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that the name of the fair one would grow and spread with the
growth of the tree :—
“ The Beeches, faithful guardians of your flame,
Bear on their wounded trunks GEnone’s name.
And as their trunks, so still the letters g row ;
Spread on, and fair aloft my titles show.”
According to a French tradition, a blacksmith, who was one day-
beating a bar of red-hot iron on his anvil, raised such a shower of
sparks, that some of them reached the eyes of God himself, who
forthwith, in His wrath, condemned the man to become a bear,
with the condition that he might climb at his pleasure all the trees
excepting the Beech. Changed into a bear, the man was for ever
afterwards cogitating how to uproot the tree. In this legend, the
Beech, which is generally considered a tree of good augury, becomes
a specially favoured or privileged tree. Pliny wrote that it
should not be cut for fuel. Gerarde says of i t : “ The wood is hard
and firme, which being brought into the house there follows hare
travail of child and miserable deaths, as it is reported ; and therefore
it is to be forborne, and not used as fire wood.” The Beech-
tree is believed to be exempt from the action of lightning, and it
is well known that Indians will seek its shelter during a thunderstorm.
It is the Danish symbol. Astrologers rule the Beech to
be under the dominion of Saturn.
B E L IN U N C IA .—Under the appellationof Ked,orCeridwen,
the Druids worshipped the Moon, who was believed to exercise a
peculiar infiuence on storms, diseases, and certain plants. They
consecrated a herb to her, called Belinuncia, in the poisonous sap of
which they dipped their arrows, to render them as deadly as those
malignant rays of the Moon which were deemed to shed both
death and madness upon men.
B E L - T R E E .—The .¿Egle Marmelos, Bilva (Sanscrit), or Bel-
tree, is held sacred in India. Belonging to the same natural order
as the Orange, its leaves, which are divided into three separate
leafiets, are dedicated to the Hindu Trinity, and Indians are accustomed
to carry one of them folded in the turban or sash, in order
to propitiate Siva, and ensure safety from accidents. The wood
is used to form the sacrificial pillars. The Hindu women of the
Punjab throw fiowers into a sacred river, by means of which they
can foretell whether or not they are to survive their husbands: but
a much more ingenious rite is pradtised by the Newars of Nepaul.
To obviate the terrible hardships to a young Hindu girl of
becoming a widow, she is, in the first instance, married to a Bel-
fruit, which is then cast into a sacred river. Should her future
husband prove distasteful to her, this rite enables her to obtain a
divorce; and should the husband die, she can still claim the title of
wife to the sacred Bel-fruit, which is immortal; so that she is
always a wife and never a widow.
ii
A
B e l l -f l o w e r .—See Blue-bell, and Campanula.
B E T E L .—According to Indian traditions, the Betel was
brought from heaven by Arjuna, who, during his journey to
Paradise, stole a little bough of the sacred tree, which, upon his
return to earth, he carefully planted. In remembrance of this
celestial origin of the tree, and of the manner of its introduction to
earth, Indians who desire to plant the Betel invariably steal a
few young shoots. The Betel, or Pepper-tree {Piper hetle), is
most highly esteemed by the Indian races, who attribute to its
leaves no less than thirty properties or virtues, the possession of
which, even by a plant of heavenly origin, can scarcely be credited.
It is the leaf of the Betel which serves to enclose a few slices of
the Areca Nut (sometimes erroneously called the Betel Nut); and
these, together with a little Chunam or shell-lime, are what the
natives universally chew to sweeten the breath and strengthen the
stomach. The poor, indeed, employ it to keep off the pangs of
hunger. In certain parts of the East, it is not considered polite
to speak to a superior without some of the Betel and Areca compound
in the mouth. At Indian marriage ceremonies, the bride
and bridegroom exchange between themselves the same Areca
Nut, with its accompanying Betel-leaf, In Borneo, a favoured
lover may enter the house of the loved one’s parents, at night, and
awaken her, to sit and eat Betel Nut and the finest of Sirih-leaves
from his garden.
B E T O N Y .—The ‘ Medicinal Betony,’ as Clare calls it, is
Betonica officinalis, and of all the simples praised by old herbalists,
both English and foreign, none (the Vervain excepted) was awarded
a higher place than Wood Betony. Turner, in his ‘ Brittish
Physician ’ (1687), writes :—“ It would seem a miracle to tell what
experience I have had of it. This herb is hot and dry, almost to
the second degree, a plant of Jupiter in Aries, and is appropriated
to the head and eyes, for the infirmities whereof it is excellent, as
also for the breast and lungs ; being boiled in milk, and drunk, it
takes away pains in the head and eyes. Prohatum. Some write it
will cure those that are possessed with devils, or frantic, being
stamped and applied to the forehead.” He gives a list of between
twenty or thirty complaints which Betony will cure, and then says,
“ I shall conclude with the words 1 found in an old manuscript
under the virtues of i t : ‘ More than all this have been proved of
Betony.’ ” Gerarde gives a similar list, and adds, that Betony is
“ a remedy against the bitings of mad dogs and venomous serpents,
being drunk, and also applied to the hurts, and is most singular
against poyson.” There is an old saying that, when a person is ill,
he should sell his coat, and buy Betony. The Romans were well
acquainted with the medicinal properties of this herb. Pliny wrote
of the marvellous results obtained from its use, and also affirmed
that serpents would kill one another if surrounded by a ring com