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hideous old man entered with beaming eyes. On beholding him the
girl sprang up, and said: “ Titteli Ture, Titteli Ture, here are thy
gloves.” When the dwarf heard his name pronounced, he was
overcome with passion, and bursting through the roof of the apartment,
hastened away through the air. The maiden was espoused
by the king’s son the following day, and nothing more was ever
seen of Titteli Ture.
S T R A W B E R R Y .—Strawberries were reputed to be the
favourite fruit of the goddess Frigg, who presided over marriages.
In German legends. Strawberries symbolise little children who
have died when young. According to one of these legends, before
St. John’s Day mothers who have lost their little ones take care
not to eat Strawberries, because they think that young children
ascend to heaven concealed in Strawberries. Mothers who eat
Strawberries are considered to have wronged the Virgin Mary, to
whom the Strawberry is dedicated, and who would assuredly refuse
an entry into heaven to those children whose mothers had
defrauded her of the fruit specially set apart for her. A representation
of the leaf of the Strawberry is set in the gold coronets
worn by certain of the English nobility: a duke’s coronet has eight
leaves, an earl’s eight, and that of a marquis four. Strawberry-
leaves and the Flower-de-luce are used in the coronets of the
younger members of the royal family. Don John, son of King
iohn I. of Portugal, adopted the Strawberry as his device, to show
is devotion to St. John the Baptist, who lived on fruits. It is
mentioned by Hollinshed, and the facil has been dramatised by
Shakspeare, that Glo’ster, when he was contemplating the death of
Hastings, asked the Bishop of E ly for Strawberries.
“ My lord of E ly , when I was last in Holborn,
I saw good Strawberries in your garden there.”
Linnseus was cured of frequent attacks of gout by the use of Strawberries,
and the fruit is accounted an excellent remedy in putrid
fevers. To dream of Strawberries is reputed to be a good omen :
to a youth they are supposed to denote that “ his wife will be
sweet tempered, and bear him many children, all boys.” A
legend of the Fichtelgebirge (a mountain range at the juncflion of
Saxony, Bavaria, and Bohemia) records that one Midsummer Day
a woman went with her child to look for Strawberries in a wood.
She chanced to light upon some plants, which when plucked in the
night, were not to be exhausted ; and after awhile she perceived a
cavern which she entered with her child. Here, to her astonishment,
lay heaps of gold scattered about; and three white maidens
gave her permission to take as much of the treasure as she
could colledl with one grasp. Her greed, however, induced her to
make three swoops, and then, fearful of the consequences, and forgetting
her child, she rushed out of the hollow, when the entrance
was immediately closed upon her, and a warning voice informed
p l a n t b o r e , h e g e ' t p f , a n i. bijric/. 557
her that she could not regain her child until the next St. John’s frffiy-
When this day arrived, the woman repaired to the cave, and found to
her joy the entrance once more open, and her little one awaiting her
with a rosy Apple in its hand. Disregarding the treasures scaHered
in the cave, the mother rushed with outstretched arms towards her
child, and the white maidens finding that the mother’s love was
stronger than her greed handed over the little one to her.--—There
is, in this distria, another legend anent the gathering of Strawberries,
which will be found under the head of C l u b Moss.
S U G A R - C A N E . — In the Sugar plantations of the Indies,
several superstitious ceremonies are preserved. It being customary
to reserve a few plants, it sometimes happens after the fields are
planted, that there remain several superfluous canes. Whenever
this happens, the husbandman repairs to the spot on the i ith of
Tune, and having sacrificed to the Nagbele, the tutelar deity of the
Sugar-cane, he immediately kindles a fire, and consumes the whole.
I f a Sugar-cane should flower again at the end of the season, and
produce seeds, it is looked upon as a funereal flower, and as
portending misfortune to the owner of the estate or his lamily. i ,
therefore, a husbandman sees one of these late-flowering canes, he
plucks it up, and buries it without allowing his master to know
anything of the unfortunate occurrence, willingly taking to himself
any ill-luck which may accrue. The bow of Kamadeva, the
Indian Cupid, is sometimes represented as being formed ol b u ^ r -
cane, sometimes of flowers, with a string composed of bees. B is
five arrows were each tipped with a blossom, presented to Kamadeva
by Vasanta (Spring).
“ He bends the luscious cane, and twists the string
With bees ; how sweet ! but ah ! how keen their sting.
He, with five flow’rets tips thy ruthless darts,
Which through five senses pierce enraptured hearts;
Strong C k am p a , rich in odorous gold ;
Warm A m e r , nursed in heavenly mould ;
Dry M a k ts e r , in silver smiling ;
Hot K it t ic um our sense beguiling ;
And last, to kindle fierce the scorching flame,
L o v e S h a f t , which-gods bright B e la name. —Sir W. J o n e s . ^
S U N F L O W E R . —The Helianthus annuus derived its name
of Sunflower from its resemblance to the radiant beams of the
Sun and not as is popularly supposed and celebrated by poets,
f r o m fts flowers to I c e j e osfehal
Darwin, Moore, and Thompson, the latter of whom tells us that
unlike most of the flowery race—
“ The lofty follower of the Sun,
Sad when he sets, shuts up her yellow leaves,
Drooping all night, and, when he warin/eturns,
Points her enamour’d bosom to his ray.
The Helianthus has also been falsely identified wfih the Sunflower
of classical story—the flower into which poor Clytie was transn
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