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Pennant remarks that the Scotch farmers carefully preserve their
cattle against witchcraft by placing branches of Honeysuckle and
Mountain Ash in the cowhouses on the 2nd of M a y ; the milkmaids
of Westmoreland often carry in their hands or attached to their
milking-pails a branch of the Rowan-tree, from a similar superstitious
belief; the dairymaids of Lancashire prefer a churn-
staff of Rowan-wood to that of any other tree, as it saves the
butter from evil influences; and in the North of England a branch
o f “ Wiggin” (Mountain Ash) is frequently hung up in stables, it
being deemed a most efficacious charm against witchcraft. Formerly,
in some parts of the country, it was considered that a branch or
twig held up in the presence of a witch was sufficient to render her
deadliest wishes of no avail. In an ancient song, called the
“ Laidly Worm of Spindlestone Heughs ” is an allusion to this
power of the Rowan-tree over witches
“ Their spells were vain; the hags return’d
To the queen in sorrowful mood.
Crying that witches have no power
Where there is Roan-tree wood.”
In Cornwall, the Mountain Ash is called “ Care,” and if there is a
suspicion of a cow being bewitched or subjected to the E v il Eye,
the herdsmen will suspend a branch over her stall, or twine it round
her horns. Evelyn says that the Mountain Ash was reputed to be a
preservative against fascination and evil spirits, “ whence, perhaps,
we call it ‘ Witchen; ’ the boughs being stuck about the door or
used for walking-staves.” In Wales, this tree was considered so
sacred in his time, that there was not, he tells us, a churchyard
without one of them planted in it. At the present_ time, m
Montgomeryshire, it is customary to rest the corpse on its way to
the churchyard under a Mountain Ash, as that tree is credited with
having furnished the wood of the Cross. In olden times, collars
of the wood of the Rowan-tree were put upon the necks of cattle,
in order to protect them from spells or witchcraft. In many parts
of England, it was formerly the custom in cases of the death of
animals supposed to be bewitched, to take out the heart of one of
the viaims, stick it over with pins, and burn it to a cinder over a
fire composed of the wood of a Rowan-tree, which, as we have seen,
has always been considered a terror and dread to witches.
“ Black luggie, lammer bead,
Rowan-tree and red thread.
Put the witches to their speed.”
A witch touched with a branch of this sacred tree by a christened
man was deemed doomed to be the victim carried off by the
Devil, when he next came to claim his tribute.- Like the
Hazel, Thorn, and Mistletoe, it was deerned, according to Aryan
tradition, to be an embodiment of the lightning, frorn which it
sprang, and was, moreover, thought to possess the magical power
of discovering hidden treasure. In the days of the Fenians,
according to the Gaelic legend, of ‘ The Pursuit of Diarmuid
and Grainne,’ there grew in Ireland a celebrated Mountain
Ash, called the Quicken-tree of Dubhros, which bore some wonderful
berries. The legend informs us that, “ There is in every
berry of them the exhilaration of wine, and the satisfying of old
mead, and whoever shall eat three berries of them, has he completed
a hundred years, he will return to the age of thirty years.”
These famed berries of the Quicken-tree of Dubhros were jealously
guarded by one Searbhan Lochlannach, “ a giant, hideous and foul
to behold,” who would allow no one to pluck them: he was, however,
slain by Diarmuid O’Duibhne, and the berries placed at the
disposal of his wife Grainne, who had incited her husband to obtain
them for her. At Modrufell, on the north coast of Ireland, is or
was a large Rowan, always on Christmas Eve stuck full of torches,
which no wind could possibly extinguish ; and one of the Orkneys
possessed a still more mysterious tree with which the fate of the
islands was bound up, since, if a leaf was carried away, they would
pass to some foreign lord.
R U D R A K SH A .—De Gubernatis tells us, that Rudrdksha,
which means literally the Eye of Rudra (Siva), or the Tear of
Rudra, is a name given, in India, to the fruit of the Eleocarpus, of
which the natives manufaffiure their Rosaries, which are specially
used in the worship of the god Siva. It is said that during the war
of the gods with the Asuras, or demons, Siva burnt three towns;
but he was grieved, and wept went he was told that he had also
burnt the inhabitants. From the tears he then shed, and which
fell to the earth, sprang the climbing plants whose fruits are to this
day called by the faithful, Rudvdkshas.
R U E .—It has been conjedfured that the Moly, which, according
to Homer, Mercury gave to Ulysses as an antidote to the
enchantress Circe’s beverage, was the root of the wild Rue. In
olden times. Rue [Ruta graveolens) was called Herb of Grace, from the
fadl that the word rue means also “ repentance,” which is needful to
obtain the grace of God. It was also known as the Serving-men’s
Joy, but was specially held in high repute by women, who attributed
to it all sorts of miraculous qualities. R. Turner states that “ it
preserves chastity, being eaten ; it quickeneth the sight, stirs up
the spirits, and sharpeneth the wit. . . . It is an excellent
antidote against poisons and infedlions ; the very smell thereof is
a preservation against the plague in the time of infedlion.” Its
virtues as a disinfedlant are noted in the quaint rhyme of old
T u s se r ;—
“ What savour is better, if physicke be true.
For places infected, than Wormwood and Rue ? ”
Dioscorides recommended the seed as a counterpoison against
deadly medicines, the bitings of serpents, scorpions, wasps, &c. :
and Gerarde adds, “ It is reported that if a man bee anointed with
2 M—2