of Lebanon (_Cedrus Libani_), the tree which Josephus says was first
planted in Judea by Solomon, who greatly admired this noble tree, and
built himself a palace of Cedar on Lebanon itself. The celebrated
Temple of Solomon was built of hewn stone, lined with Cedar, which
was “carved with knops and open flowers; all was Cedar, there was no
stone seen.” Since King Solomon’s time, the Cedar forest of Lebanon has
become terribly reduced, but Dr. Hooker, in 1860, counted some four
hundred trees, and Mr. Tristram, a more recent traveller in the Holy
Land, discovered a new locality in the mountains of Lebanon, where
the Cedar was more abundant. Twelve of the oldest of these Cedars
of Lebanon bear the title of “Friends of Solomon,” or the “Twelve
Apostles.” The Arabs call all the older trees, saints, and believe an
evil fate will overtake anyone who injures them. Every year, at the
feast of the Transfiguration, the Maronites, Greeks, and Armenians
go up to the Cedars, and celebrate mass on a rough stone altar at
their feet.----The Cedar is made the emblem of the righteous in the
92nd Psalm, and is likened to the countenance of the Son of God in
the inspired Canticles of Solomon. Ezekiel (xxxi., 3-9) compares the
mighty King of Assyria to a Cedar in Lebanon, with fair branches, and
says, as a proof of his greatness and power, that “the Cedars in the
garden of God could not hide him.” In the Romish Church, the Cedar
of Lebanon, because of its height, its incorruptible substance, and
the healing virtues attributed to it in the East, is a symbol of the
Virgin, expressing her greatness, her beauty, and her goodness.----The
Jews evidently regarded the Cedar as a sacred tree: hence it was used
in the making of idols. According to a very old tradition, the Cedar
was the tree from which Adam obtained the forbidden fruit in the Garden
of Eden. The ancient legend relating how the Cross of Christ was formed
of a tree combining in itself the wood of the Cypress, Cedar, and Pine,
will be found under the heading CYPRESS. Another tradition states
that of the three woods of which the Cross was composed, and which
symbolised the three persons of the Holy Trinity, the Cedar symbolised
God the Father.----Pythagoras recommended the Cedar, the Laurel, the
Cypress, the Oak, and the Myrtle, as the woods most befitting to honour
the Divinity.----The Shittim wood of the Scriptures is considered
by some to have been a species of Cedar, of which the most precious
utensils were made: hence the expression _Cedro digna_ signified
“worthy of eternity.”----The Cedar is the emblem of immortality.----The
ancients called the Cedar “life from the dead,” because the perfume of
its wood drove away the insects and never-dying worms of the tombs.
According to Evelyn, in the temple of Apollo at Utica, there was found
Cedar-wood nearly two thousand years old; “and in Sagunti, of Spain, a
beam, in a certain oratory consecrated to Diana, which had been brought
from Zant two hundred years before the destruction of Troy. The statue
of that goddess in the famous Ephesian Temple was of this material
also, as was most of the timber-work in all their sacred edifices.” In
a temple at Rome there was a statue of Apollo Sosianus in Cedar-wood
originally brought from Seleucia. Virgil states that Cedar-wood was
considered to be so durable, that it was employed for making images
of the gods, and that the effigies of the ancestors of Latinus were
carved out of an old Cedar. He also informs us that Cedar-wood was
used for fragrant torches.----Sesostris, King of Egypt, is reported to
have built a ship of Cedar timber, which, according to Evelyn, was “of
280 cubits, all gilded without and within.”----Gerarde says that the
Egyptians used Cedar for the coffins of their dead, and Cedar-pitch in
the process of embalming the bodies.----The books of Numa, recovered in
Rome after a lapse of 535 years, are stated to have been perfumed with
Cedar.----The Chinese have a legend which tells how a husband and wife
were transformed into two Cedars, in order that their mutual love might
be perpetuated. A certain King Kang, in the time of the Soungs, had
as secretary one Hanpang, whose young and beautiful wife Ho the King
unfortunately coveted. Both husband and wife were tenderly attached to
one another, so the King threw Hanpang into prison, where he shortly
died of grief. His wife, to escape the odious attentions of the King,
threw herself from the summit of a high terrace. After her death, a
letter was discovered in her bosom, addressed to the King, in which
she asked, as a last favour, to be buried beside her dear husband.
The King, however, terribly angered, would not accede to poor Ho’s
request, but ordered her to be interred separately. The will of heaven
was not long being revealed. That same night two Cedars sprang from the
two graves, and in ten days had become so tall and vigorous in their
growth, that they were able to interlace their branches and roots,
although separated from one another. The people henceforth called
these Cedars “The trees of faithful love.”----Tchihatcheff, a Russian
traveller, speaks of vast Cedar forests on Mount Taurus in Asia Minor:
the tree was not introduced into England till about Evelyn’s time, nor
into France till 1737, when Bernard de Jussieu brought over from the
Holy Land a little seedling of the plant from the forests of Mount
Lebanon. A romantic account is given of the difficulty this naturalist
experienced in conveying it to France, owing to the tempestuous weather
and contrary winds he experienced, which drove his vessel out of its
course, and so prolonged the voyage, that the water began to fail. All
on board were consequently put on short allowance; the crew having to
work, being allowed one glass of water a day, the passenger only half
that quantity. Jussieu, from his attachment to botany, was reduced
to abridge even this small daily allowance, by sharing it with his
cherished plant, and by this act of self-sacrifice succeeded in keeping
it alive till they reached Marseilles. Here, however, all his pains
seemed likely to be thrown away, for as he had been driven, by want of
a flower-pot, to plant his seedling in his hat, he excited on landing
the suspicions of the Custom-house officers, who at first insisted on
emptying the strange pot, to see whether any contraband goods were
concealed therein. With much difficulty he prevailed upon them to spare
his treasure, and succeeded in carrying it in triumph to Paris, where
it flourished in the Jardin des Plantes, and grew until it reached one
hundred years of age, and eighty feet in height. In 1837 it was cut
down, to make room for a railway.----According to the ancient Chaldean
magicians, the Cedar is a tree of good omen--protecting the good and
overthrowing the machinations of evil spirits.----M. Lenormant has
published an Egyptian legend concerning the Cedar, which De Gubernatis
has quoted. This legend recites that Batou having consented to
incorporate his heart with the Cedar, if the tree were cut the life
of Batou would at the same time be jeopardised; but if he died his
brother would seek his heart for seven years, and when he had found
it, he would place it in a vase filled with divine essence, which was
to impart to it animation, and so restore Batou to life.... Anpou, in
a fit of rage, one day enters Batou’s house, and slays the shameless
woman who had separated him from his brother. Meanwhile Batou proceeds
to the valley of Cedars, and places, as he had announced, his heart
in the fruit of the tree at the foot of which he fixes his abode. The
gods, not desiring to leave him solitary, create a woman, endowed with
extraordinary beauty, but carrying evil with her. Falling madly in love
with her, Batou reveals to the woman the secret of his life being bound
up with that of the Cedar. Meantime the river becomes enamoured of
Batou’s wife; the tree, to pacify it, gives it a lock of the beauty’s
hair. The river continues its course, carrying on the surface of its
waters the tress, which diffuses a delicious odour. It reaches at
last the king’s laundress, who carries it to his majesty. At the mere
sight and perfume of the tress, the king falls in love with the woman
to whom it belongs. He sends men to the vale of Cedars to carry her
off; but Batou kills them all. Then the king despatches an army, who
at last bring him the woman whom the gods themselves had fashioned.
But while Batou lives she cannot become the wife of the king; so she
reveals to him the secret of her husband’s twofold life. Immediately
workmen are despatched, who cut down the Cedar. Batou expires directly.
Soon Anpou, who had come to visit his brother, finds him stretched
out dead beside the felled Cedar. Instantly he sets out to search for
Batou’s heart; but for four years his search is fruitless. At the end
of that period the soul of Batou yearns to be resuscitated: the time
has arrived when, in its transmigrations, it should rejoin his body.
Anpou discovers the heart of his brother in one of the cones of the
tree. Taking the vase which contains the sacred fluid, he places the
heart in it; and, during the day, it remains unaffected, but so soon as
night arrives, the heart becomes imbued with the elixir. Batou regains
all his members; but he is without vigour. Then Anpou gives to him the
sacred fluid in which he had steeped the heart of his young brother,
and bids him drink. The heart returns to its place, and Batou becomes
himself again. The two brothers set out to punish the unfaithful one.
Batou takes the form of a sacred bull. Arrived at the Court, Batou,
metamorphosed into the bull, is welcomed and fêted. Egypt has found
a new god. During one of the festivals he takes the opportunity of
whispering into the ear of her who had formerly been his wife: “Behold,
I am again alive--I am Batou! You plotted and persuaded the king to
fell the Cedar, so that he might occupy my place at your side when I
was dead. Behold, I am again alive--I have taken the form of a bull!”
The queen faints away at hearing these words; but speedily recovering
herself, she seeks the king and asks him to grant her a favour--that
of eating the bull’s liver. After some hesitation, the king consents,
and orders that a sacrifice shall be offered to the bull, and that
then he shall be killed; but at the moment the bull’s throat is cut,
two drops of blood spirt out: one falls to the ground, and forthwith
two grand Perseas (the Egyptians’ tree of life) shoot forth. The king,
accompanied by his wife, hastens to inspect the new prodigy, and one
of the trees whispers in the queen’s ear that he is Batou, once more
transformed. The queen, relying on the doting affection which the king
entertains for her, asks him to have this tree cut down for the sake of
the excellent timber it will afford. The king consents, and she hastens
to superintend the execution of his orders. A chip struck from the tree
whilst being felled, falls into the mouth of the queen. Shortly she
perceives that she has become _enceinte_. In due course she gives birth
to a male infant. It is Batou, once more entering the world by a novel
incarnation!”
=CELANDINE.=--The Great or Major Celandine (_Chelidonium major_)
is also called Swallow-wort and Tetter-wort, and is thought to be
efficacious in the cure of warts and cutaneous disorders. It derives
its name from the Greek _Chelidon_, a swallow--not, says Gerarde,
“because it first springeth at the coming in of the swallowes, or dieth
when they go away, for as we have saide, it may be founde all the
yeare, but because some holde opinion that with this herbe the dams
restore sight to their young ones, when their eies be put out.” This
magical property of the Celandine was first propounded by Aristotle,
and afterwards repeated by Pliny, Dodoens, Albert le Grand, Macer, and
most of the old botanical writers. Coles fully believed the wonderful
fact, and remarks: “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 annoy 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 kinde of grasse,” &c. Lyte also, in his ‘Herbal,’
fully supported the ancient rustic belief that the old swallows used
Celandine to restore sight to their young. He says the plant was called
Swallow-herb, because “it was the first found out by swallowes, and
hath healed the eyes and restored sight to their young ones that have
had harme in their eyes or have been blinde.” Celandine has long
been popular among village simplers as a remedy when diluted with
milk against thick spots in the eye.----It is said that the lack of
medical knowledge among the ancients induced the belief in the magical
properties of Celandine. They saw in the _Chelidonium a Cœli donum_,
and hence were anxious to endow it with celestial properties.----The
red and violet Celandines, or Horned Poppies, are mentioned by Ben
Jonson among the plants used by witches in their incantations.
The Lesser Celandine (_Ranunculus Ficaria_) is perhaps better known as
the Pile-wort, a name given to it in allusion to the small tubers on
the roots, which, on the doctrine of plant signatures, indicated that
the plant was a remedial agent in this complaint.----Astrologers assign
Celandine to the Sun, and the Pile-wort to Mars.
=CENTAURY.=--This flower, the well known Blue-bottle of the cornfields,
is fabled to have derived its name from Chiron, a centaur, who is
stated to have taught mankind the use of plants and medicinal herbs.
According to Pliny, Chiron cured himself with this plant from a wound
he had accidentally received from an arrow poisoned with the blood of
the hydra. M. Barthelemy writes how, when Anacharsis visited the cave
of Chiron, the centaur, on Mount Pelion, he was shown a plant which
grew near it, of which he was informed that the leaves were good for
the eyes, but that the secret of preparing them was in the hands of
only one family, to whom it had been lineally transmitted from Chiron
himself.----Mythology has another origin for the _Centaurea Cyanus_.
According to this account, the flower was called Cyanus, after a youth
so named, who was so enamoured of Corn-flowers, that his favourite
occupation was that of making garlands of them; and he would scarcely
ever leave the fields, whilst his favourite blue flowers continued to
bloom. So devoted was his admiration, that he always dressed himself in
clothes of the same brilliant hue as the flower he loved best. Flora
was his goddess, and of all the varied gifts, her Corn-flower was the
one he most appreciated. At length he was one day found lying dead in
a cornfield, surrounded with the blue Corn-flowers he had gathered:
and soon after the catastrophe, the goddess Flora, out of gratitude
for the veneration he had for her divinity, transformed his body into
the _Centaurea Cyanus_, the Blue-bottle of English cornfields.----In
Lucan’s ‘Pharsalia,’ the Centaury is one of the plants named as being
burned with the object of driving away serpents.
“Beyond the farthest tents rich fires they build,
That healthy medicinal odours yield:
There foreign Galbanum dissolving fries,
And crackling flames from humble Wallwort rise;
There Tamarisk, which no green leaf adorns,
And there the spicy Syrian Costos burns:
There Centaury supplies the wholesome flame,
That from Thessalian Chiron takes its name;
The gummy Larch-tree, and the Thapsos there,
Woundwort and Maidenweed perfume the air:
There the long branches of the long-lived Hart,
With Southernwood their odours strong impart,
The monsters of the land, the serpents fell,
Fly far away, and shun the hostile swell.”
The Corn-flower is called in Russia _Basilek_ (the flower of Basil),
and attached to it is a legend that a handsome young man of this name
was enticed away by a nymph named Russalka, allured into the fields,
and transformed into the Corn-flower.----Plants have always been a
favourite means of testing the faith of lovers; and the Centaury or
Bluet of the cornfields was the flower selected by Margaret as the
floral oracle from which to learn the truth respecting Faust.
“There is a flower, a purple flower,
Sown by the wind, nursed by the shower,
O’er which love breathed a powerful spell,
The truth of whispering hope to tell.
Now, gentle flower, I pray thee tell,
If my lover loves me, and loves me well:
So may the fall of the morning dew
Keep the sun from fading thy tender blue.”
The Centaury is known as the Hurt-sickle, because it turns the edges
of the reapers’ sickles: its other familiar names are Blue-bottle,
Blue-blow, Bluet, and Corn-flower.----It is held by astrologers to be
under Saturn.
=CEREUS.=--The crimson-flowered _Cereus_ (_Cereus speciosissimus_),
belonging to the natural order _Cactaceæ_, is generally known in
England as the Torch Thistle, and is fabled to have been the torch
borne by Ceres in the daytime. _Cereus flagelliformis_ is the
pink-flowered creeping Cereus, the long round stems of which hang
down like cords. _Cereus grandiflorus_ is the night-blowing Cereus,
which begins to open its sweet-scented flowers about eight o’clock in
the evening; they are fully blown by eleven, and by four o’clock next
morning they are faded and droop quite decayed. The Old Man’s Head, or
Monkey Cactus, _Cereus senilis_, is another member of this family.
=CHAMELÆA.=--The Spurge-Olive or Chamelæa (_Cneorum tricoccum_) is a
humble shrub, whose three-leaved pale-yellow flowers were consecrated
to the god Janus. The month of January, placed under the protection
of Janus, was represented in the guise of an old man, who held in his
hand a flower of the Chamelæa. After flowering, the shrub produces
three-cornered berries, which are at first green, then red, and finally
brown. The plant in England was formerly called the Widow-wail, for
what reason we know not, but Gerarde says, “_quia facit viduas_.”
=CHAMOMILE.=--According to Galen, the Egyptians held the Chamomile
(_Anthemis nobilis_) in such reverence, that they consecrated it
to their deities: they had great faith in the plant as a remedy
for agues. Gerarde tells us that Chamomile is a special help
against wearisomeness, and that it derives its name from the Greek
_Chamaimelon_, Earth-Apple, because the flowers have the smell of an
Apple.----In Germany, Chamomile-flowers are called _Heermännchen_, and
they are traditionally supposed to have once been soldiers, who for
their sins died accursed.----The Romans supposed the _Anthemis_ to be
possessed of properties to cure the bites of serpents.----Chamomile is
considered to be a herb of the Sun.
=CHAMPAK.=--The Champa or Champak (_Michelia Champaca_) is one of the
sacred plants of India. The blue Champak-flower is of the greatest
rarity, and is regarded as being the principal ornament of Brahma’s
heaven. It is, in fact,
“That blue flower which Brahmins say
Blooms nowhere but in Paradise,”
for the earthly sort has yellow blossoms with which the Hindu maidens
are fond of ornamenting their raven hair. The tree is sacred to Vishnu,
and is, therefore, an object of reverential regard on the part of the
Hindus, who cultivate it for the fragrance of its flowers, which is so
strong that the bees, fearful of being overcome, will scarcely ever
alight upon them. The Hindus apply to the Champak-flowers the most
flattering appellations, which celebrate its wondrous delicacy and
form, its glittering golden hue, and its voluptuous perfume.
=CHERRY.=--About the year 70 B.C., Lucullus, after his victory over
Mithridates, brought from Cerasus, in Pontus, the Cherry-tree, and
introduced it into Italy. It was planted in Britain a century later,
but the cultivated sorts disappeared during the Saxon period. “Cherries
on the ryse,” or on the twigs, was, however, one of the street cries
of London in the fifteenth century. These Cherries were, perhaps,
the fruit of the native wild Cherry, or Gean-tree, as the cultivated
Cherry was not re-introduced till the reign of Henry VIII., whose
fruiterer brought it from Flanders, and planted a Cherry orchard at
Teynham.----An ancient legend records that, before the birth of our
Saviour, the Virgin Mary longed extremely to taste of some tempting
Cherries which hung upon a tree high above her head; so she requested
Joseph to pluck them. Joseph, however, not caring to take the trouble,
refused to gather the Cherries, saying sullenly, “Let the father of
thy child present thee with the Cherries if he will!” No sooner had
these words escaped his lips, than, as if in reproof, the branch of the
Cherry-tree bowed spontaneously to the Virgin’s hand, and she gathered
its fruit and ate it. Hence the Cherry is dedicated to the Virgin Mary.
There is a tradition that our Saviour gave a Cherry to St. Peter,
cautioning him at the same time not to despise little things.----The
ancient Lithuanians believed that the demon Kirnis was the guardian
of the Cherry. In Germany and Denmark there is a tradition that evil
spirits often hide themselves in old Cherry-trees, and delight in
doing harm to anyone who approaches them. The Albanians burn branches
of the Cherry-tree on the nights of the 23rd and 24th of December,
and the nights of the 1st and 6th of January--that is to say on the
three nights consecrated to the new sun; and they preserve the ashes
of these branches to fertilise their Vines. They say that in so doing
they burn the evil spirits hidden in the trees, who are destructive
to vegetation.----At Hamburg, there is an annual festival called the
Feast of the Cherries, when children parade the streets, carrying
boughs laden with the fruit. This observance dates from the year 1432,
when the Hussites threatened the immediate destruction of Hamburg.
The inhabitants, in despair, dressed all the children in black, and
despatched them to the Hussite leader, P. Rasus, to plead with him.
The warrior, touched at the sight of so many little helpless ones,
promised that he would spare the city, and after feasting the children
with Cherries, sent them back rejoicing and waving in their hands the
Cherry-boughs.----There is an old proverb current in Germany, France,
and Italy, that you should never eat Cherries with the rich, because
they always choose the ripest, or, even worse, eat the luscious fruit,
and throw the stones and stalks to their companions.----The gum which
exudes from the Cherry-tree is considered equal in value to gum-arabic.
Hasselquist relates that during a siege upwards of one hundred men were
kept alive for nearly two months, without any other nutriment than that
obtained by sucking this gum.----The Cherry is held by astrologers
to be under the dominion of Venus.----To dream of Cherries denotes
inconstancy and disappointment in life.
=CHESNUT.=--The Chesnut (_Fagus Castanea_) was classed by Pliny among
the fruit trees, on account of the value of the nut as an article of
food. He states that the tree was introduced from Sardis in Pontus, and
hence was called the Sardian Acorn. The Chesnuts of Asia Minor supplied
Xenophon’s whole army with food in their retreat along the borders of
the Euxine. Once planted in Europe, the Chesnut soon spread all over
the warm parts. It flourished in the mountains of Calabria, and is the
tree with which Salvator Rosa delighted to adorn his bold and rugged
landscapes.----The _Castagno dei cento cavalli_ (Chesnut of the hundred
horses) upon Mount Etna is probably the largest tree in Europe, being
more than 200 feet in circumference.----Chesnuts are included in the
list of funereal trees. In Tuscany, the fruit is eaten with solemnity
on St. Simon’s Day. In Piedmont, they constitute the appointed food
on the eve of All Souls’ Day, and in some houses they are left on the
table under the belief that the dead poor will come during the night
and feast on them. In Venice, it is customary to eat Chesnuts on St.
Martin’s Day, and the poor women assemble beneath the windows and sing
a long ballad, or, after expressing their good wishes towards the
inmates of the house, ask for Chesnuts to appease their hunger. (See
also HORSE-CHESNUT.)
=CHOHOBBA.=--The Mexicans regard with peculiar sanctity and reverence
a herb which grows in their country, and which they call Chohobba.
If they wish an abundant crop of Yucca or Maize, if they wish to
know whether a sick chief will recover or die, if they desire to
learn whether a war is likely to occur, or, in fact, if they desire
any important information, one of their chiefs enters the building
consecrated to their idols, where he prepares a liquid obtained from
the herb Chohobba, which can be absorbed through the nose: this
fluid has an intoxicating effect, and he soon loses all control over
himself. After awhile, he partly recovers, and sits himself on the
ground, with head abased, and hands beneath his knees, and so remains
for some little time. Then he raises his eyes, as if awaking from a
long sleep, and gazes upwards at the sky, at the same time muttering
between his teeth some unintelligible words. No one but his relatives
approaches the chief, for the people are not allowed to assist at the
rite. When the relatives perceive that the chief is beginning to regain
consciousness, they return thanks to the god for his recovery, and ask
that he may be permitted to tell them what he has seen whilst in his
trance. Then the half-dazed chief relates what the god has told him
regarding the particular matters he had wished to enquire about.
=CHOKE PEAR.=--The fruit of the Wild Pear, _Pyrus communis_, is so hard
and austere as to choke: hence the tree has been called the Choke Pear.
It is supposed to have been a Pear of this description that caused the
death of Drusus, a son of the Emperor Claudius. He caught in his mouth,
and swallowed, a Pear thrown into the air, but owing to its extreme
hardness, it stuck in his throat and choked him.
CHRISTMAS ROSE.--See Hellebore.
=CHRIST’S HERB.=--The Black Hellebore is called Christ’s Herb or
Christmas Herb (_Christwurz_), says Gerarde, “because it floureth about
the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (See HELLEBORE.)
=CHRIST’S LADDER.=--In the fourteenth century, the _Erythræa
Centaurium_ was called Christ’s Ladder (_Christi scala_), from the name
having been mistaken for Christ’s Cup (_Christi schale_), in allusion
to the bitter draught offered to our Lord upon the Cross.
=CHRIST’S PALM.=--The _Ricinus communis_ is commonly known as _Palma
Christi_, or Christ’s Palm. The same plant is also reputed to have been
Jonah’s Gourd.
=CHRIST’S THORN.=--Gerarde, in his Herbal, calls the _Paliurus_,
Christ’s Thorn or Ram of Libya; and he writes: “Petrus Bellonius,
who travelled over the Holy Land, saith, that this shrubby Thorne
_Paliurus_, was the Thorne wherewith they crowned our Saviour Christ,
his reason for the proofe hereof is this, That in Judea, there was
not any Thorne so common, so pliant, or so fit for to make a crown
or garland of, nor any so full of cruell sharpe prickles. It groweth
throughout the whole countrey in such abundance, that it is there
common fuell to burn; yea, so common with them there as our Gorse,
Brakes, and Broome is here with us. Josephus (_lib._ 1, _cap._ 2 of his
_Antiquities_) saith, That this Thorne hath the most sharp prickles of
any other; wherefore that Christ might bee the more tormented, the Jews
rather tooke this than any other.” The shrub still abounds in Judea,
and has pliable branches armed with sharp spines. (See THORN.)
=CHRYSANTHEMUM.=--The leaf and flower of the _Chrysanthemum Indicum_
were long ago adopted as, and are still, the special emblem and blazon
of Mikados of Japan. One of the most popular of the Japanese festivals
is that held in honour of the golden Chrysanthemum, or _Kiku_. The
Japanese florists display their Chrysanthemums built up into the forms
of their gods or heroes; thus, in their exhibitions, are to be seen
effigies of Benkei, the Hercules of Japan, gorgeously apparelled in
white, purple, and yellow Pompons; the Sun Goddess, decked in golden
blooms; Jimmu Tenno, a popular hero, and endless groups of gods and
goddesses, and mythological heroes and heroines.----The Chrysanthemum
was first introduced into England in 1764 by Miller, who received
a _Kok fa_, or _Chrysanthemum Indicum_ from Nîmpu, and cultivated
it at the botanical garden at Chelsea. In the seventeenth century
a Chrysanthemum was grown in Dantsic.----Three Chrysanthemums (the
Corn Marigold, the Ox-eyed Daisy, and the Fever-few) are natives of
England, but as they bloom in summer when flowers are plentiful, and
not in November, as our garden varieties do, it has not been so well
worth while to bestow care in raising and improving them. The Autumn
Chrysanthemums are descended from either the Chinese or the Indian
varieties, the former of which have white flowers and the latter
yellow. The Pompon varieties are derived from the Chusan Daisy,
introduced into England from China by Mr. Fortune in 1846. In their
wild state they are all, indeed, even the Japanese forms of the Chinese
flowers, much like Daisies, with a yellow disc surrounded by rays of
florets, but by cultivation the disc-florets are assimilated to those
of the ray, and the flower assumes a homogeneous appearance only
faintly suffused with yellow towards the centre.
=CINCHONA.=--The Cinchona, or Jesuit’s Bark-tree (_Cinchona
officinalis_), is a native of Peru. The famous bark was introduced
into Europe through the medium of Ana de Osorio, Countess Cinchon, and
Vice-Queen of Peru, after whom the powdered bark was called “Countess’s
Powder.” The use of the bark was first learned from the following
circumstances:--Some Cinchona-trees being thrown by the winds into a
pool, lay there until the water became so bitter that everyone refused
to drink it, till one of the inhabitants of the district being seized
with violent fever, and finding no water wherewith to quench his
thirst, was forced to drink of this, by which means he became perfectly
cured; and afterwards, relating his cure to others, they made use of
the same remedy.
=CINNAMON.=--Bacon, in his ‘Natural History,’ speaks thus of the
Cinnamon (_Laurus Cinnamomum_):--“The ancient Cinnamon was of all
other plants, while it grew, the dryest; and those things which are
knowne to comfort other plants did make that more sterill: for, in
showers, it prospered worst: it grew also amongst bushes of other
kindes, where commonly plants doe not thrive; neither did it love
the Sunne.” Solomon, in his Canticles, mentions Cinnamon among the
precious spices; and Moses was commanded to use “sweet Cinnamon” in
the preparation of the holy oil used to anoint the Tabernacle and the
sacred vessels, and to consecrate Aaron and his sons to the priesthood.
The Emperor Vespasian was the first to take chaplets of Cinnamon to
Rome, wherewith to decorate the temples of the Capitol and of Peace. It
is related, that Alexander the Great, whilst at sea, perceived he was
near the coast of Arabia, from the scent of Cinnamon wafted from the
still distant shore.----The Mahometans of India used to have a curious
belief that the Cinnamon-tree is the bark, the Clove the flower, and
the Nutmeg the fruit, of one and the same tree; and most of the writers
of the Middle Ages thought that Cinnamon, Ginger, Cloves, and Nutmegs
were the produce of one tree.----Gerarde tells us, that there was
formerly much controversy concerning the true Cinnamon and Cassia of
the ancients, but he considered the tree whose bark is Cassia to be a
bastard kind of Cinnamon. The Cinnamon, he says, has pleasant leaves
and fair white flowers, which turn into round black berries, the size
of an Olive, “out of which is pressed an oile that hath no smell at all
untill it be rubbed and chafed between the hands: the trunk or body,
with the greater arms or boughs of the tree, are covered with a double
or twofold barke, like that of the Corke-tree, the innermost whereof
is the true and pleasant Cinnamon, which is taken from this tree and
cast upon the ground in the heate of the sun, through whose heate it
turneth and foldeth itselfe round together.” The tree thus peeled,
recovered itself in three years, and was then ready to be disbarked
again.----Tradition states that the ancient Arabian priests alone
possessed the right of collecting the Cinnamon. The most patriarchal
of them would then divide the precious bark, reserving the first
bundle for the Sun. After the division had taken place, the priests
left to the Sun itself the task of lighting the sacred fire on the
altar where the high priest was to offer a sacrifice.----Theophrastus
narrates that the Cinnamon flourished in the valleys frequented by
venomous serpents; and that those who repaired thither to collect it
were compelled to wear bandages on their hands and feet. After the
Cinnamon was collected, it was divided into three portions, of which
one was reserved for the Sun, which, with glowing rays, quickly came
and carried it off.----Herodotus says, that Cinnamon was gathered from
the nest of the Phœnix.----An old writer affirms that the distilled
water of the flowers of the Cinnamon-tree excelled far in sweetness all
the waters whatsoever. The leaves yield oil of Cloves; the fruit also
yields an oil, which was formerly, in Ceylon, made into candles, for
the sole use of the king; the root exudes an abundance of Camphor; and
the bark of the root affords oil of Camphor, as well as a particularly
pure species of Camphor.
=CINQUEFOIL.=--In former days, Cinquefoil (_Potentilla_) much prevailed
as an heraldic device; the number of the leaves answering to the
five senses of man. The right to bear Cinquefoil was considered an
honourable distinction to him who had worthily conquered his affections
and mastered his senses. In wet weather the leaves of the Cinquefoil
contract and bend over the flower, forming, as it were, a little tent
to cover it--an apt emblem of an affectionate mother protecting her
child. Cinquefoil was formerly believed to be a cure for agues; four
branches being prescribed for a quartan, three for a tertian, and one
for a quotidian.----Cinquefoil is deemed a herb of Jupiter.
=CISTUS.=--The Cistus, according to Cassianus Bassus, derives its
name from a Grecian youth named Kistos. Under this title is embraced
a most extensive genus of plants celebrated all over the world for
their beauty and fragility. Gerarde and Parkinson call them Holly
Roses, a name which has become changed into Rock Roses.----From the
_Cistus Creticus_ (frequently called the _Ladaniferous Cistus_) is
obtained the balsam called Ladanum, a kind of resin, prized for its
tonic and stomachic properties, but more highly valued as a perfume,
and extensively used in oriental countries in fumigations. This resin,
which is secreted from the leaves and other parts of the shrub, is
collected by means of a kind of rake, to which numerous leather
thongs are appended instead of teeth. In olden times this resin was
believed to have been gathered from the shrubs by goats who rubbed
their beards against the leaves, and so collected the liquid gum; but
Gerarde affirms this to have been a monkish tradition--a fable of the
“Calohieros, that is to say, Greekish monkes, who, of very mockery,
have foisted that fable among others extant in their workes.” Be this
as it may, Bacon records the fact in his ‘Natural History,’ remarking:
“There are some teares of trees, which are kembed from the beards
of goats; for when the goats bite and crop them, especially in the
morning, the dew being on, the teare cometh forth, and hangeth upon
their beards: of this sort is some kinde of Ladanum.”
=CITRON.=--A native of all the warm regions of Asia, the Citron was
introduced into Europe from Media, and hence obtained the name of
_Malus Medica_. During the feast of the Tabernacles, the Jews in their
synagogues carry a Citron in their left hand; and a conserve made of
a particular variety of the fruit is in great demand by the Jews, who
use it during the same feast. According to Athenæus, certain notorious
criminals, who had been condemned to be destroyed by serpents, were
miraculously preserved, and kept in health and safety by eating
Citrons. Theophrastus says that Citrons were considered an antidote to
poisons, for which purpose Virgil recommended them in his Georgics.
Gerarde thus translates the passage:--
“The countrey Media beareth juices sad,
And dulling tastes of happy Citron fruit,
Than which no helpe more present can be had,
If any time stepmothers, worse than brute,
Have poyson’d pots, and mingled herbs of sute
With hurtful charmes: this Citron fruit doth chase
Black venome from the body in every place.
The tree itselfe in growth is large and big,
And very like in show to th’ Laurell-tree;
And would be thought a Laurell leafe and twig,
But that the smell it casts doth disagree:
The floure it holds as fast as floure may be:
Therewith the Medes a remedie do finde
For stinking breaths and mouthes, a cure most kinde,
And helpe old men which hardly fetch their winde.”
Della Valle, an Italian traveller of the seventeenth century, relates
how, at Ikkeri, he saw an Indian widow, on her way to the funeral
pyre, riding on horseback through the town, holding in one hand a
mirror, in the other a Citron, and whilst gazing into the mirror she
uttered loud lamentations. De Gubernatis thinks that perhaps the
Citron was the symbol of the life become bitter since the death of her
husband.----Rapin recommends the Citron for heart affections:--
“Into an oval form the Citrons rolled
Beneath thick coats their juicy pulp unfold:
From some the palate feels a poignant smart,
Which though they wound the tongue, yet heal the heart.”
=CLAPPEDEPOUCH.=--The _Capsella Bursa pastoris_, or Shepherd’s
Purse, was so called from the resemblance of its numerous flat
seed-pouches to a common leather purse. Dr. Prior says that the Irish
name of Clappedepouch was applied to the plant in allusion to the
licensed begging of lepers, who stood at the crossways with a bell
and a clapper. Hoffmann von Fallersleben, in his _Niederländische
Volkslieder_, says of them: “Separated from all the world, without
house or home, the lepers were obliged to dwell in a solitary, wretched
hut by the roadside; their clothing so scanty that they often had
nothing to wear but a hat and a cloak, and a begging wallet. They would
call the attention of the passers-by with a bell or a clapper, and
received their alms in a cup or a bason at the end of a long pole. The
bell was usually of brass. The clapper is described as an instrument
made of two or three boards, by rattling which they excited people to
relieve them.” The lepers, Dr. Prior thinks, would get the name of
Rattle-pouches, and this be extended to the plant, in allusion to the
little purses which it hangs out by the wayside. The plant was also
known by the names of Poor Man’s Parmacetie, and St. James’s Weed--the
former in allusion to its medicinal virtues. (See SHEPHERD’S PURSE). It
is considered a herb of Saturn.
=CLEMATIS.=--The _Clematis vitalba_, Gerarde informs us, was called
Travellers’ Joy, “as decking and adorning waies and hedges when
people travell.” It was also termed “Old Man’s Beard,” from the hoary
appearance of its seeds; and Virgin’s Bower, out of compliment to Queen
Elizabeth, and in allusion to its climbing habits. It became the emblem
of Artifice because beggars, in order to excite compassion, were in
the habit of making false ulcers in their flesh by means of its twigs,
the result often being a real sore.----The _Clematis flammula_, or
upright Virgin’s Bower, is an acrid plant, that inflames the skin.
Miller says of it that if one leaf be cropped in a hot day in the
summer season, and bruised, and presently put to the nostrils, it will
cause a smell and pain like a flame.----_Clematis integrifolia_, or
Hungarian Climber, is known in Little Russia as _Tziganka_ (the Gipsy
Plant). Prof. De Gubernatis has given in his _Mythologie des Plantes_
the following legend connected with this plant:--The Cossacks were once
at war with the Tartars. The latter having obtained the advantage, the
Cossacks commenced to retreat. The Cossack hetman, indignant at the
sight, struck his forehead with the handle of his lance. Instantly
there arose a tempest, which whirled away the Cossack traitors and
fugitives into the air, pounded them into a thousand fragments, and
mingled their dust with the earth of the Tartars. From that earth
springs the plant _Tziganka_. But the souls of the Cossacks, tormented
by the thought of their bones being mixed with the accursed earth of
the stranger, prayed to God that he would vouchsafe to disseminate
it in the Ukraine, where the maidens were wont to pluck _Clematis
integrifolia_ to weave into garlands. God hearkened to their Christian
prayers, and granted their patriotic desires. It is an old belief in
Little Russia that if everybody would suspend Briony from his waistbelt
behind, these unfortunate Cossacks would come to life again.
=CLOVE.=--The aromatic Clove-tree (_Caryophyllatus aromaticus_)
is a native of the Moluccas, where its cultivation is carefully
guarded by the Dutch. The islanders wear its white flowers as a mark
of distinction. These flowers grow in bunches at the end of the
branches, and are succeeded by oval berries, which are crowned with
the calyx. It is these berries, beaten from the trees before they are
half grown, and allowed to dry in the sun, which are the Cloves of
commerce. The Clove is considered to be one of the hottest and most
acrid of aromatics; its pungent oil (which is specifically heavier
than water) has been administered in paralytic cases. Gerarde says,
that the Portuguese women, resident in the East Indies, distilled from
the Cloves, when still green, a certain liquor “of a most fragrant
smell, which comforteth the heart, and is of all cordials the most
effectual.”----There is an old superstition, still extant, that
children can be preserved from evil influences and infantile disorders,
by having a necklace of Cloves suspended as an amulet round the neck.
=CLOVER.=--The old English names for Clover were Trefoil and
Honey-suckles.----The word Clover is derived from the Anglo-Saxon
_Clœfre_. The club of Hercules was called by the Latins _clava
trinodis_; and the “club” of our playing cards is so named from
its resemblance to a Clover-leaf--a leaf with three leaflets
(_tria folia_). Hence the herb’s generic name of _Trifolium_, or
Trefoil.----Hope was depicted by the ancients as a little child
standing on tiptoe, and holding a Clover-flower in his hand. Summer
is also represented with the Trefoil.----In the Christian Church,
the Trefoil is held to be the symbol of the Trinity; hence Clover is
used for decorations on Trinity Sunday. It is often employed as an
architectural emblem: the limbs of crosses are sometimes made to end in
Trefoils, and church windows are frequently in the same form.----Clover
possesses the power of vegetating after having existed in a dormant
state for many years. If lime is powdered and thrown upon the soil,
a crop of white Clover will sometimes arise where it had never been
known to exist; this spontaneous coming-up of the flower is deemed
an infallible indication of good soil.----Clover-grass is reputed
always to feel rough to the touch when stormy weather is at hand;
and its leaves are said to start and rise up, as if it were afraid
of an assault.----The Druids held the Clover, or Trefoil, in great
repute, and it is believed that they considered it a charm against
evil spirits. Formerly the Clover was thought to be not only good for
cattle, but noisome to witches, and so “the holy Trefoil’s charm,” was
very generally prized as a protective.----A sprig of Clover with only
two leaves on it is employed by the lads and lasses of Cambridgeshire,
Norfolk, and Suffolk, as a charm to enable them to ascertain the names
of their future wives and husbands:--
“A Clover, a Clover of two,
Put it on your right shoe;
The first young man [or woman] you meet,
In field street, or lane,
You’ll have him [or her] or one of his [or her] name.”
Gerarde says that the meadow Trefoil (especially that with the black
half-moon upon the leaf), pounded with a little honey, “takes away the
pin and web in the eies, ceasing the pain and inflammation thereof
if it be strained and dropped therein.” The finding of a four-leaved
Clover is considered especially fortunate, not only in England, but
in France, Switzerland, and Italy. It is believed to almost ensure
happiness, and in the case of young girls a husband very speedily.
There is old couplet which records that--
“If you find an even Ash-leaf or a four-leaved Clover,
You’ll be bound to see your true love ere the day be over.”
In Scotland, the possessor of a piece of four-bladed Clover is reputed
to have a prescience when witchcraft is attempted to be practised upon
him; and in the North of England this lucky leaf is placed in dairies
and stables, to preserve them from the spells of witches.----There is a
Cornish fairy tale which is intimately associated with the four-leaved
Clover:--One evening a maiden set out to milk the cows later than
usual: indeed, the stars had begun to shine before she completed her
task. “Daisy” (an enchanted cow), was the last to be milked, and the
pail was so full that the milk-maid could hardly lift it to her head.
So to relieve herself, she gathered some handfuls of Grass and Clover,
and spread it on her head in order to carry the milk-pail more easily.
But no sooner had the Clover touched her head, than suddenly hundreds
of little people appeared surrounding Daisy, dipping their tiny hands
into the milk, and gathering it with Clover-flowers, which they sucked
with gusto. Daisy was standing in the long Grass and Clover, so some of
these little creatures climbed up the stalks and held out Buttercups,
Convolvuluses, and Foxgloves, to catch the milk which dropped from
the cow’s udder. When the astonished milk-maid, upon reaching home,
recounted her wonderful experiences to her mistress, the goodwife at
once cried out: “Ah! you put a four-leaved Clover on your head.”----To
dream of seeing a field of Clover is of happy augury, indicating
health, prosperity, and much happiness. To the lover it foretells
success, and that his intended wife will have great wealth.----Clover
is under the dominion of Venus.
=CLUB-MOSS.=--The Stag’s-horn, Fox’s-tail, or Club-Moss (_Lycopodium
clavatum_), is used in the North of England, Sweden, and Germany, in
wreaths worn on festive occasions. The powder or dust which issues
from its spore cases, is highly inflammable, and is collected for
fireworks and for producing stage lightning. It is the _Blitz-mehl_, or
lightning-meal of the Germans. The Fir Club-Moss (_L. Selago_) is made
by the Highlanders into an eye ointment. In Cornwall, the Club-Moss is
considered good against all diseases of the eyes, provided only it is
gathered in the following manner:--On the third day of the moon, when
it is seen for the first time, show it the knife with which the Moss is
to be cut, repeating the while--
“As Christ healed the issue of blood,
Do thou cut what thou cuttest for good.”
Then, at sundown, the Club-Moss may be cut by the operator kneeling,
and with carefully washed hands. The Moss is to be tenderly wrapped
in a fair white cloth, and afterwards boiled in water procured from
the spring nearest the spot where it grew. The liquor is to be applied
as a fomentation. The Club-Moss may also be made into an ointment,
with butter made from the milk of a new cow. These superstitious
customs have probably a Druidic origin, and tend to identify the
Selago or Golden Herb of the Druids with the Club-Moss, as the Selago
was held sacred by them, and gathered with many mystic observances.
(See SELAGO.)----In many parts of Germany, certain Fairy-folk, called
Moss-women, are popularly believed to frequent the forests. In
Thuringia, these little women of the wood are called _Holzfrala_, and
in one of the legends of the Fichtelgebirge (a mountain-chain near
the junction of Saxony, Bavaria, and Bohemia), we find it stated that
there was a poor child whose mother lay sick of a fever. Going into the
forest to gather Strawberries, the child saw a little woman entirely
clothed with golden Moss--presumably Selago. The Moss-woman asked
the child for some of the fruit, and her request having been readily
acceded to, the Moss-woman ate her Strawberries and tripped away. When
the child reached home, she found the fruit which she had carried in
a jug was transformed to gold. The Moss dress of the little woman is
described as being of a golden colour, which shone, when seen at a
distance, like pure gold, but on close inspection lost all its lustre.
It is thought that many of the stories about hidden treasure which are
rife on the Fichtelgebirge are to be attributed to the presence there
of this curious species of vegetation.
=COCOA-NUT PALM.=--The _Cocos Nucifera_ (Sanscrit _Nârikera_), or
Cocoa-Nut Palm is the most extensively-cultivated tree in the world,
and its importance to myriads of the human race is almost beyond
conception. George Herbert wrote truly of this Palm:--
“The Indian Nut alone
Is clothing, meat and trencher, drink and can,
Boat, cable, sail, mast, needle, all in one.”
A vigorous tree will grow one hundred feet high, and produce annually
one hundred Nuts.----The Chinese call the Cocoa-Nut _Yüe-wang-t’ou_
(head of Prince of Yüe) from a tradition that a certain Prince Lin-yi,
who was at enmity with the Prince of Yüe, sent an assassin to cut
off the head of his enemy. The deed was executed, and the severed
head being caught in the branches of a Palm, it remained suspended
there, and was transformed into a Cocoa-Nut, with two eyes in its
shell.----The Portuguese are said to have given the name of Coco to
the Nut because at one end of the Nut are three holes, resembling the
head of a cat when mewing (_Coca_).----The Indians, when unable to
recover the corpse of one of their people who has been slain, but whom
they wish to honour, form an effigy of Reeds, and surmount it with a
Cocoa-Nut, which is supposed to represent the head of the deceased.
This sham corpse they cover with Dhak wood, after which they offer up
prayers, and then burn it. The Cocoa-Nut is regarded by the natives of
India as an oracle in cases of sickness. Thus, if an Indian has fallen
ill, they spin a Cocoa-Nut on its end; if the Nut falls towards the
west, he will die; if to the east, he will recover. The Deccan Indians
never commence any building without first offering Cocoa-Nuts to their
gods.----When a Fijian child is sick, and its friends want to know
if it will live or die, they shake a bunch of dry Cocoa-Nuts: if all
fall off, the little one will recover; if one remains, it will die.
The Fijians also spin Cocoa-Nuts, and then prophecy of future events
according to the direction in which the eye of the Nut lies when it
rests still.
=COCKLE.=--The Corn Cockle, or Gith (_Agrostemma Githago_) is a
troublesome weed, of which Gerarde says: “What hurt it doth among
Corne, the spoile of bread, as well as in colour, taste, and
unwholesomenesse, is better knowne than desired.” In the Book of Job,
the Cockle coming up instead of the Barley is spoken of as a great
misfortune; but it could not have been the Corn Cockle, which is
unknown in Palestine and Arabia.----The plant is alluded to in an old
English nursery rhyme, in which a garden allowed to run wild is said to
be
“Full of weeds and Cockle seeds.”
=COFFEE.=--The Coffee-plant (_Coffea Arabica_) derives its name from
the Kingdom of Caffa, in Africa, where it grows abundantly. The bloom
of this tree is similar to the Jasmine in figure and fragrance, while
its fruit has the appearance of a Cherry; the liquor prepared from
the fruit or berry is said to have been drunk, in Ethiopia, from
time immemorial. The Galla, a wandering nation of Africa, in their
incursions in Abyssinia, being obliged to traverse immense deserts,
and to travel swiftly, were accustomed to carry nothing with them to
eat but Coffee roasted till it could be pulverised, and then mixed
with butter into balls, and put into a leather bag. One of these, the
size of a billiard ball, was said to keep them in strength and spirits
during a whole day’s fatigue, better than bread or meat.----To dream of
drinking coffee is a favourable omen, betokening riches and honour. To
the lover it foretells a happy marriage.
_COLCHICUM._--The Meadow Saffron, or Colchicum, derives its name from
Colchis, a country on the eastern shore of the Euxine, where it once
grew in such abundance as to have led Horace thus to allude to it:--
“Or tempered every baleful juice
Which poisonous Colchian glebes produce.”
Colchicum was one of the herbs highly prized and made use of by the
enchantress Medea. It is poisonous, and, according to Dioscorides,
kills by choking, as do poisonous Mushrooms. Gerarde recommends anyone
who has eaten Colchicum, to “drinke the milke of a cow, or else death
presently ensueth.”----Colchicum is a herb of the Sun.
=COLTSFOOT.=--The shape of its leaves has given the _Tussilago Farfara_
its English name of Colt’s-foot, although, as Gerarde points out, it
might more appropriately be termed Cough-wort. The plant has its Latin
name from _tussis_, a cough, and for many centuries has been used in
pulmonary complaints. It formed the basis of Coltsfoot lozenges, long
celebrated as a cure for coughs.----The Bavarian peasants make garlands
of the sweet-scented Colt’s-foot on Easter Day, and cast them into the
fire.----Colt’s-foot, or Foal’s-foot, is a herb of Venus.
=COLUMBINE.=--The English name of the _Aquilegia_ is derived from
the Latin _columba_, a pigeon, from the resemblance of its nectaries
to the heads of pigeons in a ring round a dish, a favourite device
of ancient artists. The generic name comes from _aquila_, an eagle,
from the fancied resemblance of the same parts of the flower to the
claw of the king of birds.----The plant was formerly sometimes called
_Herba leonis_, from a belief that it was the favourite herb of the
lion.----The Columbine is held to be under the dominion of Venus.
=CONJUGALIS HERBA.=--This herb, De Gubernatis considers to be, in all
probability, the same as is known in Piedmont as _Concordia_ (according
to Gerarde, a kind of wild Tansy), concerning which M. Bernadotti had
sent him the following particulars:--“In the valleys of Lanzo, when
two lovers wish to assure themselves that their marriage will take
place, they proceed to search for the plant called _Concordia_. They
say that this plant is exceedingly scarce, and hence very difficult to
find. Its root is divided into two parts, each representing a hand with
five fingers. On finding this plant, it is necessary to uproot it in
order to see if the two hands are united--a certain sign that the union
will take place. If, on the contrary, the two hands are separated, the
marriage will be broken off.” (See CONCORDIA.)
=CORIANDER.=--From a passage in the Book of Numbers, where Manna is
likened to Coriander-seed, it would seem that “Coriander’s spicy seed”
was commonly used by the Israelites. The bitter Coriander is one of
the five plants mentioned by the Mishna as one of the “bitter herbs”
ordained by God to be eaten by the Jews at the Feast of the Passover.
It was esteemed as a spice by the Arabs, Egyptians, and Hindus. The
plant’s foliage has a strong and offensive odour, but its little round
fruit is pleasantly aromatic, and its seeds, when covered with sugar,
form the well-known Coriander comfits. Robert Turner, in the ‘Brittish
Physician,’ says that the powder of the seeds taken in wine, stimulate
the passions; and Gerarde affirms that the juice of the green leaves,
“taken in the quantity of four dragmes, killeth and poisoneth the
body.”----Coriander is held to be under the planetary influence of
Saturn.
=CORN.=--The generic name of Corn, which is applied to all kinds
of grain, is one of several words, which being common to the
widely-separated branches of the Indo-European race, prove the practice
of tillage among our ancestors before they left their first home in
Central Asia.----The Greeks worshipped Demeter, and the Romans Ceres,
as the goddess of Corn, and she is supposed to have been the same
deity as Rhea and Tellus, and the Cybele, Bona Dea, Berecynthia of
the Phrygians, the Isis of the Egyptians, Atergates of the Syrians,
and the Hera of the Arcadians. Ceres was generally represented as
a beautiful woman, with a garland of ears of Corn on her head, a
wheatsheaf by her side, and the cornucopia, or horn of plenty, in
her hand. To commemorate the abduction of her daughter Proserpine
by Pluto, a festival was held about the beginning of harvest, and
another festival, lasting six days, was held in remembrance of the
goddess’s search for her daughter, at the time that Corn is sown in the
earth. During the quest for Proserpine, the earth was left untilled
and became barren; but upon the return of Ceres, she instructed
Triptolemus of Eleusis in all the arts appertaining to agriculture
and the cultivation of Corn, and gave him her chariot, drawn by two
dragons, wherein he might travel over the whole earth and distribute
Corn to all its inhabitants. On his return to Eleusis, Triptolemus
restored the chariot to Ceres, and established the famed Eleusinian
festivals and mysteries in her honour. This festival, observed every
fourth year, and dedicated to Demeter (Ceres) and Proserpine, was the
most solemn of all the sacred feasts of Greece, and was so religiously
observed, that anyone revealing its secret mysteries, or improperly
taking part in the ceremonials, was put to an ignominious death. During
the festival, the votaries walked in a solemn procession, in which
the holy basket of Ceres was carried about in a consecrated cart, the
people on all sides shouting Hail, Demeter!----In their sacrifices,
the ancients usually offered Ceres a pregnant sow, as that animal
often destroys the Corn and other crops. While the Corn was yet in
grass they offered her a ram, after the victim had been thrice led
round the fields.----Among the Romans, twelve priests named Arvales,
supposed to have been descended from the nurse of Romulus, celebrated
in April and July the festivals called Ambarvalia. These priests, who
wore crowns composed of ears of Corn, conducted processions round
the ploughed fields in honour of Ceres, and offered as sacrifices at
her shrine a sow, a sheep, and a bull. The rites of the Arvales were
founded specially on the worship of Corn.----It is believed that among
the Greeks, the story of Proserpine brought back from the infernal
regions by her mother Ceres, and finally adjudged to pass six months
on earth, and six months in Hades, symbolises Corn as the seed of
Wheat, and its condition during Winter and Summer.----De Gubernatis
considers that the story of Proserpine has its Indian equivalent in
the myth of the birth of Sîtâ, daughter of King Janaka, the Fecundator.
Sîtâ was not born of a woman, but issued either from a furrow in the
earth, or from the middle of an altar.----The _Vishnupurâna_ mentions
several species of grain which have been specially created by the
gods; amongst them being Rice, Barley, Millet, and Sesamum. In the
sacrifices of the Hindoos, they offer several sorts of Corn to ensure
abundant harvests. Indra is the great husbandman of the heavens, which
he renders fertile: he is also the divinity of the fields, and, like
the Scandinavian god Thor, the presiding deity of Corn. It is he who
fertilises the earth in his capacity of god of tempests and rain. The
employment of Corn in sacrificial rites, was common in India of the
Vedic period, in Greece, and in Rome; and in the same countries we
find Corn used during nuptial ceremonies. Thus in Vedic India, it was
customary to scatter two handfuls of Corn over the clasped hands of
the bride and bridegroom, and a similar proceeding still takes place
amongst the Parsees. An analogous custom existed amongst the Romans. At
an Indian wedding, after the first night, the mother of the husband,
with all the female relatives, come to the young bride, and place on
her head a measure of Corn--emblem of fertility. The husband then
comes forward and takes from his bride’s head some handfuls of the
grain, which he scatters over himself. Similar usages exist at the
present day in many parts of Italy, relics of the old Roman custom of
offering Corn to the bride. In Gwalior, at one part of the marriage
ceremony, the priests shout vociferously, only stopping now and then to
cast over the bride and bridegroom showers of Corn, Millet, and Rice.
In some parts of Central India, at the end of the rainy season, the
people congregate on the banks of the lakes, and launch on the water,
as an offering, pots of earth, containing sprouting Wheat.----On the
banks of the Indus, there is believed to grow some miraculous Corn on
the spot where formerly were burnt the remains of the Buddhist King
Sivika, who sacrificed his life for a pigeon. The Chinese Buddhists
made pilgrimages, during the middle ages, to the place where Sivika
had lived and died; and here it was that the miraculous Wheat grew,
which the sun had no power to scorch. A single grain of this Wheat
kept its happy possessor from all ills proceeding from cold as well
as from fever.----The Chinese, regarding Corn as a gift from heaven,
celebrate with sacrifices, prayers, and religious rites, both seedtime
and harvest. They also think that in the heavens there is a special
constellation for Corn, composed of eight black stars, each of which
has under its special protection one of the eight varieties of Corn,
viz., Rice, Millet, Barley, Wheat, Beans, Peas, Maize, and Hemp. When
this cereal constellation is clear, it is a sign that the eight kinds
of Corn will ripen; but when, on the contrary, it is dim and obscured,
a bad harvest is looked for. The Emperor Ven-ti, who reigned 179 years
before Christ, is said to have incited his subjects to the more
zealous cultivation of Corn, by ploughing with his own hands the land
surrounding his palace.----The Chaldeans recognised a god of grain,
called Sérakh; the Assyrians, a god of harvests, named Nirba; the
Romans, a goddess, Segetia or Segesta, who was invoked by husbandmen,
that their harvests might be plentiful. Among the Romans, indeed, the
growth of Corn was under the special protection of different deities;
hence the worship they paid to Seia, who protected Corn before it
sprang up above the earth; to Occator, the god of harrowing; to
Sarritor, the god of weeding; to Nodotus, the god who watched over the
blade when it became knotty; and to Robigus, the god who protected the
Corn from blights.----In the sepulchres of the Egyptian kings, which
have of late years been opened, was discovered, carefully preserved in
closed vessels, Corn, the grains of which retained both their pristine
form and colour; when tested, this Corn was found, after several
thousand years, still to retain its vitality. The matchless wealth of
ancient Egypt was probably in great measure due to its Corn. The Bible
history of Joseph, and the narrative of the ten plagues, set forth how
famed the land of Egypt was in those days for its Wheat. The mode of
culture in that country now is exceedingly simple: when the inundations
of the Nile have subsided, the grain is thrown upon the mud; and if by
chance it should be considered too hard, the seed is lightly ploughed
in. No further care is bestowed until the ripening of the produce in
the following April.----Corn was unknown among the Mexicans when their
country was first visited by Europeans; the foundation of the vast
Wheat harvests of Mexico is said to have been three or four grains,
which a slave of Cortez discovered in 1530, accidentally mixed with
some Rice.----Peru was indebted for the introduction of Corn to a
Spanish lady, Maria de Escobar, who conveyed a few grains to Lima,
cultivated them, and distributed the seed among the farmers. The
first grains of Corn which reached Quito, were conveyed thither by
Father Josse Rixi, a Fleming, who sowed them near the Monastery of St.
Francis, where the monks still preserve and show, as a precious relic,
the rude earthen vessel wherein the seeds first reached them.----Among
the Arabs there is a tradition that when Adam was driven out of
Paradise he took with him three plants,--an ear of Corn, chief of all
kinds of food; a bunch of Dates, chief of fruits; and a slip of Myrtle,
chief of sweet-scented flowers.----There is a curious custom which
still survives in a few districts of Brittany, by which the good faith
of lovers is sought to be proved. On St. John’s Eve, the men, wearing
branches of green Wheat-ears, the women with Flax-blossoms, come to one
of the pillar stones, or dolmens, still standing, dance around it, and
then place their wreath upon it: if the wreath remain fresh for some
time after, the lover is to be trusted; but should it shrivel up within
a day or two, so will the love wither and fade away.----In some parts
of Italy, there is a belief that on the night of the third of May the
blessing of Heaven descends on the Corn in the form of a minute red
insect, which remains on the Wheat only for two or three days.----In
Piedmont, it is a custom in certain districts, on the last day of
February, for the children to roam the meadows, crying, “March, March,
arrive! and for every grain of Wheat let us receive a hundred.”----At
Venice, on Midsummer Eve, young girls sow some Corn in a pot, which
they then place in a position where the sun cannot enter; after eight
days they remove the pot: the Corn has then sprouted; and if it is
green and healthy, it is a token to the girl that she will have a rich
and handsome husband; but if the sprout is yellow or white, it is a
sign that the husband will be anything but a good one.----In Corsica,
after a wedding, just before the feast, the men and children retire,
and the women seat the bride on a measure full of Corn, from which
they have each previously taken a handful. The women then commence
saying an invocation, and during this each one scatters the handful of
Corn over the bride’s head.----In English harvest-fields the prettiest
girl present is chosen to cut the last handful of Corn.----In Sweden,
if a grain of Corn be found under the table when sweeping on a New
Year’s morn, it is believed to be a portent of an abundant crop that
year.----A tuft of Corn or Grass was given by Eugène and Marlborough
as a cockade to the German, Dutch, and English soldiers comprising
the army. The faction of the Fronde opposed to Cardinal Mazarin wore
stalks of Corn to distinguish them.----Corn and Grapes typify the
Blessed Eucharist. An ear of Corn is a prominent emblem in Freemasonry,
proving that the order did not originally confine their intellects or
their labours to building operations, but also devoted themselves to
agriculture.----Astrologers appear to be divided in their opinions
as to whether Corn is under the dominion of Venus or the Sun.----In
dreams, to pluck Corn-ears portends secret enemies; otherwise, dreams
of Corn betoken good fortune, prosperity, and happiness.
CORN-FLOWER. See Centaury.
CORN-MARIGOLD. See Chrysanthemum.
=CORNEL.=--After Romulus had marked out the bounds of his rising city,
he threw his javelin on the Mount Palatine. The weapon, made of the
wood of the Cornel (_Cornus mascula_), stuck fast in the ground, took
root, grew, threw out leaves and branches, and became a flourishing
tree. This prodigy was considered as the happy presage of the power
and duration of the infant empire.----According to some accounts, the
Cornel, or Cornelian Cherry, is the tree which sprang from the grave
of Prince Polydorus, who was assassinated by Polymnestor. The boughs
of this tree dropped blood when Æneas, journeying to Italy, attempted
to tear them from the tree.----The Greeks consecrated the Cornel to
Apollo; and when, in order to construct the famed wooden horse during
the siege of Troy, they felled, on Mount Ida, several Cornelian-trees
in a grove, called Carnea, dedicated to the god, they provoked his
anger and indignation: to expiate this sacrilege, the Greeks instituted
the festival called Carnea.----The Cornel is under Venus.
CORONATION-FLOWER.--See Carnation.
=COSTMARY.=--This plant, the _Balsamita vulgaris_, owes its name of
Costmary to the Greek Kostos, an unknown aromatic plant, and to the
fact of its being dedicated to St. Mary Magdalene. A variety of the
plant is also called, after her, Maudlein, either in allusion to her
box of scented ointment or to its use in the uterine affections over
which, as the special patroness of unchaste women, she presided. In old
times, the plant was known as _Herba Sanctæ_ or _Divæ Mariæ_.----The
Costmary is held to be under Jupiter.
=COSTUS.=--The _Costus speciosus_, an Indian swamp tree, celebrated for
its sweet fruit, is a sacred tree, and in the Hindu mythology figures
as Kushtha, one of the trees of heaven. It is a magical tree, curing
fevers, and is looked upon as the first of medicinal plants. It is
represented as the friend and companion of Soma, the god of Ambrosia.
It is called the Revealer of Ambrosia, inasmuch as its fruit grew on
the summit of Mount Himavant at the moment when the golden boat of the
gods touched its summit, and by its illuminating powers enabled them to
find the Ambrosia.
=COTTON-PLANT.=--The Cotton-plant (_Gossypium_) was first cultivated
in the East, whence were procured the finest muslins (so named from
Mosul, in Mesopotamia, where it was first made), calico (from Calicut,
in India), and Nankeen (from Nankin, in China, where the yellow
Cotton-plants grow). Now the Cotton-plant gives employment to millions
of people, sends thousands of ships across the sea, and binds together
the two great Anglo-Saxon nations. Although so useful, the Cotton is
not one of the sacred plants of India: in an Indian poem, however,
the plant is noticed favourably:--“We love the fruits of the Cotton
because, although tasteless, they have the property of concealing
that which ought to be concealed” (in allusion to the use of cotton
as clothing). The Khonds, whenever founding a new settlement, always
plant first a Cotton-plant, which they hold sacred and religiously
preserve.----M. Agassiz, in his work on Brazil, recounts a strange
legend respecting the _Gossypium Brazilianum_. Caro Sacaibu, the first
of men, was a demi-god. His son, Rairu, an inferior being, obeyed the
instructions of his father, who, however, did not love him. To get rid
of him, Sacaibu constructed an armadillo, and buried it in the earth,
leaving visible only the tail, rubbed with Mistletoe. Then he ordered
his son to bring him the armadillo. Rairu obeyed, but scarcely had
he touched the tail, when, aided by Sacaibu, it dragged Rairu to the
bottom of the earth. But thanks to his wit, Rairu contrived to make his
way to the surface again, and told Sacaibu that in the subterranean
regions lived a race of men and women, who, if transported to earth,
would cultivate it. Sacaibu allowed himself to be convinced of this,
and accordingly descended in his turn to the bottom of the earth by the
aid of a rope composed of Cotton, which he had sown for the first time
on the occasion. The first men brought to earth by means of Sacaibu’s
rope were small and ugly, but the more rope he pulled up, the handsomer
became the men, until just as he was about to pull out the handsomest
the Cotton rope broke, and the brightest specimens of humanity were
doomed for ever to remain in the bowels of mother earth. That is the
reason why, in this earth of ours, beauty is so scarce.
COVENTRY BELLS.--See Campanula.
=COWSLIP.=--The familiar name, Cowslip, is presumed to be derived
from the Anglo-Saxon _Cú-slyppe_: Skeat thinks because the plant was
supposed to spring up where a patch of cow-dung had fallen. The flowers
of the common Cowslip, Petty Mullein, or Paigle (_Primula veris_), are,
in some parts of Kent, called Fairy Cups. The odour of Cowslips is said
to calm the heart. A pleasant and wholesome wine is made from them,
resembling Muscadel. It is said to induce sleep. Says Pope:--
“For want of rest,
Lettuce and Cowslip wine--_probatum est_.”
Cowslip-balls are made in the following manner:--The umbels or heads
are picked off as close as possible to the top of the main stalks. From
fifty to sixty of these are hung across a string stretched between the
backs of two chairs. The flowers are then pressed carefully together,
and the string tied tightly, so as to collect them into a ball. Care
should be taken to have all the flowers open, so as to make the surface
of the ball even.----Culpeper, the astrological herbalist, says that
the Greeks gave the name of Paralysis to the Cowslip because the
flowers strengthened the brain and nerves, and were a remedy for palsy.
He adds, that Venus lays claims to this herb, and it is under the sign
Aries.
=COWSLIP OF JERUSALEM.=--The Virginian Cowslip or Lungwort (_Pulmonaria
officinalis_), is called Cowslip of Jerusalem, Sage of Jerusalem, Sage
of Bethlehem, Wild Comfrey and Lung-wort, being supposed, from its
spotted leaves, to be a remedy for diseased lungs. Linnæus christened
the plant _Dodecatheon_, or Twelve Divinities, because, in April, it
is crowned with twelve pink flowers reversed.----The Lung-wort is
considered to be a herb of Jupiter.
=COW-TREE.=--The ancient inhabitants of Venezuela regarded as sacred
the _Chichiuhalquehuill_, Tree of Milk, or Celestial Tree, that
distilled milk from the extremity of its branches, and around which
were seated infants who had expired a few days after their birth. A
Mexican drawing of this Celestial Tree is preserved in the Vatican,
and is noticed by Humboldt, who first heard of the _Palo de Vaca_,
or Cow-tree, in the year 1800, and supposed it to be peculiar to
the Cordillera of the coast. It was also found by Mr. Bridemeyer, a
botanist, at a distance of three days’ journey to the east of Caraccas,
in the valley of Caucagua, where it is known by the name of _Arbol
de Leche_, or the Milk-tree; and where the inhabitants profess to
recognise, from the thickness and colour of the foliage, the trunks
that yield the most juice,--as the herdsman distinguishes, from
external signs, a good milch cow. At Barbula, this vegetable fountain
is more aptly termed the _Palo de Vaca_, or Cow-tree. It rises, as
Humboldt informs us, like the broad-leaved Star-apple (_Chrysophyllum
Cainito_), to a height of from thirty to forty feet, and is furnished
with round branches, which, while young, are angular, and clothed
with a fine heavy down. The trunk, on being wounded, yields its
agreeable and nutritious fluid in the greatest profusion. Humboldt
remarks that “a few drops of vegetable juice recall to our minds all
the powerfulness and the fecundity of nature. On the barren flank of
a rock grows a tree with coriaceous and dry leaves. Its large woody
roots can scarcely penetrate into the stone. For several months of the
year, not a single shower moistens its foliage. Its branches appear
dead and dried; but when the trunk is pierced, there flows from it a
sweet and nourishing milk. It is at the rising of the sun that this
vegetable fountain is most abundant. The blacks and natives are then
seen hastening from all quarters, furnished with large bowls to receive
the milk, which grows yellow, and thickens at its surface. Some empty
their bowls under the tree itself, others carry the juice home to their
children. We seem to see the family of a shepherd who distributes the
milk of his flock.”
=CRANE’S BILL.=--The Crane’s Bill, or English Geranium, derived its
name from a fancied resemblance of the fruit to the beak of that bird.
Another name for the plant is Dove’s Foot.----Astrologers say that it
is under the dominion of Mars.
=CRANBERRY.=--The Cranberry (_Vaccinium Oxycoccus_) was formerly known
as the Marsh-wort or Fen-berry. The Druids called the plant _Samolus_,
and used great ceremonies in gathering it; these consisted in a
previous fast, in not looking back during the time of their plucking
it, and lastly in using their left hand only. This plant was considered
to be particularly efficacious in curing the diseases incident to swine
and cattle.
=CRESS.=--Chaucer calls the Cress by its old Saxon name of _Kers_,
which may possibly have been the origin of the vulgar saying of not
caring a “curse” for anything--meaning a Cress. Gerarde tells us that
the Spartans were in the habit of eating Cresses with their bread; this
they did no doubt on account of an opinion held very generally among
the ancients that those who ate Cress became firm and decided, for
which reason the plant was in great request. Water-Cresses, according
to astrologers, are herbs of the Moon.
CROSS-FLOWER.--See Milkwort.
=CROCUS.=--Legendary lore derives the name of this flower from a
beautiful youth named Crocus, who was consumed by the ardency of his
love for the shepherdess Smilax, and was afterwards metamorphosed
into the flower which still preserves his name; Smilax being also
transformed, some accounts say into a flower, others into a Yew.
“Crocus and Smilax may be turned to flowers,
And the Curetes spring from bounteous showers.”--_Ovid._
Rapin says:--
“Crocus and Smilax, once a loving pair,
But now transformed, delightful blossoms bear.”
According to a Grecian legend, the Crocus sprang from the blood of
the infant Crocus, who was accidentally struck by a metal disc thrown
by Mercury whilst playing a game.----One of the Sanscrit names of the
Crocus, or Saffron, is _asrig_, which signifies “blood.” The dawn
is sometimes called by the classic poets, on account of its colour,
_crocea_.----The ancients often used to adorn the nuptial couch with
Crocus-flowers, perhaps because it is one of the flowers of which,
according to Homer, the couch of Jove and Juno was composed.
“And sudden Hyacinths the turf bestrow,
And flowery Crocus made the mountains glow.”
The Egyptians, at their banquets, encircled their wine cups with
garlands of Crocus and Saffron, and in their religious processions
these flowers were carried with other blooms and aromatics.----The Jews
made use of the Saffron Crocus (_Crocus sativus_) as an aromatic, and
in the Song of Solomon it is referred to as highly appreciated:--“Thy
plants are an orchard of Pomegranates, with pleasant fruits; Camphire,
with Spikenard; Spikenard and Saffron,” &c.----The Greeks employed the
Crocus in the composition of their perfumes. Thus Hipponax says:--
“I then my nose with baccaris anointed
Redolent of Crocus.”
The Romans were so fond of the Crocus, that they not only had their
apartments and banqueting halls strewed with this plant, but they
also composed with it unguents and essences which were highly prized.
Some of the latter were often made to flow in small streams at their
entertainments, or to descend in dewy showers over the audience. Lucan,
in his ‘Pharsalia,’ describing how the blood runs out of the veins
of a person bitten by a serpent, says that it spouts out in the same
manner as the sweet-smelling essence of Saffron issues from the limbs
of a statue. In both Greece and Rome, as in later years in this land,
Crocus was a favourite addition to dishes of luxury, and Shakspeare
speaks of Saffron to colour the warden pies.----In olden times, Crocus
was held to be a great cordial and strengthener of the heart and lungs;
it was also considered useful in the plague and similar pestilences;
and was said to excite amatory passions.----Robert Turner states that
the plant was sometimes called _Filias ante Patrem_, because it puts
forth flowers before the leaves. This old herbalist, who lived in the
reign of Charles II., would seem to have been a thorough Royalist,
for after remarking that large crops of Saffron-flowers were grown at
Saffron-Walden, he adds that the crop “must be gathered as soon as it
is blown, or else it is lost; so that Jack Presbyter for covetousness
of the profit can reach his Sabbatarian conscience to gather it on
Sunday; and so he can do anything else that redounds to his profit,
tho’ it destroy his brother.”----The Crocus or Saffron is a herb of the
Sun, and under the Lion.
=CUCKOO FLOWERS.=--Various flowers are called after the “harbinger
of Spring.” In old works, the name “Cuckoo Flower” was given to the
_Lychnis flos cuculi_, but is now generally applied to the Lady’s Smock
(_Cardamine pratensis_). Cuckoo Gilliflower was a name also given to
the _Lychnis flos cuculi_, on account of its blooming at the time the
Cuckoo’s song was heard. “Cuckoo’s Bread,” or “Cuckoo’s Meat” is the
Wood Sorrel, _Oxalis Acetosella_. Shakspeare’s “Cuckoo Buds of yellow
hue” are probably the buds of the Crowfoot. “Cuckoo Grass” is the
_Luzula Campestris_, a grass-like Rush, flowering at the time of the
Cuckoo. “Cuckoo Pint,” or “Pintle” is the _Arum maculatum_.
=CUCUMBER.=--In the East, the Cucumber (_Cucumis sativa_) has been
cultivated from the earliest periods. When the Israelites complained
to Moses in the wilderness, comparing their old Egyptian luxuries with
the Manna of the wilderness, they exclaimed: “We remember the fish
which we did eat in Egypt freely, the Cucumbers, and the Melons.”
Isaiah, depicting the desolation of Judah, said: “The daughter of
Zion is left as a cottage in a vineyard--as a lodge in a garden of
Cucumbers”--in allusion to the practise of cultivating Cucumbers in
open fields.----Although, says De Gubernatis, the Buddhists derive
the name of _Ikshvâku_ from _Ikshi_ (Sugar-cane), we must not forget
that the wife of Sagara, to whom was promised sixty thousand children,
first gave birth to an Ikshvâku, that is to say, to a Cucumber. Just
as the Cucumber and the Pumpkin or Gourd are gifted with fecundity and
the desire to climb, so Trisanku, one of the descendants of Ikshvâku,
had the ambition to ascend to heaven, and he obtained that favour
by the assistance of the sage Visvamitra.----There was formerly a
superstitious belief in England that Cucumbers had the power of killing
by their natural coldness. Gerarde says “they yield to the body a
cold and moist nourishment, and that very little, and the same not
good.”----To dream of Cucumbers denotes recovery to the sick, and that
you will speedily fall in love; or if you are in love, that you will
marry the object of your affection. It also denotes moderate success
in trade; to a sailor a pleasant voyage.----Cucumbers are under the
influence of the Moon.
=CUMIN.=--According to Theophrastus, the ancients were accustomed to
sow the seed of Cumin (_Cuminum Cyminum_), with an accompaniment of
oaths and maledictions, just as they were wont to do in the case of
Basil: this singular custom was probably some form of incantation,
to preserve this highly-reverenced plant from the dreaded effects of
the Evil Eye, and to cause it to flourish well. Among the Greeks,
Cumin symbolised meanness and cupidity: the people nicknamed Marcus
Antoninus, _Cumin_, on account of his avarice; and misers were jokingly
spoken of as persons who had eaten Cumin.----The plant appears to have
been regarded as specially possessing the power of retention. Thus in
Germany, in order to prevent newly-made bread from being stolen by
Wood-demons, the loaves had Cumin put in them. In Italy, a similar
custom prevails; and in some places it is supposed that the Cumin
possesses the power of keeping the thief in the house along with the
bread which he wished to steal. In some parts of Italy they give Cumin
to pigeons in order to make them tame and fond of their home; and Cumin
mixed with flour and water is given to fowls with the same object.
Country lasses also endeavour to make their lovers swallow it, in order
to ensure their continued attachment and fidelity. Or, if the lover is
going to serve as a soldier, or has obtained work in a distant part of
the country, his sweetheart gives him a newly-made loaf seasoned with
Cumin, or, perhaps, a cup of wine in which Cumin has been previously
powdered and mixed.----The ancients were acquainted with the power
of Cumin to cause the human countenance to become pallid, and Pliny
mentions two cases in which the herb was so employed.
=CURRANT.=--According to the Iranian legend of the Creation, the first
human couple, Maschia and Maschiäna, issued from a Currant-bush. At
first there was only one Currant-bush, but in process of time the one
bush became separated into two. To these two plants Ormuzd, the Iranian
supreme deity, imparted a soul, and thus from the Currant-bushes issued
the first two human beings.----To dream of Currants denotes happiness
in life, success in your undertakings, constancy in your sweetheart,
and to the farmer and tradesman riches.----The Currant-tree is under
the influence of Venus.
=CYCLAMEN.=--The Greeks had several names for the Cyclamen, and the
Romans also distinguished it by a variety of titles, as _Tuber terræ_
and _Terræ rapum_, from its Turnip-like root, _Panis Porcinus_,
_Orbicularis_, _Arthanita_, and _Cyclamen_, on account of the roundness
of its root. It was called Sow-bread and Swine-bread because, in
countries where it is abundant, it forms the chief food of herds of
swine.----This plant was formerly regarded as a most potent assistant
by midwives, and it was recommended to them by the surgeons of the
day. The peculiar shape of its root was in itself suggestive of its
employment by these good women, and the virtues of the plant were
regarded with superstitious reverence. Thus we find Gerarde stating,
that the mere wearing of the root, “hanged about women,” had a
salutary effect; and that he himself had instructed his wife to employ
its leaves when tending divers women in their confinement. The old
herbalist also tells us that he had Cyclamens growing in his garden,
but that for fear any matrons should, accidentally, step over them, and
by this means bring on miscarriage, he fenced them in with sticks, and
laid others crossways over them, “lest any woman should, by lamentable
experiment, find my words to be true, by their stepping over the same.”
He further warns those who are about to become mothers not to touch or
take this herb, or to come near unto it, on account of “the naturale
attractive vertue therein contained.” According to Theophrastus,
Cyclamen was employed by the ancients to excite love and voluptuous
desires.----Placed in a dormitory, this plant was supposed to protect
the inmate:--
“St. John’s Wort and fresh Cyclamen she in his chamber kept,
From the power of evil angels to guard him while he slept.”
The old English names of Cyclamen were Sow-bread and Swine-bread.----It
was considered under the dominion of Mars.
=CYPRESS.=--Ovid tells us of the “taper Cypress,” that it is sacred to
Apollo, and was once a fair youth, Cyparissus by name, who was a great
favourite of the god. Cyparissus became much attached to a “mighty
stag,” which grazed on the fertile fields of Cæa and was held sacred
to Carthæan nymphs. His constant companion, this gentle stag was one
day unwittingly pierced to the heart by a dart thrown by the luckless
youth. Overcome with remorse, Cyparissus would fain have killed himself
but for the intervention of Apollo, who bade him not mourn more than
the loss of the animal required. Unable, however, to conquer his grief,
Cyparissus at length prayed the superior powers, that as an expiation,
he should be doomed to mourn to all succeeding time: the gods therefore
turned him into a Cypress-tree. Ovid thus relates the tale:--
“And now of blood exhausted he appears,
Drained by a torrent of continual tears;
The fleshy colour in his body fades,
And a green tincture all his limbs invades;
From his fair head, where curling locks late hung,
A horrid bush with bristled branches sprung,
Which, stiff’ning by degrees, its stem extends,
Till to the starry skies the spire ascends.
Apollo sad looked on, and sighing cried,
Then be for ever what thy prayer implied;
Bemoaned by me, in others grief excite,
And still preside at every funeral rite.”--_Congreve._
According to another account, Silvanus, god of the woods (who is
sometimes represented holding a branch of Cypress in his hand), became
enamoured of a handsome youth named Cyparissus, who was changed into
the tree bearing his name. Rapin gives the following version of the
story:--
“A lovely fawn there was--Sylvanus’ joy,
Nor less the fav’rite of the sportive boy,
Which on soft grass was in a secret shade,
Beneath a tree’s thick branches cooly laid;
A luckless dart rash Cyparissus threw,
And undesignedly the darling slew.
But soon he to his grief the error found,
Lamenting, when too late, the fatal wound:
Nor yet Sylvanus spared the guiltless child,
But the mischance with bitter words reviled,
This struck so deep in his relenting breast,
With grief and shame, and indignation prest,
That tired of life he melted down in tears,
From whence th’ impregnate earth a Cypress rears;
Ensigns of sorrow these at first were born,
Now their fair race the rural scenes adorn.”
In a legend current among the Greeks, the Cypress owes its origin
to the daughters of Eteocles, King of Thebes. Carried away by the
goddesses in a whirlwind, which kept revolving them in endless
circles, they were at length precipitated into a pond, upon which
Gæa took compassion on the young girls, and changed them into
Cypress-trees.----Perhaps owing to its funereal and sorrowful
character, the Cypress has been named as the tree which furnished
the wood of the Saviour’s Cross.----An ancient legend referred to in
the ‘Gospel of Nicodemus,’ Curzon’s ‘Monasteries of the Levant,’ and
other works, carries the history of the Cross back as far as the time
of Adam. In substance it is as follows:--Adam, one day, fell sick,
and sent his son Seth to the Garden of Eden to ask the guardian angel
for some drops of the oil of mercy, distilled from the Tree of Life.
The angel replied that none could have that till five thousand years
had passed, but gave him a slip of the tree, which was afterwards
planted on Adam’s grave, and grew into a goodly tree with three
branches. Another version states that the Angel in Paradise gave Seth
three seeds, which he placed under Adam’s tongue before burial, from
which they grew into the Cypress, the Cedar, and the Pine. These were
subsequently carried away by Moses, who cut his rod from them, and King
David transplanted them near a fountain at Jerusalem, where the three
saplings combined and grew into one grand tree. Under its umbrageous
shade he composed his Psalms and lamented his sins. His son Solomon
afterwards cut it down for a pillar in his Temple, but no one was able
to fix it there. Some say it was preserved in the Temple, while others
aver that it formed a bridge across a marsh, which the Queen of Sheba
refused to pass, being deterred by a vision of its future burden. It
was afterwards buried in the Pool of Bethesda, thereby accounting for
the healing properties possessed by its waters. At the Passion, it
floated and was taken for the Cross, or, as some say, for the upright
beam. Henry Maundrell speaks of a Greek convent, about half an hour’s
distance from Jerusalem, where they showed him a hole in the ground
under the high altar, where the stump of the tree stood. Sir John
Maundevile also says that the spot where the tree grew at Jerusalem was
pointed out to him; the wood, he states, formed a bridge over the brook
Cedron.----Some versions of the legend of the wood of the Cross state
it was made of Cypress, Cedar, Pine, and Box: one names Cypress for
the body, Palm for the hands, Cedar for the support of the feet, and
Olive for the superscription.----Another version states that the cross
beam was of Cypress; the upright beam of “immortal Cedar;” the title of
Olive; and the foot-rest of Palm: hence the line--
“_Ligna crucis Palma, Cedrus, Cupressus, Oliva._”
In all countries, and from the earliest times, the Cypress has been
deemed the emblem of woe. Gerarde tells us, that it had the reputation
of being deadly, and that its shadow was unfortunate. Horace, Virgil,
and Ovid all refer to it as a tree both gloomy and funereal. By the
Greeks and Romans alike, the “sad” tree was consecrated to Pluto
and Proserpine, as well as to the Fates and the Furies. The Greeks
crowned with Cypress their tragic Muse Melpomene, and it became an
accompaniment of Venus in the annual processions in which she was
supposed to lament over Adonis.----The ancients planted the Cypress
around graves, and in the event of a death, placed it either before
the house or in the vestibule, so that no one about to perform a
sacred rite might enter a place polluted with a dead body. The Cypress
was probably selected for this purpose because of the belief that,
when once cut down, it never springs up again.----But, in connection
with its funereal associations, the Cypress has always been highly
esteemed as an undying tree, ever verdant, flourishing (_Cupressus
sempervirens_) and odorous, and a tree of which the wood, like the
Cedar, is incorruptible. Theophrastus attributes great honour to the
tree, and points out how the roofs of old temples became famous by
reason of its wood, and that the timber of which the rafters were made
was deemed everlasting, because it was unhurt by rotting, moth, worm,
or corruption. Martial describes the Cypress as deathless. Gerarde
identifies it with the _Thya_ of Pliny and Homer: “He showeth that
this is burned among the sweet smells which Circe was much delighted
withall.... The verse is extant in the fifth booke of Odysses,
where he mentioneth that Mercurie, by Jupiter’s commandment, went
to Calypsus’ den, and that he did smell the burnt trees, _Thya_ and
_Cedrus_, a great way off.” Theocritus and Virgil both allude to
the fragrance of the Cypress, and on account of the balsamic scent
of its timber, chips of it were sometimes employed to flavour wine
with. The Athenians buried their heroes in coffins of this wood, and
the Egyptians made of it those apparently indestructible chests that
contain the mummies of a bygone age.----Pausanias tells us, that the
Greeks guarded scrupulously the Cypresses which grew over the Tomb of
Alcmæon, and that these trees attained such a height, that they cast
their shadows on the neighbouring mountain. The same writer mentions
several groves of Cypress which were looked upon as sacred by the
Greeks; for instance, those which surrounded the Temples of Bellerophon
and Æsculapius, one of the shrines of Venus, the Tomb of Lais, near
Corinth, and a dense wood of Cypress, where were to be seen statues of
Apollo, Mercury, and Rhea. Diodorus Siculus, Plato, and Solinus speak
of groves of Cypress which were held sacred in Crete, near the ruins
of the reputed dwelling of Rhea, and in the vicinity of the Cavern of
Zeus. Solinus also remarks on the peculiarity of the Cretan Cypresses
in sprouting afresh after being cut down.----P. della Valla, a great
traveller of Evelyn’s time, tells of a wonderful Cypress, then extant,
near the tomb of Cyrus, to which pilgrimages were made. This tree was
hollowed within, and fitted for an oratory, and was noted for a gummy
transudation which it yielded, reputed by the Turks to turn, every
Friday, into drops of blood.----Plato desired to have the laws engraved
on tablets of Cypress, because he thought the wood more durable even
than brass: the antique idol of Vejovis (or Vedius), in Cypress-wood,
at the Capitol, corroborates this notion. Semiramis selected the
timber of the Cypress for his bridge across the Euphrates; the valves,
or doors, of the Ephesian temple were of this material, as were also
the original gates of St. Peter’s, Rome. It has been thought that the
_Gopher_, mentioned in Genesis (vi., 14), of which the Ark was built,
was really _Kupros_, _Cupar_, or _Cuper_, the Cypress. Epiphanius
relates that some relics of the Ark (_circa campos Sennaar_) lasted
even to his days, and was judged to have been of Cypress. Certain it
is that the Cretans employed it in ship-building, and that so frequent
was the Cypress in those parts of Assyria where the Ark was supposed
to have been built, that the vast armadas which Alexander the Great
sent forth from Babylon were constructed of it. Of Cypress-wood were
formed Cupid’s darts, Jove’s sceptre, and the club of Hercules used
in recovering the cows stolen by the robber Cacus. Either of Fig- or
Cypress-wood were fashioned the obscene statues of Priapus set up by
the Romans in their gardens and orchards, which were presided over by
this lascivious god, who exercised a peculiar faculty of detecting
and punishing thieves. The thunderbolts of Indra possessed the like
distinctive power. In Northern mythology, the club of Hercules and
the thunderbolts of Indra are replaced by the mallet of Thor, which
it is not difficult to recognise in the mallet of Cypress-wood that,
in Germany, was formerly believed to impart the power of discovering
thieves.----From its qualities, the Cypress acquired throughout the
East a sacred character. This was more particularly the case in Persia.
In the Zend-Avesta, it is accounted divine--consecrated to the pure
light of Ormuzd, whose word was first carved on this noble tree. Parsi
traditions tell of a Cypress planted by Zoroaster himself, which grew
to wondrous dimensions, and beneath the branches of which he built
himself a summer-house, forty yards high and forty yards broad. This
tree is celebrated in the songs of Firdusi as having had its origin in
Paradise. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Cypress, a tree of
Paradise, rising in a pyramidal form, with its taper summit pointing
to the skies, like the generating flame, should be planted at the
gates of the most sacred fire-temples, and, bearing the law inscribed
by Zoroaster, should stand in the forecourt of the royal palace and
in the middle of pleasure gardens, as a reminiscence of the lost
Paradise. This is the reason why sculptured images of the Cypress are
found in the temples and palaces of Persepolis; for the Persian kings
were servants of Ormuzd. Sacred Cypresses were also found in the very
ancient temple of Armavir, in Atropatene, the home of Zoroaster and
his light-worship. The Cypress, indeed, reverenced all over Persia,
was transmitted as a sacred tree down from the ancient Magi to the
Mussulmans of modern times.----From Asia, the Cypress passed to the
island of Cyprus (which derived its name from the tree), and here the
primitive inhabitants worshipped, under the Phœnician name Beroth, a
goddess personified by the Cypress-tree.----According to Claudian, the
Cypress was employed by the goddess Ceres as a torch, which she cast
into the crater of Etna, in order to stay the eruption of the volcano,
and to imprison there Vulcan himself.----An Italian tradition affirms
that the Devil comes at midnight to carry off three Cypresses confided
to the care of three brothers--a superstitious notion evidently
derived from the fact that the tree was by the ancients consecrated to
Pluto.----Like all the trees connected with the Phallica, the Cypress
is at once a symbol of generation, of death, and of the immortal
soul.----In Eastern legends, the Cypress often represents a young
lover, and the Rose, his beloved. In a wedding song of the Isle of
Crete, the bridegroom is compared to the Cypress, the bride to the
scented Narcissus. In Miller’s _Chrestomathie_ is a popular Russian
song, in which a young girl tells her master that she has dreamed of
a Cypress and of a Sugar-tree. The master tells her that the Cypress
typifies a husband, and the Sugar-tree a wife; and that the branches
are the children, who will gather around them.----At Rome, according to
Pliny, they used to plant a Cypress at the birth of a girl, and called
it the _dotem_ of the daughter.----The oldest tree on record is the
Cypress of Somma, in Lombardy. An ancient chronicle at Milan proves it
was a tree in Julius Cæsar’s time, B.C. 42. It is 121 feet high, and
23 feet in circumference at one foot from the ground. Napoleon, when
laying down the plan for his great road over the Simplon, diverged
from a straight line to avoid injuring this tree.----To dream of a
Cypress-tree denotes affliction and obstruction in business.
DAFFODIL, DAFFODILLY, or DAFFADOWNDILLY.--See Narcissus.
=DAHLIA.=--The Dahlia (_Dahlia variabilis_) is first mentioned in
a History of Mexico, by Hernandez (1651): it was next noticed by
Menonville, who was employed by the French Minister to steal the
cochineal insect from the Spaniards in 1790. The Abbé Cavanilles first
described the flower scientifically from a specimen which had bloomed
in the Royal Garden of Madrid the previous year, and he named the plant
after his friend Andrew Dahl, the Swedish botanist.----The Dahlia was
introduced into England in 1789 by Lady Bute from Madrid, but this
single plant speedily perished. Cavanilles sent specimens of the three
varieties then known to the Jardin des Plantes in 1802, and the flower
was very successfully cultivated in France, so that in 1814, on the
return of peace, the improved varieties of the Dahlia created quite a
sensation among English visitors to Paris. Meanwhile, Lady Holland had
in July, 1804, sent Dahlia-seeds to England from Madrid, and ten years
after we find her husband thus writing to her:--
“The Dahlia you brought to our isle
Your praises for ever shall speak;
Mid gardens as sweet as your smile,
And in colour as bright as your cheek.”
It is singular that this favourite flower should have been twice
introduced to England through the ladies of two of her most noted
statesmen, and that the first introduction should mark the year when
France became revolutionized, and the second that which saw Napoleon
made Emperor of the French nation: it is from these incidents that
the Dahlia in floral language has been selected as the symbol of
“instability.”----In Germany and Russia, the flower is called Georgina,
after a St. Petersburg professor.
=DAISY.=--The legend connected with the Daisy, or _Bellis_, runs that
this favourite little flower owes its origin to one of the Belides, who
were grand-daughters of Danaus, and belonged to the race of Nymphs,
called Dryads, presiding over woodlands, pastures, and meadows: she is
said to have encouraged the suit of the rural divinity, Ephigeus, but
whilst dancing on the sward with him, chanced to attract the admiration
of Vertumnus, the guardian deity of orchards, and to enable her to
escape from his amorous embrace, she was transformed into the humble
flower named _Bellis_. Thus Rapin says:--
“When the bright ram, bedecked with stars and gold,
Displays his fleece, the Daisy will unfold
To nymphs a chaplet, and to beds a grace,
Who once herself had borne a virgin’s face.”
Chaucer, however, who appears to have been passionately fond of the
Daisy, and never tired of singing its praises, tells us that the Queen
Alceste was changed into the flower, and that she had as many virtues
as there were florets in it.
“Hast thou not a book in thy cheste,
The great goodnesse of the Queene Alceste
That turned was into a Daisie?
She that for her husband chose to die,
And eke to gone to hell rather than lie.
And Hercules rescued her, parde,
And brought her out of hell again to bliss?
And I answered againe, and said ‘Yes,’
Now I knowe her, and this is good Alceste,
The Daisie, and mine own hertes rest?”
Ossian gives another origin. Malvina, weeping beside the tomb of
Fingal, for Oscar and his infant son, is comforted by the maids of
Morven, who narrate how they have seen the innocent infant borne on a
light mist, pouring upon the fields a fresh harvest of flowers, amongst
which rises one with golden disc, encircled with rays of silver, tipped
with a delicate tint of crimson. “Dry thy tears, O Malvina,” cried the
maidens; “the flower of thy bosom has given a new flower to the hills
of Cromla.”----The ancient English name of the flower was Day’s Eye,
in which way it was written by Ben Jonson; and Chaucer calls it the
“ee of the daie.” Probably it received this designation from its habit
of closing its petals at night and during rainy weather.----There is a
popular superstition, that if you omit to put your foot on the first
Daisy you see in Spring, Daisies will grow over you or someone dear to
you ere the year be out; and in some English counties an old saying is
current that Spring has not arrived until you can plant your foot upon
twelve Daisies.----Alphonse Karr, speaking of the Paquerette, or Easter
Daisy, says, “There is a plant that no insect, no animal attacks--that
ornament of the field, with golden disc and rays of silver, spread in
such profusion at our feet: nothing is so humble, nothing is so much
respected.” (See Marguerite).----Daisy-roots worn about the person were
formerly deemed to prove efficacious in the cure of certain maladies;
and Bacon, in his _Sylva Sylvarum_, tells us “There is also a received
tale, that boiling of Daisy-roots in milk (which it is certain are
great driers) will make dogs little.”----An old writer (1696) says
that they who wish to have pleasant dreams of the loved and absent
should put Daisy-roots under their pillow.----It is considered lucky to
dream of Daisies in Spring or Summer, but bad in the Autumn or Winter.
Daisies are herbs of Venus, under Cancer.
=DAMES’ VIOLET.=--The species of Rocket called _Hesperis matronalis_,
the Night-smelling Rocket, is much cultivated for the evening
fragrance of its flowers: hence the ladies of Germany keep it in pots
in their apartments, from which circumstance the flower is said to
have obtained the name of Dames’ Violet. It is also called Damask
Violet, a name derived from the Latin _Viola Damascena_, the Damascus
Violet. In French this is _Violette de Damas_, which has probably
been misunderstood as _Violette des Dames_, and has hence become, in
English, Dames’ Violet. (See ROCKET.)
=DANDELION.=--The Dandelion (_Taraxacum officinale_) derives its name
from the French _Dent de lion_, lion’s tooth. (Latin, _Dens leonis_).
In nearly every European language the flower bears a similar name,
given to it presumably either from the whiteness of its root, the
auriferous hue of its flower, which recalls the golden teeth of the
heraldic lion, or its jagged leaf, which was supposed to resemble a
lion’s tooth. De Gubernatis connects the name with the Sun (_Helios_),
and states that a lion was the animal-symbol of the Sun, and that all
plants named after him are essentially plants of the Sun. Certainly the
appearance of the Dandelion-flower is very suggestive of the ancient
representations of the Sun.----In German Switzerland, the children form
chains of the stalks of Dandelions, and holding the garland in their
hands, they dance round and round in a circle.----The Dandelion is
called the rustic oracle: its flowers always open about five a.m. and
shut at eight p.m., serving the shepherd for a clock--
“Leontodons unfold
On the swart turf their ray-encircled gold,
With Sol’s expanding beam the flowers unclose,
And rising Hesper lights them to repose.”--_Darwin._
As the flower is the shepherd’s clock, so are the feathery seed-tufts
his barometer, predicting calm or storm. These downy seed-balls,
which children blow off to find out the hour of the day, serve for
other oracular purposes. Are you separated from the object of your
love?--carefully pluck one of the feathery heads, charge each of the
little feathers composing it with a tender thought; turn towards the
spot where the loved one dwells; blow, and the seed-ball will convey
your message faithfully. Do you wish to know if that dear one is
thinking of you, blow again; and if there be left upon the stalk a
single aigrette, it is a proof you are not forgotten. Similarly the
Dandelion is consulted as to whether the lover lives east, west, north,
or south, and whether he is coming or not.
“Will he come? I pluck the flower leaves off,
And at each, cry, yes--no--yes;
I blow the down from the dry Hawkweed,
Once, twice--hah! it flies amiss!”--_Scott._
Old herbalists had great faith in the Dandelion as a wonderful help to
consumptive people. More recently, in the county of Donegal, an old
woman skilled in simples has treated her patients for “heart fever,”
or dyspepsia, as follows:--She measures the sufferer three times round
the waist with a ribbon, to the outer edge of which is fastened a green
thread. If the patient be mistaken in supposing himself affected with
heart fever, this green thread will remain in its place, but should
he really have the disorder, it is found that the green thread has
left the edge of the ribbon and lies curled up in the centre. At the
third measuring, the simpler prays for a blessing. She next hands the
patient nine leaves of “heart fever grass,” or Dandelion, gathered
by herself, directing him to cut three leaves on three successive
mornings.----Hurdis, in his poem of ‘The Village Curate,’ fantastically
compares the sparkling undergraduate and the staid divine to the
Dandelion in the two stages of its existence:--
“Dandelion this,
A college youth, that flashes for a day
All gold: anon he doffs his gaudy suit,
Touched by the magic hand of some grave bishop,
And all at once becomes a reverend divine--how sleek.
* * * * *
But let me tell you, in the pompous globe
Which rounds the Dandelion’s head, is couched
Divinity most rare.”
To dream of Dandelions betokens misfortune, enemies, and deceit on
the part of loved ones. Astrologers claim the Dandelion as a plant of
Jupiter.
=DANEWORT.=--The Dwarf Elder (_Sambucus Ebulus_) is said only to grow
where blood has been shed, either in battle or in murder. A patch of
it thrives on ground in Worcestershire, where the first blood was
drawn in the civil war between the Royalists and the Parliament. The
Welsh call it _Llysan gwaed gwyr_, or “Plant of the blood of men.”
A name of similar import is its English one of Death-wort. It is
chiefly in connection with the history of the Danes in England, that
the superstition holds; wherever the Danes fought and bled, there did
the Dwarf Elder, or Dane’s Wood, spring up and flourish. According
to Aubrey, the plant obtained the name of Danewort, Daneweed, or
Dane’s blood, because it grew plentifully in the neighbourhood of
Slaughterford, Wilts, where there was once a stout battle fought with
the Danes. Parkinson, however, thinks the plant obtained the name of
Danewort because it would cause a flux called the Danes.
=DAPHNE.=--The generic name of Daphne has been given to a race of
beautiful low shrubs, after the Nymph Daphne, who was changed by the
gods into a Laurel, in order that she might escape the solicitations
of Apollo (see LAUREL); because many of the species have Laurel-like
leaves. The sweet-scented Daphne Mezereon is very generally known
as the Lady Laurel, and is also called Spurge Olive, Spurge Flax,
Flowering Spurge, and Dwarf Bay. The name of Mezereon is probably
derived from its Persian name, _Madzaryoun_, which signifies “destroyer
of life,” in allusion to the poisonous nature of its bright red
berries. Gerarde says, “If a drunkard doe eat one graine or berrie of
it, he cannot be allowed to drinke at that time; such will be the heate
of his mouth, and choking in the throte.” A decoction of this plant,
mixed with other ingredients, is the Lisbon diet-drink, a well-known
alterative.----The Russian ladies are reputed to rub their cheeks
with the fruit of the Mezereon, in order, by the slight irritation,
to heighten their colour.----The Spurge Laurel (_Daphne Laureola_)
possess similar properties to the Mezereon. It is called _Ty-ved_ in
Denmark, and is sacred to Tyr, the Scandinavian god of war. It is the
badge of the Highland Grahams.----The Flax-leaved Daphne, called by
Gerarde the Mountain Widow-Wayle, is supposed to be the herb Casia,
mentioned by Virgil and other Roman writers; the _Cneoron_ of the
Greeks.
=DATE.=--The Date Palm (_Phœnix dactylifera_) is the Palm of the Oases,
and supplies not only food for man and beast, but a variety of useful
commodities. This Palm has plume-like leaves, and grows from sixty to
eighty feet high, living to a great age, and providing yearly a large
crop of fruit. The male and female flowers are borne on separate trees,
and it is remarkable that there is a difference in the fructification
of the wild Date and the cultivated, though both are the same species.
The wild Dates impregnate themselves, but the cultivated trees do
not, without the assistance of art. Pontanus, an Italian poet of the
fifteenth century, gives a glowing description of a female Date-tree
which had stood lonely and barren, near Otranto, until at length a
favouring wind wafted towards it the pollen of a male that grew at a
distance of fifteen leagues. Father Labat has told of a Date-tree that
grew in the island of Martinico, and produced fruit which was much
esteemed; but when an increase of the number of Date-trees was wanted,
not one could be reared from the seed, and they had to send to Africa
for Dates, the stones of which grew readily and produced abundantly.
The Date Palm is so abundant in the country between the States of
Barbary and the desert (which produces no other kind of tree), that
this region is designated as the Land of Dates (_Biledulgerid_).----The
Palm of Palestine is the Date Palm. When the sacred writers wished to
describe the majesty and beauty of rectitude, they appealed to the
Palm as the fittest emblem which they could select. “He shall grow up
and flourish like the Palm-tree” is the promise of David to the just.
Mahomet, like the Psalmist of Israel, was wont to compare the virtuous
and generous man to the Date-tree:--“He stands erect before his Lord;
in every action he follows the impulse received from above; and his
whole life is devoted to the welfare of his fellow-creatures.”----The
inhabitants of Medina, who possess the most extensive plantations of
Date-trees, say that their prophet caused a tree at once to spring
from the kernel at his command, and to stand before his admiring
followers in mature fruitfulness and beauty.----The Tamanaquas of South
America have a tradition that the human race sprang again from the
fruits of the Date Palm after the Mexican age of water.----The Arabs
say that when Adam was driven out of Paradise, the Date, the chief of
all fruits, was one of the three things which he took with him; the
other two being the Myrtle and an ear of Wheat.----A popular legend
concerning the flight of the Holy Family into Egypt, narrates how a
Date Palm, at the command of the child Jesus, bowed down its branches
to shade and refresh His mother. Sozomenos relates that, when the Holy
Family reached the end of their journey, and approached the city of
Heliopolis, in Egypt, a tree which grew before the gates of the city,
and was regarded with great veneration as the seat of a god, bowed
down its branches at the approach of the infant Christ.----Judæa was
typified by the Date Palm upon the coins of Vespasian and Titus. With
the Jews, the Date Palm has always been the symbol of triumph, and they
carry branches of it in their right hands, in their synagogues, at the
Feast of the Tabernacles, in commemoration of their forefathers having
gained possession of the Promised Land. In the Christian Church, the
remembrance of the Saviour’s ride into Jerusalem amid the hosannas of
the people, is associated with the waving of the branches of the Date
Palm by the joyous multitude.----An ardent spirit, distilled from Dates
and water, is much used by Mahommedans, as it does not come within
the prohibition of the Koran against wine. Palm wine is also made
from the Date; it is the sap or juice of the tree, and can only be
obtained by its destruction.----A curious folk-lore tale of the Chinese
records how Wang Chih, a patriarch of the Taouist sect, when one day
gathering fire-wood in the mountains of Ku Chow, entered a grotto where
some old men were playing at chess. One of the old men handed him a
Date-stone, telling him to put it into his mouth. This done, he ceased
to feel hunger or thirst. By-and-bye, one of the players said: “It is
long since you came here--return at once.” Wang Chih went to take up
his axe, and found the handle had mouldered into dust. He went home,
but found that centuries had elapsed since the day he set out to cut
wood: thereupon he retired to a mountain cell, and devoting himself to
religious exercises, finally attained immortality.
=DEAD TONGUE.=--The Water Hemlock (_Œnanthe crocata_) has received the
name of Dead Tongue from its paralysing effects on the organs of voice.
Threlkeld tells of eight lads who had eaten it, and of whom “five died
before morning, not one of them having spoken a word.” Gerarde relates,
that this plant having by mistake been eaten in a salad, “it did well
nigh poyson those that ate of it, making them giddie in their heads,
waxing very pale, staggering, and reeling like drunken men.”----The
plant is described as “one of Saturn’s nosegays.”
DEADLY NIGHTSHADE, or DEATH’S HERB.--See Nightshade.
=DEODAR.=--The sacred Indian Cedar (_Cedrus Deodara_) forms vast
forests in the mountains of Northern India, where it grows to a height
varying from fifty to a hundred feet and upwards. It is the _Devadâru_,
or tree-god of the _Shastras_, which, in many of the ancient hymns
of the Hindus, is the symbol of power and majesty. The tree is often
mentioned by the Indian poets. It was introduced into this country in
1822.
=DHAK.=--The Dhak, or Bastard Teak (_Butea frondosa_), is one of the
sacred trees of India, and one of the most striking of the Indian
arboreous _Leguminosæ_. Both its wood and leaves are highly reverenced,
and used in religious ceremonies. The natives, also, are fond of
offering the beautiful scarlet flowers in their temples, and the
females intertwine the blossoms in their hair.----The flowers yield a
superb dye.
=DILL.=--The aromatic plant Dill (_Anethum graveolens_) is by some
supposed to have derived its name from the old Norse word _dilla_,
dull; the seeds being used as a carminative to cause infants to
sleep. Boiled in wine, and drunk, the plant was reputed to excite
the passions. Dill was formerly highly appreciated as a plant that
counteracted the powers of witches and sorcerers:--
“The Vervain and the Dill,
That hindereth witches of their will.”
Astrologers assign Dill to the domination of Mercury.
=DITTANY.=--The ancients consecrated the Dittany of Crete (_Origanum
Dictamnus_) to the goddess Lucina, who presided over the birth of
children; and she was often represented wearing a crown of this
Dittany. The root was particularly recommended by the oracle of
Phthas. The Grecian and Roman women attributed to this plant the most
extraordinary properties during childbirth, which, it was believed
greatly to facilitate. It is reported, says Gerarde, “that the wilde
goats or deere in Candy, when they be wounded with arrowes, do shake
them out by eating of this plant, and heal their wounds.” According to
Virgil, Venus healed the wounded Æneas with Dittany. Plutarch says that
the women of Crete, seeing how the goats, by eating Dittany, cause the
arrows to fall from their wounds, learnt to make use of the plant to
aid them in childbirth. Gerarde recounts that the plant is most useful
in drawing forth splinters of wood, bones, &c., and in the healing of
wounds, “especially those made with invenomed weapons, arrowes shot out
of guns, or such like.” The juice, he says, is so powerful, that by its
mere smell it “drives away venomous beasts, and doth astonish them.”
When mixed with wine, the juice was also considered a remedy for the
bites of serpents. According to Apuleius, however, the plant possessed
the property of killing serpents.
The Dittany of Crete, it should be noted, is not to be confounded
with the Dittany, Dittander, or Pepper-wort of the English Herbals.
This plant, the _Lepidium latifolium_, from its being used by thrifty
housewives to season dishes with, obtained the name of Poor Man’s
Pepper. It was held to be under Mars.
=DOCK.=--In Cornwall, as a charm, the leaves of the common Dock, wetted
with spring water, are applied to burns, and three angels are invoked
to come out of the East. It is a common practice, in many parts of
England, for anyone suffering from the stings of a Nettle to apply a
cold Dock-leaf to the inflamed spot, the following well-known rhyme
being thrice repeated:--
“Out Nettle, in Dock:
Dock shall have a new smock.”
Docks are said by astrologers to be under the dominion of Jupiter.
=DRACÆNA.=--The Dracæna, or Dragon-tree (_Dracæna Draco_), derives its
name from the Greek _Drakaina_, a female dragon. This tree is found in
the East India Islands, the Canaries, Cape Verde, and Sierra Leone.
Gerarde thus describes it:--“This strange and admirable tree groweth
very great, resembling the Pine-tree.” Among its leaves “come forth
little mossie floures, of small moment, and turn into berries of the
bignesse of Cherries, of a yellowish colour, round, light, and bitter,
covered with a threefold skin, or film, wherein is to be seen, as
Monardus and divers others report, the form of a dragon, having a long
neck and gaping mouth, the ridge, or back, armed with sharp prickles
like the porcupine, with a long taile and foure feet, very easie to be
discerned.... The trunk, or body of the tree, is covered with a tough
bark, very thin and easie to be opened or wounded with any small toole
or instrument; which being so wounded in the dog days, bruised or
bored, yields forth drops of a thick red liquor of the name of the tree
called Dragon’s Tears, or _Sanguis Draconis_, Dragon’s Bloud.”----This
Dragon’s Blood, or Gum Dragon, is well known in medicine as an
astringent.----The tooth-brushes called Dragon’s-root, are made from
the root of the Dragon-tree, cut into pieces about four inches long,
each of which is beaten at one end with a wooden mallet to split it
into fibres.----The venerable Dragon-tree of Orotava was for many
centuries worshipped as a most sacred tree by the Guanches, or original
inhabitants of the Canary Islands. It was considered the twin wonder of
the Island of Teneriffe, dividing its interest with the mighty Peak.
Humboldt saw it in 1799, when it was considered the oldest and largest
of living trees (the giant trees of California being then unknown).
The great traveller writes concerning it:--“Its trunk is divided into
a great number of branches, which rise in the form of candelabra, and
are terminated by tufts of leaves like the Yucca: it still bears every
year both leaves and fruit: its aspect feelingly recalls to mind that
‘eternal youth of Nature,’ which is an inexhaustible source of motion
and of life.” Since then this sacred tree has been entirely shattered
and destroyed by successive storms.
DREAM PLANT.--See Pulsatilla.
=DRYAS.=--The pretty evergreen, Dryas, which blooms on the mountain
summits, was so named by Linnæus after the Dryades, or nymphs of the
Oaks,--the leaves bearing some resemblance to those of the Oak.
=DURIAN.=--The Durian (_Durio Zibethinus_) is a native of the East
Indies. The fruit of this tree, which is about the size of a man’s
head, is regarded by the Malays as the king of fruit, and is reputed
to be the most delicious of all the fruits of India. The custard-like
pulp in which the large seeds are imbedded, is the part eaten fresh,
and resembles cream; yet it is accompanied by such an intolerable
stench that, according to Rumphius and Valentyn, it is by law forbidden
to throw them out near any public path in Amboyna. The smell is said
to resemble certain putrid animal substances, yet all agree that if
the first repugnance is once overcome, the fruit is most enjoyable.
This fruit is employed as a bait to catch the civet cat; the outer
covering is boiled down, and used as a wash for the skin. The seeds are
converted into flour, and also used as vegetable ivory.
=DURVA.=--According to Wilson, Durva is the Sanscrit name of the
_Agrostis linearis_, but Carey applies the name to _Panicum Dactylon_.
This species of Millet, like the sacred Kusa grass, is held in much
reverence by the Hindus. In De Gubernatis’ _Mythologie des Plantes_,
the author states that in the _Atharvaveda_, they implore the Durva,
which grows in the water (_i.e._, in marshy places), and which has a
hundred roots and a hundred stems, to give absolution for a hundred
faults, and to prolong for a hundred years the life of him who invokes
it. The fact that this herb is the tenderest, the freshest, and the
most substantial food for cattle, added to its beauty, has gained
it respect; but the Indians think, besides, that a nymph is hidden
in the plant. When they celebrate, in India, the festival of the
god Indra, on the 14th day of the lunar month Bhadra, they sing and
dance, and offer fourteen different kinds of fruit to the god. In that
ceremony, the devotees wear, attached to the right arm, leaves of the
Durva. At Indian weddings, the women bind together the right arm of
the husband and the left arm of his bride with the leaves of Durva.
In the Vedic age (and the custom still exists in certain parts of
India), before building a house, it was customary to place on the four
corner foundation stones some Durva. This plant figures, also, among
the eight ingredients which compose the _Arghya_, that is to say, the
symbolic offering of Indian hospitality. According to a stanza of the
_Panchatantra_, the Durva sprang from the hair of the cow, as the blue
Lotus arose from the cow’s evacuations. The leaf of the Durva is so
highly esteemed, that it has passed into a proverb or familiar saying.
This leaf is especially attractive to gazelles. The preceding stanza
proclaims how happy are those gazelles who eat the herb Durva, for they
will never gaze on the face of a man whom riches have made false.
=EBONY.=--The _Diospyros Ebenaster_ is generally considered to be the
true Ebony-tree. This Date-Plum is a native of Ceylon, Cochin China,
and the East Indies. Bishop Heber describes the Ebony-tree of Ceylon as
a magnificent forest tree, with a tall, black, slender stem, spotted
with white. Some judges, however, consider that the real Ebony-tree
is the _Diospyrus Ebenus_, a native of Jamaica.----In ancient times it
was much more in use and esteem. Pluto, the sovereign of the infernal
regions, is represented as seated on a throne of Ebony; the statues of
the Egyptian gods were wrought in Ebony. According to Pausanias, the
statue of the Pythian Apollo was formed of this wood; and that writer
recounts that a Cyprian, well versed in plant lore, had told him that
the true and veritable Ebony was a plant that produced neither leaf,
flower, nor fruit; and, moreover, that it grew entirely underground in
certain places known to the Æthiopians, who periodically visited those
spots, and took away the wood.----Pulverised Ebony, mixed with the
charcoal of a burnt snail, is recommended by Sidrach as an application
to lessen the white of the eye.----There is an old saying, that a bad
man’s heart is as black as Ebony. This, probably, originated from the
fact, that while the alburnum of the Ebony-tree is white, its foliage
soft and silvery, and its flowers brilliant, the heart alone is really
black.----Among the many wonders described by Sir John Maundevile, as
having been seen by him when on his Eastern travels, in the fourteenth
century, was a certain table of Ebony, or black wood, “that once used
to turn into flesh on certain occasions, but whence now drips only oil,
which, if kept above a year, becomes good flesh and bone.”
=EDELWEISS.=--The Edelweiss, or Alpine Cudweed (_Leontopodium Alpinum_
or _Gnaphalium_), grows on the Swiss mountains on the line of perpetual
snow, and from thence is brought down by travellers as a proof that
they reached this altitude. As in many cantons it only grows in nearly
inaccessible places, it is considered an act of daring to gather it,
and the flower is therefore much valued by the Swiss maidens as a proof
of the devotion of their lovers. Although hardy, this plant is delicate
and fragile, enveloping itself in soft down, and only blooming on
rocks exposed in full midday. Its bloom is surrounded by white velvety
leaves; even the stem has a down upon it.----With the exception of
the _Alpenrose_, no other mountain flower is so characteristic of the
Alpine districts, so dear to the native heart, so celebrated by Alpine
poets, or so popular among Swiss tourists. Indeed, its very popularity
has threatened to lead to its extinction in the districts most
frequented by visitors; and to prevent this, the German and Tyrolese
Alpine Clubs have imposed fines for plucking the Edelweiss, and the
Austrian Alpine Club has forbidden its members to continue the custom
of wearing a sprig of Edelweiss in their hats.----The worst persecutors
of the plant are the picturesque Bergano herdsmen and herdboys, who
come up from the Italian side of the Alps at the beginning of the
season, and remain on the mountains with their flocks until the snow
begins to fall. They pluck up the Edelweiss mercilessly by the roots,
which they endeavour to dispose of to passing travellers. The Communes
of the Upper Engadine have taken the plant under their protection,
and sellers of the plant in its living condition are subject to a
fine. The Edelweiss, however, is plentiful still in tracts a little
out of the orthodox tourists’ routes, and at Pontresina grows in such
profusion as to be used as food for cattle. The Edelweiss is also known
by the name of the _Cotonnier_, and is sometimes called Lion’s-foot,
because of the resemblance of its woolly hairy flower to the foot of a
lion.
=EGG PLANT.=--The _Solanum Melongena_ has derived the name of Egg
Plant from the shape of its fruit, which is formed like a hen’s egg,
and varies in colour from white to pale yellow, pale red, and purple.
In the East Indies, they broil this fruit, and eat it with pepper and
salt, and the fruit is also relished in Batavia, Greece, Barbary, and
Turkey. The inhabitants of the British isles in the West Indies call it
Brown-John or Brown-jolly. Miller calls the plant the larger-fruited
Nightshade, and says that in his time it was cultivated in the
gardens of Spain by the title of _Barenkeena_. The Italians call it
_Melanzana_, a corruption of the plant’s ancient Latin name of _Mala
insana_, from whence also came its old English name of Raging Apple or
Mad Apple. There does not appear to be any reason for these strange
names, although Gerarde cautiously remarks that “doubtless these
Apples have a mischievous qualitie, the use whereof is utterly to bee
forsaken.”
=EGLANTINE.=--The Sweet Briar (_Rosa rubiginosa_) is generally
understood to be the Eglantine of old English poets, although the name
has given rise to much discussion, both as to its meaning, and as to
the shrub to which it applies. Chaucer and more ancient poets spelt the
word “Eglatere.”
“The hegge also, that yede in compas,
And closed in all the greene herbere,
With Sicamour was set and Eglatere.”
But it seems doubtful whether by Eglatere was meant the Yellow Rose
(_Eglanteria_), the Sweetbriar, the Dog Rose, or some other species.
According to Gerarde, it was a shrub with a white flower. Shakspeare,
Spenser, Shenstone, Sir W. Scott, Keats, and other poets identify
Eglantine with Sweetbriar; but Milton mistook it for the Honeysuckle or
Woodbine, for he speaks of
“Sweetbriar or the Vine,
Or the twisted Eglantine.”
According to a superstition current in Schleswig, when Satan fell
from heaven, he endeavoured, in order to reascend to the celestial
regions, to make himself a ladder with the thorns of the Eglantine.
God, however, would not permit the Eglantine to grow upwards, but only
to extend itself as a bush. Then, out of spite, Satan turned its thorns
downwards, pointing towards the earth.----Another legend records that
Judas Iscariot hung himself on the Eglantine, and that since then it
has been an accursed tree: hence to this day its berries are called
_Judas beeren_ (Judas berries).----The five graceful fringed leaflets,
which form the special beauty of the Eglantine flower and bud, have
given rise to the following rhymed riddle:--
“Of us five brothers at the same time born,
Two from our birthday ever beards have worn;
On other two none ever have appeared,
While the fifth brother wears but half a beard.”
=ELDER.=--The Elder or Ellan-tree (_Sambucus_), in Scandinavian
mythology, was consecrated to Hulda, the goddess of love, and to
Thor, the god of Thunder, and is connected with many ancient Northern
superstitions.
The Danes believe that in the Elder there dwells a being known as
the Hylde-moer (Elder-mother) or Hylde-qvinde (Elder-woman), by whom
all injuries done to the Elder are avenged. In a small court in the
Nybonder, a district of Copenhagen, there stands a weird tree, which at
dusk is reputed to move up and down the passage, and sometimes to peep
through the windows at the children. It is not deemed advisable to have
furniture made of Elder-wood. Tradition says that a child having been
laid in a cradle made of Elder-wood, the Hylde-moer came and pulled it
by the legs, nor would she let it have any rest until it was taken out
of the cradle. A peasant once heard his children crying in the night,
and on inquiring the cause, was told that some one had been there and
sucked them; and their breasts were found to be swollen. This annoyance
was believed to have arisen, from the fact that the room was boarded
with Elder. The Elder branches may not be cut until permission has
been asked in the words, “Hylde-moer, Hylde-moer, allow me to cut thy
branches.” Then, if no objection be made by the spirit of the tree, the
hewer proceeds, taking care first to spit three times, as a precaution
against molestation. In Denmark, it is believed that he who stands
under an Elder-bush at twelve o’clock on Midsummer Eve, will see Toly,
the king of the elves, go by with all his train. Perhaps on account
of the supernatural halo surrounding it, the Elder was regarded as a
cure for various diseases. A Danish formula prescribes the taking of an
Elder-twig by a person afflicted with toothache, who must first put it
in his mouth, and then stick it in the wall, saying, “Depart thou evil
spirit.” Ague may be cured by taking a twig of Elder, and sticking it
in the ground, without speaking a word; the disease will then pass into
the twig, and attach itself to the first person who approaches the spot.
In Russia, there is a belief that Elder-trees drive away bad and
malignant spirits, out of compassion to humanity, and that they promote
long life.
In Sweden, women about to become mothers kiss the Elder; and it is
thought that no one can damage the tree with impunity.
In Germany, the Elder is regarded with great respect. From its leaves
a febrifuge is made: from its berries a sort of sour preserve, and a
wonder-working electuary; the moon-shaped clusters of flowers are
narcotic, and are used in baking small cakes. The smell of the leaves
and blossoms has the reputation of causing giddiness, whence arises the
saying that “he who goes to sleep under an Elder-tree will never wake.”
The cross which is affixed to the rod on which the Easter Palms are
fastened is made of Elder-wood, as well as the cross which is carried
before the coffin in the funeral procession. Although essentially a
tree of shade and of death, yet it and the funeral cross just mentioned
are known by the name of “Livelong.” It is a favourite hiding-place for
children when playing at “hide-and-seek.” The pith of the branches,
when cut in round flat shapes, is dipped in oil, lighted, and then put
to float in a glass of water; its light on Christmas Eve is thought to
reveal to the owner all the witches and sorcerers in the neighbourhood.
Since this tree drives away spirits, it is often planted by the side
of manure sheds, keeping them damp by its shade, and also protecting
from evil influences the cattle in the adjoining shed. It is commonly
believed that he who injures an Elder-tree will suffer from its
vengeance. “Holderstock” (Elderstock) is a name of endearment given by
a lover to his beloved, and is derived from Hulda, the old goddess of
love.
In Lower Saxony, it was customary to ask permission of the Elder-tree
before cutting it, in the words, “Lady Elder, give me some of thy wood;
then will I also give thee some of mine when it grows in the forest.”
This was repeated three times, with folded hands and bended knees.
Pusch Kait, the ancient Prussian god of the earth, was supposed to live
under the Elder-tree.
In the Tyrol, an Elder-bush, trimmed into the form of a cross, is often
planted on the new-made grave; and if it blooms, it is a sign that
the soul of the dead person is in Paradise. The Tyroleans have such a
regard for the tree, that, in passing it, they always raise their hat.
In Bohemia, three spoonfuls of the water which has been used to bathe
an invalid are poured under an Elder, with “Elder, God sends me to
thee, that thou may’st take my fever upon thee.” This must be repeated
on three successive days, and if the patient has not meanwhile passed
over water, he will recover.----The Serbs introduce a stick of Elder,
to ensure good luck, during their wedding festivities.
In Savoy, branches of Elder are carried about on May-day. In Sicily, it
is thought a bough of Elder will kill serpents, and drive away robbers
better than any other stick. In Labruguière, France, if an animal is
ill, or has a wound infested by vermin, they lead it to the foot of an
Elder-tree, and twirling a bough in their hands, they bow to the tree,
and address it as follows:--“Good-day, Mons. Yèble; if you do not drive
away the vermin, I shall be compelled to cut both your limbs and your
trunk.” This ceremony performed, a certain cure is confidently looked
for. In the country districts round Valenciennes, if an Elder-bough is
hung outside the door, it is indicative of a coquette inhabiting the
house.
In England, the Elder has been regarded with superstition from very
early times, and is looked upon as a tree of bad omen. Branches of
Elder were formerly considered to be typical of disgrace and woe. In
the _Canones editi sub Edgaro Rege_ it is enacted that every priest
forbid the vain practices that are carried on with Elder-sticks, and
also with various other trees.
In Gloucestershire, and some other counties, the peasantry will on
no account burn Elder or Ellan-wood, the reason being, that it was
supposed to be one of the trees from which the wood of the Cross was
formed. In a rare tract on Gloucestershire superstitions, a figure
is given of an Elder-wood cross borne constantly about the person
as a cure for rheumatism. This cross consisted of a small piece cut
from a young shoot just above and below a joint, so as to leave the
bud projecting at each end of it, after the fashion of a rude cross.
To be efficient, the Elder must have grown in consecrated ground. In
Tortworth and other Gloucestershire churchyards are to be found such
trees, and applications for pieces of them are still made.
In Sussex, an Elder-stick, with three, four, or more knots upon it, is
carried in the pocket as a charm against rheumatism.
In the Eastern counties, the Elder is popularly considered to be the
tree of whose wood the Cross was made: it is therefore an unlucky tree,
and one that should never be bound up in faggots. On this account,
also, the Elder is considered safe from the effects of lightning. In
some parts there is a vulgar prejudice that if boys be beaten with an
Elder-stick, their growth is sure to be checked.
In Huntingdonshire, there exists the Danish belief in a being called
the Elder-mother, so that it is not always safe to pluck the flowers.
No household furniture should be made of Elder-wood, least of all a
cradle, for some evil will certainly befall the child sleeping in it.
The Elder-tree has been credited with possessing a peculiar fascination
for witches and elves, who love to lurk beneath the shadow of its
branches, and who are wont to bury their offspring at its foot. On the
other hand, the tree has been said to exercise a protective influence
against the attacks of witches and wizards, and similar evil-disposed
persons; and it has been suggested that this is the reason why the tree
is so often found in the neighbourhood of cottages. It was thought that
the tree was obnoxious to witches because their enemies use the green
juice of its inner bark for anointing the eyes. Any baptised person
whose eyes are touched with it can see what the witches are about in
any part of the world. It was possible by magic art to render witches
sensible of blows given to them with an Elder-stick, but this has to
be managed by someone versed in the habits of witches. A cross made of
the Elder, affixed to cow-houses and stables, was supposed to protect
cattle from all possible harm.
Shakspeare, in ‘Love’s Labour Lost,’ says “Judas was hanged on an
Elder,” and this belief was general among early writers, and is
constantly alluded to by authors of the Elizabethan period; but the
name Judas-tree was applied to the _Cercis siliquastrum_ (which is the
tree which still bears it), about the same period. Gerarde, indeed,
definitely tells us of the Cercis, “This is the tree whereon Judas did
hang himselfe, and not upon the Elder-tree, as is stated.” On the other
hand, that old Eastern traveller, Sir John Maundevile, tells us that
the very Elder-tree upon which Judas hanged himself was to be seen in
his day close to the Pool of Siloe; whilst the legend which connects
Judas with the Elder-tree is alluded to by Ben Jonson, and is thus
referred to in ‘Piers Plowman’:--
“Judas, he japed
With Jewen silver
And sithen on an Eller
Hanged hymselve.”
But not only is the ill-omened Elder credited with being connected with
the death of Judas, but there is a wide-spread belief that it was the
“accursed tree” on which the Redeemer’s life was given up; therefore,
although fuel may be scarce and these sticks plentiful, in some places
the superstitious poor will not burn them.----In Scotland, according
to a writer in the ‘Dublin Magazine,’ it is called the Bour-tree, and
the following rhyme is indicative of the belief entertained in that
country:--
“Bour-tree, Bour-tree, crooked rung,
Never straight and never strong,
Ever bush and never tree,
Since our Lord was nailed on thee.”
In Chambers’s ‘Book of Days’ is an instance of the belief that a
person is perfectly safe under the shelter of an Elder-tree during a
thunderstorm, as the lightning never strikes the tree of which the
Cross was made. Experience has taught that this is a fallacy, although
many curious exceptional instances are recorded. In Napier’s Folk-lore
of the Northern Counties we read of a peculiar custom:--the Elder is
planted in the form of a cross upon a newly-made grave, and if it
blooms they take it as a sure sign that the soul of the dead person is
happy.