a very low, solemn voice, for he
had found out something which made him very happy, and yet frightened
him more than all that he had ever seen.

'"But you are grown quite young again."

'"To you," said the Fairy; "but look again."

'"You are the Irishwoman who met me the day I went to Harthover!"

'And when they looked again she was neither of them, and yet all of them
at once.

'"My name is written in my eyes, if you have eyes to see it there."

'And they looked into her great, deep soft eyes, and they changed again
and again into every hue, as the light changes in a diamond.

'"Now read my name," said she at last, and her eyes flashed for one
moment, clear, white, blazing light; but the children could not read her
name, for they were dazzled, and hid their faces in their hands.

'They were only water-babies, and just beginning to learn the meaning of
love.'

CHAPTER VIII.

DAVY JONES'S LOCKER.

This expression of what may be called nautical slang has now become
almost classic. At all events, everybody knows it; and most people may
be presumed to know that to 'go to Davy Jones's Locker' is equivalent to
'losing the number of your mess,' or, as the Californian miners say,
'passing in your checks.' Being especially a sea-phrase, it means, of
course, to be drowned. But how did the phrase originate? And who was
Davy Jones? These questions must have frequently occurred to many, and
it is worth while seeking an answer to them. There is an explanation for
everything, if one only knows how to look for it.

This saying about Davy Jones is a very old one--so old, that it cannot
possibly have any reference to the famous Paul Jones. In fact, one hears
very often of 'Davy's Locker' without any reference to 'Jones' at all.
Then 'Davy,' again, is a vulgar slang expression for affidavit, but it
is also used in thief-parlance by way of an oath. 'So help me Davy!' is
the slang equivalent for the concluding sentence of the oath
administered in the police-courts with which these gentry are familiar.
It has thus been inferred that 'Davy' is a slang expression of somewhat
blasphemous import; but this is by no means certain.

It is much more likely to be associated with, or to have the same origin
as, the 'Duffy' of the West Indian negroes. Among them Duffy means a
ghost; and in the vocabulary of the gutter it may easily have been taken
as the equivalent of soul. The transition from Duffy to Davy is by no
means difficult.

But how, then, did the vagabond users of 'flash' language get hold of
this word? It is probable enough that it was brought home by the sailors
from the West Indies, and picked up at the docks by the waifs and strays
of our vast vagrant population. On the other hand, it is just as likely
that the West Indian negroes picked up 'Duffy' from our own sailors; and
that, in fact, Duffy is just the nigger contraction of Davy Jones. There
is certainly a very close connection, both in sound and meaning, between
the two expressions.

We must go further back and further away, however, to get to the root of
this matter. And, if we inquire diligently, we shall find our Davy in
the Deva of the Indian mythology. The original Sanskrit meaning of Deva
was 'The Shining One,' but in the operation of what has been called 'the
degradation of Deities' in the Oriental religions, it became synonymous
with our devil. In fact, we owe the word 'devil' to this same Sanskrit
root; and it is noteworthy that while Deva meant the Good Spirit to the
Brahmans, it meant the Evil Spirit to the Parsees. In this root we may
also find the explanation of the gipsy word for God, which, curiously
enough, is Devel.

While it is easy to trace the transition from Deva to the sailor's Davy,
one may note another curious thing. The name of the fabulous Welshman,
Taffy, the thief, is a corruption of Dyved, which, as signifying an evil
spirit, is the Cymric form of Deva. This would almost suggest that the
addition of the apparent surname, Jones, was a Welsh performance. But
this is only an amusing conjecture, not without a certain aptness.

For the origin of Jones we must look to Jonah, who in nautical history
is regarded as the embodiment of malevolence at sea. The prophet Jonah
is not the only one who has been committed to the deep to appease the
storm-fiends, whose anger his presence was supposed to have aroused. It
is easy to account for this from the Bible narrative. 'The mariners were
afraid, and cried every man unto his God. And they said, every one to
his fellow, "Come, and let us cast lots, that we may know for whose
cause this evil is upon us." So they cast lots, and the lot fell upon
Jonah. So they took up Jonah and cast him forth into the sea, and the
sea ceased from her raging.'

The superstition of sailors is proverbial, and to this day they believe
in good or ill luck being brought to a vessel by persons and things. In
olden times there were many sacrifices to this Jonah superstition; and
even in comparatively recent times, Holcroft, the actor, on a voyage to
Scotland, narrowly escaped a watery grave, because the men took him for
'the Jonas.' And to this day 'He's a Jonah' is an expression often
enough heard on ship-board applied to some unwelcome passenger.

Here, then, we have the Sanskrit origin of Davy, and the Biblical origin
of Jones, both words embodying much the same idea to the mind of the
primitive seamen.

But what of the 'locker'?

This, of course, is a familiar piece of ship-furniture which it was not
difficult to transfer to the mythical demon of the deep. Lieutenant
Bassett thought that the locker might be the whale's belly in which
Jonah found refuge; but this is hardly in harmony with the meaning of
the phrase. In the sense in which it is thus used, locker does not mean
a temporary resting-place or submarine harbour of refuge, but a place of
final deposit. It is possible, indeed, to find the origin of the word
locker as here applied in Loki, the personification of evil in the
Scandinavian mythology. Loki, like Deva, was not always an evil spirit,
but he became eventually identified with Satan. He became a flame-demon,
a sort of incarnate spirit of fire.

There is good reason for believing in this theory of the Scandinavian
origin of the word 'locker' as used in the connection we are
considering. It is to be remembered that, in olden times, death by
drowning was even more dreaded than now, because drowned bodies were
supposed to be debarred from the Resurrection. Going far back, we find
that the sea was the abode of Typhoeus, who, besides being a
hurricane-raising, was also a fire-breathing, demon, and was feared as
the quencher of the sun, who sank at night into his bosom. The legend of
St. Brandan and his burning islands preserved the idea that Hades was
very near to the bottom of the ocean. Thus, then, we may readily
perceive the conception of Loki having his receptacle for drowned
mariners in the bed of the sea. A belief prevailed long into the Middle
Ages that the sea-bottom was the abode of many demons, who lay in wait
for passengers, to drag them down to the infernal depths.

Thus, then, Davy Jones's Locker became, by a mixture of theogonies, 'the
ocean, the deep sea-bottom, the place to which the body was committed,
and to which the souls of the wicked fled.'

This meaning is now somewhat modified. Sailors do not, as Smollett says
they did in his day, regard Davy Jones as the fiend who presides over
all the evil spirits of the deep, and who is seen in various shapes,
warning the devoted wretches of death and woe. In fact, it is not Davy
Jones they think of at all now, but his Locker; for to go to Davy's
Locker is to be lost at sea and to find a watery grave.

There is, however, a curious survival of the personal element still to
be traced in some of the sailors' chanties. Take, for instance, that
remarkable one about 'Burying the Dead Horse,' which still puzzles the
passengers on board the packets sailing to the Antipodes. Without going
into the question of the song and its attendant ceremonies just now,
the following lines may be quoted as bearing on our subject:

  'You poor old horse, what brought you here,
  After carrying turf for many a year?
  From Bantry Bay to Ballyack,
  When you fell down and broke your back?
  You died from blows and sore abuse,
  And were salted down for the sailors' use.
  The sailors they the meat despise;
  They turned you over and ---- your eyes;
  They ate the meat and picked the bones,
  And gave the rest to Davy Jones.'

All the offal of a ship is thrown over to Davy Jones--doubtless because
there is nothing else to be done with it.

The favourite demon, if one may use the expression, of British sailors
is now Old Nick, and one may trace his origin even more easily than that
of Davy Jones. We can follow him through Saxon, German, Danish and
Norwegian transitions to one of the names of Odin--Hnickar--for even
All-father Odin shared the fate of his Oriental predecessors, and became
demonized. Others, again, have carried the name Hnickar back still
further to the Egyptian Nika, the serpent of the lower world, 'the
Typhonic enemy of the Sun in his night-journey.'

It is to the same root that we owe the Necken of the Baltic, and the
Nixies--the water-fays--of the German legends. It is to the Norwegian
Nökke, also, that we owe the Wild Huntsman of the Sea, on which the
story of the _Flying Dutchman_ and a host of other legends of demon
vessels and demon mariners are founded.

There is, however, some confusion in the nautical mythology between the
original Old Nick and the popular Saint Nicholas. This saint became the
Christian successor of Neptune, as the protector of seamen. 'This
saintly Poseidon,' says Mr. Conway, 'the patron of fishermen, in time
became associated with the demon whom the British sailor feared if he
feared nothing else. He was also of old the patron of pirates; and
robbers were called "St. Nicholas' clerks."'

It is certainly one of the curiosities of plutology that the patron
saint of children who is still honoured at Christmas as Santa Claus
should be the same as the dreaded Old Nick of the seafarers.

These investigations are extremely interesting, and may lead us far; but
our present purpose is merely to find an explanation of a popular
phrase.

It is more difficult to explain a number of other marine personalities,
who are as lively to-day on shipboard as they were generations ago.
There is, for instance, old Mister Storm-Along, of whom the chanty-man
sings:

  'When Stormy died, I dug his grave--
  I dug his grave with a silver spade;
  I hove him up with an iron crane,
  And lowered him down with a golden chain.'

Who was he? And who was the famous Captain Cottington, of whom it is
related, in stentorian tones and with tireless repetition, that:

  'Captain Cottington, he went to sea,
  Captain Cottington, he went to sea-e-e-e,
  Captain Cottington, he went to sea,
  Captain Cottington, he went to sea-e!'

Who, also, was 'Uncle Peleg,' of whom a somewhat similarly exhaustive
history is chanted? And, still more, who was the mysterious Reuben
Ranzo, with whose name every fo'cs'le of every outward-bound British or
American ship is constantly resounding?

  'Pity Reuben Ranzo--
    Ranzo, boys, a Ranzo!
  Oh, pity Reuben Ranzo--
    Ranzo, boys, a Ranzo!'

He had a remarkable career, this Reuben, according to the song. He was a
tailor by trade; went to school on the Monday, learnt to read on
Tuesday, and by Friday he had thrashed the master. Then he went to sea,
and, after some ignominious experiences, married the captain's daughter,
and became himself the captain of a whaler. But who was he? And how does
he come to exercise such a fascination over all mariners, even unto this
day?

This is one of the mysteries of the ocean. The sea is covered with
mystery, and with phantom shapes. Every ship that sails is peopled with
a crew of dim shadows of the past that none can explain.

CHAPTER IX.

SOME FLOWERS OF FANCY.

That the lily should symbolize purity seems appropriate enough, but why
should parsley in olden times have been associated with death? It is
recorded that a few bundles of parsley once threw a whole Greek army
into panic, because in Greece the tombs of the dead were strewn with the
herb. With them 'to be in need of parsley' was equivalent to being
beyond hope.

The name itself offers little explanation of this superstition, for it
is derived from the Latin _petroselinum_, which, again, was taken from
the Greek name signifying the 'plant of the rocks.' According to the
myth, however, it sprang from the blood of Archemorus, or Orpheltes, the
son of Lycurgus, King of Nemæa. Archemorus was killed by a serpent while
his foster-mother was showing the soldiers of Adrastus where they might
find a fountain. On the place where he died there sprang up the parsley,
which the Greeks, in grief for his loss, wove into chaplets for the
victors at the Nemæan games. At these games it was always customary to
deliver a funeral oration in memory of Archemorus, while the
participators were dressed in mourning. Hence the association of parsley
with death among the Greeks, and the long-prevailing Western belief that
the plant is 'unlucky,' is only another instance of the marvellous
longevity of superstitions.

It is said by Mr. Thiselton-Dyer that in Devonshire to transplant
parsley is accounted a serious offence against the tutelary spirit of
the herb, and is certain to be punished within the year by some great
misfortune. In South Hampshire the country people will never give
parsley away, for fear of trouble; and in Suffolk it is believed that if
it be sown on any other day than Good Friday it will not grow double.
The _Folklore Record_, some years ago, gave the case of a gentleman near
Southampton whose gardener refused to sow some parsley-seed when
ordered, because 'it would be a bad day's work' for him to do so; the
most he would do was to bring a plant or two, and throw them down for
the master to pick up if he chose. To give them, however, the man
regarded as fatal.

But even to move parsley is regarded in some places to be unlucky, and
we have heard of a parish clerk in Devonshire who was bedridden, and who
was popularly supposed to owe his trouble to having moved some
parsley-beds. There is a similar superstition in Germany, and many
readers have probably often come across an old saying, that 'Parsley
fried will bring a man to his saddle and a woman to her grave.' The
allusion to the saddle is obscure; but it is obvious that all the
superstitious dread of parsley is a survival of the old Greek fable
immortalized in the Nemæan games.

That the rose should be associated with death may appear strange to
some, yet so it was. The Greeks certainly used the rose in their funeral
rites and for the decoration of their tombs. The Romans used it for
similar purposes, and often bequeathed legacies for the express purpose
of keeping their tombs adorned with the flower. Whether it was by them
that the practice was introduced into England is not capable of direct
proof, but it is worthy of note that at Ockley, a place where the Romans
were often located in large numbers, it was a custom of comparatively
recent experience for girls to plant roses upon the graves of their dead
lovers. Hence, no doubt, its origin in Gay's riddle:

  'What flower is that which royal honour craves,
  Adjoins the Virgin, and 'tis strewn on graves?'

The answer is 'Rosemary,' which, although sometimes understood to mean
the Rose of the Virgin Mary, is neither a rose, nor is it in any special
way associated with the Virgin.

On the other hand, the rose is associated by most Catholics with the
Mother of the Saviour, and in Italy especially, during the celebrations
of May, the rose is abundantly used. By some it has been thought that
the early association of the rose with death led to the expression
'under the rose,' applied to anything to be done in secret or silence.
Others, again, have ascribed the origin of that expression to the
perfect beauty of the flower, which, as language is unable to portray
it, may be a symbol of silence. Sir Thomas Browne, however, says the
origin was either in the old custom of wearing chaplets of roses during
the 'Symposiack meetings,' or else because the rose was the flower of
Venus, 'which Cupid consecrated unto Harpocrates, the god of silence.'
There is a basis of probability in both theories, and all know that the
rose was peculiarly the property of the Goddess of Love. Indeed,
according to the old fable, the flower was originally white until dyed
by the blood which flowed from the foot of Venus, pierced by a thorn as
she ran to the aid of her loved Adonis. Hence Spenser says:

  'White as the native rose, before the change
  Which Venus's blood did in her leaves impress.'

According to others, however, it was the blood of Adonis which dyed the
flower. Thus Bion, in his Lament: 'A tear the Paphian sheds for each
blood-drop of Adonis, and tears and blood on the earth are turned to
flowers. The blood brings forth the rose, and the tears the wind-flower.
Woe, woe, for Adonis! he hath perished, the lovely Adonis!' This
tradition is preserved in the German name, _Adonis-blume_, which,
however, is usually applied to the anemone.

The rose being the emblem of love, and love having a natural abhorrence
of publicity, it is not difficult to conceive the connection with
silence. It is said that the Romans used to place a decoration of roses
in the centre of their dining-rooms, as a hint to the guests that all
that was said at the banqueting-table was in the nature of 'privileged
communications,' and in old Germany a similar custom long prevailed. In
the sixteenth century a rose was placed over confessionals, and the
inference is that the hint was then well understood.

There was also an obvious meaning in the adoption by the Jacobites of
this flower as the emblem of the Pretender, to whose service they were
secretly sworn. It was the white rose that was especially affected by
the Stuarts, and the Pretender's birthday, the 10th of June, was for
long known as 'White Rose Day,' much as 'Primrose Day' is now definitely
associated with the late Lord Beaconsfield. The story of the Wars of the
Roses is, of course, known to everybody, and how, in consequence of
these feuds, the rose became the emblem of England, as the thistle is of
Scotland, and the shamrock of Ireland.

In the East there is even more of poetic significance attached to the
rose than with us. It is related of Sadi, the Persian poet, that, when a
slave, he earned his freedom by the adroit use of the flower. One day he
presented a rose to his master, with the remark, made with all humility,
'Do good to thy servant whilst thou hast the power, for the season of
power is often as transient as the duration of this flower.' This was in
allusion to the Eastern fancy, which makes the white rose the emblem of
life--transient and uncertain. In Persia they have a festival called
'The Feast of the Roses,' which lasts during the blooming of the
flowers. One of their great works is called The Garden of Roses, and in
all their poems and tales they closely associate the rose with the
bulbul or nightingale. The belief is that the bird derives his melody
from the beauteous flower, and they say, 'You may place a handful of
fragrant herbs and flowers before the nightingale, but he wants nothing
more than the odour of his beloved rose.'

Thomas Moore seizes, with happy effect, on this legend in Lalla Rookh,
which poem, indeed, is redolent of roses. But poetry generally is as
full of the rose as the rose is of poetry, and it would take a volume to
deal adequately with all the fancies and superstitious associations of
the queen of flowers. Before quitting the subject, however, we should
not overlook the Oriental traditions of how the rose received its
various colours. It is said that when Mohammed was journeying to heaven,
the sweat which fell from his forehead produced white roses, and that
which fell from Al Borak produced yellow roses. But an older tradition
is given by Sir John Mandeville. It is that of Zillah, the beauteous
maiden of Bethlehem, who, being falsely accused, was condemned to be
burned alive. At the stake the flames passed over her and shrivelled up
her accuser, while, on the spot where she stood, sprang up a garden of
roses--red where the fire had touched, and white where it had passed.
'And theise werein the first roseres that ever ony man saughe.'

Reference has been made to the lily as the emblem of purity, but,
curiously enough, this innocent-looking flower has its baleful
superstitions as well.

In Devonshire it is accounted unlucky to plant a bed of
lilies-of-the-valley, and to do so is to ensure misfortune, if not
death, within a year. Yet this flower has always been closely associated
with the Virgin Mary, and according to one legend, it sprang from some
of the milk which fell to the ground as she was nourishing the infant
Jesus. The Greeks, however, had a similar legend, ascribing the origin
of the flower to a drop of Juno's milk. The Greeks have always made a
favourite of the lily, and even to this day use it largely in making up
bridal wreaths, while the sacred significance which Christians have
found in the flower may be traceable to our Lord's use of it in imagery.

In this connection the legend of the budding lily of St. Joseph may be
recalled, and also the fact that the mediæval painters generally
depicted the Madonna with a lily in her hand. There is a tradition that
the lily was the principal ornament in the crown of Solomon, and that it
typified love, charity, purity, and innocence--a combination of virtues
hardly to be found in the character of the wise King himself.

Nor must we forget that the sacred flower of the East--the lotus--is a
lily, and that even to name it seems to carry ineffable consolation to
the Buddhist. Thus, the universal prayer of the Buddhists--that prayer
which is printed on slips and fastened on cylinders which are
incessantly revolving in Thibet--'Om mani padme hum!' means simply, 'Oh,
the jewel in (or of) the lotus! Amen!' So Sir Edwin Arnold, in The
Light of Asia:

  'Ah, Lover! Brother! Guide! Lamp of the Law!
  I take my refuge in Thy name and Thee!
  I take my refuge in Thy Law of Good!
  I take my refuge in Thy Order! Om!
  The dew is on the lotus. Rise, Great Sun,
  And lift my leaf, and mix me with the wave.
  "Om mani padme hum," the sunrise comes.
  The dewdrop slips into the shining sea!'

The lily, or lotus, was held sacred also in ancient Egypt, and the
capitals of many of the buildings bear the form of an open lotus-flower.
And naturally, in a land of Buddhism like China, the lotus occupies
there an important place, both in art, in poetry, and in popular fancy.
It is recorded that the old Jews regarded the lily, or lotus (_Lilium
candidum_), as a protection against enchantment, and it is said that
Judith wore a wreath of lilies when she went to visit Holofernes, by way
of counteractant charm.

The lotus which is the sacred lily of the East must not be confounded
with the mysterious plant mentioned by Ulysses, and of which Tennyson
has sung--the plant of oblivion and sensuousness. That there is an
element of enchantment about the lily we have seen is still believed in
our own country, but the association of misfortune with it is not
universal. On the contrary, in some parts the leaf of the lily is
supposed to have curative virtues in cases of cuts and wounds, and
Gerarde, the old herbalist, even says that 'the flowers of
lily-of-the-valley, being close stopped up in a glass, put into an
ant-hill, and taken away again a month after, ye shall find a liquor in
the glass, which being outwardly applied, helpeth the gout.' One hears,
perhaps, of no modern experiments having been made with this remedy. But
if not to cure gout, the flower has, it appears, been used to pay rents,
for Grimm says that some lands in Hesse were held upon the condition of
presenting a bunch of lily-of-the-valley every year. This, of course,
would not be the whole burden, and the custom had, no doubt, a religious
origin and significance.

The flower is often associated with the sword of justice, and both the
Dominicans and the Cistercians held it in high honour. It is worth
noting, too, that some traditions make the lily the favourite flower of
St. Cecilia, although the popular legend makes the angel bring her a
bouquet of roses every night from Paradise.

But how did the lily become the badge of France? One tradition is that
it was adopted by the French kings because it was the emblem of purity,
and closely associated with both Christ and Solomon. One old legend has
it that after one of the great battles of the Crusaders, the French
banners were found covered with lilies. According to others, the Fleur
de lys is merely a corruption of Fleur de Luce, or Fleur de Louis, and
was not a lily at all, but the purple iris, which Louis the Seventh
adopted for his emblem on his departure to the Holy Land. On the other
hand, there is a legend that a shield of azure bearing the device of
three golden lilies was presented by an angel to Clothilde, the wife of
Clovis, and it is claimed that the lily has been the true national
emblem of France ever since the time of that Sovereign. Whatever the
origin, however, of Fleur de lys, it certainly means lily now, and the
Lily of France is a symbol as definite as the Rose of England, as the
Shamrock of Ireland, or as the Thistle of Scotland.

It is curious how much superstition and romance have clustered round the
humble clover-leaf. Not one of us, perhaps, but has in childhood spent
hours in looking for the four-leaved clover that was to bring untold
luck. What trouble to find it! What joy when found! And what little
profit beyond the joy of the search! As the old couplet has it, somewhat
inconsequently:

  'With a four-leav'd clover, double-topp'd ash, and green-topp'd seave,
  You may go before the queen's daughter without asking leave.'

The advantage here suggested is not very obvious, but the Devonshire
people had a more defined idea of the virtue of the double clover, and
they state it thus:

  'An even-leaved ash,
    And a four-leaved clover;
  You'll see your true lover
    Before the day's over.'

But in Cambridgeshire it seems that the two-leaved clover is the object
of desire, for there the saying goes:

  'A clover, a clover of two,
  Put it on your right shoe;
  The first young man you meet,
  In field, or lane, or street,
  You shall have him,
  Or one of his name.'

This, while presenting a considerable amount of uncertainty in the
result has, at least, the merit of presaging something.

In other parts, however, and in more ancient days, the carrying of the
four-bladed clover was believed to bring luck in play and in business,
safety on a journey, and the power of detecting evil spirits. In Germany
the clover was held almost sacred whenever it had two or four blades.
Now, as to luck, a curious thing is stated by the author of the Plant
Lore of Shakespeare. He says that clover is a corruption of _clava_, a
club, and that to this day we preserve the emblem of luck on our
playing-cards in painting the suit of clubs. Somehow the etymology does
not seem very satisfying; but at any rate we all know what 'living in
clover' means.

Yet, perhaps, everyone does not know that in rural districts the clover
is looked upon as a capital barometer, the leaves becoming rough to the
feel when a storm is impending. A writer, quoted by Mr. Thiselton-Dyer,
says that when tempestuous weather is coming the clover will 'start and
rise up as if it were afraid of an assault.'

It is probable that the association of good luck with the four-bladed
clover arose from its fancied resemblance to the cross. Support is given
to this hypothesis by the traditional origin of the shamrock as the
badge of Ireland. In the account given of St. Patrick in The Book of
Days, it is stated that once when the Saint wanted to illustrate the
doctrine of the Trinity to his pagan hearers, he plucked a piece of the
common white clover. Now, it seems that the trefoil is called
_shamrakh_ in Arabic, and was held sacred in Persia. And it is
remarkable that Pliny says the trefoil is an antidote against the bites
of snakes and scorpions. It is not by any means certain that the common
clover was the original shamrock of Ireland; and even to this day many
claim the title for the wood-sorrel. Still, for fifty years, at any
rate, the popular belief has been that the trefoil-clover is the plant
which was plucked by St. Patrick, who drove out the snakes from Ireland,
who is still her patron-saint, and whose badge is worn to this day.

But how did the name come from Arabia, and what is the connection
between Pliny's theory and the legend, of St. Patrick's victory over the
vermin? These remain among the unsolved mysteries of folk-lore.

With the emblem of Scotland--the thistle--not so many classical
associations and active superstitions are to be found, but yet it is not
devoid of folk-lore. Of course opinions differ as to what was or is the
true Scotch thistle, but of the several varieties of thistles many
beliefs are entertained. One variety--the Carline--is esteemed in some
parts as a barometer, as it closes up when rain is approaching. In
Tartary there is a variety which grows to such a size that it is planted
for shelter on the windward side of the huts on the Steppes. This
thistle is called the 'Wind Witch,' because, after the heat of the
summer is past, the dried portions take the form of a ball, with which
the spirits are supposed to make merry in the autumnal gales.

The origin of the name thistle is probably Scandinavian, and associated
with Thor. The plant was, at any rate, sacred to the Scandinavian god,
and was believed by the old Vikings to receive the colour of the
lightning into its blossom, which thereupon became endowed with high
curative and protective virtues. There was a species of thistle on
Dartmoor which used to be called Thormantle, and was used in that
district as a febrifuge. Some writers have said that in Poland some
infantile disorders are supposed to be the work of mischievous spirits
using thistle-seed.

The Lady's Thistle, which some believe to be the true Scotch thistle, is
one of the many plants associated with the Virgin. The tradition,
according to Brand, is that the white spots on the leaves are due to the
falling of some drops of the Holy Mother's milk, a legend we have seen
to be attached also to the lily. Then the great Emperor Charlemagne's
name is blended with that of the Carline Thistle, the story being that
during the prevalence of an epidemic among his troops he prayed to God
for help. An angel appeared, and indicated, by firing an arrow, a plant
which would allay the disease. This was the _Carlina acaulis_, which, of
course, cured all the sick soldiers, and possibly may have some of the
febrifuge virtues which the Dartmoor people fancied existed in another
kind of thistle. Nettle-soup is still a familiar housewife's remedy for
some childish ailments.

In some parts of Germany there is a superstition that sores upon horses'
backs may be cured by gathering four red thistle-blossoms before
daybreak, and placing them in the form of a square upon the ground with
a stone in the middle. It is not easy to trace the probable origin of
this belief, but many of the old herbalists mention the thistle as
efficacious in cases of vertigo, headache, jaundice, and 'infirmities of
the gall.' Says one, 'It is an herb of Mars, and under the sign Aries.'
Therefore, 'it strengthens the attractive faculty in man and clarifies
the blood, because the one is ruled by Mars. The continual drinking the
decoction of it helps red faces, tetters, and ringworms, because Mars
causeth them. It helps the plague, sores, boils, itches, the bitings of
mad dogs and venomous beasts, all which infirmities are under Mars.'
This same writer agrees with Dioscorides that the root of a thistle
carried about 'doth expel melancholy and removes all diseases connected
therewith.' In other words, the thistle was held to possess all the
virtues now claimed for podophyllum, blue-pill, and dandelion--a
universal antibilious agent!

But how did the thistle become the emblem of Scotland? Well, there are
as many traditions on the subject as there are opinions as to which
variety of the plant is the true Scottish thistle. It would be tedious
here to refer to all, so let us just note that although the _Carduus
Marianus_, or the Blessed or Lady's Thistle--the origin of whose name we
have given--is very commonly accepted, so competent an authority on
Scottish lore as the author of Nether Lochaber rejects both that and all
other varieties in favour of the _Cnicus acaulis_, or the stemless
thistle. In doing this, he founds his belief upon the following
tradition: Once, during the invasion of Scotland by the Norsemen, the
invaders were stealing a march in the dark upon the Scots, when one of
the barefooted scouts placed his foot upon a thistle, which caused him
to cry out so loudly that the Scots were aroused, and, flying to their
horses, drove back the Danes with great slaughter. Now, this could not
happen, says Dr. Stewart, with any of the tall thistles, but only with
the stemless thistle, which has sharp, fine spikes, and grows close on
the ground.

This, at least, is as reasonable an explanation as any of the great
national badge of Scotland. It but remains to add that the first mention
of the thistle as a national emblem occurs in an inventory of the jewels
and other effects of James the Third, about 1467, and its first mention
in poetry is in a poem by Dunbar, written about 1503, to commemorate the
marriage of James the Fourth with Margaret Tudor, and called The
Thrissell and the Rois. The Order of the Thistle dates from James the
Seventh of Scotland and Second of England, about 1687.

And now, as we began with the wreath of parsley, which symbolized death,
let us end with the crown of orange-blossoms, which, among us, now
symbolizes the twofold life of the married state. Among the Greeks, the
brides used to wear garlands of myrtle and roses, because both of these
plants were associated with the Goddess of Love. In China the orange
has, from time immemorial, been an emblem of good luck, and is freely
used to present to friends and guests. But although the orange is said
to have been first brought by the Portuguese from China in 1547,
nevertheless this fruit is supposed to have been the golden apple of
Juno, which grew in the Garden of Hesperides. As the golden apple was
presented to the Queen of Heaven upon her marriage with Jupiter, we may
find here a definite explanation of the meaning attached to the fruit.

But, besides this, it seems that orange-blossom was used centuries ago
by Saracen brides in their personal decorations on the great day of
their lives. It was meant to typify fruitfulness, and it is to be noted
that the orange-tree bears both fruit and blossom at the same time, and
is remarkable for its productiveness. It is possible, then, that the
idea of orange-blossom for bridal decoration was brought from the East
by the Crusaders; but it is uncertain at what date the custom began to
be followed in England. However introduced, and whether retained as a
symbol or merely for the exquisite beauty of the flower, it will
continue to hold its place in the affections of the maiden-bride, to
whom it seems to sing:

  'Honour, riches, marriage-blessing,
  Long continuance and increasing,
  Hourly joys be still upon you,
  Juno sings her blessings on you.'

CHAPTER X.

ROSEMARY FOR REMEMBRANCE.

'Doth not Rosemary and Romeo both begin with a letter?' asks Juliet's
nurse. Yes, but what did she mean by the query, and by the further
remark that 'Juliet hath the prettiest sententions of it, of you and
rosemary, that it would do you good to hear it'? For answer we must make
some search into the beliefs and customs of the past.

Rosemary is the 'Ros-marinus' of the old herbalists, but it is not a
native of Britain, and there is no exact record of when it was
introduced here from the South of Europe. Mention of 'Ros-marinus'
occurs in an Anglo-Saxon vocabulary of the eleventh century, where it is
translated Feld-madder and Sun-dew. There is some doubt whether this has
reference to the actual plant now known to us as rosemary, but in no
case was it the Rose of Mary, as some have supposed. It is not a rose,
and the 'Mary' is from 'marinus,' or 'maris.' The old English spelling
was Rosmarin, or Rosmarine; in these forms one finds the word used by
Gower, and Shenstone, and other old poets.

In the South of Europe the rosemary has long had magic properties
ascribed to it. The Spanish ladies used to wear it as an antidote
against the evil eye, and the Portuguese called it the Elfin plant, and
dedicated it to the fairies. The idea of the antidote may have been due
to a confusion of the name with that of the Virgin; but as a matter of
fact the 'Ros-marinus' is frequently mentioned by old Latin writers,
including Horace and Ovid. The name came from the fondness of the plant
for the sea-shore, where it often gets sprinkled with the 'ros,' or dew
of the sea, that is to say, sea-spray. Another cause of confusion,
perhaps, was that the leaves of the plant somewhat resemble those of the
juniper, which in mediæval times was one of the plants held sacred to
the Virgin Mary. In the island of Crete, it is said, a bride dressed for
the wedding still calls last of all for a sprig of rosemary to bring her
luck.

And thus we come to find rosemary in close association with both
marriage and death, just as the hyacinth was, and perhaps still is,
among the Greeks. It is interesting to trace the connection by which the
same plant came to have two such different uses.

One of the earliest mentions of rosemary in English literature is in a
poem of the fourteenth century called 'The Gloriouse Rosemaryne,' which
begins thus:

  'This herbe is callit rosemaryn,
  Of vertu that is gode and fyne;
  But all the vertues tell I ne can,
  Nor, I trowe, no erthely man.'

Nevertheless, the poet proceeds to record at great length many
astounding virtues, including the restoration of youth to the aged by
bathing in rosemary water.

The 'cheerful rosemarie' and 'refreshing rosemarine' of Spenser was once
a great favourite in England, although now it is hardly allowed garden
space. Sir Thomas More said: 'I let it run all over my garden walls, not
only because my bees love it, but because 'tis the herb sacred to
remembrance, and therefore to friendship: whence a sprig of it hath a
dumb language that maketh it the chosen emblem at our funeral wakes and
in our burial grounds.'

The popularity of the plant was doubtless due to the long-enduring scent
and verdure of the leaves. It is one of the most lasting of evergreens,
and the pleasant aromatic odour lingers very long after the leaves have
been gathered.

Fragrance and endurance, then, are the characteristics of a plant which
came to be commonly accepted as an emblem of constancy, and also of
loving remembrance. Thus it is that Herrick sings of it:

  'Grow for two ends, it matters not at all,
  Be't for my bridal or my burial.'

Thus it is that we find Friar Laurence over Juliet's body, saying:

  'Dry up your tears, and stick your rosemary
  On this fair corse,'

which is certainly not what the nurse meant when she told Romeo of the
'prettiest sententions.'

High medicinal properties were ascribed to the rosemary, so much so that
old Parkinson writes: 'Rosemary is almost as great use as bayes, both
for outward and inward remedies, and as well for civill as physicall
purposes; inwardly for the head and heart, outwardly for the sinews and
joynts; for civill uses, as all do know, at weddings, funerals, etc., to
bestow among friends; and the physicall are so many that you might as
well be tyred in the reading as I in the writing, if I should set down
all that might be said of it.'

One of the 'physicall' uses was in stirring up the tankard of ale or
sack, and at weddings a sprig was usually dipped in the loving-cup to
give it fragrance as well as luck.

The virtues of the plant are celebrated in a curious wedding sermon
quoted by Hone:

'The rosemary is for married men, the which by name, nature, and
continued use, man challengeth as properly belonging to himself. It
overtoppeth all the flowers in the garden boasting man's rule; it
helpeth the brain, strengtheneth the memory, and is very medicinal for
the head. Another property is, it affects the heart. Let this
ros-marinus, this flower of man, ensign of your wisdom, love, and
loyalty, be carried not only in your hands but in your heads and
hearts.'

One does not easily reconcile this laudation with the popular
superstition that wherever the rosemary flourished there should the
woman be the ruling power. And to this superstition, be it noted, has
been ascribed the disfavour into which the plant has fallen among
gardeners since Shakespeare's time.

The medical properties may have been over-rated by old Parkinson, but
some are recognised even to this day. Thus rosemary is used as an
infusion to cure headaches, and is believed to be an extensive
ingredient in hair-restorers. It is also one of the ingredients in the
manufacture of Eau-de-Cologne, and has many other uses in the form of
oil of rosemary. It is said that bees which feed on rosemary blossoms
produce a very delicately-flavoured honey. Perfumers are greatly
indebted to it. According to De Gubernatis, the flowers of the plant are
proof against rheumatism, nervous indisposition, general debility,
weakness of sight, melancholy, weak circulation, and cramp. Almost as
comprehensive a cure as some of our modern universal specifics!

The medicinal properties of rosemary have been held by some to account
for its funeral uses. At all events, an ingenious writer of the
seventeenth century held that the custom of carrying a sprig at a
funeral had its rise from a notion of an 'alexipharmick' or preservative
virtue in the herb which would protect the wearer from 'pestilential
distempers,' and be a powerful defence 'against the morbid effluvias of
the corpse.' For the same reason, this writer asserts, it was customary
to burn rosemary in the chambers of the sick, just like frankincense,
'whose odour is not much different from rosemary, which gave the Greeks
occasion to call it Libanotis, from Libanos (frankincense).'

The hyssop of the Bible is believed by some to be rosemary, and it is
said that in the East it was customary to hang up a bunch in the house
as a protection against evil spirits, and to use it in various
ceremonies against enchantment. Perhaps there was some connection
between this custom and that of the Greeks referred to by Aristotle, who
regarded indigestion as the effect of witchcraft, and who used rue as an
antidote. The dispelling of the charm was just the natural physical
action of the herb.

In Devonshire, however, there was a more mystic use for rosemary in
dispelling the charms of witches. A bunch of it had to be taken in the
hand and dropped bit by bit on live coals, while the two first verses of
the sixty-eighth psalm were recited, followed by the Lord's Prayer.
Bay-leaves were sometimes used in the same manner; but if the afflicted
one were suffering physically, he had also to take certain prescribed
medicines. Rosemary worn about the body was believed to strengthen the
memory and to add to the success of the wearer in anything he might
undertake.

It is as an emblem of remembrance that rosemary is most frequently used
by the old poets. Thus Ophelia:

  'There is rosemary for you, that's for remembrance;
  I pray you, love, remember.'

And in The Winter's Tale:

  'For you there's rosemary and rue; these keep
  Seeming and savour all the winter long;
  Grace and remembrance be with you both.'

And thus Drayton:

  'He from his lass him lavender hath sent,
    Showing her love, and doth requital crave;
  Him rosemary his sweetheart, whose intent
    Is that he her should in remembrance have.'

Quotations might be easily multiplied, but the reader will find in
Brand's Popular Antiquities numerous references to the plant by writers
of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

As an emblem of rejoicing, rosemary was also often used. Hone quotes a
contemporary account of the joyful entry of Queen Elizabeth into London
in 1558, wherein occurs this passage: 'How many nosegays did her Grace
receive at poor women's hands? How often times stayed she her chariot
when she saw any simple body offer to speak to her Grace? A branch of
rosemary given to her Grace, with a supplication by a poor woman about
Fleet Bridge, was seen in her chariot till her Grace came to
Westminster.' The object of the particular floral offering in this case
is not very obvious, unless as an emblematic tribute to the maiden
queen.

Rosemary used to be carried in the hand at weddings, as well as strewed
on the ground and dipped in the cup. Thus Stow narrates of a wedding in
1560, that 'fine flowers and rosemary were strewed for them coming
home'; and Brand cites numerous instances from old plays. In one, 'the
parties enter with rosemary, as if from a wedding'; and in Beaumont and
Fletcher's Scornful Lady, the question is asked about a wedding, 'Were
the rosemary branches dipped?' This dipping, moreover, was in scented
water as well as in the loving-cup, and hence the allusion in Dekker's
Wonderful Year to a bride who had died on her wedding-night:

'Here is a strange alteration; for the rosemary that was washed in sweet
water to set out the bridal is now wet in tears to furnish her burial.'

It is on record that Anne of Cleves wore rosemary at her wedding with
Henry the Eighth; and in an account of some marriage festivities at
Kenilworth, attended by Queen Elizabeth, there is frequent mention of
the plant. An idea of how it was sometimes used is given in a
description of a sixteenth century wedding quoted by the Rev. Hilderic
Friend: 'The bride being attired in a gown of sheep's russet and a
kirtle of fine worsted, attired with abillement of gold' (milliner's
French even then!); 'and her hair, yellow as gold, hanging down behind
her, which was curiously combed and plaited' she was led to church
between two sweet boys, with bride-laces and rosemary tied about her
silken sleeves. There was a fair bride-cup of silver-gilt carried before
her, wherein was a goodly branch of rosemary gilded very fair, and hung
about with silken ribands of all colours.'

Coles says that the garden rosemary was called _Rosmarinus coronarium_,
because the women made crowns and garlands of it. Ben Jonson says that
it was customary for the bridesmaids to present the bridegroom next
morning with a bunch of rosemary. And Brand says that as late as 1698
the custom still prevailed in England of decking the bridal bed with
sprigs of rosemary.

In Jonson's Tale of a Tub, one of the characters assembled to await the
intended bridegroom says: 'Look an' the wenches ha' not found un out,
and do present un with a van of rosemary and bays, enough to vill a
bow-pott or trim the head of my best vore-horse; we shall all ha'
bride-laces and points, I see.' And again, a country swain assures his
sweetheart at their wedding: 'We'll have rosemary and bayes to vill a
bow-pott, and with the same I'll trim the vorehead of my best
vore-horse'--so that it would seem the decorative use was not confined
to the bride, the guests, and the banquet.

As a love-charm the reputation of rosemary seems to have come from the
South. There is an old Spanish proverb which runs:

  'Who passeth by the rosemarie,
    And careth not to take a spray,
  For woman's love no care has he,
    Nor shall he, though he live for aye.'

Mr. Thiselton-Dyer says that rosemary is used in some parts of the
country, as nut-charms are on Halloween, to foretell a lover; only, St.
Agnes' Eve is the occasion on which to invoke with a sprig of rosemary,
or thyme, with this formula:

  'St. Agnes, that's to lovers kind,
  Come, ease the troubles of my mind.'

For love-potions, decoctions of rosemary were much employed.

As to funereal uses, those who are familiar with Hogarth's drawings will
remember one of a funeral party with sprigs of rosemary in their hands.
Misson, a French traveller (_temp._ William the Third), thus describes
English funeral ceremonies: 'When they are ready to set out, they nail
up the coffin, and a servant presents the company with sprigs of
rosemary. Everyone takes a sprig and carries it in his hand till the
body is put into the grave, at which time they all throw their sprigs in
after it.' Hence Gay:

  'To show their love, the neighbours far and near,
  Follow'd with wistful looks the damsel's bier;
  Sprigg'd rosemary the lads and lasses bore,
  While dismally the parson walk'd before.
  Upon her grave the rosemary they threw.'

Whether the fact that the rosemary buds in January has anything to do
with its funereal uses admits of conjecture, as Sir Thomas Browne would
say; but that fact was certainly present to the writer of the following
verses, which were worthily rescued by Hone from a 'fugitive copy,'
although the writer's name has been lost:

  'Sweet-scented flower! who art wont to bloom
      On January's front severe,
      And o'er the wintry desert drear
  To waft thy waste perfume!
  Come, thou shalt form my nosegay now,
  And I will bind thee round my brow;
      And, as I twine the mournful wreath,
  I'll weave a melancholy song,
  And sweet the strain shall be, and long--
      The melody of death.

  'Come, funeral flower! who lov'st to dwell
      With the pale corse in lonely tomb,
      And throw across the desert gloom
  A sweet decaying smell.
  Come, pressing lips, and lie with me
  Beneath the lonely alder-tree,
      And we will sleep a pleasant sleep,
  And not a care shall dare intrude
  To break the marble solitude,
      So peaceful and so deep.

  'And hark! the wind-god, as he flies,
      Moans hollow in the forest trees,
      And, sailing on the gusty breeze,
  Mysterious music dies.
  Sweet flower! the requiem wild is mine.
  It warns me to the lonely shrine--
      The cold turf-altar of the dead.
  My grave shall be in yon lone spot,
  Where, as I lie by all forgot,
      A dying fragrance thou wilt o'er my ashes shed.'

In South Wales, in Cheshire, and in Bucks, the custom still obtains,
according to Mr. Hilderic Friend, for each mourner to carry a sprig of
rosemary to the grave, into which it is thrown. For weddings, rosemary
was dipped in scented water, but for funerals in plain water. Hence the
reference in an old play, quoted by Hone:

              'If there be
  Any so kind as to accompany
  My body to the earth, let them not want
  For entertainment. Prythee, see they have
  A sprig of rosemary, dipp'd in common water,
  To smell at as they walk along the streets.'

In Dekker's Wonderful Year there is a description of a charnel-house
pavement strewed with withered rosemary, hyacinth, cypress, and yew.
During the Plague rosemary was in such demand for funerals that, says
Dekker, what 'had wont to be sold for twelvepence an armfull went now at
six shillings a handfull.' Certainly a remarkable rise. What the price
was in 1531 we know not; but in an account of the funeral expenses of a
Lord Mayor of London, who died in that year, appears an item, 'For
yerbes at the bewyral £0 1 0'--which presumably refers to rosemary.

'Cypresse garlands,' wrote Coles, 'are of great account at funeralls
among the gentiler sort; but Rosemary and Bayes are used by the commons
both at funeralls and weddings. They are all plants which fade not a
good while after they are gathered and used, as I conceive, to intimate
unto us that the remembrance of the present solemnity might not die
presently, but be kept in minde for many yeares.'

We have now seen something of the many significations of rosemary, and
find an explanation of why the same plant was used for both weddings and
funerals, in the fact that it emblemised remembrance by its evergreen
and fragrant qualities. One may have doubts about the truth of the story
of the man of whom it is recorded that he wanted to be married again on
the day of his wife's funeral because the rosemary which had been used
at her burial would come in usefully and economically for the wedding
ceremony. But if the story is too good to be true, there is suggestion
enough in the circumstance referred to by Shakespeare, that

  'Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corpse.'

CHAPTER XI.

HERB OF GRACE.

Why did Ophelia say: 'There's rue for you, and here's some for me; we
may call it herb grace o' Sundays, for you must wear your rue with a
difference'? For the same reason that Perdita says, in The Winter's
Tale, when welcoming the guests of her reputed father and the shepherd:

                    'Reverend sirs,
  For you there's rosemary and rue; these keep
  Seeming and savour all the winter long;
  Grace and remembrance be to you both,
  And welcome to our shearing.'

Remembrance, as we have already seen in the last chapter, was symbolized
by the rosemary, and by both Ophelia and Perdita the rue is taken as the
symbol of grace. How this came to be is what we have now to consider;
but perhaps Mr. Ellacombe, author of Plant-Lore of Shakespeare, is
stretching rather far in suggesting that the rue was implied by Antony,
when he used the word 'grace' in addressing the weeping followers
(Antony and Cleopatra, Act IV., Scene 2) thus:

  'Grace grow where these drops fall.'

What Ophelia said was: 'There's rosemary, that's for remembrance. Pray,
love, remember. And there is pansies, that's for thought. There's fennel
for you, and columbines. There's rue for you, and here's some for me. We
may call it herb-grace o' Sundays. Oh! you may wear your rue with a
difference.'

There was a method in her madness, and she was distributing her flowers
according to the characters and moods of the recipients. Fennel, for
instance, emblemised flattery, and columbine ingratitude. Rue emblemised
either remorse or repentance--either sorrow or grace--so 'you may wear
your rue with a difference.'

So we find the gardener in Richard II. saying, after the departure of
the anxious Queen:

  'Here she did fall a tear; here in this place
  I'll set a bank of rue, sour herb of grace;
  Rue, even for ruth, here shortly shall be seen,
  In the remembrance of a weeping Queen.'

The herb was believed to be endowed with high moral and medicinal
properties, yet was supposed to prosper better in one's garden if stolen
from that of a neighbour. But originally it was associated with sorrow
and pity. The word rue is doubtless of the same root as 'ruth,' and to
rue is to be sorry for, to have remorse. Ruth is the English equivalent
of the Latin _ruta_, and in early English appeared as 'rude.' As regret
is always more or less a mark of repentance, it was the most natural
thing in the world for the herb of ruth, or sorrow, to become the herb
of repentance; and as repentance is a sign of grace, so rue became known
as 'herb of grace.' This, in brief, is the connection, but it is worth
noting in passing that rue is only once mentioned in the Bible, and then
only along with a number of other bitter herbs, and without any special
significance.

There is this association between rue and rosemary, that both are
natives of some of the more barren coasts of the Mediterranean, and that
both were very early admitted to the English herb-garden. The old
herbalists make frequent mention of rue, and even in Anglo-Saxon times
it seems to have been extensively used in medicine. Three
peculiarities--a strong, aromatic smell, a bitter taste, and a
blistering quality in the leaves--were quite sufficient to establish it
in the pharmacopoeia of the herb doctors.

The curative qualities of what Spenser calls the 'ranke-smelling rue'
were reputedly of a very varied sort. Most readers will remember the
reference in Paradise Lost:

  'Michael from Adam's eyes the film removed,
  Which the false fruit which promised clearer sight
  Had bred; then purged with euphraie and rue
  The visual nerve, for he had much to see.'

And perhaps its most popular use was as an eyewash. The old writers have
recorded some hidden virtues known only to the animal world, such as
that weasels prepared themselves for a rat-fight by a diet of rue. Old
Parkinson, the herbalist, says that 'without doubt it is a most
wholesome herb, although bitter and strong.' He speaks of a 'bead-rowl'
of the virtues of rue, but warns people of the 'too frequent or
over-much use thereof.'

As both a stimulant and a narcotic the plant has even now recognised
virtues, and is not without its uses in modern medicine. The Italians
are said to eat the leaves in salad, but hardly of that species--_Ruta
montana_--which botanists say it is dangerous to handle without gloves.
Our garden species is _Ruta graveolens_ and is used by the French
perfumers in the manufacture of 'Thieves Vinegar,' or 'Marseilles
Vinegar,' once accounted an effective protection against fevers and all
infectious diseases.

A curious instance of the value of the herb in this respect occurred in
1760. In the summer of that year a rumour arose, and rapidly spread in
London, that the plague had broken out in St. Thomas's Hospital.
Immediately there was what would nowadays be called a 'boom' in rue, the
price of which rose forty per cent. in a single day in Covent Garden. To
allay the popular alarm a manifesto was issued, signed by the
physicians, surgeons, and apothecaries of the hospital, certifying that
there were no other than the 'usual' diseases among the patients in the
wards.

Another explanation of the origin of the name 'herb of grace' has been
given than that referred to above. Warburton, among others, thinks that
the name was adopted because the old Romanists used the plant on Sundays
in their 'exorcisms.' However this may be, rue, or the herb of grace,
has been in this country long accounted an antidote of witchcraft. But
then, so it was in the days of Aristotle, before it became 'herb of
grace,' and when it was hung round the neck as an amulet. The fact is,
however, that rue became an antidote of witchcraft because it had become
a noted implement in enchantment.

Through its numerous reputed properties, rue early found its way into
the magic cauldron.

  'Then sprinkles she the juice of rue,
  With nine drops of the midnight dew,
  From lunary distilling,'

as Drayton has it. In this incantation, again, we have the association
with moonwort; and the connection is further illustrated in an old
oracle ascribed to Hecate: 'From a root of wild rue fashion and polish a
statue; adorn it with household lizards; grind myrrh, gum, and
frankincense with the same reptiles, and let the mixture stand in the
air during the waning of a moon; then address your words.'

With regard to the association with moonwort, it is interesting to
recall that this is one of the plants supposed to be employed by birds
for opening nests and removing impediments. Thus in an anecdote gravely
related to Aubrey, we find this virtue mentioned: 'Sir Bennet Hoskins
told me that his keeper at his parke at Morehampton, in Herefordshire,
did for experiment's sake drive an iron naile thwart the hole of a
woodpecker's nest, there being a tradition that the dam will bring some
leafe to open it. He layed at the bottom of the tree a cleane sheet, and
before many houres passed, the naile came out, and he found a leafe
lying by it on the sheete. They say the Moonwort will doe such things.'

On the same subject Coles, the botanist, writes: 'It is said, yea, and
believed, that Moonwort will open the locks wherewith dwelling-houses
are made fast, if it be put into the keyhole.' And Culpeper, the
herbalist, writes thus: 'Moonwort is a herb which, they say, will open
locks and unshoe such horses as tread upon it. This some laugh to scorn,
and these no small fools neither; but country people that I know call it
Unshoe-the-horse. Besides, I have heard commanders say that on White
Down in Devonshire, near Tiverton, there were found thirty horseshoes
pulled off from the feet of the Earl of Essex's horses, being there
drawn up in a body, many of them being newly shod, and no reason known,
which caused much admiration.' As well it might! This power of the
moonwort is said to be still believed in in Normandy, and a similar
virtue was also ascribed to the vervain and the mandrake, both
associated with rue.

This curious property of moonwort it is which is referred to in Divine
Weekes thus:

  'Horses that, feeding on the grassy hills,
  Tread upon moonwort with their hollow heels,
  Though lately shod, at night go barefoot home,
  Their maister musing where their shoes become.
  Oh, moonwort! tell me where thou hid'st the smith,
  Hammer and pinchers, thou unshodd'st them with?
  Alas! what lock or iron engine is't
  That can the subtle secret strength resist?
  Still the best farrier cannot set a shoe
  So sure but thou, so shortly, canst undo.'

The old alchemists, however, had a more profitable use for moonwort than
the unshoeing of horses; they employed it for converting quicksilver
into pure silver, at a time when that metal was neither 'degraded' nor
'depreciated.'

There is an old and pleasant belief, of which John Ruskin makes
effective use in driving home one of his morals, that flowers always
bloom best in the gardens of those who love them. One could easily find
a rationalistic explanation of this sentiment, of course, but it is akin
to a superstition entertained in some parts that wherever the moonwort
flourishes the owner of the garden is honest.

The ingredients thrown into the mystic cauldron by European sorcerers
were in close imitation of those of the ancient alchemists. Moncure
Conway has pointed out that among the ingredients used by English and
Scotch witches were plants gathered, as in Egypt, at certain seasons or
phases of the moon. Chief among such plants were rue and vervain. The
Druids called vervain the 'Holy herb,' and gathered it when the dog-star
rose, placing a sacrifice of honey in the earth from which they removed
it.

In old Greece and Rome vervain was sacred to the god of war, and in
Scandinavia it was also sacred to Thor. It was, moreover, carried by
ambassadors of peace, and was supposed to preserve from lightning any
house decorated with it. In later times it was believed that a
decoction of vervain and rue, mixed, had such a remarkable effect on
gun-metal that anyone using a gun over which the liquid had been poured
would shoot 'as straight as a die.' This may be news to our modern
musketry instructors.

Had this belief, one may wonder, anything to do with the special effect
on the eye always supposed to be possessed by rue? Its virtue as an
eye-salve, at any rate, may explain how it came to be regarded as
capable of bestowing the 'second sight.' To this day, in the Tyrol it is
still believed to confer fine vision. If hallucinations were, as Moncure
Conway assumes, the basis of belief in second sight, then we can
understand the reputed virtues of rue in its narcotic qualities. We have
seen how it came to be called 'herb of grace,' yet some think it got
this name through being used in witchcraft by exorcists to try the
devil.

Speculating on why herbs and roots should have been esteemed magical,
Mr. Andrew Lang concludes that it is enough to remember that herbs
really have medicinal properties, and that untutored people invariably
confound medicine with magic. Thus it was easy to suppose that a plant
possessed virtue not only when swallowed, but when carried in the hand.
The same writer examines the theory that rue was the Homeric moly, which
in a former chapter we identified with the mandrake. But Lang rejects
that theory, and says that rue was called 'herb of grace' and was used
for sprinkling holy water because in pre-Christian times it had been
supposed to have effect against the powers of evil. The early
Christians were thus just endeavouring to combine the old charm of rue
with the new potency of holy water.

'Euphrasy and rue,' says Lang, 'were employed to purge and purify mortal
eyes. Pliny is very learned about the magical virtues of rue. Just as
the stolen potato is sovran for rheumatism, so "rue stolen thriveth the
best." The Samoans think that their most valued vegetables were stolen
from heaven by a Samoan visitor. It is remarkable that rue, according to
Pliny, is killed by the touch of a woman, in the same way as, according
to Josephus, the mandrake is tamed. These passages prove that the
classical peoples had the same extraordinary superstitions about women
as the Bushmen and Red Indians. Indeed, Pliny describes a magical manner
of defending the crops from blight by aid of women, which is actually
practised in America by the red-man.'

Although rue was found in the witches' cauldron, it is also to be found
as a popular specific against the blight of witchcraft. Concerning this,
however, Moncure Conway says that 'the only region on the Continent
where any superstition concerning rue is found resembling the form it
assumed in England as affecting the eye is in the Tyrol, where it is one
of five plants--the others being broom-straw, agrimony, maidenhair, and
ground-ivy--which are bound together, and believed, if carried about, to
enable the bearer to see witches, or if laid over the door, to keep any
witch who shall seek to enter fastened on the threshold.'

In Scandinavia and North Germany, St. John's wort was used in much the
same way for the same purpose.

As to the vervain, which we have seen to be associated with rue, this is
a plant the use of which against witchcraft was more widely distributed,
just as its medical virtues were also more extensively known. The
vervain, indeed, was a sacred plant among the Greeks, as well as among
the Druids, who gathered it with solemn religious ceremonies, as they
did the sacred mistletoe. Vervain was most esteemed, however, as a love
potion, but the connection between its virtues in this respect, and its
power over witches and spirits of evil, opens up a branch of inquiry
away from our present purpose.

We speak of vervain in connection with rue, because it was the 'holy
herb,' just as rue was the 'herb of grace.' Not only was the vervain
sacred among the early Druids, but it acquired an early sanctity among
Christians. Thus the legend runs:

  'All hail, thou holy herb, vervain,
    Growing on the ground;
  On the Mount of Calvary
    There wast thou found!
  Thou helpest many a grief,
    And staunchest many a wound;
  In the name of sweet Jesu,
    I lift thee from the ground.'

Mr. Thiselton-Dyer says that a wreath of vervain is now presented to
newly-married brides in Germany, but whether this is a survival of the
sanctity of the plant, or of its ancient reputation as a love-philtre
and charm, is not very clear.

It is to be feared that vervain has sadly fallen out of favour in this
country, although not many years ago a pamphlet was written to recommend
the wearing of vervain tied by white satin ribbon round the neck, as
preservative against evil influences and infection.

'On the Continent'--rather a wide term--Mr. Hilderic Friend says, 'the
three essential plants for composing a magic wreath are rue,
crane's-bill, and willow.' The crane's-bill is the Herb Robert, or Robin
Hood, and the willow has always been connected with lovers. Such a
wreath, then, is made by lovers when they wish to see their 'fate.'
Love-sick maidens will employ such a wreath to find out how long they
have yet to remain single. They walk backwards towards some selected
tree, and as they walk throw the wreath over their heads until it
fastens on one of the branches. Failure to 'catch on' requires another
backward walk, and so on--each failure to buckle the tree counting as a
year of spinsterhood. It seems rather an awkward way of getting at the
future, but if not more blind than other processes of love divination,
would at least require the guarantee of the absence of tight-lacing
among the maidens practising it.

Aristotle mentions the use made by the Greeks of rue as a charm against
evil spirits, and he accounts for it, somewhat singularly, by the habit
of the Greeks in not sitting down to table with strangers. The
explanation is, that when they ate with strangers they were apt to
become excited and nervous, and so to eat too rapidly, with the result
of flatulence and indigestion. These effects were equivalent to
bewitchment, as, indeed, disorders of the digestive organs are
frequently regarded by many Eastern peoples even to this day. As rue was
found to be an effectual antidote to these distressing symptoms, it
became a charm against enchantment.

Among many old-wife recipes for the cure of warts is the use of rue.
Most people know the old folk-jingle:

  'Ashen tree, ashen tree,
  Pray bury these warts of me,'

which has to be accompanied by the thrust of a pin into the bark of the
tree. The idea was doubtless to extract the sap, for the application of
thistle-juice and the juice of the ranunculus are said to prove
efficacious in removing warts. In Devonshire they use the juice of an
apple, but in some parts of the country rue is preferred. Other
wart-curing plants are the spurge, the poppy, the celandine, the
marigold, the briony, and the crowfoot.

As old Michael Drayton remarked:

  'In medicine, simples had the power
  That none need then the planetary hour
  To helpe their workinge, they so juiceful were.'

There is a substratum of truth in this, although it requires a wide
stretch of imagination, as well as a profundity of faith, to believe
that consumption can be cured by passing the body of the patient three
times through a wreath of woodbine cut during the increase of the March
moon. Yet to this day some French peasants believe that the curative
properties of vervain are most pronounced when the plant is gathered,
with proper invocations, at a certain phase of the moon.

The notion that animals are acquainted with the medical properties of
plants is an old one, probably older than either Pliny or Aristotle. Our
own Gerarde, the herbalist, tells that the name celandine was given to
that flower (which Wordsworth loved) from a word meaning swallow,
because it is used by swallows to 'restore sight to their young ones
when their eyes be put out.'

Then Coles, the old botanist, also writes: 'It is known to such as have
skill of Nature what wonderful care she hath of the smallest creatures,
giving to them a knowledge of medicine to help themselves, if haply
diseases are among them. The swallow cureth her dim eyes with Celandine:
the wesell knoweth well the virtue of Herb Grace: the dove the verven:
the dogge dischargeth his mawe with a kind of grass: and too long it
were to reckon up all the medicines which the beasts are known to use by
Nature's direction only.'

A Warwickshire proverb runs to this effect:

  'Plant your sage and rue together,
  The sage will grow in any weather,'

the meaning of which is not very clear--but obscurity is a common
complaint of rhymed proverbs. Another rhyme, however, in which rue
appears, has a more practical note:

  'What savour is better, if physicke be true,
  For places infected, than wormwood and rue?'

Rue, indeed, seems to have been in special request as a disinfectant
long before carbolic acid was invented, or Condy heard of, yet, perhaps,
containing the germ of the idea materialised in 'Sanitas.' For
disinfecting purposes wormwood and rue were used sometimes together, and
sometimes separately.

The connection between plants and heraldic badges is often close, and
although we do not find rue frequent in heraldry, one curious instance
of it is interesting. In 809 an Order was created whereof the collar was
made of a design in thistles and rue--the thistle because 'being full of
prickles is not to be touched without hurting the skin,' rue because it
'is good against serpents and poison.'

Here we have a suggestion of the lizards of the old oracle quoted
above.

CHAPTER XII.

THE ROMANCE OF A VEGETABLE.

There used to be a popular acrostic the foundation of which is the
subject of much speculation. It turned upon two lines of Scott's famous
poem, and ran thus:

  '"Charge, Chester, charge!
  On, Stanley, on!"
    Were the last words of Marmion.
  Were I in gallant Stanley's place,
  When Marmion urged him to the chase,
  A word you then would all espy,
  That brings a tear to every eye.'

The answer is 'Onion,' and the speculation which results is: Why does a
raw onion make the eyes water?

The Greeks, being aware of this characteristic, called the onion
_kromuon_; and when they ate it raw, they prudently closed their eyes.

Shakespeare's players in the Taming of the Shrew knew all about it:

  'If the boy have not a woman's gift,
  To rain a shower of commanded tears,
  An onion will do well for such a shift,
  Which in a napkin, being close conveyed,
  Shall in despite enforce a watery eye.'

So did Lafeu:

  'Mine eyes smell onions, I shall weep anon.'

So also did Domitius Enobarbus, who comforted Antony, on reporting the
death of Fulvia, by saying, 'Indeed, the tears live in an onion that
should water this sorrow,' and who called himself 'onion-eyed' when the
Roman addressed his followers before the battle.

The fact, then, has been known for centuries, but the explanation only
since chemistry came to be applied to matters of common life. The onion
belongs to the genus _Allium_, all the species of which possess a
peculiar, pungent, acrid juice, with a powerful odour. The garlic has a
stronger smell than the onion, but the onion has more of the volatile
oil which all the members of the genus possess.

The constituents which make the genus valuable as food are: albumen,
sugar, mucilage, phosphate of lime, and certain salts. All the members
of the onion tribe yield a heavy volatile oil when distilled with
water--an oil so pungent and concentrated that an ounce of it will
represent the essence of forty pounds of garlic. This oil is a compound
of sulphur, carbon, and hydrogen, and is called sulphide of allyl,
because of its origin in the allium tribe. It is the more volatile,
sulphurous fumes of this oil which ascend as an onion is cut that cause
the eyes to water, just as sulphur fumes do anywhere. It is the less
volatile portion of the oil which gives such permanence and adhesiveness
to the onion odour as to render a knife that has been used to cut one
offensive for a long time afterwards, in spite of washing.

In the Arabian Nights the purveyor for the Sultan of Casgar tells a
story of a man who lost his thumbs and great-toes through eating garlic.
This was a youth who had married a beauteous bride, but was unfortunate
enough on his marriage-day to eat of a dish strongly flavoured with
garlic. The lady was so annoyed that she ordered the bridegroom to be
bound, and his thumbs and toes cut off, as punishment for presuming to
come to her without first purifying his fingers. Ever afterwards the
unfortunate husband always washed his hands one hundred and twenty times
with alkali, after dining off a garlic ragout, for, of course, he did
not use a fork. But had he known Menander the Greek's receipt, he might
have saved his digits. This was to roast beetroot on hot embers for the
removal of the odour of garlic.

It might be more generally known that if either walnuts, or raw parsley,
be eaten along with onions, the smell of the latter will be destroyed,
and digestion of them assisted.

There is, one must admit, a certain association of vulgarity with the
onion. It is a valuable food, and an indispensable accessory to the
culinary artist; but as used by many people it is not suggestive of
refinement. And yet the bulb has not only an honourable character--it
has a sort of sacred history.

Both Pliny and Juvenal, among old writers, and many Egyptologists of our
own time and country, have recorded that the ancient Egyptians
worshipped the onion. It is true that Wilkinson, who wrote on the
Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians, doubts the evidence of
this; but he adds that the onion was admitted as a common offering on
every altar, and that the priests were forbidden to eat it. In Ellis's
History of Madagascar it is noted that the Malagasy of our time regard
the onion as unclean, and forbidden by the idols. The symbolization of
the universe in the concentric folds of the onion may be taken as an
explanation of the high reverence in which it was assuredly held by some
ancient races.

Whether or not the onion was sacred in Egypt, the garlic, as Herodotus
tells us, was the daily food of the Egyptian labourer. And the Jews,
when they left Egypt, looked back with fondness to these delicacies. 'We
remember the fish which we did eat freely in Egypt, the cucumbers, and
the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic,' so they told
Moses. The onion is still a common food in Egypt, and sometimes almost
the only one of the poorer classes. Moreover, the onions of Egypt are
much sweeter than, and superior in quality to, those of Europe. It is
also noteworthy that the onion grows coarser and more bitter as it is
traced northward.

Herodotus says that sixteen hundred talents were expended on garlic,
onions, and radishes for the workmen during the building of the
Pyramids; and it is recorded that an onion taken from the sarcophagus of
an Egyptian mummy two thousand years old was planted and made to grow.
We have also the authority of Pliny for what he calls the foolish
superstition of the Egyptians in swearing by garlic and onions, calling
these vegetables to witness when taking an oath.

Botanists seem now agreed that the original habitat of the onion was the
mountainous region of Central Asia; and, according to the _Gardener's
Chronicle_, it is still found in a wild state in the Himalayas.

The Mohammedans do not seem to have reverenced the _Allium_ tribe. On
the contrary, they have a tradition that when Satan stepped out of the
Garden of Eden after the fall of man, garlic sprang up where he planted
his left foot, and onion where he planted his right foot. This is the
reason alleged why Mohammed could never bear the smell of either, and
even fainted when he saw them.

Among the Greeks both onions and garlic were held in high regard, both
as articles of food and as medicaments. Theophrastus wrote a book on
onions, as did also Palladius. Then Homer tells that the onion was an
important part of the banquet that Hecamede spread before Nestor and
Machaon:

  'Before them first a table fair she spread,
  Well polished, and with feet of solid bronze;
  On this a brazen canister she placed,
  And Onions as a relish to the wine,
  And pale, clear honey, and pure barley meal.'

Among the Romans the onion seems to have been the common food of the
people, although Horace could not understand how they digested it. Its
use for promoting artificial tears was also well understood by them, for
Columella speaks of _Lacrymosa cæpe_, and Pliny of _Cæpis odor
lacrymosus_. Ovid, again, says that both onions and sulphur were given
to criminals to purify them from their crimes, upon the old theory of
purgation by fumigation. The Romans thought not only that the onion gave
strength to the human frame, but that it would also improve the
pugnacious quality of their gamecocks. Horace, however, thought that
garlic was a fit poison for anybody who committed parricide. The Emperor
Nero, on the other hand, thought that eating leeks improved the human
voice, and as he was ambitious of being a fine singer, he used to have a
leek diet on several days in each month.

The onion tribe must have been held in reverence elsewhere than in
Egypt, for, according to Mr. Thiselton-Dyer, in Poland the flower-stalk
of the leek is placed in the hands of Christ in pictures and statues.

On Halloween, in some parts of the country, girls attempt a method of
divination by means of a 'Saint Thomas onion.' They peel it, wrap it up
in a clean handkerchief, and, placing it under their heads, repeat the
following rhyme:

  'Good St. Thomas, do me right,
  And see my true love come to-night,
  That I may see him in the face,
  And him in my kind arms embrace.'

On the other hand, to dream of an onion is supposed in some parts to
foretell sickness.

Or else:

  'To dream of eating onions means
  Much strife in the domestic scenes,
  Secrets found out, or else betrayed,
  And many falsehoods made and said.'

It is also a portent of the weather:

  'Onion's skin very thin,
  Mild winter's coming in;
  Onion's skin thick and tough,
  Coming winter cold and rough.'

It was the practice in some places to hang up or burn an onion as a
safeguard against witchcraft, and the theory of this was that the devil
respected it because it was an ancient object of worship. This seems a
survival of the Egyptian story; but Mr. Hilderic Friend says that the
Arabs, Chinese, and many other peoples, to this day employ onions,
leeks, or garlic for preventing witchcraft, and that he himself has
frequently seen them tied up with a branch of sago-palm over the doors
of Eastern houses for this purpose.

The old custom of throwing an onion after a bride is doubtless well
known. It had the same origin as the old Scotch custom of throwing a
besom after a cow on its way to market, to avert the evil-eye, and
insure luck.

The idea of bad dreams being associated with the onion seems due to the
old herbalists. At all events, Coghan wrote in 1596: 'Being eaten raw,
they engender all humourous and contemptible putrefactions in the
stomacke, and cause fearful dreams, and, if they be much used, they
snarre the memory and trouble the understanding.'

Old Gerarde had no opinion of the medical properties of the tribe. Of
both leeks and garlic he wrote most disparagingly, as 'yielding to the
body no nourishment at all,' but 'ingendereth naughty and sharpe bloud.'

Some of the other old herbalists treat it more kindly, and some ascribe
almost every virtue to garlic and onion. Garlic came to be known as
'Poor Man's Treacle,' and in some old works is thus often described. But
the word treacle here has no reference to molasses, and is probably
derived from the Greek _theriakos_, meaning venomous, for garlic was
regarded as an antidote against poison, and as a remedy for the plague.

Pliny long ago wrote of garlic as a remedy for many of the mental and
physical ailments of the country people. It was used by the Romans to
drive away snakes; and the Romans seem to have adopted this idea from
the ancient Greeks. It was recommended by one old English writer as a
capital thing with which to frighten away birds from fruit-trees; and
has been recently recommended, in solution, as the best preservative of
picture-frames from the defilement of flies. Bacon gravely tells of a
man who lived for several days on the smell of onions and garlic alone;
and there was an old belief that the garlic could extract all the power
from a loadstone.

The belief that the eating of onions will acclimatize a traveller seems
not uncommon in Eastern countries. Thus, in Burnes' Travels into Bokhara
it is recorded that at Peshawur 'Moollah Nujieb suggested that we should
eat onions in all the countries we visited, as it is a popular belief
that a foreigner becomes acclimated from the use of that vegetable.'

And in Morier's Travels in Persia it is said: 'Those who seek for
sulphur, which is found at the highest accessible point of the mountain
of Damarvend, go through a course of training previous to the
undertaking, and fortify themselves by eating much of garlic and
onions.'

The general explanation given of how the leek became the emblem of
Wales, and is worn on St. David's Day, is this: In 640 King Cadwallader
gained a complete victory over the Saxons, owing to the special
interposition of St. David, who ordered the Britons always to wear leeks
in their caps, so that they might easily recognise each other. As the
Saxons had no such recognisable headmark, they attacked each other as
foes, and aided in their own defeat.

There is a more poetic story. It is that St. David lived in the valley
of Ewias, in Monmouthshire, spending his time in contemplation:

                           'And did so truly fast
  As he did only drink what crystal Hodney yields,
  And fed upon the leeks he gathered in the fields,
  In memory of whom, in each revolving year,
  The Welshmen, on his day, that sacred herb do wear.'

St. David, however, died in 544, and therefore it is probable that the
leek was a common and favourite vegetable in Wales during his
lifetime--that is to say, more than thirteen hundred years ago. A still
more prosaic explanation of the Welsh emblem is sometimes offered. It is
that it originated in a custom of the Welsh farmers when helping each
other in a neighbourly way to take their leeks and other vegetable
provender with them. Now, as the word leek is from the Anglo-Saxon
_leac_, which originally meant any vegetable, it is probable enough that
the Saxons sneeringly applied the word to the Welsh on account of their
vegetarian proclivities. We cannot, of course, be sure that the leek was
worn as a badge in Cadwallader's time, but we have at any rate
Shakespeare's authority for concluding that it was worn by the Welsh
soldiers at the Battle of Poitiers in 1356.

The phrase 'to eat the leek'--meaning to retract and 'knuckle-under'--is
supposed to have originated in that famous scene in Shakespeare's Henry
the Fifth, where Fluellan the Welshman compels Pistol to swallow the
vegetable at which he had been expressing such abhorrence. But there is
earlier evidence that the leek was regarded as something ignominious in
England. Thus in Chaucer:

  'The beste song that ever was made
  Is not worth a leke's blade,
  But men will tend ther tille.'

Without dwelling on the culinary uses of the onion tribe, which have
been exhaustively described by others, a few applications, not generally
known, may be briefly noted.

In olden times there was a famous ointment called Devil's Mustard, which
was supposed to cure cancer, remove tumours, and so forth. It was a
compound of garlic and olive-oil, and had a smell which was enough to
frighten away any disease--or else to create one. Then the fair dames
of old had a favourite cosmetic for the hands and face, and one also
which was used as an antiseptic, which was largely composed of garlic.
Leek ointment, again, made of pounded leeks and hog's lard, was used as
a liniment for burns and scalds.

It is said that in India, where dyspepsia is common, garlic is found to
be a great palliative. It is in many countries regarded as a sure
antidote against contagion; and persons have been known to put a small
piece in the mouth before approaching the bed of a fever-stricken
patient. Whether it has any real virtue of the kind one may doubt, but
let us hope that it has more than is ascribed to some so-called
disinfectants--the power to kill one bad smell with another.

In The Family Dictionary, popular in our grandfathers' time, appears the
following certain remedy for the plague: 'Take away the core of an
onion, fill the cavity with treacle dissolved or mixed with lemon-juice,
stop up the hole with the slice you have cut off, roast the whole on hot
ashes so long till well incorporated and mixed together, then squeeze
out the juice of the roasted onion, and give it to a person seized with
the plague. Let him presently lie down in his bed and be well covered up
that he may perspire. This is a remedy that has not its equal for the
plague, provided the patient perspires presently.'

And if it did promote perspiration, one can well believe that it might
be curative.

Not only has garlic been esteemed as an antidote to the bite of snakes,
but it has also been regarded as a cure for hydrophobia, while onions
have been claimed as a cure for small-pox, and leeks as an antidote for
poisonous fungi. Old Celsus, from whom Paracelsus took his name,
regarded several of the onion tribe as valuable in cases of ague, and
Pliny had the same belief. In our own time the onion is held to be an
excellent anti-scorbutic, and is thought to be more useful on ship-board
than lime-juice in preventing scurvy.

In fact, in all skin diseases, and in many inflammatory disorders,
preparations of the onion have a real value. The juice is also useful in
stopping bleeding, although one may hesitate to believe, as was
popularly supposed, that a drop of it will cure earache, and that
persistent application will remove deafness.

There still exists, however, a belief that onion-juice is the best
hair-restorer in the market, in spite of its disagreeable smell.

It would take too long to mention all the virtues that have been
claimed, with more or less reason, for all the members of the _Allium_
genus, but it is a curious fact that the onion, which relieves dyspepsia
and aids the digestion of some, is a certain cause of indigestion in
others. Is it not said that Napoleon, who was a martyr to indigestion,
lost the Battle of Leipsic through having partaken of a too hurried meal
of beefsteak and onions? It is a savoury dish, but has worked woe to
many. One does not wonder that the old writers declared that onions
brought bad dreams--if they were eaten raw, or badly cooked, at late
supper.

It is open to grave doubt whether the author of The Family Dictionary
was right in saying that 'they that will eat onions daily will enjoy
better health than otherwise.' What is one man's meat is another man's
poison; and certainly there is no article in common use which produces
such opposite effects upon the human system as the onion. It has often
been found beneficial to individuals in feverish attacks, and yet the
malingerers in our garrison hospitals know well how to promote febrile
symptoms by a hearty consumption of garlic.

A fitting conclusion to this chapter will be the summary of Sir John
Sinclair, the author of a Code of Health and Longevity:

  'Onyons in physick winneth no consent,
  To cholerick folke they are no nutriment;
  By Galen's rule, such as phlegmatic are
  A stomacke good within them do prepare.
  Weak appetites they comfort, and the face
  With cheerful colour evermore they grace,
  And when the head is naked left of hair,
  Onyons, being sod or stamp'd, again repair.'

CHAPTER XIII.

THE STORY OF A TUBER.

The planting of a tuber by Clusius, in 1588, in the Botanical Gardens at
Vienna, is often referred to as the introduction of the potato into
Europe. As a matter of fact, however, this was not the first planting,
for the Spaniards brought the real potato--_Solanum tuberosum_--home to
Spain about 1580. From Spain it extended to Italy, and became at once a
common article of food there. From Spain it also extended to Belgium,
and was cultivated there; and it was from a Belgian that Clusius got the
roots which he planted at Vienna in 1588.

Then, again, it has been said that Christopher Columbus was the first
European who ever tasted a potato, and that was in 1492, when he reached
Cuba. From Cuba he brought samples back with him to Genoa. This would
make our history one hundred years older, only it so happens that the
_Solanum tuberosum_ is not a native of these parts, and could not have
been at Cuba when Columbus was there. What he tasted and brought home
was the _Convolvulus batatas_, or sweet potato, a very different
article, although it gave its name, 'batatas,' to our tuber in the
modified form of 'potato.'

The real potato is a native of Chili, and it has been proved to the
satisfaction of naturalists that it did not exist in North America
before the arrival of Europeans. How, then, could Sir John Hawkins bring
it from Santa-Fé in 1565, or Sir Walter Raleigh from Virginia in 1584?
Well, in the first place, it was the sweet potato that Sir John brought;
and in the second place, before Sir Walter went to Virginia, the
Spaniards had brought there the real potato on returning from some of
their South American expeditions. In 1580 they sent it home, and there
is evidence that by 1580 the _Solanum tuberosum_ had been planted in
North America. By the time Raleigh brought it to England, however, it
was already a familiar root in Italy.

But did he bring it? There are some who say that it was Sir Francis