FERN-SEED AND ST. JOHN'S-WORT SUPERSTITIONS.
I had
No medicine, sir, to go invisible,
No fern-seed in my pocket.
_Ben Jonson._
Most peoples have, in some form or other, preserved the traditionary
superstition that fern-seed was miraculously endowed with the power of
rendering its possessor invisible. The great hero of our boyish days,
the redoubtable "Jack, the Giant-killer," had his "coat of darkness,"
which conferred upon its proprietor this marvellous peculiarity. In the
classical mythology, the helmet given to Hades or Pluto likewise
possessed the power of rendering the wearer invisible. In the Teutonic,
the "invisible cap" of the Nibelungenlied possessed a similar property.
Shakspere makes Gadshill allude to it in a metaphorical sense. He is
anxious to impress upon the mind of the chamberlain of the hostelry,
near the scene of Falstaff's famous robbing exploit, that although he
was engaged in an illegal enterprise, he was in league with companions
of such high social status that the officers of the law would be unable
to perceive their criminality if detected. He says:--"We steal as in a
castle, cock-sure; we have the receipt of fern-seed, we walk invisible."
Beaumont and Fletcher, in the "Fair Maid of the Inn," have the following
reference to this superstition:--
Had you not Gyges' ring?
Or the herb that gives invisibility?
In a curious tract, published in the reign of Elizabeth, entitled
"Plaine Percevall, the Peacemaker," the following passage occurs:--"I
thinke the mad slave hath tasted on a fernstalke, that he walkes so
invisible."
Fairies, of course, possessed the power of rendering themselves
visible, or otherwise, at pleasure. Oberon, in A Midsummer Night's
Dream, says:--
But who comes here?
I am invisible, and I will
Overhear their conference.
Spirits of any class, of course, possessed this power, and its
complement, that of being visible, at pleasure. Prospero, in the
Tempest, says to Ariel:--
Go make thyself like to a nymph o' the sea;
Be subject to no sight but mine; invisible
To every eyeball else.
All ferns, according to German authorities, and especially the "seed"
thereof, possessed the quality usually described as "luck bringing."
According to Panzer, the devil was compelled to fulfil the wish of any
person in possession of the seed of this plant; and Meier tells us that
in Swabia the peasants believe that the possession of this seed,
obtained from his Satanic majesty between the hours of eleven and twelve
o'clock on Christmas night, will enable one man to do the work of twenty
or thirty others not so favoured. Browne, in his "Britannia's
Pastorals," speaks of "the wonderous one night seeding ferne;" and
Richard Bivot, in his "Pandæmonium," published in 1648, quaintly informs
us that "much discourse hath been about gathering of fern seed (which is
looked upon as a magical herb) on the night of Midsummer-eve; and I
remember I was told of one who went to gather it, and the spirits
whisk't by his ears like bullets, and sometimes struck his hat and other
parts of his body; in fine, although he apprehended he had gotten a
quantity of it, and secured it in papers, and a box besides, when he
came home he found all empty."
Kelly says,--"The summer solstice is a favourite season for gathering
plants of the lightning tribe, and particularly the springwort and fern.
It is believed in the Oberpfalz that the springwort, or St. John's-wort
(johanniswurzel) as some call it, can only be found among the fern on
St. John's night. It is said to be of a yellow colour, and to shine in
the night like a candle; which is just what is said of the mandrake in
an Anglo-Saxon manuscript of the tenth or eleventh century. Moreover, it
never stands still, but hops about continually, to avoid the grasp of
men. Here, then, in the luminosity and power of nimble movement
attributed to the springwort, we have another remarkable tradition
signifying the transformation of the lightning into the plant."
The following translation from a German poem, beautifully illustrates
the Teutonic form of this superstition:--
The young maid stole through the cottage door,
And blushed as she sought the plant of power.
"Thou silver glow-worm, O lend me thy light,
I must gather the mystic St. John's-wort to-night;
The wonderful herb whose leaf will decide
If the coming year shall make me a bride!"
And the glow-worm came
With his silvery flame,
And sparkled and shone
Through the night of St. John.
And soon as the young maid her love-knot tied
With noiseless tread
To her chamber she sped,
Where the spectral moon her white beams shed,
"Bloom here, bloom here, thou plant of power,
To deck the young bride in her bridal hour!"
But it drooped its head, that plant of power,
And died the mute death of a voiceless flower;
And a withered leaf on the ground it lay,
More meet for a burial than a bridal day.
And when a year was passed away,
All pale on her bier the young maid lay!
And the glow-worm came
With its silvery flame,
And sparkled and shone
Through the night of St. John;
And they closed the cold grave o'er the maid's cold clay.
Vernaleken says the Slavocks believe that any person approaching too
near to the fern, at the time of its "efflorescence," will be overcome
by drowsiness, and that beings of a supernatural character will
successfully resist any attempt to lay hands on the plant. Bivot has a
statement to a somewhat similar effect.
A remarkable story respecting the magical quality of fern seed is
related by Jacob Grimm, in his "Deutsche Mythologie." It is said to be a
popular one with the people of Westphalia. A man, in search of a foal,
passed through a meadow on Midsummer's Eve, when some ripening fern seed
fell into his shoes. He did not return home until the following morning,
when he was astonished to find that his wife and children appeared
utterly unconscious of his presence. When he called out to them, "I have
not found the foal," the greatest alarm and confusion followed, for the
members of his household could hear his voice but failed to detect his
person. Fancying he was hiding in jest, his wife called out his name. He
answered, "Here I am right before you. Why do you call me?" This but
increased their terror. The man perceiving that he was, to them
invisible, thought it not improbable that something in his shoes, which
felt like sand, might really prove to be fern seed. He accordingly
pulled them off, and as he scattered the grains on the floor resumed his
visibility to the eyes of his astounded family.
In an ancient "Calendar of the Romish Church," the 23rd June, the vigil
of the nativity of John the Baptist, is stated to be prolific in
supernatural phenomena. Amongst others we are informed that "waters are
swum in during the night, and are brought in vessels that hang for the
purposes of divination;" that "fern is in great estimation with the
vulgar, on account of its seed." We are further informed that "herbs of
different kinds are sought with many ceremonies." Monsieur Bergerac, in
his "Satyrical Characters," translated "out of the French, by a Person
of Honour," in 1658, makes a magician of the period enumerate amongst
his many powers and duties the "wakening of the country fellow on St.
John's eve to gather his hearb, fasting and in silence." Brand says that
"a respectable countryman, at Heston, in Middlesex," had stated to him
that he had often been "present at the ceremony of catching the fern
seed at midnight on the eve of St. John the Baptist. The attempt, he
said, was often unsuccessful, for the seed was to fall into the plate of
its own accord, and that, too, without shaking the plant."
Referring to our Lancashire superstitions Mr. T. T. Wilkinson
says:--"Fern seed is still said to be gathered on the Holy Bible, and is
believed to be able to render those invisible who will dare to take it;
and herbs for the use of man and beasts are still collected when their
proper planets are ruling in the heavens."
Ceremonies on St. John's Eve are likewise regarded as very potent in
matters matrimonial. Bivot describes a party of fair ladies who
say,--"We have been told divers times that if we fasted on Midsummer
Eve, and then at twelve o'clock at night laid a cloth on the table, with
bread and cheese, and a cup of the best beer, setting ourselves down as
if we were going to eat, and leaving the door of the room open, we
should see the persons whom we should afterwards marry, come into the
room and drink to us."
The belief in the power of fern seed in the domain over which Cupid is
said to preside, still lingers in various parts of Lancashire. The best
story of this class that I have met with, is related by Samuel Bamford,
in his "Passages in the Life of a Radical." One Bangle, a Lancashire
youth, "of ardent temperament but bashful withal," had become enamoured
of the daughter of a neighbouring farmer.
"His modest approaches had not been noticed by the adored one; and, as
she had danced with another youth at Bury fair, he imagined she was
irrecoverably lost to him, and the persuasion had driven him melancholy.
Doctors had been applied to, but he was no better; philters and charms
had been tried to bring down the cold-hearted maid, but all in vain....
At length sorcerers and fortune-tellers were thought of, and 'Limping
Billy,' a noted seer, residing at Radcliffe Bridge, having been
consulted, said the lad had no chance of gaining power over the damsel,
unless he could take St. John's fern seed; and if he could but secure
three grains of that, he might bring to him whatever he wished, that
walked, flew, or swam."
Two friends, Plant, a country botanist, and Chirrup, a bird catcher,
agreed to accompany Bangle in his expedition in search of the potent
fern seed. Plant said he knew where the finest specimens of the herb
grew, and led the way to the "Boggart Ho' Clough," referred to in the
preceding chapter. The three worthies assembled on the Eve of St. John,
at midnight, in this then thickly wooded glen. As a part of the
necessary cabalistic implements, Plant brought an earthen dish, "brown
and roof" [rough], Chirrup a pewter platter, which he regarded as "breet
enough" for their purpose; Bangle's contribution, which he described as
"teed wi' web an' woof," and "deep enough," was "a musty dun skull, with
the cap sawn off above the eyes, and left flapping like a lid by a piece
of tanned scalp, which still adhered. The interior cavities had also
been stuffed with moss and lined with clay, kneaded with blood from
human veins, and the youth had secured the skull to his shoulders by a
twine of three strands made of unbleached flax, of undyed wool, and of
woman's hair, from which also depended a raven black tress, which a wily
crone had procured from the maid he sought to obtain.... A silence, like
that of death, was around them, as they entered the open platting.
Nothing moved either in tree or brake. Through a space in the foliage
the stars were seen pale in heaven, and a crooked moon hung in a bit of
blue, amid motionless clouds. All was still and breathless as if earth,
heaven, and the elements were aghast.... Gasping, and with cold sweat
oozing on his brow, Plant recollected that they were to shake the fern
with a forked rod of witch hazel, and by no means must touch it with
their hands.... Plant drew his knife, and stepping into a moonlighted
bush, soon returned with what was wanted, and then went forward. The
green knowe [knoll], the old oaks, the encircled space, and the fern
were now approached; the latter stiff and erect in a gleamy light....
Plant knelt on one knee, and held his dish under the fern. Chirrup held
his broad plate next below, and Bangle knelt and rested the skull
directly under both on the green sod, the lid being up. Plant said:--
Good St. John, this seed we crave,
We have dared; shall we have?
"A voice responded--
Now the moon is downward starting,
Moon and stars are now departing;
Quick, quick; shake, shake;
He whose heart shall soonest break,
Let him take.
"They looked, and perceived by a glame that a venerable form, in a loose
robe, was near them.
"Darkness came down like a swoop. The fern was shaken; the upper dish
flew into pieces; the pewter one melted; the skull emitted a cry, and
eyes glared in its sockets; lights broke; beautiful children were seen
walking in their holiday clothes, and graceful female forms sung
mournful and enchanting airs. The men stood terrified and fascinated;
and Bangle, gazing, bade 'God bless 'em.' A crash followed as if all the
timber in the kloof was being splintered and torn up; strange and horrid
forms appeared from the thickets; the men ran as if sped on the wind.
They separated and lost each other."
Plant lay unconscious at home for three days, and "Chirrup was found on
the White Moss, raving mad and chasing the wild birds; as for poor
Bangle, he found his way home over hedge and ditch, running with
supernatural and fearful speed--the skull's eyes glaring at his back,
and the nether jaw grinning and jabbering frightful and unintelligible
sounds. He had preserved the seed, however, and, having taken it from
the skull, he buried the latter at the cross road from whence he had
taken it. He then carried the spell out, and his proud love stood one
night by his bedside in tears. But he had done too much for human
nature--in three months after she followed his corpse, a real mourner,
to the grave."
Kelly gives several illustrations of the varied forms in which the
superstitions respecting this "lightning plant" are presented in other
countries, which throw additional light upon some of the incidents in
Bamford's story. He says:--"Besides the powers already mentioned, fern
has others which distinctly mark its affinity with thunder and
lightning. 'In places where it grows the devil rarely practises his
glamour. He shuns and abhors the house and the place where it is, and
thunder, lightning and hail rarely fall there.'[28] This is in apparent
contradiction with the Polish superstition, according to which the
plucking of fern produces a violent thunderstorm; but it is a natural
superstition, that the hitherto rooted and transformed thunderbolt
resumes its pristine nature, when the plant that contained it is taken
from the ground. In the Thuringian forest fern is called _irrkracet_, or
bewildering weed (from _irren_, to err, go astray), because whoever
treads on it unawares loses his wits, and knows not where he is. In
fact, he is in that condition of mind which we English call
'thunderstruck,' and which Germans, Romans, and Greeks have agreed in
denoting by exactly corresponding terms. He has been crazed by a shock
from the lightning with which the fern is charged like a Leyden jar.
Instances of a similar phenomenon occur in the legends of India and
Greece."
The forms of beauty, referred to by Bamford as appearing amongst the
uncouth and "jabbering" sprites on this momentous occasion, are
suggestive of the legend of the "bright-day god" Baldr. Longfellow
says,--"Now the glad, leafy Midsummer, full of blossoms and songs of
nightingales is come! Saint John has taken the flowers and festival of
heathen Balder." It appears that Freyja, in exacting an oath from all
created things never to harm this "whitest and most beloved of the
gods," inadvertently overlooked one of the lightning plants. It was an
arrow formed from the branch of the mistletoe, flung by the hand of the
blind Hodr or Helder, with which Baldr was struck dead. Baldr, says the
legend, was buried in the true Scandinavian fashion. His body was placed
by the Æsir on a funeral pyre, raised on the deck of a ship, and whilst
the former was in flames the latter was floated seaward. The "St.
John's-wort" seems to have superseded the mistletoe in the modern
tradition. As both were "lightning plants," this however is not
specially remarkable.
Ferns belong to the class _Cryptogamia_, or non-flowering plants. They
produce no seed, in a true sense, but fructify by means of the sporules,
or spores, deposited in _thecæ_, on the under side of the fronds. It was
formerly believed that they did produce seed, and old botanists describe
it as "too minute and obscure" to be readily detected. Singularly
enough, the St. John's-wort (Hypericum), of which there are several
species found in Lancashire, is generally confounded in these traditions
with the _Osmunda Regalis_, or royal fern, or, as it is sometimes
improperly styled, the "_flowering_ fern," which, of course, is an
absurdity, as expressing neither more nor less than the flowering
non-flowering plant! The name is said to be of Saxon origin, Osmunda
being one of the appellations of Thor, who, as we have previously seen,
was the "consecrator of marriage." The sporules are very numerous and
minute. The common St. John's-wort (_Hypericum Vulgare._ Lin.) bears a
yellow flower, and produces, of course, regular seeds. Hill, in his
"British Herbal," published in 1756, says, "A tincture of the flower
made strong in white wine is recommended greatly by some against
melancholy; but of these qualities we speak with less certainty, though
they deserve a fair trial."
Mr. John Ingram, in his "Flora Symbolica," says,--"Vervain, or wild
verbena, has been the floral symbol of enchantment from time
immemorial."
Ben Jonson says:--
Bring your garlands, and with reverence place
The vervain on the altar.
Mr. Ingram adds,--"In some country districts this small insignificant
flower still retains a portion of its old renown, and old folks tie it
round the neck to charm away the ague; with many it still has the
reputation of securing affection from those who take it to those who
administer it; and still in some parts of France do the peasantry
continue to gather the vervain, with ceremonies and words known only to
themselves; and to express its juices under certain phases of the moon.
At once the doctors and conjurors of their village, they alternately
cure the complaints of their masters or fill them with dread; for the
same means which relieve their ailments enable them to cast a spell on
their cattle and on the hearts of their daughters. They insist that this
power is given to them by vervain, especially when the damsels are young
and handsome. The vervain is still the plant of spells and enchantments,
as it was amongst the ancients."
A superstitious feeling yet prevails that the burning of fern attracts
rain. A copy of a royal proclamation is preserved in the British Museum,
enjoining the country people not to burn the fern on the waysides during
a "royal progress" of the merry monarch, Charles II.
The confusion which exists in the minds of the vulgar respecting two
very distinct classes of these plants, all, however, of lightning origin
in the Aryan mythology, is thus commented upon by Kelly:--"It is also a
highly significant fact that the marvellous root (St. John's-wort) is
said to be connected with fern; for the johnsroot or john's hand is the
root of a species of fern (_Polypodium Filix mas._ Lin.), which is
applied to many superstitious uses. The fern has large pinnate fronds,
and is thus related to the mountain ash and the mimosæ. In fact, says
Kuhn, it were hardly possible to find in our climate a plant which more
accurately corresponds in its whole appearance to the original
signification of the Sanscrit name parna as leaf and feather. Nor does
the relationship between them end here, for fern, Anglo-Saxon _fearn_,
Old German _faram_, _farn_, and Sanscrit _parna_, are one and the same
word. It is also worthy of note that whereas one of the German names of
the rowan means boarash (eberesche), so also there is a fern
(_Polypodium Filix arboratica_) which is called in Anglo-Saxon
_eoferfarn_, _eferfarn_, that is boar-fern. In all the Indo-European
mythologies the boar is an animal connected with storm and lightning."
Mr. Edwin Waugh, in his "Sketches of Lancashire Life and Localities,"
mentions a curious fact relative to this famous "Boggart Ho' Clough,"
which is not without its significance. He says he was informed that a
lawyer, anxious to describe the locality in a legal document, had found,
on referring to some old title deeds, that a "family of the name of
'Bowker' had formerly occupied a residence situate in or near the
clough; and that their dwelling was designated 'Bowker's Hall.'" The
lawyer very naturally adopted this as the true origin of the name. Yet
Mr. Waugh informs us that the "testimony of every writer who notices the
spot, especially those best acquainted with it, inclines to the other
derivation."
Feeling some curiosity as to the true origin of this bit of local
nomenclature, I some time ago visited the place, in company with Mr.
Waugh. While we were resting at the farm-house at the head of the
clough, I asked a buxom maid if she had ever seen a boggart in the
neighbourhood. She candidly confessed that she had not. On my pressing
her hard as to whether she knew any one who had been more fortunate, or
unfortunate, as the case might be, she said firmly, after a slight
scrutiny of my countenance and figure--"Yes; Sam Bamford has!" I put
similar questions about an hour afterwards to the maid at the "Bell"
public-house, in Moston Lane, which, to my surprise, elicited exactly
similar responses. I pressed this girl still further on the subject; and
at length she frankly said,--"I don't think any body, as I know, has sin
a boggart i'th clough except Bamford, 'bout it be Edwin Waugh. Ye've
heard of him, no doubt!" The girl was astounded on my informing her that
Mr. Waugh was present; and still more so when she witnessed the
amusement which his supposed interview with the redoubtable boggart
created amongst the party.
That there have existed traditions of boggarts, ghosts, &c., in the
neighbourhood, as in other places, from time immemorial, cannot admit of
a doubt; but I nevertheless suspect that the corruption referred to by
Mr. Waugh has fixed the precise locality of, at least, one of the
stories to which I have referred. Once call a place "Boggart Ho'
Clough," and especially such a place, and I can easily imagine, in a
very short time, that many of the floating traditions of the
neighbourhood would fasten themselves upon it. This being afterwards
rendered more definite by the action of literary exponents of
traditionary lore, is quite sufficient to explain the whole of the
phenomena pertaining to the question in dispute. It must not be
forgotten, either, that by the vernacular appellation the clough is not
necessarily supposed to be haunted, but the "_hall_" merely, which stood
in it, or somewhere in its neighbourhood.
On the line of the Roman Wall, to the north of Haltwhistle, Dr.
Collingwood Bruce speaks of "a gap of bold proportions having the
ominous name of Boglehole." Doubtless many other localities could be
pointed out where a nomenclature of a similar kind obtains, and is still
believed in by many not necessarily otherwise uneducated people.
FOOTNOTES:
[28] Jacob Grimm.