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in many mediæval legends, wherein trees are represented as bending
their boughs and offering their fruits to the Virgin and her Divine
Infant. So, again, during the flight of the Holy Family into Egypt,
trees are said to have opened and concealed the fugitives from
Herod’s brutal soldiery. Certain trees (notably the Aspen) are
reputed to have been accursed and to have shuddered and trembled
ever after on account of their conneétion with the tragedy of
Calvary ; while others are said to have undergone a similar doom
because they were attainted by the suicide of the traitor Judas
Iscariot.
Seeing that the reverence and worship paid to trees by the
ignorant and superstitious people was an institution impossible to
uproot, the early Christian Church sought to turn it to account,
and therefore consecrated old and venerated trees, built shrines
beneath their shade, or placed on their trunks crucifixes and
images of the Blessed Virgin. Legends connedling trees with holy
personages, miracles, and sacred subjeas were, in after years, freely
disseminated; one of the most remarkable being the marvellous
history of the Tree of Adam, in which it is sought to connea the
Tree of Paradise with the Tree of Calvary. Evelyn summarises
this misty tradition in the following sentence :—“ Trees and woods
have twice saved the whole world ; first, by the Ark, then by the
Cross ; making full amends for the evil fruit of the tree in Paradise
by that which was borne on the tree in Golgotha.” In course of
time the flowers and plants which the ancients had dedicated to
their pagan deities were transferred by the Christian Church to
the shrines of the Virgin and sainted personages ; this is especially
noticeable in the plants formerly dedicated to Venus and Freyja,
which, as being the choicest as well as the most popular, became,
in honour of the Virgin Mary, Our L ad y ’s plants. Vast numbers
of flowers were in course of time appropriated by the Church,
and consecrated to her saints and martyrs—the selecition being
governed generally by the fadt that the flower bloomed on or
about the day on which the Church celebrated the saint’s feast.
These appropriations enabled the Roman Catholics to compile a
complete calendar of flowers for every day in the year, in which
each flower is dedicated to a particular saint.
But if the most beautiful flowers and plants were taken under
the protedlion of the Church, and dedicated to the memory of her
holiest and most venerated members, so, also, certain trees, plants,
and flowers—which, either on account of their noxious properties,
or because of some legendary associations, were under a ban—
became relegated to the service of the Devil and his minions..
Hence we find a large group of plants associated with enchanters,
sorcerers, wizards, and witches, many of which betray in their
nomenclature their Satanic association, and are, even at the present
day, regarded suspiciously as ill-omened and unlucky. These
are the plants which, in the dark days of witchcraft and superstition,
were invested with mysterious and magical properties,—the
herbs which were employed by hags and witches in their heathenish •
incantations, and from which they brewed their potions and hell-
broths. Thus Ben Jonson, in his fragment, ‘ The Sad Shepherd,’
makes one of his characters say, when speaking of a witch:—
He knows her shifts and haunts,
And all her wiles and turns. The venom’d plants
Wherewith she kills ! where the sad Mandrake grows,
Whose groans are dreadful ! the dead-numming Nightshade !
The stupefying Hemlock ! Adder's-tongue !
And Martagan ! ”
The association of plants with magic, sorcery, and the black
art dates from remote times. The blind Norse god Hodr slew
Baldr with a twig of Mistletoe. In the battles recorded in the
Vedas as being fought by the gods and the demons, the latter
employ poisonous and magical herbs which the gods counteract
with counter-poisons and health-giving plants. Hermes presented,
to Ulysses the magical Moly wherewith to nullify the effeCts of
the potions and spells of the enchantress Circe, who was well
acquainted with all sorts of magical herbs. The Druids professed
to know the secrets of many magical plants which they gathered
with mysterious and occult rites. The Vervain, Selago, Mistletoe,
Oak, and Rowan were all said by these ancient priests and lawgivers
to be possessed of supernatural properties ; and remnants
of the old belief in their magical powers are still extant.
In works on the subjeCl of plant lore hitherto published in
England, scarcely any reference has been made to the labours in