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rocks almost barren; and he describes, in his ‘ Iron Age,’ the step-
dame occupied in preparing a deadly potion of this plant
“ Lurida terribiles miscent Acanita novercce."
In Greece, the Wolfs Bane is credited with many malignant in-
niiences, and the fevers so common in the neighbourhood of
Corinth were attributed to it. Until the Turks were dispossessed,
the Aga proceeded every year in solemn procession to denounce it
and hand it oyer to destruction. In North India, a species,
Acomtum ferox, is used as a poison for arrows—the poison which is
obtam/d from the roots being of remarkable virulence and activity
when infused into the blood.
^ MOON D A I S Y . The Chrysanthemum Leucanthemum, a large
Daisy-hke flower, resembles the pictures of a full moon, and on this
account has acquired the name of Moon Daisy. From its use
in uterine diseases, this plant was dedicated by the ancients to
Artemis, goddess of the Moon, Juno Lucina, and Eileithuia, a deity
who had special charge over the functions of women—an office
afterwards assigned by the Romish Church to St. Mary Ma^rdalene
and St. Margaret. Hence, in the Middle Ages, the Moon Daisy
became known as Maudelyne or Maudlin-wort. The plant is
also called the Qx-eye and Midsummer Daisy; and in France, this
flower, known as the Paquerette, is employed, like the Bluet, as a
divmmg-flower, to discover the state of a lover’s affections____
The Midsummer Daisy is dedicated to St. John the Baptist.
M O O NW O R T . The Fern Botrychium Lunaria has derived
Its name of Moonwort from the crescent shape of the segments
of its frond. Perhaps it is this lunar form which has caused it to
be so highly esteemed for its supposed magical properties. The
old alchymists professed to be able, by means of the Moonwort,
which they called Lunaria minor, or Lesser Lunary, to extract sterlintx
silver from Mercury. B y wizards and professors of necromancy no
plant was held m greater repute, and its potency is attested by
many old writers. Gerarde refers to the use made by the alchymists
OI this Fern in those mystic compounds over which they pored
night and day, and he also states that it was a plant prized by
witches,^ who called it Martagón. In Ben Jonson’s ‘ Masque of
Queens, a witch says to her companions :__
“ And I ha’ been plucking plants among
Hemlock, Henbane, Aclder’s-tongue;
Nightshade, Moonwort, Libbard’s-bane,
And twice by the dogs was like to be ta’en,”
Cole/referring to the mystical characiter of the Moonwort, observes:
“ It IS said, yea, and believed by many, that Moonwort will open
the locks, letters, and shoes from those horses’ feet that o-oe on
the places where it groweth; and of this opinion was Master
Culpeper, who; though he railed against superstition in others, yet
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had enough of it himselfe.” Du Bartas, in his ‘ Divine Weekes,’
thus refers to this superstition—
“ Horses that, feeding on the grassie hills,
Tread upon Moonwort with their hollow heels,
Though lately shod, at night goe barefoot home,
Their maister musing where their shooes become.
O Moonwort! tell us where thou hidst the smith.
Hammer and pincers, thou unshodd’st them with.
Alas 1 what lock or iron engine is’t
That can thy subtill secret strength resist,
Sith the best farrier cannot set a shoe
So sure, but thou (so shortly) canst undo ? ”
Culpeper tell us that the Moonwort was a herb which, in his days,
was popularly believed to open locks and unshoe horses that trod
on it. “ This,” he adds, “ some laugh to scorn, and those no small
fools neither, but country people that I know call it Unshoe-the-
Horse. Besides, I have heard commanders say that on White
Down, in Devonshire, near Tiverton, there were found thirty horseshoes,
pulled off from the Earl of E sse x ’s horses, being there drawn
up in a body, many of them being newly shod, and no reason
known, which caused much admiration ; and the herb described
usually grows upon the heaths.” In Virginia, the Botrychium
Lunaria is called the Rattle-snake Fern, because that reptile shelters
itself beneath its fronds.
M O S S .—The Sifjar haddr, or Hair Moss (Polytrichum commune),
which supplies the Lapp with bedding, is dedicated to Sif, the wife of
Thor. The Supercilium Veneris is Frey ja ’s hair. The good fairies
called by the Germans Moosweibchen are represented as being entirely
covered with Moss. They live in the hollows of forest trees, or on
the soft Moss itself. These beneficent fairies of the forest spin
soft Moss of various kinds, which they weave into beautiful fabrics,
and, according to their custom, occasionally make handsome presents
to their protégés. There is a legend that Oswald, King of
Northumbria, erected a certain cross, which, after his decease,
acquired miraculous properties. One day, a man who was walking
across the ice towards this venerated cross, suddenly fell and broke
his arm ; a friend who was accompanying him, in dire distress at
the mishap, hurried to the cross, and plucked from it some Moss,
which was growing on the surface. Then, hastening back to his
friend, he placed the Moss in his breast, when the pain miraculously
ceased, and the broken arm became set, and was soon restored to use.
The Bryum Moss, which grows all over the walls of Jerusalem,
is supposed to be the plant referred to by Solomon as “ the Hyssop
that groweth out of the wall.” According to tradition, headache
is to be removed by means of snuff made from the Moss which
grows on a human skull in a churchyard ; and Gerarde says that
this Moss is “ a singular remedie against the falling evill and the
chin-cough in children, if it be powdered, and then given in sweet
wine for certain daies together. Robert Turner tells us of this
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