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and Pulse, we are told, were sodden. The Romans offered Beans
to their goddess Carna on the occasion of her festival in the month
of June. The Lemures, or evil spirits of those who had lived bad
lives, according to a Roman superstition, were in the habit, during
the night-time, of approaching houses, and then throwing Beans
against them. The Romans celebrated festivals in their honour in
the month of May, when the people were accustomed to throw
black Beans on the graves of the deceased, or to burn them, as
the smell was supposed to be disagreeable to the manes. This
association of Beans with the dead is still preserved in some parts
of Italy, where, on the anniversary of a death, it is customary to
eat Beans and to distribute them to the poor. Black Beans were
considered to be male, and white female, the latter being the
inferior. -De Gubernatis relates several curious customs connected
with Beans. In Tuscany, the fire of St. John is lighted in
a Bean-field, so that it shall burn quickly. In Sicily, on Midsummer
Eve, Beans are eaten with some little ceremony, and the
good St. John is thanked for having obtained the blessings of a
bountiful harvest from God. At Módica, in Sicily, on October ist,
a maiden in love will sow two Beans in the same pot. The one
represents herself, the other the youth she loves. I f both Beans
shoot forth before the feast of St. Raphael, then marriage will
come to pass; hut if only one of the Beans sprouts, there will be
betrayal on the part of the other. In Sicily and Tuscany, girls who
desire a husband learn their fate by means of Beans, in this
fashion:—They put into a bag three Beans—one whole, another
without the eye, a third without the rind. Then, after shaking
them up, they draw one from the bag. The whole Bean signifies a
rich husband; the Bean without an eye signifies a sickly husband;
and the Bean without rind a husband without a penny. The
French have a legend, of one Pipette, who, like our Jack, reaches
the sky by means of a Bean-stalk. In France, some parts of Italy,
and Russia, on Twelfth Night, children eat a cake in which has
been baked a white Bean and a black Bean, The children to
whose lot fall the portions of cake containing the Beans become
the King and Queen of the evening. -An old English charm to
cure warts is to take the shell of a broad Bean, and rub the affecffed
part with the inside thereof; the shell is then to be buried, and no
one is to be told about the matter ; then, as the shell withers away,
so will the wart gradually disappear. It is a popular tradition that
during the fiowering of the Bean more cases of lunacy occur that
at any other season. In Leap Year, it is a common notion that
broad Beans grow the wrong way, i.e., the seed is set in the pods
in quite the contrary way to what it is in other years. The reason
given is that, because it is the ladies’ year, th© Beans always lie the
wrong way—in reference to the privilege possessed by the fair sex
of courting in Leap Year. There is a saying in Leicestershire, that
if you wish for awful dreams or desire to go crazy, you have only
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to sleep in a Bean-field all night. Beans are under the dominion
of Venus. To dream of them under any circumstances means
trouble of some kind.
B E D S T R A W .—Our L ad y ’s Bedstraw {Galium verum) filled
the manger on which the infant Jesus was laid. In a painting of
the Nativity by N. Poussin, this straw is introduced. From its
soft puffy stems and golden flowers, this grass was in bygone times
used for bedding, even by ladies of rank,—whence the expression of
their being “ in the straw.” Galium was formerly employed to
curdle the milk in cheese-making, and was also used before the
introdudlion of Annatto, to give a rich colour to Cheshire cheese.
The old herbalists affirmed that the root stirred up amorous desires,
if drunk in wine, and that the fiowers would produce the same
effecit if smelt long enough. Robert Turner says : “ It challenges
the preheminence above May wort, for preventing the sore weariness
of travellers : the decodtion of the herb and fiowers, used
warm, is excellent good to bath the surbated feet of footmen and
lackies in hot weather, and also to lissome and mollifie the stiffness
and weariness of their joynts and sinews.” In France, Galium is
considered to be a remedy in cases of epilepsy. L ad y ’s Bedstraw
is under the dominion of Venus.
B E E C H .—Vieing with the Ash in stateliness and grandeur
of outline, the Beech (Pagus) is worthily given by Rapin the second
place among trees.
Mixt with huge Oaks, as next in rank and state,
Their kindred Beech and Cerris claim a seat.”
According to Lucian, the oracles of Jupiter at Dodona were delivered
not only through the medium of the sacred Oaks in the
prophetic grove surrounding the temple, but also by Beeches
which grew there. A large part, if not the whole, of the Greek ship
Argo was built of Fagus, or Beech timber, and as certain beams in
the vessel gave oracles to the Argonauts, and warned them against
the approach of calamities, it is probable that some, at least, of
these prophetic beams were hewn from the Dodonaean Beeches.
It was from the top of two Beech-trees that Minerva and Apollo,
in the form of vultures, selected to watch the fight between the
Greeks and the Trojans. The conneiition of the tree with the
god Bacchus appears to have been confined to its employment in
the manufacture of bowls for wine in the happy time when “ No
wars did men molest, and only Beechen bowls were in request.”
Cowley alludes to this in the words—
“ He sings the Bacchus, patron of the Vine,
The Beechen bowl foams with a flood of wine.”
Virgil notices the use of its smooth and green bark for receiving inscriptions
from the “ sylvan pen of lovers ;” and Ovid, in his epistle
from CEnone to Paris, refers to the same custom, gracefully noting
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