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In a sonnet by Sir Philip Sydney, afterwards set to music by
Bateson, we read—
“ The Nightingale, as soon as April bringeth
Unto her rested sense a perfect waking.
When late bare earth, proud of new clothing, springeth,
Sings out her woes, a Thorn her song-book making,
And mournfully bewailing,
Her throat in tunes expresseth,
While grief her heart oppresseth.
For Tereus o’er her chaste will prevailing.”
Shakspeare notices the story in the following quaint lines—■
Everything did banish moan,
Save the Nightingale alone;
She, poor bird, as all forlorn,
Leaned her breast up till a Thorn,
And then sung the doleful ditty,
That to hear it was great pity.”
ii
In Yorkshire, there is a tradition of Hops having been planted
many years ago, near Doncaster, and of the Nightingale making its
first appearance there about the same time. The popular idea was,
that between the bird and the plant some mysterious connecting
link existed. Be this as it may, both the Hops and the Nightingale
disappeared long ago.
It is not alone the Nightingale that has a legendary connecflion
with a Thorn. Another favourite denizen of our groves may also
lay clairn to this distincition, inasmuch as, according to a tradition
current in Brittany, its red breast was originally produced by the
laceration of an historic Thorn. In this story it is said that,
whilst our Saviour was bearing His cross on the way to Calvary,
a little bird, struck with compassion at His sufferings, flew suddenly
to Him, and plucked from His bleeding brow one of the cruel
thorns of His mocking crown, steeped in His blood. In bearing
it away in its beak, drops of the Divine blood fell upon the little
bird’s breast, and dyed its plumage red; so that ever since the
Red-breast has been treated as the friend of man, and is studiously
protedled by him from harm.
Whether or no this legend of the origin of our little friend’s red
breast formerly influenced mankind in its favour, it is certain that
the Robin has always been regarded with tenderness. Popular
tradition, even earlier than the date of the story of the Children in
the Wood, has made him our sexton with the aid of plants:—
“ No burial this pretty pair
Of any man receives,
Till Robin Redbreast, painfully,
Did cover them with leaves.”
It is noted in Gray’s Shakspeare that, according to the oldest
traditions, if the Robin finds the dead body of a human being, he
will cover the face at least with Moss and leaves.
“ Cov’ring with Moss the dead’s unclosed eye
The little Redbreast teacheth charitie.”—Drayton's 'Owl.'
\
The Wren is also credited with employing plants for acts of
similar charity. In Reed’s old plays, we read—
“ Call for the Robin Redbreast and the Wren,
Since o’er shady groves they hover.
And with leaves and flow’rs do cover
The friendless bodies of unburied men.”
A writer in one of our popular periodicals* gives another
nuaint quotation expressive of the tradition, from Stafford’s ‘ Niobe
dissolved into a Nilus’ : “ On her (the Nightingale) smiles Rohm m
his redde livvrie; who sits as a coroner on the murthred man; and
seeing his body naked, plays the sorrie tailour to make him a
■nyr -f ”
The Missel or Missel-Thrush is sometimes called the Mistletoe-
Thrush, because it feeds upon Mistletoe berries. Lord Bacon, in
Sylva Sylvarum, refers (as already noted) to an old belief that the
seeds of Mistletoe will not vegetate unless they have passed
through the stomach of this bird.
The Peony is said to cure epilepsy, if certain ceremonies are
duly observed. A patient, however, must on no account taste the
root, if a Woodpecker should Jp p e n to be in sight, or he will
be certain to be stricken with blindness. , 1 c-
Among the many magical properties ascribed to the Spreng-
wurzel (Spring-wort), or, as it is sometime called, the Blasting-root,
is its power to reveal treasures. But this it can only do through
the instrumentality of a bird, which is usually a green or black
Woodpecker (according to Pliny, also the Raven ; m Switzerland,
the Hoopoe; in the Tyrol, the Swallow). In order to become
possessed of a root of this magical plant, arrangements must be
made with much care and circumspection, and the bird closely
watched. When the old bird has temporarily left its nest, ac j s s
to it must be stopped up by plugging the hole with wood. The
bird finding this, will fly away in search of the Spring-wort, and
returning, will open the nest by touching the obstruction with the
mystic root. Meanwhile a fire or a red cloth must be spread out
closely, which will so startle the bird, that it will let the root fall
from its bills, and it can thus be secured. Pliny relates of the
Woodpecker, that the hen bird brings up her young in hoi j , and
if the entrance be plugged up, no matter how securely, the old bird
is able to force out the plug with an explosion caused by the plant.
Aubrey confounds the Moonwort with the Springwort. He says:—
“ Sir Benet Hoskins, Baronet, told me that his keeper at his parke
at Morehampton, in Herefordshire, did, for experiment’s sake,
drive an iron naile thwert the hole of the Woodpecker’s nest, there
being a tradition that the damme will bring some leafe to open it.
He layed at the bottome of the tree a cleane sheet, and before
many hours passed, the naile came out, and he found a leafe lying by
it on the sheete. They say the Moonewort will doe such things.”
• I All the Year Round,’ Vol. xiii.