THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

OTHER BOOKS

ON GARDENS

MOSTLY CONTAINING ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR

THE CHARM OF GARDENS
By Dion CLayton CALTHROP.

32 full-page Illustrations in Colour by
BEATRICE Parsons and others.

THE GARDENS OF ENGLAND
By E. T. Coox.

16 full-page Illustrations in Colour by
BEATRICE PARSONS.

PLANT LIFE
By Rev. Cuarves A. HALL.

0 full- -page Illustrations in Colour by
NEWALL, and 24 page Illus-
trations from photographs.

THE CALL OF THE OPEN
A Nature ANTHOLOGY.

Selected and Edited by LEonarp H.
STOWELL.

16 full-page Illustrations in Colour.

GARDENS IN THEIR SEASONS |

By C. von Wyss.

32 Illustrations in Colour and 32 in
Black and White.

THE CHILDREN’S BOOK OF
GARDENING

By Mrs. A. SipGwick and
Mrs. PAYNTER.

8 full-page Illustrations in Colour by
Mrs. CAYLEY-ROBINSON.

GARDENS OF THE GREAT
MUGHALS
By Mrs, C. M. ViLiiers STUART.

40 page Illustrations (16 in Colour),
also 8 Ground Plans.

BLACK’S GARDENING
DICTIONARY

Edited by E. T. Exuis, F.R.H.S.

With Contributions by the leading
Gardening Experts and Specialists
of to-day.

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF
THE GARDEN
(In the ‘‘ Peeps at Nature” Series.)
By PERCIVAL WESTELL.

16 full-page Illustrations, 8 being in
Colour.

A. AND C. BLACK, LTD., 4, 5 & 6 SOHO SQUARE, LONDON, W. I

AGENTS

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY

64 & 66 FIFTH AVENUR, NEW YORK

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

205 FLINDERS LANE, MELBOURNE

BMERICR 5 i 6 tis
AUSTRALASIA

CANADA sss 0-0 «
INDIA . .e ce eo

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY OF CANADA, LTD.
ST. MARTIN’S HOUSE, 70 BOND STREET, TORONTO

MACMILLAN & COMPANY, LTD.

MACMILLAN BUILDING, BOMBAY
309 BOW BAZAAR STREET, CALCUTTA
INDIAN BANK BUILDINGS, MADRAS

oe a
bee

« ‘2
ay at ag Ak a eee Mires

vic. fy bis

pe
=
at
Z
<
Y)
ea)
—
O

PE

tee GLORY OF
THE GARDEN

By
M. G. KENNEDY-BELL

4
“ B.R.ES.

“In my garden I spend my days; in my
library I spend my nights, My interests are
divided between my geraniums and my books.
With the flower I am in the present ; with
the book I am in the past.”

ALEXANDER SMITH,

A&C, BLACK “LTD:
4, § & 6 SOHO SQUARE, LONDON, W.1
1923

CHAPTER

I.
Il.

Contents

THE HISTORY OF GARDENING -
PLANT BREEDING, IN ITS RELATION
GARDENING - - -

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A PLANT
HERBS AND THEIR ORIGIN -
THE PATRON SAINTS OF GARDENING
SOME BEE LORE - -
SOME BIRD LORE - -
SOME TREE LORE -
SOME WEATHER LORE - -
THE MOON AND PLANT GROWTH
MAGICAL PLANTS - -
WITCHES AND THEIR FLOWER LORE
THE DEVIL’S PLANTS’ - -
FAIRIES AND THEIR FLOWER LORE
OUR LADY’S FLOWERS - -
FLOWERS OF THE SAINTS -

TO

FLOWER LEGENDS OF “* SAINTLY FAME ”’

LEGENDS OF NATIONAL FLOWERS
LEGENDS OF MYTHOLOGICAL FAME
LEGENDS OF FIR AND PINE TREES

PAGE

THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

CHAPTER I
THE HISTORY OF GARDENING

“ As gardening has been the inclination of Kings and the choice
of Philosophers, so it has been the common favourite of public and
private men; a pleasure of the greatest, and a care of the meanest;
and, indeed, an employment and possession for which no man
is too high or too low.”—S1r Wo. TEmpte.

Tue art and craft of gardening is undoubtedly the
oldest of all human occupations, and in the long
ages of time that have passed since the first gardener,
our forefather Adam, practised the art, first for
pleasure, and afterwards as a means of subsistence,
gardening has never failed to have a magic fascina-
tion for the rich and poor of all nations.

Noah, we are told, was very proficient in the
cultivation of the Vine; Jacob in growing Vines,
Figs, and Almonds; Solomon in making gardens,
orchards, and vineyards.

The ancient Egyptians, Assyrians, Chinese, Greeks,
and Romans seem to have been experts in the
fashioning of gardens and the cultivation of fruits
and vegetables.

The gardens of that early period were enclosed
by walls or thick hedges to protect the crops from
prowling animals, and the chief crops grown seem
to have been the Vine, Fig, Pomegranate, Walnut,

I

2 THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN
Almond, Medlar, and Quince. Also Lettuce, Cu-

cumber, Melons, Onions, Leeks, and Garlic galore.

In the hot, dry climate of Palestine, watering
was an indispensable operation, and so reservoirs
for irrigating the land had always to be provided.
In ancient Persia and Assyria, gardens were fashioned
and maintained on a very large scale near all the
large cities.

The famous Hanging Gardens of Babylon were the
great wonder of all the world. They consisted
of twenty plateaux rising one above the other, and
resting on walls 22 feet in thickness, and each
planted with trees, or other vegetation, kept in
constant growth by artificial watering.

In Egypt also the gardens were very elaborately
fashioned, much sculpture and masonry entering
into their formation; and in these gardens they grew
many kinds of fruit, all of which had to be constantly
watered by means of irrigation from the Nile.

The Greeks were very famous gardeners, and they
seem to have taken special delight in having fine
expanses of beautifully-kept grass; fruit trees were
much cultivated, and the favourite flowers would
seem to have bean Roses, Lilies, and Narcissi.

The Romans were most keen gardeners, and grew
many of the popular vegetables of the present
day with great success. Also, they understood
fully the art of manuring and forcing, and they
may be said to have brought horticulture and
agriculture to their highest perfection at that period
of the world’s history.

So far as our own country is concerned, there
can be little doubt that we owe the early intro-
duction of horticulture to the Romans.

THE HISTORY OF GARDENING 3

When they had finally subjugated the ancient
Britons and peace prevailed, history tells us that
the Roman settlers planted vineyards and orchards
of apples, pears, figs, and mulberries; also they grew
corn extensively for home use and for export.

In the twelfth century it is recorded that vineyards
flourished in the Vale of Gloucester, apple orchards
were plentiful in the fertile district of Worcester,
and market gardens existed at Fulham. These
were simple patches or enclosures, within walls,
planted with fruits, vegetables, and herbs.

The Monks of the Middle Ages were the real
pioneers of gardening, and it is to their skill and
knowledge that we owe much. Their superior
education and general habits made it possible for
them to bring skilled method into the work, and
gardening as an “ art” may be rightly said to date
from the monastery gardens.

Also, the monks were naturally in the habit of
travelling a good deal, and so had the chance of
seeing new plants cultivated in other countries,
which they could secure and grow in their own
gardens.

In the reign of Edward III. the art of gardening
began to be taken seriously in hand. Gardens
were laid out on a more ornamental scale, and
plants for medicinal purposes were cultivated
extensively.

The first book on gardening—‘‘ De Yconomia de
Housbrandia,” by Walter de Henley—appeared
in the sixteenth century, and others soon followed,
including that of Thomas Tusser, who detailed the
work of the garden and farm in quaint and curious

rhyme.

4 THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

In Henry VIII.’s reign the gardens of Nonsuch
and Hampton Court were laid out with regal
splendour, and in Elizabeth’s time the Potato,
Tomato, Tea, and many other useful and orna-
mental trees and plants were introduced from
foreign countries.

Evelyn, a great writer and traveller, did much
to extend and popularise the practice of gardening.
Gerarde, the famous surgeon and botanist, lived
at this time, and published his excellent ‘‘ Herbal,”
a work still valued very highly, and full of sound
information. ‘John Parkinson, a little later, pub-
lished ‘‘ Paradise in Sole Paradisus Terrestris,” a
work which gave a great impetus to gardening.

In the eighteenth century much progress was made,
and people of wealth began to lay out gardens
on a magnificent scale, and form parks, and plant
trees for ornament and use.

Botanical gardens were formed at Chelsea, Cam-
bridge, and Kew, and greenhouses, glazed with
glass and artificially heated, were first brought into
practical use. It seems from records, though, that
the professional gardener of that period was much
lacking in skill and intelligence; he could cultivate
the ordinary crops, but failed hopelessly in the art
of growing the choicer vegetables and fruit, and so
these had to be imported from Belgium and Holland.

The Chelsea Physic Garden was founded by the
“Society of Apothecaries of London,” which
society was incorporated by Royal Charter in 1606,
and was then united with the Grocers’ Company,
an ancient City guild.

An interesting record of the Chelsea Physic
Garden in 1685 is given to us by John Evelyn:

THE HISTORY OF GARDENING 5

“7th August.—I went to see Mr. Watts, keeper of
the Apothecaries’ garden of simples at Chelsea,
where there is a collection of innumerable rarities
of that sort particularly, besides many annuals,
the tree bearing jesuits’ bark, which had done such
wonders in quartan agues. What was very ingenious
was the subterranean heat, conveyed by a stove
under the conservatory, which was all vaulted with
brick, so as he has the doors and windows open in
the hardest frosts, secluding only the snow.”

The Chelsea garden was framed, in the main, on
the pattern of the herbalists’ gardens, and one of
the principal aims of its founders was the arrange-
ment of plants in a systematic manner, that 1s,
according to their families.

At the close of the seventeenth century, the plants
were arranged according to the systems of Ray and
Tournefort, and in practice this scheme is still
partially carried out, inasmuch, as trees and shrubs
are generally grouped apart from herbaceous plants,
for matters of convenience.

Towards the end of the eighteenth century, the
Linnean classification gradually supplanted the
systems of Ray and Tournefort, and this was again
superseded by Decandolle and Lindley about the
middle of the nineteenth century. Since the re-
organisation of the garden in 1902, the sequence of
the natural orders for the herbaceous plants is that
of Bentham and Hooker’s “ Genera Plantarum.”

From 1836 to 1853, the fame of the Chelsea
garden was at its zenith, largely owing to the great
activity of John Lindley, who occupied the chair of
Professor of Botany and Prefectus Horti during
that period. But in 1853 the Society found it

6 THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

was seriously hampered by the expenses involved
in this work, and they decided to relieve the strain
by working the garden more economically. The
lectures were discontinued, the office of Prefectus
Horti was abolished, and the cultivation of plants
requiring artificial heat was abandoned. ‘The
garden was saved from total oblivion during this
period by its curator, Thomas Moore, who had
been elected to the post in 1848, on the recom-
mendation of Lindley. Thomas Moore was co-editor
of “The Treasury of Botany” with Lindley, a
work which has made the name of the Chelsea
garden famous throughout the world.

The rdle of the garden is still chiefly an educa-
tional one; specimens of living plants are supplied
to a number of colleges and schools, and the labora-
tory is used for physiological work by the students
of the Royal College of Science.

The present Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew are the
result of the fusion of two Royal domains—(1) Rich-
mond Gardens, and (2) the original Kew Gardens,
the latter corresponding roughly to the private
grounds of Kew House, a substantial private house,
which was demolished in 1803. ‘This fusion, con-
templated by an Act of Parliament, and giving
George III. power to cause the lane separating the
two gardens “ to be shut up and discontinued,” was
finally completed in 1802.

In 1823, George IV. acquired the western portion
of Kew Green, including an old road which led
there from Brentford Ferry. By this means part
of the present herbarium, and the whole of its
site, the old Kew Gardens, the former Richmond
Gardens, became a single Royal domain; and this

THE HISTORY OF GARDENING 7

fusion proved, incidentally, to be the first step
towards the opening up of Kew to the public.

The three chief objects which Kew has aimed
at from the outset are:

1. To make of Kew Gardens a pleasure-ground
which would stimulate the interest of the general
public in the vegetable kingdom and its products.

2. To encourage and render assistance to scientific
botanists, travellers, merchants, and manufacturers.

3. To train plant collectors and gardeners for
home, colonial, and foreign service.

The Kew training is very thorough, consisting of
practical work and lectures, with the added benefit
that the student has of becoming familiar with
Kew’s marvellous collection of plants.

The lectures comprise a course in physics and
chemistry as applied to botany and geology; an-
other in general botany; a third on economic
plants and their products; and a fourth on geo-
graphical botany. During his stay at Kew the
young gardener has to collect, mount, and name a
herbarium of 250 specimens himself, and at the
end of two years he is granted a Kew certificate,
provided his work has been satisfactory.

So from this brief summary it can quite easily be
seen that it is during the last century that gardening
in all its branches made such a great advance, due
to the efforts of many eminent experts, such as
Thomas Andrew Knight, who did so much in
the improvement of the varieties of hardy fruit;
Sir Joseph Paxton, the talented gardener, and
designer of the gardens at Chatsworth and the
Crystal Palace; Charles Darwin, who rendered
such vast service to botany and the improvement

8 THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

of plants by his researches and studies as to the
origin of species; to say nothing of Mendel,
whose discoveries went far to revolutionise our
knowledge of genetic science and heredity. Dar-
win’s achievement so far exceeded anything that
had been thought possible before, that what should
have been but a beginning, was hailed as the com-
pleted work.

Professor Bateson, in his book on ‘* Mendel’s
Principles of Heredity,” says: “‘ Had Mendel’s
work come into the hands of Darwin, it is not too
much to say that the history of the development
of evolutionary philosophy would have been very
different from that which we have witnessed.”

“God Almighty first planted a garden. And,
indeed, it is the purest of human pleasures; it is the
greatest refreshment to the spirit of man, without
which buildings and palaces are but gross handi-
works. And a man shall ever see that when ages
grow to civility and elegance, men come to build
stately, sooner than to garden finely, as if gardening
were the greater perfection. I do hold it in the
royal ordering of gardens, there ought to be gardens
for all the months in the year, in which severally
things of beauty may be then in season.”

Francis Bacon (Lorp VERULAM).

CHAPTER II
PLANT BREEDING, IN ITS RELATION TO GARDENING

“Evolution ever climbing after some ideal good,

And Reversion ever dragging evolution in the mud.”
TENNYSON,

Amonc the biological sciences, the study of heredity
must necessarily occupy a central position, and
although as gardeners we are not directly concerned
with the application of science, we must never-
theless perceive that in no branch of knowledge
is research more likely to increase our power over
nature.

Whilst the experimental “ study of the species ”
problem was in great activity, the Darwinian
writings appeared. Evolution, from being an un-
supported problem, was shown to be plainly de-
ducible from ordinary experience, and the reality
of the process was no longer doubted.

But Mendel, and his working out of the Mendelian
principles, has carried us far beyond the beginning
that Darwin made.

Darwin indeed paved the way, and, as it were,
laid the foundation stones, but to Mendel was
given the golden key which should unlock the door
into the mysteries of the laws governing the study
of plant breeding and genetics.

History of Mendel—Mendel was born in 1822,
in the “ Kuhland ” district of Austrian Silesia.

9

10 THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

It is recorded of his father that he took special
interest in fruit culture, and initiated his son at an
early age into the mysteries of grafting.

Gregor Mendel attended a government school
in the village, where his talent was soon obvious.
The result of this was that, when he was only
eleven years old, he was sent to Leipzig, and here he
distinguished himself so much that he was sent on
to Troppau, although the parental resources were
rather severely taxed by this effort.

At Troppau one of the instructors was an
Augustinian, and possibly his description of the
scholarly quiet of the cloisters may have turned
Mendel’s thoughts in this direction. For very
shortly he became a candidate for admission to
the Augustinian house of St. Thomas in Brinn.
He was admitted to the monastery, and elected
with a view to his taking part in the educational
work; in 1847 he was ordained priest. At the
expense of the cloister he was sent in 1851 to the
University of Vienna, where he remained till 1853,
studying mathematics, physics, and natural science.
On returning to Briinn he became a teacher, and
he appears to have taken great pleasure in this
work, and to have been quite extraordinarily suc-
cessful in instructing, and also interesting, his pupils.

In 1868 he was elected Abbot, or Pralat, of the
monastery. ‘The experiments which have made his
name famous throughout the world were carried
out in the large garden belonging to the monastery.

With the views of Darwin, which at that time
were coming into prominence, Mendel did not
find himself in full agreement, and he embarked on
his experiments with Peas, which he continued for

PLANT BREEDING II

eight years. His largest undertaking, besides the
work on Pisum, was an investigation on the heredity
of Bees. He had fifty hives under observation, but
the notes which he is known to have made on these
experiments can nowhere be found, and it is now
feared that they must have been destroyed, possibly
inadvertently.

The types of the great discoverers are most
varied. ‘The wild, uncertain, rapid flash of genius,
the scattered, half-focussed daylight of generalisa-
tion, and the steady, slowly-perfected ray of pene-
trative analysis, are all lights in which truth may
be seen. Mendel’s faculty was of the latter order.

From the fragmentary records of him in his
biography we can form a fairly true idea of the man,
with his clear head, strong interest in practical
affairs, obstinate determination, and power of
pursuing an abstract idea.

The total neglect of his work during his lifetime
is known to have been a serious disappointment to
him. He is reported constantly to have said:
“ Meine Zeit wird schon kommen ” (My time will
surely come).

Mendelian Theories—The case which illustrates
Mendel’s methods in the simplest way is that in
which heredity in respect of height was studied.

Mendel took a pair of Sweet Peas, of which one
was tall (6 to 7 feet), and the other dwarf (9 to 18
inches). ‘These two were then crossed together.
The cross-bred seeds thus produced grew into
plants which were always all, having a height not
sensibly different from that of the pure tall variety
from which the cross was made. In Mendelian
terms, this first, cross-bred, filial generation is

12 THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

called F,. From the fact that the character
tallness appears in the cross-bred, to the exclusion
of the opposite character, Mendel called it a
dominant character; dwarfness, which disappears
in the F, plant, he called recessive.

The tall cross-bred was then allowed to bear
seeds by self-fertilisation, and these are the next
generation, F,. When grown up they prove to be
mixed, many being tall, and some being short, like
their grandparents. Upon counting the numbers
of this F, generation, it was discovered that the
proportion of talls to shorts showed a certain
constancy, averaging about 3 talls to 1 short, or
75 per cent. dominants to 25 per cent. recessives.

These F, plants were again allowed to fertilise
themselves, and the offspring of each plant was
separately sown. It was then found that the off-
spring F; of the recessives consisted entirely of
recessives, and further generations bred from these
recessives again produced only recessives, therefore
they are proved to be true to the recessive character
of dwarfness.

But the tall I’, dominants, when tested by a study
of their offspring (I’3), instead of being all alike, as
were the dwarfs or recessives, prove to be of two
kinds, viz.: (1) Plants which give a mixed F;,
consisting of both talls and dwarfs, the proportion
showing again an average of 3 talls to 1 dwarf.

(2) Plants which give talls only, and are thus
pure to tallness.

The ratio of the first to the second was as 2 to I.

In his original paper on plant breeding, Mendel
states that at the very outset he paid special atten-
tion to the family Leguminosae, on account of their

PLANT BREEDING 13

peculiar floral structure, and of this family the
genus Pisum were found to possess in the best manner
the necessary qualifications.

It is very unlikely that a disturbance through
foreign pollen can occur in these flowers, as the
fertilising organs are closely packed inside the keel,
and the anther bursts within the bud, so that the
stigma becomes covered with pollen before ever the
flower is open.

Artificial fertilisation becomes, therefore, rather
an elaborate process, but it nearly always succeeds.
To perform the operation, the bud should be
opened before it is properly developed, the keel
is removed, and each stamen carefully extracted by
means of a pair of forceps, after which the stigma
can at once be dusted over with the foreign

ollen.

The Mendelian discoveries have made matters
very much easier for gardeners and florists in the
work of plant breeding and fixing new varieties,
as, according to Mendel’s law, after three flowerings,
the variety should be “ fixed,” whereas in the old,
rather muddled way of doing things it often took
double, and even treble that time, to fix a variety
with any hope of it remaining constant.

If, after three flowerings, dominants only are
produced, then the plant is pure; but if both
dominants and recessives, then it is hybrid.

Among plants there are many hybrid instances,
notably some pedigree strains of Primula sinensis,
raised by Suttons. One is a large-flowered type,
known as “‘ Giant Lavender,” having a pale magenta
flower. This never comes true from seed, throwing
always a number of bright magenta reds and a corre-

14. THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

sponding number of whites, more or less tinged with
magenta, which evidently exhibit the two gametic
elements that must be combined in one zygote in
order to produce the lavender. In this case, the
bright magenta reds immediately breed true when
self-fertilised.

There is another colour in Primula sinensis
which apparently cannot exist in a pure form.
This is a peculiar shade of “ crushed strawberry,”
and the two pure forms by the union of which it is
formed are the deep crimson of “‘ Crimson King”
and the white with a bright pink eye, brought out
by Suttons under the name of “ Duchess.” By
crossing these two together, the peculiar hetero-
zygous colour can at once be produced.

One of the most striking instances of hybrid
characters in the animal world may be seen in the
case of the Andalusian fowl. ‘The blue Andalusian
fowl owes its popularity with the public, and its
interest to the student of heredity, to its colour,
which is a slaty blue-grey.

If two birds of this strain are mated, it will be
found that they do not breed true. In every four
birds on the average, three types of colour are
produced: two blue, one black, and one white. The
blacks are found to breed true to their colour and
so are the whites, and the blue Andalusians, when
mated together, again produce these three types
in the same proportions.

From this it would seem pretty obvious that the
blue Andalusian is a hybrid, and as such can never
be fixed. But cross one of these black birds with a
white and the result is a blue Andalusian, and blue
birds obtained in this way produce a generation of

PLANT BREEDING 15

fowls consisting of about one black, two blues, and
one white in every four.

But though these examples of unfixable hybrids
are not rare, they are in a minority, and, speaking
generally, we can be fairly certain that a given
type can be made to breed true, and to perpetuate
its good qualities indefinitely.

From Mendelian discovery the practical plant
breeder learns two lessons:

Firstly, that he must not discard the F, genera-
tion, simply because it does not give him what he
wants. It may be quite uninteresting from the
horticultural point of view, exhibiting some old-
fashioned or reversionary type, which is reproduced
because all the factors which constitute it, happen
to have been brought together in one individual.

But from the appearance of this first generation
no guess can be made as to the properties of F,
(the second generation). A great deal of valuable
material has often been discarded by practical
horticulturists, simply through ignorance of the
Mendelian principles. The uninteresting types
produced through crossing, though no improvement
on the old and familiar varieties, would, if their
seed had been saved, probably have given many
novelties in the next generation.

Secondly, and this practical lesson is, if anything,
more important: each individual plant must be
bred from separately. For the Mendelian dis-
covery does away with the old delusion that time
and continued selection are needed in order to
make a variety breed true. Purity of type depends
on the meeting of two gametes bearing similar
factors, and when two similarly-constituted gametes

16 THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

do thus meet in fertilisation, the product of their
union is pure, thus showing that the belief, held for
so long, that purity of type depends on continued
selection has no physiological foundation. For
the homozygous individuals, which are the only
ones that will breed true, may appear in Fy. It is
the business of the breeder to find these individuals,
and by continued selection, he may perhaps succeed
in the end, for at each selection he increases his
chance of finding them; but by following the
Mendelian method he can go straight to the point,
and thus, very probably, save himself many years’
work.

TrecHNICAL MeEtuHops.

The actual work of crossing plants together is
quite simple, but at the same time it demands
much patience and concentration.

In the first place, the anthers of the plant to be
used as a female must be picked out carefully with
forceps before they are ripe. The flower is then
covered to exclude insect visitors.

Muslin bags may be used for this purpose, but they
are not so safe as rainproof bags made of parchment
paper. The bag is put over the flower, the mouth
being crushed up so as to fit the stem, and it is
fixed in place with a thin piece of copper wire.
Bees will often visit flowers covered over with muslin,
and it is difficult to prevent this. The flower from
which pollen is to be taken must also be covered
before it opens, in order to keep its pollen pure
and unadulterated.

The old-fashioned method of using a brush for
the transference of the pollen is not advisable; it is

PLANT BREEDING 17

very difficult to be certain that the brush is quite
free from all foreign bodies.

The best plan is to pick out with fine forceps
an anther from the flower to be used as the male,
and with it to touch the stigma of the female flower.

The fingers and forceps should be continually
cleansed with spirit, in order to kill any pollen grains
that may adhere to them. By not paying strict
attention to these little details, it is so very easy to
spoil the results of several months of careful and
laborious work.

** Nature, which governs . whole, will soon
change all things which thou seest, and out of their
substance will make other things, and again other
things from the substance of them, in order that the
world may be ever new.”—Marcus AvreLius.

CHAPTER III
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A PLANT

‘“< Wherever flowers cannot be reared, there man cannot live.” —
Napoteon I.

How many people, even among those who care for
their gardens and flowers, really take the trouble
to enquire into the actual “ inner workings ”’ of the
plant? By the great majority of people Botany
is looked upon as a “‘ dry-as-dust ”’ subject, just a
long list of classifications, Latin names of the
families and natural orders, and so on. ‘This is
largely due to the wrong method of teaching
Botany in the past; it is surely a great mistake to
begin at that uninteresting end of the subject.
The classifications are most necessary, but, of course,
they are wearisome to the child or student (as the
case may be) who knows nothing at all of the
wonderful workings of the plant.

“Botany is the science which endeavours to
answer every reasonable question about plants”:
begin your instructions at that end, explaining
something about the physiology and work of the
plants generally. ‘Then this “ dry-as-dust ” subject
will seem like a wondrous fairy-tale, as mysterious,
even in these matter-of-fact days, as were any of
the “ Arabian Nights ” stories.

The Root had better be our first consideration;

and the office and work of the main root is to support
18

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A PLANT 19

the plant firmly in the ground, and to convey the
food collected by the root hairs up to the stem and
leaves. ‘The extreme tips of all the roots are pro-
vided with a cap, formed of a mass of dead and
dying cells, and the meaning of this cap is to protect
the tender point of the root as it forces its way
through the soil.

It is highly important for the gardener to know
and realise that it is not the large, woody roots
that absorb food from the soil, but the fine root
hairs. For instance, if a gardener plants a rose,
or a fruit tree, with only a few large roots, such a
plant or tree cannot get any nourishment from the
soil, until it has had time to make new root hairs to
collect the food; therefore, until this has happened,
the tree is in great danger of starving and dying.
The root hairs emit a dissolving fluid which pre-
pares the food for absorption, and it is only when
there are plenty of healthy root hairs, able to carry
out this function, that plants can obtain their food
from the soil.

This is the reason for being so very careful, in
moving plants, always to transplant with a good
ball of soil, then the root hairs are less likely to be
injured, and there 1s much less check to the tree.

The raw food, absorbed by the roots, is conveyed
through the wood fibre and vessels of the stem,
right up to the leaves, where, under the action of
sunlight, it is manufactured into the finished
material, which is then again conducted back
through the sieve tubes of the stem to form new
tissues, new shoots, and new roots. The proto-
plasm of the cells acts as a kind of magnet, drawing
the liquid food from cell to cell as it is required.

20 THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

The pressure of the ascending sap is often very
great. When active growth begins the cells be-
come charged with liquid, and the pressure of one
turgid cell on another forces the sap onwards. The
best example of this force of ascending sap can be
seen in the case of a bleeding vine. If the pruning
of the vine is delayed until too late in the spring,
moisture will ooze out freely from the cut surface
of the stem, and the vine is then said to ‘‘ bleed.”

Naturally, this weakens the future growth of the
vine very considerably, as, the cells having been cut
through, the sap escapes easily, the quantity increas-
ing as time goes on.

The Work of the Stem—This may be described
principally as ‘‘ transport work.” ‘The stem con-
veys, by means of its vascular bundles and tissues,
food to the branches and leaves. And it reconveys
the elaborated food to those parts of the plant that
need to be increased in size.

There is a continuous and definite system of flow
and return of food-stuffs always going on in the stem,
and specialised cells are concerned in that work.

Stems vary, of course, according to the species
of plant under consideration; some are of annual
duration only, and others live for an indefinite
period. In the first case, the structure is of less
permanent or woody a nature than in that of the
second.

But in all stems, whether of trees or of annual
plants, there is this transport work going on, a
definite conveyance of food-stuffs backwards and
forwards.

The Work of the Leaves.—These may be described
as the workshops of the plant, wherein all the raw

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A PLANT 21

material collected by the roots from the soil and air,
are manufactured into the finished products required
for building up the structure of the plant.

The green colouring matter in the leaf consists
of chlorophyll grains, and these grains are capable
of moving about at will in the cells; thus, in dark-
ness, they range themselves round the wall of the
cell, and in dull weather round three sides of the
cell only.

The under surfaces of the leaf are furnished
with breathing pores, called stomata. As many as
100,000 of these pores occur on every square inch
of leaf surface; they permit of the transpiration of
superfluous moisture, and of the absorption of
carbon dioxide gas (CQ,).

They really act as safety valves to the cells,
opening when there is a superabundance of water,
and closing again when there is a shortage of mois-
ture, so as to prevent the cells being emptied of their
contents.

Some plants have their epidermis, or outer skin,
covered with hairs, and these hairs have a special
office to perform. On cold, windy days, or in very
dry weather, they lie close over the stomata, to
prevent transpiration, and also to keep a layer of
warm air over the epidermis.

The health of the plant depends largely on the
working of these stomata, and that is one reason
why plants in towns and cities often fail to thrive,
because the stomata become choked with soot and
dust. ‘This should show us a very practical applica-
tion to gardening, pointing out how very necessary
it is to keep the leaves clean and healthy, that
they may breathe properly, and carry on without

22 THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

hindrance the wonderful work of food manu-
facture.

The daily work and routine of this green part of
the plant is one of the most interesting phenomena
in nature, and yet by the greater number of people,
one of the least-thought-of facts. It is, of course,
a commonplace piece of knowledge that plants do
exactly the opposite thing to the atmosphere, to
that done by human beings and animals—viz., they
purify the air during the daytime by breathing out
pure oxygen and taking in the carbon dioxide from
the surrounding air. This gas, whose chemical
formula is CO,, is at once seized upon by the chloro-
phyll grains, or chloroplasts (the green colouring
matter of the plant), and “ assimilated.”

After entering into the cells of the leaf, the CO,,
together with a certain amount of water, undergoes
a chemical change, which results in the formation
of a soluble carbohydrate.

The word Carbohydrate simply means a substance
composed of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. Starch
and sugar are carbohydrates, and the first to be
formed after this “‘ carbon-fixation” is sugar,
probably cane sugar, which is in soluble form, and
in this form the leaves send it along by special cells
and vessels down to the stem and roots.

The next process that this sugar undergoes is to
be converted into starch grains, which latter, being
solid, are more easily compressed into a small space.
Normally, the night-time storage form is sugar,
and each morning, directly it is light, the proto-
plasm seizes on the sugar, elaborates it, and once
more converts it into starch for the daytime storage
form.

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A PLANT 23

There are still a few old-fashioned countryfolk
who believe in always cutting their cabbages and
lettuces either last thing at night or else at dawn
in the very early morning.

They will tell you that they are more crisp and
tender before the sun is on them. This is quite
true, and it is a fact that they are also sweeter, and
when the physiology of the plant is studied then
light breaks in, and a reason dawns for what would
otherwise appear to be mere superstition.

We turn the light of science on these *‘ old-wives’
fables’ and smile no longer, for we find that in
spite of some superstition and legendary magic,
much of the solid gold of truth remains.

This work of seizing upon a raw gas and con-
verting it into food can only be performed by
plants; no part of an animal or human being can
perform these functions; it is a special prerogative
of plant life.

Day and night there is slips some useful work
going on in some part of the plant, with never a
complaint, all done silently and quickly, with no
words, no fuss, and no bother.

During the night-time the green part of the plant
performs an exactly opposite process to that of the
day. During the day it breathes out oxygen and
takes in CO,, but at night-time this process is
reversed, and the plant breathes after the manner
of human beings, taking in oxygen and giving out
Ci..

Therefore, on account of this, some people say,
and firmly believe, that it is most unhealthy to sleep
with a plant or flowers in one’s room. But as it
would take pretty well a whole conservatory of

24 THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

plants to breathe out as much CO, as is emitted
by one human being, surely a few plants or flowers
are not such dangerous room-mates as one human
being !

Scientists tell us that, if it were not for the fact of
plants purifying the atmosphere by breathing in
the poisonous CO, and giving out fresh oxygen,
the earth would soon be quite uninhabitable; we
should have such a superabundance of impure
gases hanging on the air unused, and to us un-
usable without the aid of plants, that we should
shortly be poisoned with these gases, and the earth
would become a dead planet.

The Fall of the Leaf—tIn very hot countries
trees retain most of their leaves all the year round;
a leaf falls occasionally, but no considerable portion
of them drop at any one time. This holds good
with regard to our own pine, fir, and spruce trees.
The impossibility of absorbing moisture from the
soil when the ground is very cold and near freezing-
point would cause the death by drying up of trees
with broad leaf surfaces. Also, in countries where
there is much snow, most large-leaved trees could
not escape injury to their branches from over-
loading with snow. For these reasons most of
our forest trees are deciduous—that is, they shed
their leaves at the approach of winter, and the
tree remains in a dormant condition.

In the autumn the green pigment in the leaf
breaks up, leaving behind yellow granules, and these
produce the autumn colour. This brilliant coloura-
tion of autumn leaves is often quite wrongly sup-
posed to be due to the action of frost.

But it depends merely on the changes in the

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A PLANT 25

‘chlorophyll grains and the liquid cell contents.
This is what happens in the autumn: When the
green pigment or colouring matter breaks up and
leaves behind the yellow granules, then many of
the materials in the leaf, including starch, gradually
recede along the leaf-stalks into the twigs, and
here they stay, and are ready for use in the following
spring.

But in the oak and beech this process does not
go on so extensively as in most other trees; the food
materials do not recede from the leaves before they
fall, and that is why their leaves are so much richer
and more valuable as fertilisers.

Gardeners always prefer leaf soil which is com-
posed of oak and beech leaves in preference to
that of any other tree, as experience shows them
that these leaves give the best results.

All these instances should show very clearly the
need there is for a close union between horticulture
and botany. Every gardener should be something
of a botanist, and try to learn a little of the structure,
anatomy, and physiology of the plant; otherwise
he is working in the dark, and cannot feel the same
interest in all the little details of ordinary, every-
day gardening. One is continually coming across
little gems of scientific knowledge that help very
materially in the cultivation of plants and their
successful treatment.

There is any amount of 1esearch work waiting to
be done in the gardening world, and plenty of
unexplored fields await our efforts, in the raising
of new varieties and improving existing ones, both
in the fruit and vegetable kingdom, to say nothing
of the flowers.

26 ‘THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

Then there is much work still to be done in the
eradication of fungoid and insect pests that attack
our crops—perfection is very far distant in that
direction.

Let us get away from that antiquated idea
that to take up gardening means to give up all
brain work. We want to get beyond the famous
“Punch” caricature of a gardener—a dreary-
looking creature, clay pipe in his mouth, corduroy
trousers tied below the knee with a bit of string,
and a face devoid of any intelligence, because, it
was said: ‘‘ Any fool can work on the land.”

Let us rather take as our motto Maartens’ famous
saying:

“ Gardeners have rare opportunities of thinking,
Watching how queer things grow.”

CHAPTER IV

HERBS AND THEIR ORIGIN

“*Excellent Herbs had our fathers of old,
Excellent Herbs to ease their pain;
Alexanders and Marigolds,

Eyebright, Orris and Elecampane,

Basil, Rocket, Valerian, Rue

(Almost singing themselves they run),

Vervain, Dittany, Call-me-to-you,

Cowslip, Melilot, Rose-of-the-sun ;

Anything green that grew out of the mould

Was an excellent Herb to our fathers of old.”
Rupyarp Kip.inc.

In gardening, almost more than in any other art or
craft, the past and the present are linked together,
and although people in these days are much amused
at the old superstitions of the herbalists, regarding
the faith that they placed in the healing virtues of
our wild flowers, yet modern research has justified
that faith. For we find that in spite of its alloy
with magic, astrology, and superstition, much of
the solid gold of truth remains.

The Doctrine of Signatures, as it was called, was
firmly believed in by the old herbalists. The idea
was, that by the mercy of God, many of the herbs
that He made for the service of men, were stamped,
as it were, and signed with their characters, so that
they could be read at a glance.

One of the chief exponents of this theory was
Paracelsus, or to give him his full name, Philippus

=

28 THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus, of Hohenheim.
He lived from 1493-1541, and was a doctor, but not
a favourite with his fellow-men, owing to his almost
incredible boastfulness. The word “‘ bombast ” was
in all probability coined from his name.

At the same time, although he was something of a
quack, his writings are occasionally illumined with
real scientific insight, and certainly he infused new
life into the chemistry and botany of his day. For
an understanding of this doctrine of signatures, it
may be enlightening to quote from Paracelsus
himself: ‘I have ofttimes declared, how by the
outward shapes and qualities of things, we may
know their inward virtues, which God hath put in
them for the use of man. Soin St. John’s Wort
we may take notice of the leaves, the porosity of
the leaves, the veins—(1) The porosity or holes in
the leaves signifies to us that this herb helps inward
or outward holes or cuts in the skin. (2) The
flowers of St. John’s Wort, when they are putrified,
they are like blood; which teaches us that this
herb is good for wounds, to close them and fill
them up.”

An Italian, of the name of Porta, developed this
theory still further, and often, it must be confessed,
he soared very much into the realms of fancy. He
held that herbs with a yellow sap would cure
jaundice, whilst those whose surface was rough to
the touch, would heal those diseases that destroy the
natural smoothness of the skin. ‘The resemblance
of certain plants to certain animals opens up to
Porta a vast field of conjecture and romancing.
Plants with flowers shaped like butterflies would
cure the bites of insects, while those whose roots

HERBS AND THEIR ORIGIN 29

or fruits had a jointed appearance, and thus remotely
suggested a scorpion, were sure remedies for the
bites of serpents.

William Cole, an Englishman, in 1657, did much
work in furthering this doctrine of plant signatures.
He seems to have possessed a philosophic mind,
and to have been much troubled because a large
proportion of the plants with undoubted medicinal
virtues, had no obvious signature. However, he
got over this difficulty by concluding that a certain
number were endowed with signatures, in order to
set man on the right track in his search for herbal
remedies; the remainder were purposely left blank,
in order to encourage his skill and resource in dis-
covering their properties for himself. A further
ingenious argument is, that a number of plants are
left without signatures because, if all were signed,
“the rarity of it, which is the delight, would be
taken away by too much harping upon one string.”

Another strong supporter in this country of the
doctrine of signatures was the astrological botanist,
Robert Turner. He states that God has imprinted
upon the plants, herbs, and flowers, as it were in
hieroglyphics, the very signature of their virtue.

“In physic by some signature, Nature herself doth point a cure.”

In 1644, Robert Turner wrote: “‘ For what climate
soever is subject to any particular disease, in the
same place there grows a cure.”

This point of view deserves our gratitude, as it
led to Dr. Maclagan’s discovery of salicin as a cure
for rheumatism. On the ground that in the case
of malarial disease “‘ the poisons which cause them

30 THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

and the remedy which cures them are naturally
produced under similar climatic conditions,” Macla-
gan sought and found in the bark of the willow,
which inhabits low-lying, damp situations, this drug,
which has proved so valuable in the treatment of
rheumatism.

Paracelsus was full of botanical mysticism, and was
a firm believer in the influence of the heavenly
bodies upon the vegetable world, or, in other words,
in botanical astrology.

He considered that each plant was under the
influence of some particular star, and that it was this
influence which drew the plant out of the earth
when the seed germinated. He held each plant
to be a terrestrial star, and each star a spiritualised
plant.

This subject of botanical astrology will be more
fully dealt with in Chapter X.

The Doctrine of Signatures explains the popular
names of many of our herbs :

Clary, or Clear Eyes, being most useful in all
eye troubles.

Prunella, or Self-Heal, acting as a magic balm
on all cuts or bruises.

Gout Weed, so called on account of its efficacy
in all gouty afflictions.

Feverfew, being a most soothing and calming
herb in all feverish diseases.

Foxglove leaves are of great value, yielding
the drug digitalin, a very old remedy in
heart trouble.

An extract made from Dandelion roots is used
in liver tonics.

HERBS AND THEIR ORIGIN 31
In Deadly Nightshade both root and leaves

are used; their medicinal value is for the

relief of pain in rheumatic diseases, and
also by oculists for the dilation of the pupil
of the eye.

Viper’s Bugloss has its stem speckled like a
snake, pointing out to all that it could cure
snake bites and the stings of scorpions. In
spite of its pretty forget-me-not-blue flowers,
the plant has a viperish look, which makes
it very distinctive.

Pulmonaria, or Lung Wort, has broadish leaves,
spotted in a manner resembling the lungs
of men and animals. It was esteemed useful
in all chest and lung complaints.

The Heart Trefoil has heart-shaped leaves, which
are sometimes bloodstained, so this herb
protects the heart.

The leaves of the St. ‘Fohn’s Wort look as if they
were perforated with tiny holes, like the
pores of the skin, so here we have a herb
that cures cuts and abrasions. This herb is
indeed one of the most magical of plants,
as evil spirits positively shudder at it, flying
off at the first whiff of its scent.

There are many legends woven about the
St. John’s Wort, and one of them tells us that if
after sunset on St. John’s Eve you happen to step
on the plant, a fairy horse arises out of the ground
which will carry you gloriously all the night, to
leave you wherever you may happen to be when
the first ray of the rising sun stirs the world. |

There may jbe more in these cures of Nature
than people of late years have been willing to

32. THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

allow; remedies are not necessarily so much more
effective for being done up with all the chemist’s
skill and cunning of white paper, scarlet sealing-wax,
and pink string. ‘These are attractive, no doubt,
and aids to faith (which is half the battle); but
supposing that customary and orthodox medicines
happened to be out of reach, it might be very useful
indeed to possess some old-time knowledge of the
herbal remedies of our forefathers. Some people
are inclined to raise objections on the score that
herbalism is a quack or empirical system of medicine
unworthy of support or serious consideration.
They believe it to be a mere tissue of “ old wives’
lore” and silly superstition, and are probably not
aware that modern pharmaceutical research has
vindicated the reputation of many an old-fashioned
“simple,” and has winnowed herbalism of its
ignorant elements, raising the practice of herbal
pharmacy to a scientific element.

How did the herbal ideas of healing arise ? Simply
by watching the self-cure of animals, whose instinct
led them to the plants with healing properties for
various complaints.

An interesting old superstition centres round the
Goat, from which we learn that he was supposed
to be the “ Herbalist Quadruped,” clever in finding
herbs that were good for physic.

In the Middle Ages every monastery and convent
had its physic garden, and it is to the untiring skill
and energy of the monks that we owe much of our
knowledge of medicinal plants and their uses. The
monks were, indeed, the grand pioneers of gardening
in all its branches, and we owe them a very large
debt for their skill and practice in these matters.

HERBS AND THEIR ORIGIN 33

In olden days the herb Rue was brought into
court to protect the Judge and Bench from the
contagion of gaol fever, and it was probably quite
effective, though nobody knew the reason. Recent
research has shown that the essential oil contained
in rue, as in other aromatic herbs like elecampane,
rosemary, and cinnamon, serves by its germicidal
principles to extinguish bacterial life. Nobody
knew much about bacteria in the time of Elizabeth
Fry, nor was much known about the alkaloids
contained in plant tissues prior to the discovery
of “ opium salt,” or morphine, by Derosne in 1803.
Yet rue had been disinfecting stuffy law courts,
and poppies had been acting as soporifics, long
before the action of either came to be explained.

According to old beliefs, one of the most useful
plants to grow in one’s garden is the Camomile,
regarded as the plants’ physician. Nothing was
thought to keep a garden so healthy, and it was
even said to revive drooping and sickly plants if
brought near them.

Saffron was used very extensively for dyeing, in
fact so much so that Henry VIII. issued a royal
proclamation strictly forbidding its use for hair-
dyeing purposes. Bacon says of saffron that it
conveys medicine to the heart, cures its palpitation,
removes melancholy and uneasiness, revives the
brain, renders the mind cheerful, and generates
boldness. Rather many virtues for one small plant
to claim !

For any meek and’gentle souls who may wish to
cultivate ferocity for the time being, it may be
useful to them to know that the root of Cat Mint,
when chewed, will make the most quiet and gentle

34 THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

person fierce and quarrelsome. There is a legend
of a hangman who could never bring himself to
perform his office until he had partaken of this
herb. Cats are most astonishingly fond of the
plant, and will seldom fail to dig up a newly-planted
specimen if they chance to come across it, from
which fact sprang the couplet:

“ Tf you set it, the cats will get it ;
If you sow it, the cats won’t know it.”

Rats, on the other hand, have a great and shudder-
ing aversion for the cat mint, and will go nowhere
near it. Corn Minit has quite a different use, as it
was said to prevent milk from curdling, and that
the milk of cows who fed on this herb could not be
turned into cheese.

Fennel seems to have served many purposes, and
to be the worker of many good deeds.

In the time of Edward I. we read that the poor
ate it when hungry and it satisfied them, the fat
ate it to make themselves thin, and the blind to
restore their sight.

“* Above the lowly plant it towers,
The Fennel with its yellow flowers,
; And in an earlier age than ours,
Was gifted with the wondrous powers
Lost vision to restore.”

Dill was of old a very favourite herb for use in
magic:
“ Here holy Vervain and here Dill,
*Gainst witchcraft much availing.”

Pennyroyal was another herb with equally good
virtues, as it was said to counteract the evil eye.

HERBS AND THEIR ORIGIN 35

Pliny tells us that a chaplet of pennyroyal worn
on the head, is the best cure for headache and
giddiness.

Wormwood is, with the exception of rue, the
bitterest herb known; but everyone must regard it
with interest, because of its responsibility for the
world-famous absinthe.

In France, acres of wormwood are grown simply
for the purpose of making absinthe; the leaves,
eaten raw, are said to be very wholesome.

Tansy was used in the old days for cakes and
puddings, in spite of the fact that tansy undoubtedly
ranks as one of the “bitter” herbs. It appears
that tansy cakes were eaten more especially at
Easter-time, as some writers tell us, to correct the
ill-effects of a prolonged fish diet. We have the
support of an old Easter carol for this belief:

“‘ Soone at Easter cometh Alleluya,
With butter, cheese, and a Tansy.”

The Verbena, or Vervain, was the Herba Sacra,
said by the Romans to cure bites from animals,
arrest venom, and act as an antidote to many
poisons; and feasts called ‘‘ Verbanalia ” were held
annually in its honour. Then legend catches up
the thought, and tells us how the herb was first
found on Calvary, and staunched the wounds of
Christ.

“‘ Hallowed be thou, Vervain,
As thou growest on the ground,

For in the Mount of Calvary
There thou wast first found.”

The Spikenard of Scripture is made from a valerian
that grows in the Himalayan Ranges. The medicinal

36 THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

properties of valerian have been well known through
all the ages; cats delight in it to such an extent that
they will go perfectly wild over it at times, gnawing
at the roots, and trying to tear up the whole
plant.

Rosemary is a plant of many virtues, and in olden
times no garden was considered worthy of the name
which did not include this inestimable herb. It
was enormously in request for making wine, physic,
and scent, and up till the present time it is one of
the ingredients of Eau-de-Cologne. ‘The flowers
are well beloved by the bees, making most excellent
honey.

Bergamot is another great favourite with the
bees; in fact, its old-fashioned name is *‘ Bee-Balm,”’
surely sufficient to prejudice anyone in its favour !
The flowers are a warm crimson, and make a glorious
patch of colour in the garden. Oil of bergamot
goes into perfumery, and an extract from the leaves
helps to compose the preparation known to modern
doctors as thymol.

Pimpernel, in the olden days, was a sure remedy
for the bite of a mad dog, and also an effective
remover of all sadness. It is very interesting to
note that the pimpernel should have won this
character for cheerfulness amongst the English,
for the name in the Greek means to laugh.

Fumitory is another of the herbs with a magic
past, as its very name will tell us, for many of the old
books say that when burned, the smoke was used in
sorcery. Others again say that instead of growing
from seed, it is produced from vapours rising from
the earth. Truly a plant to connect with the
witch, her cauldron, and her black cat! | |

HERBS AND THEIR ORIGIN 37

‘In every plant

There lives a spirit, more or less akin
Unto the spirit of humanity.

Some heal diseases dire; others wake
Strange whimsies in the busy brain of man.”

ScENT IN THE GARDEN.

Its Zésthetic and Practical Uses.—In olden days
no garden was considered complete without its
borders of sweet-scented flowers and herbs, and it
seems that a great deal more attention was paid
to that fragrant subject than is the case in these
days.

Too often individual flowers are “over -culti-
vated’ to produce blossoms of colossal size or
striking and dazzling colours, and the delicate beauty
of fragrance is eliminated.

Some of the newer roses are a typical case in
point: they are floral wonders in every sense of the
word except that of scent, and that intangible
and subtle delight seems totally lacking in these
otherwise perfect flowers.

Modern research has proved that our forefathers
were quite right in their cultivation of flowers and
plants for scent; they were not merely luxuriously
delighting their senses, as science has now disclosed
to us that ozone is developed when the sun
shines on most kinds of fragrant plants, such as
fir and pine trees, scented flowers, and sweet herbs
generally.

John Evelyn, that wise and famous gardener of
old, had very ambitious ideas, as he soberly and
solemnly proposed to make London the healthiest,
as well as the happiest city in the world, by sur-

38 THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

rounding it with plots and hedgerows of sweet-
briar, jasmine, lilies, rosemary, lavender, musk, and
marjoram.

But, unfortunately, he was not able to carry out
his ideas, so we have not been able to see the results
of such a truly alluring scheme.

To quote an old-world opinion on scent:
“Thyme will renew the spirits and vital energy
in long walks under an August sun; the Maréchal
Niel rose is invigorating in lowness of mind or
body. Sweetbriar promotes cheerfulness; yellow
bedstraw, cowslip, wallflower, damask and pink
china roses, plum blossom, bog myrtle, and wild
honeysuckle refresh the spirits; while the smell of
ground ivy, charlock, woodruff, rosemary, and
fresh-cut grass will often prove a bodily refresh-
ment.”’

These views should not surprise us, as, considering
how large a part the visible plays in our enjoyment
of gardens, it is not therefore very astonishing
that much of their charm should also depend upon
the invisible.

For it always seems that there is something even
more wonderful and subtle about the unseen gift
of fragrance, than about the more striking gift
of colour; scent is less definable, less explainable,
and its wonders have been less explored.

In the herb garden, fragrance depends more
on the leaves of plants than the flowers, and one
secret is soon discovered: the value of leaf scents.
Flower scents are evanescent, leaf odours are
permanent. On the other hand, leaf odours, though
“ready when sought,” do not force themselves
upon us, as it were, like flower scents, which we

HERBS AND THEIR ORIGIN 39

must smell whether we will or no. The leaf
scents have to be coaxed out by touching, bruising,
or pressing, but there they are, all the time.

HERBULARIS

“A chaplet then of Herbs Ill make
Than which though yours be braver,
Yet this of mine I’ll undertake
Shall not be short of savour:
With Basil then I will begin,
Whose scent is wondrous pleasing;
This Eglantine I'll next put in,
The sense with sweetness seizing;
Then in my Lavender I lay,
Muscado put among it,
With here and there a leaf of Bay,
Which still shall run along it.

“‘Germander, Marjoram and Thyme,

Which uséd are for strewing;

With Hyssop as an Herb most prime
Here in my breath bestowing;

Then Balm and Mint help to make up
My Chaplet, and for trial

Cost Mary that so likes the cup,
And next it Pennyroyal.

Then Burnet shall bear up with this,
Whose leaf I greatly fancy;

Some Chamomile does not amiss
With Savoury and some Tansy.

“‘ Then here and there I’ll put a sprig
Of Rosemary into it,
Thus not too little nor too big,
Tis done if I can do it.”
Micuaet Drayton,

CHAPTER V
THE PATRON SAINTS OF GARDENING

“Come, my spade. There is no ancient gentlemen but
gardeners, ditchers, and grave-makers; they hold up Adam’s
profession.” —SHAKEsPEARE: Hamlet.

Wits all the myth and legend interwoven with
gardening, it is only fitting that gardeners should
have a patron saint to guard their interests and look
after their welfare, and in this matter they are
particularly lucky, having two saints as their especial
patrons: St. Fiacre and St. Phocas.

All through the ages we owe far more than we
know or imagine to those grand pioneers the monks,
for their skill in flower culture and herbalism; and
gardeners, who, to a man, are dedicated to such a
peaceful and meditative pursuit, should care to
know of the story of St. Fiacre, the Irish prince,
who turned hermit, and after his death was hailed
the patron of gardeners, and of St. Phocas, the
holy gardener who was martyred for the Faith in
early days.

The lives of these holy men should prove of great
inspiration to all tillers of the soil in these very
mundane days, and true gardeners, being simple-
minded folk, will want none of the ““ New Thought ”
of these modern days. The old religion and the
same patron saints of a few centuries ago will
doubtless be quite good enough for them.

40

THE PATRON SAINTS OF GARDENING 41

St. Fiacre was by birth an Irishman, and, tradition
tells us, nobly born, probably a prince. But he
left Ireland with some companions in quest of
solitude, at that time when missionary zeal was
sending Irish monks all over Europe to convert
many to the Faith.

Fiacre made his vows at a new monastery which
St. Faro, Bishop of Meaux, had founded on the
River Marne, the Monastery of St. Croix.

But even in this holy life of strict rule and
austerity, St. Fiacre craved still greater solitude,
so he went to the holy Bishop, and told him of his
desire to become a hermit, and the Bishop, being a
good and saintly man himself, read the right inten-
tion in Fiacre’s heart, and gave him a solitary dwell-
ing in a forest.

There Fiacre soon cleared a space and built a
small oratory in honour of Our Lady, and a hut
close by, where he slept. Then, this done, he began
to make his garden.

St. Fiacre must have thought that here in the
forest, in the midst of his garden, he was safe from
the world, and yet he became known. Possibly
some swineherd or shepherd whom the saint had
befriended, went forth on his way and spread news
of this holy man who had made the wilderness
to blossom as arose. So the news filtered through
the country, and the people came to see this wonder;
but when they had heard the holy man preach and
seen him heal the sick, they were convinced of his
sanctity, and knew that this was no magician, but a
saint of God.

Finally the saint was obliged to build another hut
to accommodate those who came from afar to consult

42 THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

him, and so he went to the Bishop and asked him
for more land. The Bishop, it must be remem-
bered, was himself a saint, and he granted Fiacre’s
request in a curious way. He gave to him as
much land as he could enclose with his spade in
one day.

So our holy gardener hurried back to the forest,
and marked out a space larger than any dozen men
could clear in one day, and then, after going to his
oratory to pray for help, he set to work.

Well, there were people watching him from
various parts, and before very long a deputation
went off in hot haste to fetch the Bishop: a miracle
was happening, for far and wide, wherever the eye
could reach, there were angels at work felling the
trees, clearing the ground, and others again were
busy with spades digging. By sunset the space was
all cleared.

And so, by this miracle of enlarging the space of
his garden, this saint has rightly become the patron
saint of gardeners. He died about the year 670,
and his feast is observed on August 30.

There seems no authentic reason for St. Fiacre
also being known as the patron saint of cab-drivers.
It arose through one man, who let out carriages for
hire, placing a statue of St. Fiacre over his doorway,
and all the coaches starting from this point began
to be called “ fiacres,” and the drivers placed
images of him on their carriages and hailed him
as their patron.

On the site of St. Fiacre’s cell a large Benedictine
Priory was built, and here his relics were kept and
did many wonders of healing.

THE PATRON SAINTS OF GARDENING 43

Tue Lecenp oF St. Puocas, Patron oF
GARDENERS AND SAILORS.

St. Phocas lived towards the end of the third
century, near the gate of Sinope, a city of Pontus.
He obtained his living by cultivating a garden,
in which he grew flowers and vegetables; and,
according to tradition, everything he grew flourished
exceedingly, and was much more prolific than
under other people’s cultivation.

There is a statue of St. Phocas at St. Mark’s,
Venice, where he is portrayed as of a fine and
muscular build, with a flowing beard, and dressed
as a gardener, holding a spade.

Finally, he died for the Faith, being martyred
during the Diocletian persecution in the year 303.

It came to the ears of the heathen rulers that
Phocas was a Christian, and lictors were at once
sent out to search for and kill him. But they were
unable to find his house, and came there all un-
knowingly for shelter, little guessing it was the
house of Phocas. He gave them food and hos-
pitality, as was his wont in the case of all strangers
and wayfarers, and when he asked their errand,
they said they were looking for one Phocas, a
Christian, and begged his help. The holy Phocas
invited them to rest there that night, promising
to be their guide the next day. After they had
gone to bed the saint went out and dug a grave
for himself amongst his own beloved flowers, and
then prepared his soul for death.

The morning came and the saint’s guests were
ready to depart, when he stayed them by saying
they need go no further, as he was Phocas, for whom

44 THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

they were searching. The lictors were grieved
and horrified at the idea of staining their hands
with the blood of their host; nevertheless they
obeyed their orders and severed his head from his
body, thereby procuring for the holy man the
martyr’s crown.

Holy Church keeps his feast day on July 3.

St. Phocas is also the special patron of sailors on
the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, for he has
often been seen at night, when the tempest arises,
waking up the weary steersman at the rudder, and
at other times minding the cable and sails, or at the
prow looking ahead for the shallows.

Therefore it became a custom with sailors to
have Phocas for their guest, and day by day they
set aside a portion of each meal for the martyr, nor
would they touch it till they had laid by the small
coin that was its equivalent. Then, at the end of
the voyage, they would distribute among the poor
the sum thus collected.

St. BENEDICT AND THE BEEs.

In common with many other legends, that of
St. Benedict seems to have been tucked away so
tidily in a back compartment, in England, that it
has been entirely forgotten by most people.

Tradition tells us that St. Benedict takes a special
interest in protecting people and animals against
disease, and the holy saint was said to be particu-
larly fond of bees.

In Brittany, there is hardly a hive of bees to be
seen without its little blessed medallion hanging
over the doorway, or “ bee-way.”

THE PATRON SAINTS OF GARDENING 45

The average, practical, unromantic English person
will say: “‘ But the Breton peasant is, of course,
quite uneducated and so superstitious.” ‘These
hard-headed, material-minded ones would scorn
to have recourse to some “ mythical saint who
lived in those unenlightened Middle Ages ”’!

Still, it is a beautiful act of faith on the part
of these poor peasants of Brittany to hang “ little
Father St. Benedict ”’ over their hives, saying every
Tuesday (a day set apart particularly to his memory)
five Paters in honour of the Passion of Our Lord,
three Aves in honour of Our Lady, and three
Glorias in honour of St. Benedict.

Then worry no more about the bees, but leave
them to the good saint; he will look after them
and see that no disease touches them.

The bees, being very psychic, are quite aware
of the blessed medallion hanging over their door-
way, and they like to think that a great saint in
heaven is looking after their interests; so on this
score they will probably thrive all the better,
even supposing that St. Benedict saw fit to do
nothing special for them, which is not very likely.

“‘ A Garden is a lovesome thing, God wot:
Rose plot,
Fringed pool,
Ferned grot.
The veriest school
Of peace; and yet the fool
Contends that God is not.
Not God ! in gardens! When the eve is cool?
Nay, but I have a sign;
Tis very sure God walks in mine.”
Tuomas Epwarp Brown.

CHAPTER VI
SOME BEE LORE

“The swarthy bee is a buccaneer,
A burly velveted rover,
Who loves the booming wind in his ear,
As he sails the seas of clover.

“ His flimsy sails abroad on the wind
Are shivered with fairy thunder;
On a line that sings to the light of his wings,
He makes for the lands of wonder.”

Every gardener should be a bee-keeper, and every
garden should have its hive of bees, for in all matters
of fruit culture it has been abundantly proved that
we are absolutely dependent on the bees for our fruit
crops. Everyone who grows fruit knows that there
are some trees and bushes that may be furnished
with a wealth of blossom which from some cause
fails to set, and this failure is invariably attributed
to frost or cold winds during the flowering period.

But it often happens that neither of these causes
is responsible, and much investigation has been given
to the subject of late years, both in this country
and in America.

And the result of these observations shows us
that the primary cause for fruit blossom failing to
set, is very often due to the fact that some varieties
bear self-sterile flowers, that is to say, flowers
incapable of being sale with their own pollen.

4

SOME BEE LORE 47

Thus, for example, if one grew Cox’s Orange
Pippin only, the probability is that, though the
trees might flower profusely, few if any fruits would
be formed, unless bees were plentiful in the district
to convey the necessary pollen from other varieties.
On the other hand, one might grow only Worcester
Pearmain and secure abundant crops, as the flowers
of this variety are capable of being fertilised with
their own pollen.

Gooseberry and currant flowers are self-fertile,
but cannot self-pollinate themselves, as their pollen
grains are glutinous, so the agency of bees is required
to transfer the pollen to the stigma.

Raspberries and loganberries do not fruit so
freely if their flowers are not pollinated by the bees.

It can easily thus be seen how very dependent
we are upon the bees for our fruit crops, and this
being the case, surely we should endeavour to learn
more of their life, and try to encourage bee-keeping
on a much larger scale than is now practised in this
country. True, of late years there has been a terrible
scourge, the “Isle of Wight” disease, which has
carried off many large stocks of bees completely,
but now it almost seems that the plague has abated
somewhat, and a great endeavour should be made
to bring the lost art of bee-keeping back into all
the country villages.

THE ORIGIN OF THE Honey BEE.

Amongst all the fables of ancient mythology,
that dealing with the origin of the honey bee is
without doubt one of the prettiest.

On the birth of Jupiter, his mother, Ops, entrusted

48 THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

him to the two daughters of the King of Greece,
Melissa and Amalthea, in order that the young god
might escape the fate that awaited him, that of
providing a repast for his father, Saturn. To
smother the cries of the unfortunate baby god, the
sisters continually beat upon brazen pans, and this
attracted the neighbouring wild bees, who forth-
with undertook the responsibility of his nourish-
ment, bringing him daily supplies of honey. In
acknowledgment of their services, Jupiter endowed
these wild bees with the power of parthenogenesis,
so waiving the ordinary male and female principles;
and entrusted their descendants with the work of
gathering honey for the food of man.

The countryfolk of Scotland and Ireland, who
seem to live in such close touch with Nature, still
cling to the old custom of “ telling the bees.” This
is a relic of the time when the honey bees were
looked upon as the guardians of the household, and
every important event in the family life, whether
of joy, sorrow, or adventure, was told to them as a
mark of courtesy and consideration.

“‘ Bees, Bees! Haste to your bees,
Hide from your neighbours as much as you please,
But all that has happened to us you must tell,
Or else we will give you no honey to sell.”

The old bee-fathers used to raise their hats to the
honey bee, a gracious act of courtesy, the spirit of
which we should do well to emulate.

It is an old and well-known fact that the honey
bee is possessed of marvellous—one might almost
say psychical—perceptions, and is extremely sensitive
to conditions not merely material and physical,

SOME BEE LORE 49

but mental and even moral, which we mortals
cannot always appreciate.

Numerous cases are known of bees attacking
people who, to all appearance, treated these relent-
less judges of mankind with due respect and con-
sideration, but who have gone to their bees in
anger or in a state of nervous excitement or ex-
haustion. Pliny solemnly cautions thieves and
malefactors against approaching hives at any time,
and Butler, a devoted student of bee life, living
in the reign of Queen Anne, gives most elaborate
advice as to the necessary qualities of the good
bee-master.

With the ancient Romans, a flight of bees was
considered a bad omen. Appian says a swarm of
bees alighted on the altar and prognosticated the
fatal issue of the battle of Pharsalia.

It is said that when Plato was in his cradle a
swarm of bees alighted on his mouth.

In Christian art, St. Ambrose is represented with
a beehive, as there is a similar tradition of a swarm
of bees alighting on his mouth when he was an
infant.

‘Marriage, birth or burying,
News across the seas,
All you’re sad or merry in,

You must tell the bees.
Tell ’em going in and out
Where the Fanners fan,
’Cos the bees are just about
As curious as a man.

** Don’t you wait where trees are,
Where the lightnings play,
Nor don’t you hate where bees are,

Or else they’ll fly away,

50 ‘THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

Pine away, dwine away,
Anything to leave you.

But if you never grieve your bees,
Your bees ’Il never grieve you.”

The greatest scientists and most devoted students
of the wonderful bee commonwealth, all agree
with Maeterlinck that—‘“‘ Beyond the appreciable
facts of their life we know but little of the bees,
and the closer our acquaintance with them, the
nearer is the appreciation of our ignorance brought
to us.”’

This great bee lover, after many years of bee-
keeping, says: “ You will find that we shall often
halt before the unknown,” and that we most cer-
tainly do, in that most wonderful and complex
city known as the hive.

In his book “‘’ The Life of the Bee,” Mactevlinck
lifts the veil for us, and shows us the interior of a
hive from the bees’ point of view, as far as our
limited human understanding can picture the world
as it looks to them.

*“‘ Inside the hive, it would seem that from the
height of a dome more colossal than that of
St. Peter’s at Rome, waxen walls descend to the
ground, balanced in the void and the darkness.

“Each of these walls, whose substance is still
immaculate and fragrant, of virgin, silvery freshness,
contains thousands of cells, stored with provisions
sufficient to feed the whole people for several weeks.

“ Here, lodged in transparent cells, are the pollens,
love ferments of every flower of the spring, making
brilliant splashes of red and yellow, of black and
mauve.

“Close by, sealed with a seal only to be broken

SOME BEE LORE 51

in days of supreme distress, the honey of April is
stored, most limpid and perfumed of all, in 20,000
reservoirs that form a long and magnificent em-
broidery of gold, whose borders hang stiff and rigid.
Still lower, the honey of May matures, in great
open vats, by whose side watchful cohorts maintain
an incessant current of air. In the centre, and far
from the light, whose diamond rays steal in through
the only opening, in the warmest part of the hive,
there stands the abode of the future, here does it
sleep and wake. For this is the royal domain of
the brood cells, set apart for the Queen and her
acolytes, about 10,000 cells, wherein the eggs
repose, 15,000 or 16,000 chambers tenanted by
larve, 40,000 dwellings inhabited by white nymphs,
to whom thousands of nurses minister.

“And finally, in the holy of holies of these parts,
are the three, four, or six sealed palaces, vast in size
compared with the others, where the adolescent
princesses lie who await their hour; wrapped in a
kind of shroud, all of them pale and motionless,
and fed in the darkness.”

It seems that of all the insect associations, there
are none that have more excited the attention and
admiration of mankind in every age, than the
colonies of bees, and many ancient Greek and
Roman writers are loud in their praise.

Marvellous and wonderful in their absurdity,
were some of the errors and fables which many of
the ancients believed, with regard to the generation
and propagation of the “ busy bee.”’ For instance,
that they were sometimes produced from the
putrid bodies of oxen and lions, the kings and
leaders from the brain, and the vulgar herd from the

52 THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN
flesh. ‘This fable was derived probably from

swarms of bees having been observed, as in the case
of Samson, to take possession of the dried carcasses
of these animals; or possibly from the myriads of
flies (for often the ignorant do not readily distin-
guish flies from bees) generated in the decaying flesh
of dead animals.

This idea is particularly repulsive though, when
suggested in connection with such a clean insect
as a bee, for they cannot tolerate dirt in any shape
orform. ‘Their own hives are kept most scrupulously
clean, and often they have been known to attack
an unwashed specimen of humanity, who dares to
come near their hives smelling of perspiration.

It is quite true, as Emerson tells us:

*“‘ Aught unsavoury or unclean
Hath my insect never seen.”

Another ancient notion with regard to the bees,
although more fragrant, was equally absurd—that
the bees collect their young from the flowers and
foliage of certain plants. ‘The reed and the olive
especially, had this virtue of generating infant bees
attributed to them.

Aristotle and Pliny seem to have had quite up-
to-date ideas concerning the hive and its inmates,
except in their designating the head of the hive
to be a king instead of a queen.

Aristotle tells us that the kings generate both
kings and workers, and the latter the drones.

It is right, he says, that the kings should remain
inside the hive, unfettered by any employment,
because they are made for the multiplication of the
species. Aristotle also tells us that in his time

SOME BEE LORE 53

some affirmed that the worker bees were the females
and the drones the males: an opinion which he
fights with a somewhat far-fetched analogy, that
Nature would never give offensive armour to
females !

Virgil describes the attachment of the bees to
their sovereign with great truth and spirit in the
following lines:

** Lydian nor Mede so much his king adores,

Nor those on Nilus’ or Hydaspes’ shores;

The state united stands while he remains;
But should he fall, what dire confusion reigns.

Their waxen combs and honey, late their joy,
With grief and rage distracted, they destroy.

He guards the works, with awe they him surround,
And crowd about him with triumphant sound;

Him frequent on their duteous shoulders bear,
Bleed, fall, and die for him in glorious war.”

To quote a later and more up-to-date authority
on this subject, Réaumur, the great French scientist,
says: “‘ With regard to the ordinary attention and
homage that they pay to their sovereign, the bees
do more than respect their queen. They are
constantly on the watch to make themselves useful
to her, and to render her every kind office; they are
for ever offering her honey; they lick her with their
proboscis, and wherever she goes she has a court
to attend upon her.”

Then, again, think of the complicated mechanism
of the hive, where all is done with exact and military
precision, all the inmates doing their work quietly
and silently, without any fuss or bother. To quote
Maeterlinck’s words:

“There are the nurses, who attend the nymphs

54 THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

and the larve; the ladies of honour who wait on the
queen, and never allow her out of their sight; the
house-bees who air, refresh, or heat the hive by
fanning their wings, and hasten the evaporation
of the honey that may be too highly charged with
water; the architects, masons, and wax-workers who
form the chain, and construct the combs; the
foragers who sally forth to the flowers in search of
the nectar that turns into honey, of the pollen that
feeds the nymphs and larve, the propolis that welds
and strengthens the buildings of the city, or the
water and salt required by the youth of the
nation.

“*’'The orders have gone forth to the chemists, who
ensure the preservation of the honey by letting a
drop of formic acid fall in from the end of their
sting; to the capsule-makers, who seal down the
cells when the treasure is ripe; to the sweepers,
who maintain public places and streets most irre-
proachably clean; to the bearers, whose duty it is to
remove the corpses; and to the amazons of the guard,
who keep watch on the threshold by day and by
night, question comers and goers, recognise the
novices who return from their very first flight,
scare away vagabonds, marauders, and loiterers,
expel all intruders, attack redoubtable foes in a
body, and, if need be, barricade the entrance.”

Such is the continual, daily work, methodical and
organised, going on in each and every hive, and then
human beings think that they are the only living
creatures who know the meaning of work !

To quote once more from Bliss Carman in “A
More Ancient Mariner,” from whom came the
verses at the beginning of this chapter:

SOME BEE LORE

“‘ He never could box the compass round;
He doesn’t know port from starboard ;
But he knows the gates of the sundown straits
Where the choicest goods are harboured.

** He never could see the Rule of Three,
But he knows a rule of thumb
Better than Euclid’s, better than yours,
Or the teachers’ yet to come.

“‘ He drones along with his rough sea-song,
And the throat of a salty tar,

This devil-may-care, till he makes his lair,
By the light of a yellow star.

“* He looks like a gentleman, lives like a lord,
And works like a Trojan hero;
Then loafs all winter upon his hoard,
With the mercury at zero.”

55

CHAPTER VII
SOME BIRD LORE

* The birds, who make sweet music for us all
In our dark hours, as David did for Saul.

“Do you ne’er think what wondrous beings these?

Do you ne’er think who made them, and who taught

The dialect they speak, where melodies
Alone are the interpreters of thought?

Whose household words are songs in many keys,
Sweeter than instrument of man e’er caught !

Whose habitations in the tree-tops even

Are half-way houses on the road to Heaven !”

LoncreLLtow: The Birds of Killingworth.

Birps IN THE GARDEN.

Birps are, speaking generally, absolutely essential in
the garden, and they are far more friends than
enemies of the gardener, if he would only realise
this fact.

But because a blackbird or a thrush steals a
few cherries or strawberries, a house-sparrow mis-
chievously nips off a few crocus flowers in the spring,
a chaffinch or greenfinch purloins a few seeds, or a
bullfinch vigorously pulls off the buds of goose-
berry or pear—forthwith, in the gardeners’ estima-
tion, all birds are enemies, and must be got rid of
at once. All during the season of the “ soft fruit ”’
the patience of gardeners and owners of gardens
certainly is apt to be somewhat tried by the birds,

56

SOME BIRD LORE 57

who will, especially during hot weather, make much
havoc with the fruit.

And how many people look on this as otherwise
than sheer theft? Yet there are two other points
of view, and the first is, that very often thirst will
drive the birds to the fruit, and if their needs were
more thought of, and water supplied regularly in
the garden, then the fruit crop might not suffer
so badly.

Secondly, we should bear in mind that for ser-
vices rendered the birds are surely entitled to a
percentage of the fruit in each garden.

Joseph Addison writes on this subject: ‘‘ There
is another circumstance in which I am very par-
ticular, or, as my neighbours call me, very whim-
sical: as my garden invites into it all the birds of
the country, by offering them the conveniency of
springs and shades, solitude and shelter, I do not
suffer anyone to destroy their nests in the spring,
or drive them from their usual haunts in fruit time.
I value my garden more for being full of blackbirds
than cherries, and very frankly give them fruit for
their songs. By this means, I have always the music
of the season in its perfection, and am highly de-
lighted to see the jay or the thrush hopping about
my walks, and shooting before my eyes across
the several little glades and alleys that I pass
through.”

The kind acts performed by many individual
species of birds are manifold: for instance, in the
case of blackbirds and thrushes, they are inveterate
fruit-stealers, but at the same time their diet is
very largely made up of slugs and snails in great
quantities. The thrush especially, if left undis-

58 THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

turbed, will dispose of a large number of snails; he
usually selects and keeps one flat stone on which to
break the shell of the snail and get at the dainty
morsel within. And one hears the steady crack-
crack of the snail being beaten against the stone
by the thrush’s strong beak.

The chaffinch and the greenfinch feed on weeds
and small caterpillars, being most active in tracking
down the latter. Starlings feed on worms, leather-
jackets, and practically any soil grubs. Robins
and wrens are very fond of worms and small insects.
The house-sparrow, our much-maligned friend,
whom many people would like to exterminate
altogether because (they say) he is so utterly
useless, lives very largely on grubs and other insects.
The seagull is very partial to leather-jackets and
wireworms, whenever he can find any, and the
magpie and the owl feed on mice, voles, and all
surface caterpillars.

Surely if these birds render us such excellent
service in attacking the chief pests that infest our
crops we ought not to begrudge their levying a
toll on a few fruits as a reward for their services.

Think of the dreary picture that Longfellow
paints for us if we really did succeed in trapping
and killing all the birds out of our gardens!

“Think of your woods and orchards without birds !
Of empty nests that cling to boughs and beams,
As in an idiot’s brain remembered words
Hang empty ’mid the cobwebs of his dreams!
Will bleat of flocks or bellowing of herds
Make up for the lost music, when your teams
Drag home the stingy harvest, and no more
The feathered gleaners follow to your door?

SOME BIRD LORE 59

** You call them thieves and pillagers; but know
They are the wingéd wardens of your farms,
Who from the cornfields drive the insidious foe,

And from your harvests keep a hundred harms;
Even the blackest of them all, the crow,

Renders good service as your man-at-arms,
Crushing the beetle in his coat of mail,
And crying havoc on the slug and snail.”

One feels that one can endorse the terse, strong
language of Dr. Abbott, the naturalist: “‘ A creature
that will destroy a song-bird’s nest is a pest, and
whether furred, feathered, four-legged, or a boy,
ought to be exterminated.”

It is undoubtedly a fact, and a sad one, that in
America the bluebirds have had an extraordinarily
hard time; they are among the most confiding and
friendly of all the bird tribe, and yet they have been
uncompromisingly sought and killed for their gay
and beautiful plumage.

And it seems that the wee humming-birds, whose
diminutive size should have secured them from
harm, are seen oftener now on wearing apparel
than on the flowers.

Whittier, one of the kindliest natured of men,
was constrained to write on this subject:

“1 could almost wish that the shooters of birds,
the taxidermists who prepare them, and the
fashionable wearers of their plumage, might share
the penalty of the Ancient Mariner who shot the
albatross.”

Many students in ornithology are exceedingly
wasteful of bird life, and the rarer becomes a species
the less are the chances that any will escape. Every
ambitious collector is anxious for a specimen; it

60 THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

matters not that the species has been often de-
scribed, its structures and habits well known, the
bird must pay with its life for the penalty of being
rare.

Surely this is a burlesque on science, a travesty
on the subject of natural history. But even this
horrible wrong seems dwarfed when compared with
the destruction of the birds for millinery and
decorative purposes.

If the facts connected with this traffic could
generally be made known, a thrill of indignation
would take possession of every right-minded person,
and the community, in wrath would demand that
this outrage must cease; but, unfortunately, the
killing is carried on surreptitiously, much of it in
out-of-the-way places. In America, those who
have investigated the subject know that thousands
of men and boys all over the country, are regularly
employed to kill and skin the native birds.

Attention need not be called to the individual
uses of these decorations. ‘They may be seen on the
hats of rich and poor, old and young: a whole bird
on one, a half-dozen wings on another; beaks and
breasts on others; hateful emblems of thoughtless
cruelty, most unbecoming to the women who wear
them.

A few more years of such wanton warfare on the
birds and it almost seems that men will walk the
voiceless fields and woods where, instead of bright
wings amid the green foliage and artistic structures
filled with eggs and fluttering birds, only unsightly
nests of crawling worms will dangle from leafless
bush and tree.

In place of the gay carol of the bird voices, only

SOME BIRD LORE 61

the fretting hum of troublesome insects will worry
the listening ear:

“‘ What ! would you rather see the incessant stir

Of insects in the windrows of the hay,

And hear the locust and the grasshopper
Their melancholy hurdy-gurdies play?

Is this more pleasant to you than the whir
Of meadow-lark and her sweet roundelay,

Or twitter of little fieldfares, as you take

Your nooning in the shade of bush and brake?”

Emerson, speaking on this subject, says:

“We should go to the ornithologist with a new
feeling, if he could teach us what the social birds
say when they sit in the autumn council talking to-
gether in the trees. The want of sympathy makes
his record a dull dictionary. His result is a dead
bird. ‘The bird is not in its ounces and inches,
but in its relation to nature; and the skin or skeleton
you show me is no more a heron than a heap of ashes
or a bottle of gases into which his body has been
reduced is Dante or Washington.”

Amongst all the birds in this country, the robin
and the wren have, perhaps, figured the most
extensively in legend and plant lore—in fact, as the

old ballad quaintly says:

‘The Robin and the Wren
Are God Almighty’s cock and hen.”

They have both enjoyed an amount of protection
almost amounting to superstition, though the
wrens did suffer rather badly some few years ago
from the attacks of schoolboys.

Noticing that the wrens usually kept to the
shelter of the hedgerows and seldom ventured

62 THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

upon any lengthy flight, these boys, armed with
sticks and stones, would beat on either side of the
hedge until poor Jenny Wren was killed.

In the South of Ireland, a wren is carried about
in great honour, to the accompaniment of the
following verse:

“<The Wren, the Wren, the King of all birds,
Was caught St. Stephen’s day in the furze;
Although he’s little, his family’s great,
Then, pray, kind gentlefolks, give him a treat.”

Another old saying with regard to the wren runs
thus: “It was decided in a parliament of the
birds that the one who flew highest should be king.
The wren hid itself on the eagle’s back, and when
the eagle had flown the highest, the wren fluttered
a little higher still.”

The robin seems through all the ages to have been
regarded as a sacred bird, and in olden times was
always associated with Christmas and Easter. He
is the most trusting of all our garden birds, seeming -
to know no fear, and he delights in the companion-
ship of all who work in gardens, following round
with bright eyes, intently watchful on all worms,
slugs, and other succulent morsels. The robin
is, in fact, one of the most efficient members of the
bird police force, who patrol our gardens and keep
down insect thieves and criminals.

Tue LEGEND OF THE ROBIN.

Tradition tells us that he owes his ruddy breast
to the fact that as Our Lord climbed upwards to
Calvary bearing His cross and wearing the crown
of thorns, a little bird with soft brown plumage

SOME BIRD LORE 63

was overwhelmed at the sight of the awful tragedy
and fluttered round, trying its best to assist and
cheer—striving with beak and claws to draw away
the thorns running so deep into the holy brow, till
in its efforts the robin’s own soft breast was torn and
bleeding, and Our Lord said to him: “ Because you
have tried to soothe My anguish, henceforth you
shall bear the marks of My blood upon your breast,
and for evermore you shall be loved and welcomed
near the dwellings of men.”

Another legend popularly believed of the robin
in medizval times is that he often flies to Hades,
bringing in his beak drops of water to assuage
the thirst of the poor souls there, and in this act
of charity his breast is scorched by the flames.

Whittier writes of this legend:

“ He brings cool dew in his little bill,
And lets it fall on the souls of sin;
You can see the mark on his red breast still,
Of fires that scorch as he drops it in.”

Another pretty belief about the robin tells us
that he will cover up a dead body, as he is supposed
to have done for the “‘ Babes in the Wood.”

“* Covering with moss the dead’s uncloséd eye,

The little redbreast teacheth charity.”

St. CUTHBERT AND THE Birps.

St. Cuthbert, in olden days, was one of the most
famous and best-loved saints in all the North of
England. He was a monk, who brought Christ-
lanity to the Farne Isles, dying in the year 687.
The islands and the coast are famous as the haunt

64 THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

of thousands of wild birds, and St. Cuthbert, a man
of gentle and humble spirit, found one of his chief
joys in the companionship of the birds. Historians
tell us that the seagulls would nestle in his bosom
and feed from his hand, and he was especially fond
of the eider ducks. He even gave up to his bird
friends the scanty harvest of barley grown for his
own use.

The Farne Isles are now kept as a sanctuary for
wild birds, where they may not be molested, a
memorial to St. Cuthbert that surely he must
greatly appreciate !

“ The lark upon his skyward way,
The robin on the hedgerow spray,
The bee within the wild thyme’s bloom,
The owl amid the cypress gloom,
All sing in every varied tone
A Vesper to the Great Unknown.”
E1iza Coox

CHAPTER VIII
SOME TREE LORE

** If you could dance when Orpheus piped,

Ye Oaks and Elms and Beeches,

Try when a man of modern time
Your courtesy beseeches.

*T was but his fancy! Well, ’tis mine,
So do your best endeavour:

The facts of History pass away,
The thoughts may live for ever.

‘ They move, they start, they thrill, they dance,

They shake their boughs with pleasure,

And flutter all their gay green leaves
Obedient to the measure.

They choose their partners: Oak and Beech
Pair off, a stately couple;

And Larch to Willow makes his bow,
Th’ unbending to the supple.”

Cuartes Mackay: The Dance of the Trees.

Lecenp tells us that in those far-away days of old,
trees walked and talked as well as thought, and
were much attracted by music. When Apollo
and Orpheus played the harp, trees and cattle came
together and crowded round them. Ovid writes:
“There was a hill, and upon the hill, a most level
space of a plain which the blades of grass made
green; all shade was wanting in the spot. After the
bard, sprung from the gods, had seated himself
in this place, and touched the strings, a shade came
over the spot. The tree = Chaonia was not absent,
5 5

66 THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

nor the groves of the Heliades, nor the mast tree
with its lofty branches, nor the tender lime tree,
nor yet the beech and the virgin laurel, and the
brittle hazel, and the oak adapted for making spears,
and the fir with knots, and the holm bending
beneath its acorns, and the genial plane tree, and
the parti-coloured maple, and the tine tree with
its azure berries. You, too, the ivy tree with your
creeping tendrils, and the elms clothed with vines;
the ashes too, and the pitch trees, and the bending
palms, the reward of the conquerors; the pine with
its tufted foliage, and bristling at the top, pleasing
to the mother of the gods.

“‘Such a grove of trees had the bard attracted
round him, and he sat in the midst of an assembly
of wild beasts, and a multitude of birds.”

Amphion is one of the most famous of mythical
musicians; he was given a lyre by Mercury, who
taught him how to play upon it. It is said that
when he played on his lyre stones moved of their
own accord, and took their places in the wall with
which he was fortifying the city.

“Tis said he had a tuneful tongue,
Such happy intonation,
Wherever he sat down and sung
He left a small plantation;
Wherever in a lonely grove
He set up his forlorn pipes,
The gouty oak began to move,
And flounder into hornpipes.

‘The mountain stirred its bushy crown,
And as tradition teaches,
Young ashes pirouetted down,
Coquetting with young beeches;

SOME TREE LORE 67

And briony vine and ivy wreath
Ran forward to his rhyming,
And from the valleys underneath
Came little copses climbing.

* The linden broke her ranks and rent

The woodbine wreaths that bind her,

And down the middle, buzz! she went
With all her bees behind her;

The poplars, in long order due,
With cypress promenaded,

The shock-head willows, two and two,
By rivers gallopaded.

“Came wet-shot alder from the wave,

Came yews, a dismal coterie;

Each plucked his one foot from the grave,
Poussetting with a sloe tree:

Old elms came breaking from the vine;
The vine streamed out to follow,

And, sweating rosin, plumped the pine
From many a cloudy hollow.

** And wasn’t it a sight to see,
When, ere his song was ended,
Like some great landslip, tree by tree,
The countryside descended ;
And shepherds, from the mountain-eaves
Looked down, half-pleased, half-frightened,
As dashed about the drunken leaves
The random sunshine lightened !”
Tennyson: Amphion.

In the olden days of myth and legend, it is
recorded that people and nymphs were often
transformed into trees, sometimes at their own re-

uest, but more often for offending the gods.

The Heliads, children of the sun, were changed
to poplars, Altis to a pine, the mother of Adonis
to a myrrh tree; an Apulian shepherd who mocked

68 THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

the nymphs was transformed to an olive tree, and
his tears to bitter berries.

The fair virgin Daphne, at her own request,
became a laurel, that she might escape from Apollo,
who was in pursuit of her. Just as Apollo overtook
her, a stiffness seized her limbs, and gradually she
took on the appearance of a laurel tree. Apollo
embraced the branches and lavished kisses on the
wood. “Since thou canst not be my wife,” said
he, “ thou shalt assuredly be my tree. I will wear
thee for my crown. I will decorate thee with my
harp and my quiver. When the Roman conquerors
conduct the triumphal pomp to the Capitol, thou
shalt be woven into wreaths for their brows. And,
as eternal youth is mine, thou also shalt be always
green, and thy leaf know no decay.”

The beautiful Dryope was changed to a lotus
tree for unwittingly plucking a blossom in which
was enshrined the nymph Lotus.

A just doom met the two Eonian women, who,
turning to flee, after murdering Orpheus, found
their flight checked by the rapid lengthening of
their toes. Soon their feet became rooted to the
ground, their flesh turned to woody fibre, their
hair and hands changed to leaves and branches, and
a thick and rugged bark enclosed their shuddering
forms.

The most interesting of these mythological
metamorphoses is that related of Baucis and
Philemon. Once on atime, Jupiter in human shape
visited the land of Phrygia, and with him Mercury,
without his wings.

They presented themselves as weary travellers
at many a door, seeking rest and shelter, but found

SOME TREE LORE 69

all closed, for it was late, and the inhospitable in-
habitants would not disturb themselves.

At last a small thatched cottage received them,
where Baucis, a pious old dame, and her husband
Philemon had grown old together.

When the two guests crossed the threshold and
bowed their heads to pass under the low door, the
old man placed a seat, on which Baucis, bustling
and attentive, spread a cloth, and begged them to
sit down. ‘Then she raked out the coals from the
ashes, kindled a fire, and prepared some pot-herbs
and bacon for them. A beechen bowl was filled
with warm water that their guests might wash.

Meanwhile, the old woman set the table; one leg
was shorter than the rest, but a piece of slate put
under it restored the level. When it was steady,
she rubbed the table down with sweet-smelling herbs,
and then set thereon some of chaste Minerva’s
olives, some cornel berries preserved in vinegar,
and added radishes and cheese, with eggs lightly
cooked in the ashes. The meal was served in
earthen dishes, with wooden cups, and some wine,
not of the oldest, was added. Now while the repast
proceeded, the old folks were astonished to see that
the wine, as fast as it was poured out, renewed itself
of its own accord. Struck with terror, Baucis and
Philemon recognised their heavenly guests, and
fell on their knees and implored forgiveness for their
poor entertainment. But the gods made reply:
“This inhospitable village shall pay the penalty of
its impiety; you alone shall go free of chastisement.
Quit your house and come with us to the top of
yonder hill.”

They hastened to obey, and saw the country

7o THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

behind them speedily sunk in a lake, and only their
own small house left standing. Whilst they gazed
in wonder this was changed. Columns took the
place of the corner posts, the thatch grew yellow
and appeared a gilded roof, and the floors became
marble. Jupiter then spoke to the old couple,
and said: “Tell us your wishes; what favours
would you ask ?”

Philemon took counsel with Baucis for a moment,
and then spoke: “ We ask to be priests and guardians
of this thy temple, and that one and the same
hour may take us both from life.”

Their prayer was granted. When they had
attained a great age, as they stood one day before
the temple, Baucis saw Philemon begin to put
forth leaves, and Philemon saw Baucis changing in
like manner. While they exchanged parting words,
a leafy crown grew over their heads, Philemon
changing to a grand and spreading oak, and Baucis
into a tall and graceful lime.

According to many poets trees occupy an impor-
tant place in the land of spirits.

When Dante and Virgil crossed the river Styx,
they found tangled forests of brown foliage trees,
each tree a living spirit, undergoing penance for
sins committed against self, and although it was
the lightest punishment in all these circles of misery,
yet lamentations were issuing from them. Dante
says: ‘We had put ourselves within a wood that
was not marked with any path whatever, not green
foliage, but of dusky colour; nor branches smooth,
but gnarled and intermingled.

“Therefore the Master said: ‘ If thou break off
some little spray from any of these trees, the thought

SOME TREE LORE a1

thou hast will wholly be made vain.’ Then
stretched I forth my hand a little further, and
plucked a branchlet off a great thorn, and the
trunks cried: ‘ Why dost thou mangle me? Why
dost thou rend me? MHast thou no pity what-
soever? Men once we were, changed now to
frees,”

But as they ascended up through Purgatorio to
Paradiso, they found wondrous trees, some filled
with fruit and bearing sweet incense.

Trees occupy a prominent place in the literature
of all ages, and more especially in the myths handed
down to us by Homer, Ovid, and Virgil.

The ancient Greeks and Romans believed that
many trees held enshrined within their woody
bark sylvan deities, whose lives were darkened when
the trees were felled. These bright creatures
inhabited every part of the tree, from the root to
the smallest twig, giving them life and beauty,
feeling and intelligence. It was they who shud-
dered and moaned in the storm, and shivered and
grew pale at the approach of cold, and became glad
again in the springtime, when their happy laughter
rippled out in fluttering, joyous leaves and bright
flowers.

The particular tribe of elves who inhabit woods
and forests have always been known to the human
race as the Sylvans, and in this family we find
merry tribes of Dryads, Nymphs, Fauns, and Satyrs.

The Dryads were young and beautiful nymphs,
who were always regarded as semi-goddesses, the
name being derived from the Greek word, drus,
meaning a tree.

The Hamadryads were of human shape from the

72 ‘THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

head to the waist, but their lower limbs were grown
into the shape of trunks and roots of trees, and all
their life and power ended when the tree was felled.

The class of woodland deities called by the Greeks
Satyrs, and by the Romans Fauns, had the legs,
feet, and ears of goats, and the rest of their body
was human. They were said to preside over all
vegetation, so they were treated with great respect
by all the countryfolk, and duly propitiated with
offerings of all the firstfruits of the earth.

‘‘ But let no impious axe profane the woods,
Or violate the sacred shades; the gods
Themselves inhabit there—some have beheld
Where drops of blood from wounded Oaks distilled ;
Have seen the trembling boughs with horror shake;
So great a conscience did the ancients make
To cut down Oaks, that it was held a crime
In that obscure and superstitious time.”

These woodland deities regarded with favour
those who treated them kindly, but often meted
out punishment to those who did them violence,
as is recorded in the story of Rhecus and Eri-
sichthon. The former, seeing an oak about to fall,
propped it up, and stayed it in its place, and the
grateful nymph who inhabited it rewarded the
generous deed by fulfilling any request which
Rhecus might like to make.

Erisichthon, on the other hand, was famous for
“lifting up the axe against trees and despoiling
forests”’; he regarded neither the use nor the beauty
of trees, and even felled the Dodonian oak that stood
in the grove sacred to Ceres.

It was said of this famous tree that it towered
above the other trees as loftily as the other trees

SOME TREE LORE 23.

towered above the grass, and that it was a wood*~

in itself. When the Dryads remonstrated with
Erisichthon, he boasted that he would fell the tree,
even if it enshrined the goddess herself. When the
grand old oak shuddered at the last stroke that was
given it, a voice came from the trunk saying: “I,
a nymph most pleasing to Ceres, am beneath this
wood, and dying do rejoice at the punishment
which will be meted out to thee.”

The punishment which Ceres decreed for Eri-
sichthon was that he should be tortured by famine,
so dire and terrible that he was finally compelled
to eat portions of his own body.

In most tree legends the oak is regarded as
sacred, the reason probably being that the Druids
offered sacrifices in oak groves, and consulted these
trees in their worship. From this probably arises
the generic name of the oak: Quercus, from quero,
to seek.

One of the famous oracles consulted by the
priests was the Talking Oak of Dodona, and it
possessed most miraculous powers. A staff cut
from one of its branches always guided the traveller
in paths of safety, and conducted him to the desired
haven.

Mercury’s wonderful cane must have come from
this tree, and it is said that the vessel in which
Jason went in search of the Golden Fleece, had
her figurehead cut from a portion of one of its
branches, and the success of the voyage was thereby
assured.

Some of the groves were sacred to the celestial
gods, and others to lesser deities. The forest of
Mount Ida, the foster-home of Jupiter, was one

e

74 THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

of these sacred groves. ‘The trees here were proof
against the elements, and vessels built from their
timbers could withstand the winds and waves of
the sea, and even the wrath of Neptune was unable
to harm the mariners in these crafts. Virgil tells
us that A‘neas was allowed to build his ships from
the pines of this forest, and that when the Latians
attempted to burn them before Italy, Venus changed
them to nymphs, and they sailed away into the air.
At the marriage of Jupiter and Juno, the most
noted gift to the bride was a tree from this grove,
laden with golden fruit.

Since those days, through all the ages, this
reverential and tender regard for trees has been
implanted in the minds of all imaginative people,
ancient and modern, sacred and profane, and the
pure pleasure derived from their contemplation is
peculiarly a part of the poet’s dower.

The bards of Israel sing of the cedars of
Lebanon, and use them as symbols of strength,
beauty, grandeur, and grace. David was particularly
fond of the cedar, and history relates that his
dwelling was built entirely of this exquisite wood,
a present from Hiram, King of Tyre.

Shakespeare’s favourite tree seems to have been
the pine, that towered above other trees as did his
genius above that of other men; the wind playing
through its needles was not to him, as to most
people, a mournful melody, but an anthem of
inspiration.

Coleridge is never tired of singing of the graceful
birch, whom he names most fittingly the “ Lady
of the Woods.”

Whittier and Longfellow are true to their own

SOME TREE LORE ms

country, and their allegiance, even in their verses,
does not waver from their own sugar maple.

Thoreau, the great French scientist, was a
devoted student of the trees, and a worshipper at
their shrines; he sympathised with their sylvan
spirits, and communed with them. He looked upon
the wanton destruction of a forest, or even a tree,
as sacrilege, and “‘ thanked God that these choppers
were not able to cut down the clouds.”

In speaking of the destruction of the pine forests,
he says: “‘ Strange that so few men ever come to
the woods, to see how the tree lives and spires,
lifting its evergreen arms to the sky to see its living
SUCCESS.

“Most men are content to see the broad boards
and sticks of timber brought to market, deem-
ing that the tree’s success; but a dead pine cut
down is no more a pine than a dead carcass is a
man.

“Tt is not the lumberman who stands nearest the
tree who understands it best and loves it most; it is
not he who has bought the stumpage on which it
stands, and who must cut into it to find if its heart
be sound.

‘* All the trees shudder when that man steps on the
forest floor. No, no; it is the poet who makes the
truest use of the tree; he does not fondle it with an
axe, nor tickle it with a saw, nor stroke it with a
plane; he loves it as he does his living friends, and
lets it stand. It is the living spirit of the tree with
which I sympathise; it may be as immortal as I am,
and perchance will go to as high a heaven, there
to tower above me still.”

In “The Charm of Gardens,” Dion Clayton

76 ‘THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

Calthrop writes: “So may trees be a solace in
trouble, and secrets may be whispered to bushes of
rosemary and lavender, who will yield their secret
solace of peace, as the tree yields strength. All
these things are written in a garden in coloured
letters of gold, and green, and crimson, in blue and
purple, orange and grey, and they are written for a
purpose. And a man may seek diligently for the
secret of this great book, and find nothing if he
seek with his head alone. He will tell of the
growth of trees, their years, their nature, their
sickness.

“He will learn of the power of the sap which flows
down from the tips of leaves to the great roots all
snug in the soil; and he will learn of the veins in the
leaves, and the properties of the gum of the bark,
yet will he never learn that of which the tree speaks
always, night and day—praising. ‘The sky and the
sea are blue, and they are things of mystery, deep
and profound, and because of their depth and
profundity they are blue. ‘The grass and the trees,
and the leaves of flowers are green. They are
mysterious things, but they are nearer to man, and
he has them to his hand to be near them, and get
quick comfort of them.

“Tn this way can man regard the trees in his
garden, and speak with them, loving them, and
learning of them. And he may yet be an ordinary
man, not poet or artist, but he must be mystic
because he has the true sight. Many a man, stock-
broker, clerk, painter, labourer, soldier, or whatever
he seems to be, has his real being in these moments,
and they are revealed through love or sorrow, but
not by hard learning or text-books.”

SOME TREE LORE 77

“* Tf thou art worn and hard beset
With sorrows, that thou wouldst forget,
If thou wouldst read a lesson, that will keep
Thy heart from fainting and thy soul from sleep,
Go to the woods and hills !—No tears

Dim the sweet look that Nature wears.”’
LONGFELLOW.

CHAPTER IX
SOME WEATHER LORE

“< Weather-wise, foolish otherwise.”

Wuat gave rise to this curious old couplet, and is
there any truth in it? If so, it is rather unfor-
tunate for the gardener, for no man is asked for an
opinion on the weather quite so much. Indeed,
it would seem almost as though the public had given
him a certain professorship in the matter, and his
statement on the subject, when once pronounced,
is taken to be as unalterable as the laws of the
Medes and Persians. And certainly close contact
with Nature in the outdoor conditions of everyday
life, should develop the faculties of observation for
signs of “rain” and “ fair.” Doubtless in many
cases it is these men of the soil who have given rise
to, and even invented, the rhymes and superstitions
in connection with weather portents.

For instance, signs of bad weather to come:
That the pimpernel closes her eye; that the down
will fly off the dandelion, though there be no wind;
heliotrope and marigold flowers close their petals.
That, so they say, the cat will sit by the fire and
clean her whiskers.

“‘ Evening red and morning grey,
Send the traveller on his way,
But evening grey and morning red,
Send the traveller wet to bed.”

78

SOME WEATHER LORE 79

This is a verse full of ripe experience, and one of
the old-fashioned maxims in which we can have
the fullest confidence, finding that practically there
is always truth in the old adage:

** A rainbow in the morning
Is the shepherd’s warning,
But a rainbow at night
Is the shepherd’s delight.”

This weather portent is, perhaps, more a sign for
shepherds and travellers, than for gardeners and
other ordinary folk who work by day, and can hardly
be expected to watch for rainbows by night, to the
detriment of their night’s rest, and likewise their
morning temper.

When the “ distant hills look near” it is an in-
fallible sign of rain, and many times one hears the
saying in the country, “‘ Such a place is too clear
to-day,” or, “‘ One can see such a land much too
well,” and this means near rain. Just before rain it
can often be observed that toads will walk out across
the road, and frogs will change colour before a storm,
losing their bright green or yellow, and turning to
a dull and dirty brown.

There is a saying that “‘ the new moon with the
old moon in her lap comes before rain.” And of
the bur or halo to be seen at times round the moon:
** Near bur, far rain.”

A rather curious countryside superstition is heard
sometimes concerning the weather on February 2.

“On Candlemas Day if the sun shines clear,
The Shepherd had rather see his wife on the bier.”

** March dry, good rye,
April wet, good wheat.”

80 ‘THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

“The grass that grows in Janiveer
Grows no more all the year.”

There is a “weather lore” rhyme about the
gardener’s pert friend, the robin, which runs thus:

“‘ Tf the robin sings in the bush,
Then the weather will be coarse;
But if the robin sings in the barn,
Then the weather will be warm.”

Of the pigeon, with his sentimental voice, another
rhyme says:

“« If the pigeons go a-benting,
Then the farmers lie lamenting.”

There are some very homely weather signs known
to all children which often come very true, as for

instance:
‘“* When it rains before seven,
It will be fine before eleven.”’

** Between twelve and two
You’ll see what the day will do.”

* Tf the ash is out before the oak
We shall surely get a soak,
But if the oak before the ash
We shall but get a splash.”

And how eagerly children go about the country-
side searching for the “‘ oak before the ash,” and
also how those two trees seem to know what is
expected of them, and to prophesy accordingly
as they have been ordered by Dame Nature!

But it is really to the wind that the gardener
looks most, and if he is so fortunate as to have a
weathercock in his garden he will note each turn
of the wind. If he has no weathercock then he

SOME WEATHER LORE 81

will read the wind by the smoke of chimneys or the
turn of the leaves of trees.

A very cryptic saying concerning a windy sky
enlightens us thus far:

“‘ A mackerel sky
Is very wet or very dry.”

Another wind prophecy, nearly always true, is
that:
“* When it rains with the wind in the east,
It rains for twenty-four hours at least.”

Another rhyme concerning the wind’s action on
the weather runs thus:

** When the wind is in the south,
Tis in the rain’s mouth;
When the wind is in the east,
Tis neither good for man or beast.”

A West Country saying is that: “As hedge-
hogs do foresee evening storms, so wise men are for
fortune still prepared.’ ‘This they say because the
story runs that a hedgehog builds his nest with
the opening made to face the mildest quarter there-
about and the back to the most prevalent wind.

St. Martin’s SUMMER.

St. Martin, like St. Luke, has his “ Little
Summer” beginning on_ his day, November 11.
It is referred to by Shakespeare, in ‘ Henry VI.,”
Part I., Act:I., where Joan of Arc says:

“ This night the siege assuredly [’ll raise:
Expect St. Martin’s summer, halcyon days.”

82 THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

There are many old rhymes and proverbs asso-
ciated with Martinmas:

“On St. Martin’s Day
Your fires lay.”

‘Young and old must go clad at Martinmas.”

“Tf there is ice that will bear a duck before Martinmas there
will be none that will bear a goose all the winter.”

“‘ Tf the wind is in the south-west at Martinmas,
It keeps there till after Candlemas ” (February 2).

This weather lore is naturally gleaned out of many
years, some of the sayings being of real antiquity,
others perhaps of more recent invention.

In spite of them all, you will find that many
people have a different method of reading the sky,
some, for instance, contending that mares’-tails in
the sky come after great storms, while others tell
you that they are the portent of a gale.

ST. MARTIN’S SUMMER

“Though flowers have perished at the touch
Of frost, the early comer
I hail, the season loved so much,
The good St. Martin’s Summer.

“The Summer and the Winter here,
Midway a truce are holding;
A soft consenting atmosphere,
Their tents of peace enfolding.

‘*- Less drear the winter night shall be,
If memory cheer and hearten
Its heavy hours with thoughts of thee,
Sweet summer of St. Martin.”
WHITTIER

CHAPTER X
THE MOON AND PLANT GROWTH

“‘ Sow peason and beanes in the wane of the moone,
Who soweth them sooner, he soweth too soone,
That they with the planet may rest and arise,
And flourish with bearing most plentiful wise.”
Tuomas Tusser: Five Hundred Points of Good
Husbandrie (1562).

Durinc the Middle Ages, and even up till about
two centuries ago, there was a very widespread
belief that every plant was under the direct influence
of.some particular planet, and in the writings of
some of the old herbalists we find much interesting
information on this subject. Aubrey says that
“if a plant be not gathered according to the rules
of astrology, it hath little or no virtue in it.”

Nicholas Culpepper set up in Spitalfields, about
the year 1640, as an astrologer and physician.

He was highly unpopular with the medical
profession, which is hardly surprising, when we
consider the way in which he speaks of them in his
book as, “‘a company of proud, insulting, domineer-
ing doctors, whose wits were born about §00 years
before themselves.” In “‘ The British Herbal and
Family Physician ” he gives a list of some 500 plants,
and the names of the planets which govern them:
“Such as are astrologers (and indeed none else
are fit to make physicians), such I advise: let the

planet that governs the Herb be angular, and the
83

84. THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

stronger the better; if they can, in Herbs of Saturn,
let Saturn be in the ascendant; in the Herbs of
Mars, let Mars be in the mid-heaven, for in those
houses they delight; let the Moon apply to them by
good aspect, and let her not be in the houses of her
enemies; if you cannot well stay till she apply to.
them, let her apply to a Planet of the same triplicity;
if you cannot meet that time neither, let her be
with a fixed star of their Nature.”

In Deuteronomy (xxxili. 14) we read that
precious things are put forth by the moon, but
precious fruits by the sun; and it certainly does seem
remarkable, that though in all ages, the sun has
been worshipped, as being the supreme and ruling
luminary, from whose life-giving rays all vegetation
drew its existence, at the same time, there should
have been a firm belief, that the growth and decay
of plants were associated most intimately with the
waxing and waning of the moon.

Through all the ages the sun and the moon have
ranked high among the Nature gods, and even to
this day they have obeisance done to them among
some of the heathen tribes.

Survivals of the ancient rite of sun-worship may
be traced in the custom of turning to the east,
as well as in the bonfires set ablaze on the hills on
Easter morning, which custom is still observed in
the Greek Church.

There is a curious old Nature myth which runs
thus:

‘“*'The Moon is a woman, and the Sun also; the
Stars are the Moon’s children, and the Sun had in
old days as many. Fearing, however, that man-
kind could not bear so much brightness and heat,

THE MOON AND PLANT GROWTH = 85

they agreed each to devour her children; but the
Moon, instead of eating up her Stars, hid them
from the Sun’s sight, who, believing them all
devoured, ate up her own; no sooner had she done
this than the Moon brought forth her family out
of their hiding-place. When the Sun saw them,
filled with rage, she chased the Moon to kill her;
the chase has lasted ever since, and sometimes the
Sun even comes near enough to bite the Moon,
and that is an eclipse; the Sun, as men may see,
devours her Stars at dawn, and the Moon hides
hers all day while the Sun is near, and only brings
them out at night when her pursuer is far away.’

In old almanacs we find the supremacy of the
moon over plant growth fully admitted, although
the reasoning is sometimes rather abstruse and
difficult to our modern intelligence.

In Wing’s Almanac for 1661 we read: “It is a
common, observation in astrology, and confirmed by
experience, that what corn or tree soever are set
or sown when the sun or moon is eclipsed, and the
unfortunate planets predominate, seldom or never
come to good.”

Devonshire farmers have, from time immemorial,
made it a rule to gather their apples for storing at
the wane of the moon; the reason being that during
the moon’s increase it is said that the apples are
full, and therefore will not keep. Bacon seems to
have considered that even the “ braine of man
waxeth moister and fuller upon the Full of the
Moon.” And as we study all these old writings,
we come to realise that the moon was held to have
a very special and predominant influence over
vegetation, and it was said that there existed a

86 THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

sympathy between growing and declining nature
and the moon’s wax and wane.

It is said that if timber is felled when the moon
is on the increase it will decay; and that it should
always be cut when the moon is on the wane.

There seems to be no practical reason for this, yet
it is a belief which is common in many countries;
and professional woodcutters, whose occupation it
is to fell timber, state, as the actual result of their
own observations, that the belief is well founded.

The theory given to account for this is that as
the moon grows the sap rises, and the wood is,
therefore, less dense than when the moon is waning,
because at that time the Sap declines.

The belief in the moon’s influence as regards
timber extends also to vegetables, and was uni-
versally practised in England in former times,
although one hears less about it now. Just occasion-
ally one meets with an old-fashioned gardener
who must sow or plant according to the moon.

They act upon the maxim that root crops should
be sown when the moon is decreasing, and plants
such as peas and beans, which bear their crops on the
branches, between the new and the full moon.

Tusser writes, with regard to grafting:

‘In March is good graffing, the skilful do know,
So long as the wind in the East do not blow,
From Moone being changed, till past be the prime,
For graffing and cropping is very good time.”

In “The Garden of Eden,” an old gardening
book compiled by Sir Hugh Plat in the year 1600,
constant allusions are made to the necessity of
studying the moon’s phases in gardening and

THE MOON AND PLANT GROWTH = 87

grafting operations. ‘’he writer even considered
that the moon would exercise her powers in making
single flowers double, if only she were respectfully
courted. For instance: “ Remove a plant of stock
Gilliflowers when it is a little wooded, and not too
green, and water it presently. Doe this three
days after the full, and remove it twice more before
the change. Doe this in barren ground; and like-
wise, three days after the next full Moone remove
again; and then remove once more before the
change. ‘Then at the third full Moone, viz: eight
days after, remove again, and set it in very rich
ground, and this will make it to bring forth a double
flower; but if your stock Gilliflowers once spindle,
then you may not remove them. Also, you must
make ‘Tulippes double in this manner. Some
think by cutting them at every full Moone before
they beare to make them at length to beare double.’’

In “ ‘The Countryman’s Recreation,” published
in 1640, the following advice is given:

“From the 1st day of the New Moon unto the
13th day thereof is good for to plant, or graffe, or
sow, and for great need some doe take unto the
17th or 18th day thereof, and not after, neither
grafte nor sow, but as is afore-mentioned, a day or
two afore the change, the best signes are Taurus,
Virgo, or Capricorne.” With regard to the treat-
ment of fruit trees, the author goes on to tell
us: ‘‘ That trees which come of nuttes should be
set in the autumn in the change or increase of the
Moone, fruit, desired of good colour, and untouched
by froste, should be gathered, when the time is
faire and dry, and the Moone in her decreasing.”

In “ The Expert Gardener,” published in 1640,

88 THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

a work stated to be “ faithfully collected out of
sundry Dutch and French authors,” a chapter is
devoted entirely to the times and seasons which
should be selected “‘ to sow and replant all manner
of seeds,” with special reference to the phases of the
moon.

John Evelyn, in his “ Sylva, or a Discourse on
Forest Trees,” first published in 1662, remarks on
the attention paid by woodmen to the moon’s
influence on trees. He writes: “‘ Then for the age
of the Moon, it has religiously been observed; and
that Diana’s presidency ‘ in sylvis’ was not so much
celebrated to credit the fictions of the poets, as for
the dominion of that moist planet and her influence
over timber.”

Toe Man 1n THE Moon.

There are, as may well be imagined, several
curious legends to account for the Man in the
Moon. One version says that on a Christmas Eve
a peasant felt a great desire to eat a cabbage; and
having none himself, he crept stealthily into his
neighbour’s garden to cut some. Just as he had
filled his basket, the Christ-Child rode past on a
white horse, and said: ‘‘ Because thou hast stolen
in this holy night, thou shalt immediately sit in the
Moon with thy basket of cabbage.”

Another version has it that a man stole some vine
shoots from a neighbour’s garden on a Sunday, and
when taxed with the theft the culprit loudly
proclaimed his innocence, exclaiming: ‘‘ If I have
committed this crime, may I be sent to the Moon.”
There he was sent at once, and there he remains
to this day.

THE MOON AND PLANT GROWTH = 89g

Yet another version relates that a man stole a
bundle of wood on a Sunday, because he thought
he would have the forest quietly to himself on that
day. However, as he left the forest he met a
stranger, who turned out to be none other than
God Himself. After duly reproving the thief,
the Almighty gave him the choice as to whether he
would be banished to the sun or the moon.

The man chose the latter, declaring he would
rather freeze in the moon than burn in the sun;
and so the Broom-man came into the moon, with
his faggot on his back.

Rapin, in his poem on “ Gardens,” has the
following lines bearing on the moon:

“ If you with flowers would stock the pregnant earth,

Mark well the Moon propitious to their birth:
For Earth the silent midnight queen obeys,

And waits her course, who, clad in silver rays,
Th’ Eternal round of times and seasons guides,

Controls the air, and o’er the wind presides.
Four days expired you have your time to sow,

Till to the full th’ increasing Moon shall grow;
This past, your labour you in vain bestow:

Nor let the gardener dare to plant a flower
While on his work the heavens ill-boding lower;

When Moons forbid, forbidding Moons obey,
And hasten when the Stars inviting beams display.”

CHAPTER XI
MAGICAL PLANTS

** T’ll seek a four-leaved Clover,
In all the Fairy dells,
And if I find the charmed leaf,
Oh ! how I’ll weave my spells.”
S. Lover.

PLANTS USED FOR CHARMS AND SPELLS.

In the olden days, the sick and poor were accus-
tomed to seek and find the relief and cure of their
various ailments at the hands of the monks and nuns,
but after the Reformation it seems that this healing
art was gradually relegated to the wise woman of
the village, who was, more often than not, a witch.
One of the most curious and remarkable of these
many old superstitions was the belief that diseases
could be transferred from human beings to trees.
Children were passed through cleft trees to cast
out all witchcraft, and to protect them from the
influence of witches; and sometimes they were
passed through the branches of a maple, in order
that they might be long-lived.

Patients with the ague were directed to proceed,
without speaking or crossing water, to a large and
lofty willow, to make a gash in it, breathe three times
into the crevice, close it quickly, hasten away
without looking back, and if they did this correctly,
the ague was warranted to leave them.

go

MAGICAL PLANTS gI

The origin of this superstition is said to lie in the
fact that the country people, much struck with the
affinity that exists between the animal and the
vegetable world, came in course of time to think
that the same demon caused the diseases of plants
as of man. ‘Therefore, in order to safeguard man-
kind, it was necessary to confine the demon in the
plant.

A very old belief existed that diseases could be
got rid of by burying them; and even in the tenth
century there is a case of epilepsy cured by means
of a buried peach-blossom, so Ratherius relates.

The Druids, besides being priests, prophets, and
legislators, were also physicians, and they were well
acquainted with the means of producing trances
and ecstasies; and as one of their chief medical
appliances they made use of the mistletoe, which
they gathered at appointed times, with very
solemn ceremonies, and considered it as a special
gift from heaven. This plant grew on the oak,
the sacred tree of the Celts and Druids; it was
held in the highest reverence, and both priests
and people regarded it as divine.

“ The mystic Mistletoe,
Which has not root, and cannot grow,
Or prosper but by that same tree
It clings to.”

The sacred oak itself was thought to possess
certain magical properties in calling forth the
spirit of prophecy, and so we find the altars of the
Druids were often erected beneath some venerated
oak tree in the secluded recesses of the sacred

grove. ‘The Greeks had their prophetic oaks that

92 ‘THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

delivered the oracles of Jupiter in the sacred grove
of Dodona.

‘Such honours famed Dodona’s grove acquired
As justly due to trees by heaven inspired;
When once her Oaks did fate’s decrees reveal,
And taught wise men truths future to foretell.”

The Onion, if suspended in a room, possesses the
magical powers of attracting and absorbing maladies
that would otherwise attack the inmates. They
are also said to keep away witches and evil spirits.
It was probably a form of ascetic self-denial which
caused the Egyptian priests to abstain from the
use of onions as food, and this led to the super-
stitious reverence with which onions were regarded
by the bulk of the people.

Lucian, when giving an account of the different
deities worshipped in Egypt, states that the
“inhabitants of Pelusium adore the onion.”

The Egyptians were often reproached for swear-
ing by the leeks, garlic, and onions in their gardens;
and Pliny says: “‘ The onion and garlic are among
the gods of Egypt, and by these they make their
oaths,’ an absurdity which did not escape the
scourge of Juvenal, whose nation, however, was
not any the less absurdly superstitious than that
against which his satire was directed.

But whilst some of the people did not dare to
eat leeks, garlic, or onions, for fear of injuring their
gods, others fed on them with enthusiasm, “ ex-
cited by the zest of appetite, even if not of religious
fervour.”

“ Such savoury deities must sure be good,
Which serve at once for worship and for food.”

MAGICAL PLANTS 93
But on the other hand:

*‘ How Egypt, mad with superstition grown,
Makes gods of monsters, but too well is known ;
*Tis mortal sin an Onion to devour;
Each clove of Garlic has a sacred power.
Religious nation, sure and blessed abodes,
Where every garden is o’errun with gods.”

The St. Fohn’s Wort (called of old Fuga demo-
num) is a preservative against tempests, thunder,
and evil spirits, and possesses many magical pro-
perties.

The Peony drives away tempests and dispels
enchantments.

The Four-leaved Clover is a thoroughly magical
plant, and he who carries it on his person will be
successful in any undertaking, and will have the
power of detecting the presence, or even the ap-
proach, of evil spirits.

In medizval days, when sorcery flourished, it was
thought that fern-seed imparted to its owner the
power of resisting magical spells and incantations.

The ancients believed that the fern had no seeds,
but our ancestors thought it had seed which was
invisible. So, working on the fantastic doctrine
of signatures, they concluded that those who
possessed the secret of wearing this seed about
them would therefore become invisible. ‘Thus in
“ Henry IV.” Gadshill says: ‘‘ We have the receipt
of fern-seed, we walk invisible.”

The old English tradition is that the fern flowers
and seeds only at 12 o’clock on Midsummer night
(St. John’s Eve), just at the precise moment at
which the saint was born; so at that time it must

94 THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN
be searched for and gathered, and will then display

its magic powers.

“ But on St. John’s mysterious night,
Sacred to many a wizard spell,
The hour when first to human sight

Confest, the mystic Fern-seed fell.”

An old writer on this subject says: “ The fern
flowers on Midsummer night at 12 o’clock and
drives away all unclean spirits. First of all, it puts
forth buds, which afterwards expand, and then
open, and finally change into flowers of a dark red
hue. At midnight the flower opens to its fullest
extent, and illuminates everything around. But
at that precise moment a demon plucks it from its
stalk. Whoever wishes to procure this flower
must be in the forest before midnight, locate him-
self near the fern, and traceacircle aroundit. When
the devil approaches and calls, feigning the voice
of a parent or sweetheart, no attention must be
paid, nor must the head be turned, for if it is, it
will remain so.

““Whoever becomes the happy possessor of the
flower has nothing to fear: by its means, he can
recover lost treasure, become invisible, rule on
earth, and under water, and defy the devil.”

The fairies, commanded by their queen, and the
demons, commanded by Satan, engage in fierce
combats at this mysterious time for the posiene
of the invisible seed.

In many countries, before the break of day on
St. John’s morning, the dew which has fallen on
vegetation is gathered with great care. This dew
is greatly renowned, for it purifies all the noxious

MAGICAL PLANTS 95

plants, and imparts to certain others a fabulous
power.

By some it is treasured because it is believed to
preserve the eyes from all harm during the succeed-
ing year, and others say that the dew is reputed
to renew the roots of the hair on the baldest of
heads !

There seems to be more plant magic woven round
Midsummer Day than is connected with any other
one particular date. ‘Take, for instance, the fern
seed, and then the St. John’s Wort. Legend tells
us that if after sunset on St. John’s Eve (June 23)
you should happen to step on this plant, a fairy horse
will arise out of the ground, who will carry you
gloriously all through the night, to leave you,
wherever you might happen to be, when the first
ray of the rising sun strikes the world. It might
be rather awkward if your fairy steed should see
fit to deposit you several miles from your work.

In days of old it was the custom of timorous
folk to gather pieces of St. John’s Wort at midnight
on St. John’s Eve, as it was said that this plant,
hung over the doorway of dwelling-places, would
effectually exclude all fairy and elfin visitors.

The St. John’s Wort is said to be a plant
thoroughly detested by witches, who are heartily
scared when in its neighbourhood:

* $t. John’s Wort, scaring from the midnight heath
The witch and goblin, with its spicy breath.”

In former times this plant was also known as
Sol terrestris, the terrestrial sun, because it was
believed that all the spirits of darkness vanish at
the approach of the sun; and also St. John’s Day

96 ‘THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

falls on the summer solstice, June 24, the last
of the three days which mark the culminating point
of the solar ascension; the day when in some latitudes
the sun never sets, and the heavens are illuminated
and radiant with its glory all through the night.

Some few plants, like the well-known sesame
of the ‘‘ Arabian Nights,” are credited with the
power of opening doors and obtaining an entry
into subterranean caverns and mountain-sides.

The mistletoe, in addition to its miraculous
medicinal virtues, possesses the power of opening
all locks, as have also the artemisia, the vervain,
and the mandrake.

Tue Macic Wanp anv Drvininc Rop.

The employment of magic wands and _ staffs
was in vogue among the ancient Egyptians and
Chaldeans, who imparted the knowledge of this
system of divination to the Hebrews dwelling among
them.

Thus we find the prophet Hosea says: “* My people
ask counsel at their stocks, and their staff declareth
unto them.” Rhabdomancy, or divination by
means of a rod, was practised by the ancient Greeks
and Romans, and the art was known in England,
though now it is almost forgotten. In China and
Eastern lands the art still flourishes, and various
kinds of plants and trees are employed, the
principal being the hazel, osier, and blackthorn.

The Druids used to cut their divining jrods from
the apple tree. In competent hands, the golden
rod is said to point to hidden springs of water, as
well as to hidden treasures of gold and silver.

MAGICAL PLANTS 97

*‘ Some sorcerers do boast they have a rod,
Gathered with vows and sacrifice,
That, borne aloft, will strangely nod
To hidden treasure where it lies.”

Hazel has always been the favourite tree amongst
us to be employed for the divining rod, though
peach, osier, and blackthorn have also been used
for this purpose. Elder must never be employed
under any circumstances.

The Chinese still abide by the venerable instruc-
tions that the operation must be performed so that
the eastern and western sun shone through the fork
of the rod; and their magic wands are cut usually
from the peach, on the night preceding the new
year, which always commences with the first moon
after the winter solstice.

The following directions are culled from an old
book of magic: “The rod must be cut at Mid-
summer night, or when the stars are in a particu-
larly favourable condition, and in cutting it one
must face the east, so that the rod shall be one
which catches the first rays of the morning sun, or,
as some say, the eastern and western sun must
shine through the fork of the rod, otherwise it will
prove of no avail. The shape of the rod is similar
to the letter Y, and when in operation the hands
usually grasp each side of the diverging arms, and
allow the unforked part to point outwards.

“The seventh son of a seventh son is the most
successful person to use the rod.”

“‘ Mysterious plant ! whose golden tresses wave
With a sad beauty in the dying year,
Blooming amid November’s frost severe,

Like the pale corpse-light o’er the recent grave !

7

98 THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

If shepherds tell us true, thy wood has power,
With gracious influence, to avert the harm
Of ominous planets, and the fatal charm

Of spirits wandering at the midnight hour;
And thou canst point where buried treasures lie.”

Anon.: To the Witch Hazel.

CHAPTER XII
WITCHES AND THEIR FLOWER LORE

“‘ From the deep mine rush wildly out
The troop of Gnomes in hellish rout;
Forth to the Witches’ club they fly;}
The Griffins watch as they go by.
The horn of Satan grimly sounds;
On Blocksberg’s flanks strange din resounds,
And Spectres crowd its summits high.”

Hecate, the Grecian goddess of the infernal regions,
presided over magic and enchantment, and may
well be styled the goddess, queen, and patroness
of all witches and sorcerers. She was acquainted
with the properties of every herb, and imparted this
knowledge to her daughters, Medea and Circe.

The following is an old derivation of the word
*‘ witch’: “A witch is a wise woman, one who can
see spirits, and in virtue of her supernatural gaze
can enchant or bewitch or fascinate those on whom
she may fix her eye.”

Mr. Conway, in his treatise on “ Mystic Trees
and Flowers,” says: “’The common name of the
witch, hag, is the same as haw, the hawthorn being
the hedgethorn. This coincidence may not, how-
ever, be due to the magical craft of the witch, but
only to the habit of those, presumed to be such, of
sitting under the hedges.”

Witches have been divided into three kinds:
black, white, and grey. The black, or bad, witch

99

too THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

is always mischievous; but the white witches are
kindly disposed, and can tell who it is that has
bewitched cattle or render assistance to people
who have been subject to the power of witchcraft.
The grey witch is a mixture of the white and the
black, and can help or hurt, as her mood dictates.

Witches are fond of riding about through the air
in the dead of night, and perform long journeys
to attend their meetings. ‘Their favourite steeds
for these excursions are besoms, which are generally
to be found fairly near at hand; bulrushes are also
used for locomotive purposes, as well as the broom
and the thorn.

William of Auvergne, who wrote in the thirteenth
century, says that when the witches of his time
wished to go to the place of rendezvous, they took
a reed or cane, and on making some magical signs
and uttering certain barbarous words it became
transformed into a horse, which carried them to
their destination most extraordinarily quickly.

In nearly every case it will be found that the
plants and flowers beloved of witches are also spoken
of as “ holding witches of their will”; but this
need cause us little surprise, for the people of
Eastern countries, firmly believe that the plants
and materials employed by magicians, sorcerers,
and other dealers in black magic, are equally effi-
cacious if employed against their charms and
spells.

It is recorded that, during the time of the witch
persecutions, whoever found himself unexpectedly
under an elder tree, was involuntarily seized with
such horror, that in all probability he fell into an
hysterical state. Although not one of the trees

WITCHES AND THEIR FLOWER LORE to!

dedicated to Hecate and her witch progeny, the
elder seems to have always possessed a weird attrac-
tion for mischievous elves and witches, who are
fond of seeking the shelter of its branches, and also
bury their satanic offspring beneath its roots.

The ill-famed Cercis stliquastrum, or judas tree,
is reputed to be specially haunted by witches, who
experience a grim pleasure in assembling round the
tree on which the traitor Judas hanged himself.
Perhaps it is they who have spread the tradition
that death overtakes anyone who is so unfortunate
as to fall into one of these trees.

One of the greatest arts in the knowledge of
witches was the concoction of noxious or deadly
potions, from various herbs with which they were
enabled to work their spells.

The Vervain, or Verbena, was a sacred plant
among the Greeks, and was regarded by the Druids
with great reverence. It was never gathered with-
out religious ceremonies, almost or quite equal
in solemnity to those performed at the cutting
of the mistletoe. It was much esteemed as a most
powerful ingredient in love potions and other
magic preparations, and could be used freely either
by or against witches.

Rue was another magic plant, and was said to
have a wonderful effect on the eyes, bestowing
second sight. Milton represents St. Michael as
purging Adam’s eyes with it:

“To nobler sights
Michael from Adam’s eyes the film removed
Which that false fruit which promised clearer sight
Had bred; then purged with Euphrasie and Rue
The visual nerve, for he had much to see.”

1o2 ‘THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

In reading accounts of the witch times, one
notices very forcibly that the plants employed by
the witches are nearly always vervain and rue.

The Foxglove was in high repute among witches
at one time, and it was said that they liked to
decorate their fingers with its flowers, on which
account they were known as “ Witches’ Thimbles.”’
The Irish represent the Shelfo, one of their
numerous species of sprites, as wearing the corolla
of the foxglove on its head. Other plants beloved
of witches are the hemlock, St. John’s wort, and
deadly nightshade, whose juices are infused into
the baleful draughts prepared for their enemies.

The Deadly Nightshade, whose correct name is
Atropa belladonna, is extremely poisonous, and a
plant of ill omen; Gerarde, the old herbalist, says
of it: “If you will follow my counsel, deale not
with the same in any case, and banish it from your
gardens, and the use of it also, being a plant so
furious and deadly, for it bringeth such as have
eaten thereof into a dead sleepe, wherein many
have died.” ‘There is an ancient belief that the
deadly nightshade is the form of a fatal enchantress
or witch, called Atropa.

Every part of the plant is most virulently poison-
ous, root, stem, leaves, and the little black berries, of
which William Wetmore Story in the “ Passing of

Summer ”’ writes:

“* While the Belladonna, so wickedly fair,
Shorn of the purple flowers that crowned her,
Is telling her Borgian beads in despair.”

The Sabbath of Witches is.a meeting to which
the sisterhood, after having been anointed with

WITCHES AND THEIR FLOWER LORE 103

certain magical ointments, provided by their in-
fernal leader, are supposed to be carried through the
air on broomsticks. Butler, in his ‘*‘ Hudibras,”’
says of this:

** Or trip it o’er the water quicker

Than witches when their staves they liquor,
As some report.”

There seems to have been much controversy
about the popular idea of witches flying, and many
of the old writers think this is only an illusion,
part of the enactment of a dream. This idea is
expressed by Oldham, when he writes:

** As men in sleep, though motionless they lie,
Fledged by a dream, believe they mount and fly,
So Witches some enchanted wand bestride,

And think they through the airy regions ride.”

Some plants confer on the people who employ
them the power of detecting witches, or even of
seeing them. Some say that the green juice of the
inner bark of the elder is used for anointing the
eyes. Any baptised person, whose eyes are touched
with it, can see what the witches are doing in any
part of the world.

In Denmark, there is a superstition that if
anyone will take his stand under an elder tree at
12 o'clock on Midsummer Eve, he will be able to
see the king of the elves go by, attended by his
train.

The Snapdragon was said to have a supernatural
influence and to possess the power of destroying
charms.
¢-There used to be a very widespread belief in the

104 ‘THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

efficacy of rosemary as a counter-charm against
witchcraft; probably this was the reason for its
use at weddings and funerals, and for its presence
in the dock of the accused in courts of justice.

Aconite is a plant with a bad name, its Indian
name of “ Ativisha”’ meaning supreme poison; it
has always ranked very high amongst the herbs
used by witches.

The aconite was held sacred to Hecate, in whose
garden it grew, and whence, according to Ovid,
it was first sown by Cerberus, that many-headed
monster dog, keeper of the entrance to Hades.
Hercules undertook to bring this great brute to
earth, and this was his twelfth labour, for he was
to use no arms or spells, only physical force. And
from the foam that sprang from the dog’s mouth
arose the aconite, plant of ill omen.

The ancients used aconite to poison their
arrow-heads, and in Norse mythology the hood
of the aconite represents the cap of darkness, which
enabled those who carried it to become invisible,
and formed part of Odin’s attire—Odin’s helm,

more generally called Thor’s hat and ‘Tyr’s helm.
~ When the Benedictines invaded the realm of
Thor it became “ monk’s hood,” the cowl of the
holy monks replacing the helm of Tyr. |

Aconitum is amongst the most malignant poisons,
and was employed by Medea in her cauldron of
magic herbs, and it was with this that she tried to
kill ‘Theseus when he returned to King Aigeus, his
father. But he suspected her evil designs, and
insisted that she must first taste of the cup which
she had handed to him, whereupon she dropped the
cup and fled precipitately. And when the wine

WITCHES AND THEIR FLOWER LORE 105

bubbled over the pavement, the stones crumbled
and hissed under the venom of the poison.

Hemlock is one of the most poisonous of a sus-
picious family: ‘‘ The great hemlock doubtless is
not possessed of any one good faculty, as appeareth
by his loathsome smell, and other apparent signs ”’;
and with this evil character the hemlock was
considered a fitting ingredient of witches’ broth.
As a poison it has an evil notoriety, as being the
poison by means of which Socrates was put to
death.

Witches’ Trees.—There are various kinds of trees
whose names are, directly or indirectly, associated
with witches, such as the witch-elm and the witch-
hazel. We are told that “witch” is a mistaken
spelling for “‘ wych,” yet it seems from the fact
that the hazel was employed for making divining
rods that the trees must have been connected in
some way with magic.

The hawthorn used to be hung up at the entrance
of houses in May to guard the dwelling from
witches. Witches detest yew trees, and it is prob-
ably for this reason that yews have been planted
so universally in churchyards from the earliest
times, so that the witches may be unable to gain
access, and disturb the calm of these holy places.

The burning of juniper wood was said to expel
evil spirits, and the old herbalists recommend
juniper berries for use as counter-poisons; and
water in which these berries had been steeped, was
said to be most healthful and useful against poisons,
and all forms of plague or pestilence.

In Italy, boughs of juniper are hung over the
doorway, as there is a belief that any witches who

106 THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

are about, will be seized with an irresistible desire to
count the leaves, and these being so very numerous
they are sure to become impatient, and take them-
selves off in high dudgeon, without entering the
house.

The Rowan, or Mountain Ash, is the dread of
witches, and they will go nowhere near it, as we see
from the following couplet:

** Rowan-tree and red thread
Put the Witches to their speed.”

A piece of rowan wood carried in the pocket
acts as a charm against all ill wishes, and small
branches suspended over a cow’s stall and wreathed
around her horns, will guard her from the effects
of the evil eye, and keep her in good health, more
especially if her owner does not forget to repeat
regularly this prayer:

“From Witches and Wizards, and long-tailed Buzzards,

And creeping things that run in hedge-bottoms,
Good Lord, deliver us !”

The witch who is touched by a branch of this
tree by a christened man will be the victim carried
off by the devil when he comes to claim his tribute.
This tribute is alluded to in the ballad of young

Tamlave:
** Oh pleasant is the fairyland,
And happy there to dwell;
But aye, at every seven years’ end,

We pay a teind to hell.”

In some of the old legends, the ash is joined with
the rowan as one of the plants which hold witches
and devils in dread, and it was said to resist all

WITCHES AND THEIR FLOWER LORE 107

attacks of witches and elves, and on this account
ash-sap was administered to newly-born children,
aS a precaution against the fairies or witches
changing the child, or even stealing it.

A bunch of ash-keys is thought as efficacious as
rowan wood in some districts for warding away
the witches. It was said that the ash appears
without its red buds on May Day, the witches
having bitten them off during the preceding night,
as they went on their way to the May-Day festivities.

The Holly is another tree most obnoxious to
witches. In its name they see but another form
of the word “ holy,” and its thorny foliage and
blood-red berries are suggestive to them of Christian
associations, which they would rather forget.

Pliny states that if the holly be planted near a
house it will keep away all malign spells and en-
chantments, and also defend the house from light-
ning. In those “ good old days” of witches and
potions, which might be brewed for one’s enemies,
there were doubtless many more herbs which went
to make up the choicest receipts of the witch; but,
alas, for any who should be thinking of practising
such magic spells in these prosaic days, methinks
the full instructions have not been handed down to
us severely practical mortals. Directions have got
lost in the dust of oblivion, and in the hurry and rush
of modern life no time remains for anything not
tangible and visible to our mortal eyes, such as
fairies, gnomes, elves, goblins, witches, and wizards.
Perhaps when the clock has beat its pendulum a
little further round, we shall find ourselves back
again in those entrancing days of spells, enchant-
ments, and incantations.

108 THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

And then for those who do not behave in a peace-
able and law-abiding fashion, the punishment will
not be imprisonment in a brick-walled gaol, but
the offender will find himself firmly rooted to the
ground, there to serve out his time as some tree
or prickly shrub.

Ben Jonson, in the “ Masque of Queens,” speaks
of the gum, or turpentine of the larch, as being
used in witchcraft. A witch answers her com-
panions thus:

“ Yes, I have brought (to help your vows)
Horned Poppy, Cypress-boughs,
The Fig-tree wild, that grows on tombs,
And juice that from the Larch-tree comes,
The basilisk’s blood and the viper’s skin;
And now our orgies let’s begin.”

CHAPTER XIII
THE DEVIL’S PLANTS

*“‘ From his brimstone bed at break of day
A-walking the Devil is gone,
To visit his little snug farm of the earth
And see how his stock went on.”

AccorpiInc to many old countryside myths and
superstitions, any plant or flower with a peculiarity
of a pronounced nature, has become associated in
folklore and legend, with his satanic majesty.

Scabious is known as ‘ Devil’s Bit”; this name
arises, no doubt, from the shape of the root, which
looks as though a piece had been bitten out. Legend
says that the devil, knowing that this particular
part of the root cured all diseases, out of sheer
malice bit it off. ‘To quote Gerarde, a very old
authority on the subject: “The great part of the
root seemeth to be bitten away; old fantasticke
charmers do report that the Deville did bite it for
envie, because it is an herbe that hath so many
good virtues, and is so beneficial to mankind.”

The fruit spikes of the wild arum, known by
children as “ Lords and Ladies,” are in some parts
of the country called the “‘ Devil’s Men and Women.”

The Greater Stitchwort is known as “ Devil’s
Corn ” and also “ Devil’s Eyes.”

The Dodder, that uncouth parasite fattening on

other plants’ lifeblood, is one of the most universally
109

110 THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

disliked plants, and is known as “ Strangleweed,”
“ Hellbind,” and “‘ Devil’s Guts.” Its yellow, twin-
ing, leafless stems, with the little branches of light
blossoms, certainly have a very uncanny and sinister
appearance.

The Puff-ball Fungus is rather appropriately
named the “ Devil’s Snuff-box,” on account of the
dust or particles which they contain, these have
long borne an evil name; one could quite imagine
the prince of darkness putting it to such a use.
Gerarde says that: “It is very dangerous for the
eles, for it hath been often seene that divers have
been pore-blinde ever after when some small
quantity thereof hath beene blowne into their
eles,”

Garlic is somewhat fittingly described as ‘‘ Devil’s
Posy,” and the Irish say of this plant that if the
leaves are boiled in water and this concoction used
as a bath it will cure sciatica and rheumatism.
Surely the patient would need a good airing after
such an ablution ! |

There is a very curious legend relating that
when Satan stepped out from the Garden of Eden
after the fall of man, garlic sprang up from the spot
where he placed his left foot, and onions from that
which his right foot touched. And it would seem
that there is something mysterious in the garlic,
that it should be so thoroughly acceptable, almost
indispensable, to many thousands, whilst to others
it is so horribly offensive as to be practically un-
bearable.

According to some old writers, the garlic was
possessed of every virtue, so that it had the name
of “Poor Man’s Treacle” (the word “treacle”

THE DEVIL’S PLANTS III

not having its present meaning, but being the
anglicised form “ theriake,”’ or heal-all).

But, on the other hand, Gerarde affirms of the
garlic that “‘it yields to the body no nourishment
at all, it engendereth naughty and sharp blood.”

The Berry of the Deadly Nightshade is known as
the ‘ Devil’s Berry.” The plant is also called
“ Death’s Herb,” and was formerly known under the
name of Dwale, the fruit being called “ Dwale-
berry ” (torpor or trance berry), from the Danish
word ‘“‘ dwale,” meaning a trance, or dead-sleep.

The Belladonna in Bohemia is said to be a favourite
plant of the devil, who watches overit. He may,
however, be drawn from it on a certain night of
the year by letting loose a black hen, after which
he will immediately run.

In Ireland, it is said to be very unlucky to pick
blackberries after Michaelmas: “‘ At Michaelmas
the devil puts his foot on the blackberries.”

In Sussex, there is an old legend which fixes the
date as October 10, after which time the devil goes
round and spits on the fruit.

The Devil as the Power of Evil plays an important
part in all European folklore. In medizval times
we find him in all sorts of grotesque guises, and with
very various borrowed attributes. He is the black
dog in Dr. Faust’s study, or, imitating the classic
sylvan deity Pan, he figures as a goat, with cloven
hoofs and horns. As the prince of the powers of
the air, he is attended in his midnight flights by
troops of witches, mounted on brooms. He is
Wayland Smith, the cunning worker in metals,
and, like Hephaistos, he is lame as the result of a
fall from heaven.

112 THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

From the Scandinavian god Thor he obtains his
red beard and his pitchfork, and probably he gets
his name of “ Old Nick” from his appearing as a
water-imp, or “ Nix.”

The Mandrake is a gruesome herb, and is a dweller
in the dark places of the earth. Legend says that
it thrives under the shadow of the gallows, being
nourished by the exhalations or flesh of the criminals
executed on the gibbet.

Old writers tell us that the mandrake has the
power of uttering sounds, and that when it is pulled
out of the ground it shrieks and groans, and so
terrible are these cries that few may hear them
and live. Shakespeare speaks of them thus:

** Would curses kill, as doth the Mandrake’s groans,
I would invent as bitter-searching terms,
As curst, and harsh, and horrible to hear.”

And Moore relates in verse another tradition:

“The phantom shapes—oh touch them not—
That appal the maiden’s sight,
Lurk in the fleshy Mandrake’s stem
That shrieks when plucked at night.”

Shakespeare tells us again of these screams and
their effects:

*¢ And shrieks like Mandrakes, torn out of the earth,
That living mortals, hearing them, ran mad.”

The only way to guard against these dangers,
therefore, was to remove the surrounding soil
and harness a dog to the plant and let him drag
it out. The unfortunate animal immediately died,
but the root, when obtained, will act as a familiar
spirit to its owner.

THE DEVIL’S PLANTS: 113

It is said that the witch-doctors made little idols
of the roots, which were consulted as oracles, and
their repute was such that they were manufactured
in great numbers and sold in cases.

According to Pliny, the mandrake was sometimes
shaped like a man, at others like a woman: the
male was white and the female black.

From the earliest ages the Atropa mandragora
seems to have been regarded as a mystic plant by
the Eastern peoples, and thought by them to
stimulate the passions, on which account it is still
used for preparing love potions. It is generally
believed that the mandrake is the same plant which
the ancient Hebrews called ‘‘ Dudaim,” and that
these people held it in the highest esteem in Jacob’s
time, is evident from the passage in Genesis (xxx. 14)
of Reuben finding it, and carrying the plant to his
mother Leah. From the very earliest times in the
East, the mandrakes were reputed to possess the
power of removing sterility; hence Rachel’s desire
to obtain from Leah, the plants that Reuben had
found and given to his mother.

In an Anglo-Saxon manuscript of the tenth or
eleventh century, the mandrake is said to shine in
the night like a candle. The Arabs called it the
“ Devil’s Candle,” because of this nocturnal shining
appearance, and in allusion to this peculiarity
Moore speaks of it in “‘ Lalla Rookh”’:

“* Such rank and deadly lustre dwells,
As in those hellish fires that light
The Mandrake’s charnel leaves at night.”

The Elder has always been associated in plant lore
and legend with all that was evil, and there is perhaps
8

114 THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

no tree round which so much contradictory folk-lore
has revolved as the elder tree.

This is not surprising, as some say that it is the
tree which Judas Iscariot selected whereon to hang
himself after he had betrayed Our Lord. On this
score one would imagine that it should be a very
excellent thing to uproot it from our gardens, but
not so, as to dig up an elder is said to be one of the
most unlucky things that man can do.

Shakespeare, in “‘ Love’s Labour’s Lost,” says:
“‘ Judas was hanged on an elder,” and this belief
was general among early writers, and is constantly
alluded to by authors of the Elizabethan period;
but the name “judas tree”? was given to the
Cercis siliquastrum about the same period.

Gerarde, a great authority on the subject, de-
finitely tells us of the Cercis: “This is the tree
whereon Judas did hang himself, and not upon the
Elder-tree, as is stated.”

On the other hand, an old Eastern traveller,
Sir John Mandeville, tells us that the very elder
tree upon which Judas hanged himself was to be
seen in his day close to the Pool of Siloe; while the
legend which connects Judas with the elder is
alluded to by Ben Jonson, and is thus referred to
in “ Piers Plowman”:

“« Judas, he japed
ith Jewen silver,
And sithen on an Elder
Hanged hymselve.”

This was quite enough to give the tree a bad
name, which other characteristics helped to confirm
—1.é., the evil smell of its leaves, the heavy narcotic

THE DEVIL’S PLANTS 115

scent of the flowers, its hard and heartless wood,
and the ugly, drooping black fungus that is almost
exclusively found on the elder, vulgarly called the
“ Ear of Judas ”—Hirneola auricula jude.

But not only is this ill-omened tree credited with
being connected with the death of Judas, but there
is a widespread belief that it was the “ accursed
tree”? on which Our Lord was crucified; and there-
fore, in many districts, although fuel may be scarce
and these sticks plentiful, the countryfolk will on
no account burn them.

In Scotland, it is called the “‘ Bour Tree,”’ and the
following rhyme instances the belief entertained in
that country:

‘** Bour-tree, bour-tree, crooked rung,
Never straight and never strong,
Ever bush and never tree,

Since Our Lord was nailed on thee.”

In Chambers’s ‘* Book of Days,” we are told that
a person is perfectly safe under the shelter of an
elder tree during a thunderstorm, as lightning will
never strike the tree of which the Cross was
made.

In Napier’s “‘ Folk-Lore of the Northern Coun-
ties,’ there is recorded a very quaint custom. An
elder tree is planted in the form of a cross upon a
newly-made grave, and if it shoots forth and flowers
it is a sign that the soul of the dead person is in
Paradise.

In England, the elder has been regarded with
superstition from the very earliest times, and looked
upon as a tree of bad omen. Branches of elder
were formerly considered typical of disgrace and woe.

116 THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

In the “‘ Canones editi sub Edgari Rege,” it is
enacted that every priest forbid the vain practices
that are carried on with elder-sticks. In a rare
old tract on Gloucestershire superstitions, a figure
is given of an elder-wood cross, borne constantly
about the person as a cure for rheumatism. This
cross consisted of a small piece cut from a young
shoot, just above or below a joint, so as to leave the
bud projecting at each end of it, after the fashion
of a rude cross. To be efficient, the elder must
have been grown in consecrated ground. In Tort-
worth, and a few other Gloucestershire church-
yards, there still exist such trees, and applications
for pieces from them are still made by some of the
older inhabitants of the villages.

Many trees with which the name of Judas is
associated are regarded with awe, on account of
their connection with the devil. In Bohemia, the
willow is said to be the tree on which Judas hanged
himself, whence the superstition that the devil has
given it a peculiar attraction for suicides.

The following stories of his satanic majesty seem
too good to miss, though they are in no wise con-
nected with plant lore, so may be deemed irrele-
vant in this chapter.

This Serbian myth accounts for the hollow in the sole
of man’s foot:

The devil stole the sun and set it on a lance,
which he left planted in the ground whilst he
went bathing with an archangel. The archangel
dived and brought up some sand. The devil
spat on the ground, and a magpie arose from

his spittle, to mount guard while the devil also
dived.

THE DEVIL’S PLANTS 117

He was no sooner under than the archangel
made the sign of the cross, and the water was
frozen over: then off he flew to heaven with the
impaled sun. The magpie screamed. The devil
could not get out till he had sunk again in search
of a stone to break the ice. He managed to over-
take the archangel just as he had got one foot
in heaven, and he caught hold of the other
foot, and tore off a large piece of the flesh. The
archangel complained to the Almighty, who de-
creed, in order to pacify him, that every man
should henceforth have a hollow on the sole of
his foot.

The final irrelevant legend concerns the story of
Peacock’s Feathers and Ill Luck:

When God created the peacock, the seven deadly
sins gazed with envy at the splendid plumage of
the bird, and complained of the injustice of the
Creator. “ You are quite right, I have been
unjust,” said the Almighty, “‘for I have already
bestowed too much on you; the deadly sins ought
to be black as night, who covers them with her
veil.”

And taking the yellow eye of envy, the red eye of
murder, the green eye of jealousy, and so on with
the rest, He placed them all on the feathers of the
peacock, and gave the bird its liberty.

Away went the bird, and the sins, thus despoiled,
followed close on his track, trying in vain to recover
their lost eyes. ‘This is the reason why, when a
man decks himself with a peacock’s feathers the
sins incarnate dog his footsteps and assail him,
each in its turn.

Finally, let us end this chapter of the devil with

118 THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

one more verse from “‘ The Devil’s Thoughts,” by

Coleridge:

“« And how then was the Devil drest?
Oh ! he was in his Sunday best:
His jacket was red and his breeches were blue,
And there was a hole where the tail came through.”

CHAPTER XIV
FAIRIES AND THEIR FLOWER LORE

“‘ And lo! upon my fixed delighted ken
Appeared the loyal Fays. Some by degrees
Crept from the primrose buds that opened then,
And some from bell-shaped blossoms like the bees,
Some from the dewy meads, and rushy leas,
Flew up like chafers when the rustics pass;
Some from the rivers, others from tall trees
Dropped like shed blossoms, silent to the grass,
Spirits and elfins small, of every class.”

How much poetry has left the world since Oberon
and Titania

“* Danced full oft in many a grene mead,”

and the cowslips were the pensioners of the Fairy
Queen? In those days there was scarcely a flower
in wood or on the river-bank but had its mysterious
connection with the elfin world.

Hardly a tree in the greenwood, from the great
oak of Thor to the elder with its white blossoms
glimmering through the shade, but had its special
legends and marvellous properties. Nowadays,
though the flowers are as bright, and the green-
wood as spreading as ever, the elf is but rarely
seen. ,
The belief which in those old days gave life
to the moorland and forest has, alas! disappeared.
But it is still possible to trace their presence, not

119

120 ‘THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

only by the dark rings on the sward, but by the
mark set by them on many a plant and flower and
in the names which still cling to them.

Underneath the characters of the fairies lie those
of the old Northern deities Woden and Thor
and Freyja; and, deeper still, those of the more
ancient world into which they intruded—the world
of Peon, the physician of Olympus, who bestowed
his name on the peony; and of Helen of Troy, whose
virtues, if not her beauty, are commemorated in the
helenium, or elecampane, of which herb, says
Gerarde, she had her hands full when she was
carried off.

It was always a well-known fact that the fairies
were passionately fond of most flowers; it is a part
of their mission to give to each maturing blossom
its proper hue, to guide creepers and climbing
plants, and to teach young plants to move with
befitting grace.

The Anemone, or wind flower, is a recognised fairy
blossom. ‘The crimson marks on its petals have
been painted there by fairy hands; and in wet
weather it affords shelter to benighted elves, who
are glad to nestle inside the tent of fair petals,
and pull the curtains around them.

Tulips are greatly loved by the fairy folk, who
utilise them as cradles in which to rock the infant
elves to sleep.

The Fairy Flax (Linum catharticum) is, on account
of its extreme delicacy, selected by the fays as the
substance to be woven for their raiment.

The Cowslip, or fairy cup, Shakespeare tells us,
forms the couch of Ariel, who sings so sweetly of
his fairy life:

FAIRIES AND THEIR FLOWER LORE 121

‘‘ Where the bee sucks, there lurk I;
In a Cowslip’s bell I lie;
There I couch when owls do cry.”

The tiny crimson drops in the cowslip’s chalice
are said to possess the virtue of preserving, or even
restoring, youthful bloom and beauty; for these
ruddy drops are fairy favours, and therefore have
enchanted value.

To quote Shakespeare again on this flower of the
Fays:

‘“* And I serve the Fairy queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green:
The Cowslips tall her pensioners be;
In their gold coats spots you see;
Those be rubies, fairy favours:
In those freckles live their savours.”

The tiny people love to nestle in the drooping
bells with their crimson drops. Do you not hear
soft music pealing from them when the moon
shines bright and dew glitters on the grass: sweet
voices too, singing the praises of that sheltering
flower, wherein they can await the passing by of
showers ?

The hurrying of fairy crowds when rain-drops
patter and begin to fall; their gossamer robes, now
light, now dark, as leaf-shadows fall upon them, and
their anxious, tiny faces looking wistfully through
the blades of grass for some friendly cowslip. Ina
moment they are seen clambering up the stalks,
rushing each one into the nearest bell, and then
a symphony of soft, sweet voices, and he who
listens may hear, perchance, a melody of fairyland.

The Foxglove is the special delight of the fairy
tribe, and in some parts it is known by the name of

122 ‘THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

“Fairy Petticoats.” It was said that the elves were
always supposed to dress in green, but evidently
that applies only to their outside apparel, and there
seems no reason at all why they should not have
gay petticoats. In Ireland, the foxglove is known
as ‘‘ Fairy Bells,” and also “ Fairy Gloves.” Then,
again, in their more serious moments, the elves are
industrious enough to mend their clothes, and in
the foxglove we find the fairy thimbles.

When it bends its tall stalks the foxglove is
making its obeisance to the little people, or pre-
paring to receive some small elf who wishes to hide
himself in the safe retreat afforded by its accommo-
dating bells.

On account of its connection with the fairies, the
name is thought originally to have been the “ Fairy
Folk’s Glove,” the present name of “ Foxglove”
being a shortened corruption.

In Ireland, the Ragwort is specially dedicated to
the fairies, and just as witches delight to ride on the
broom and the thorn, so the fairy gallops about at
night on this golden flower.

‘‘ Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut,
Made by the joiner squirrel, or old grub,
Time out of mind the fairies’ coach-builder.”

The Four-leaved Clover is the only plant that will
enable its wearer to see the fairies; it is a magic
talisman whereby to gain admittance to the fairy
kingdom.

There is a Cornish fairy tale intimately associated
with the four-leaved clover which runs thus: One
evening a maiden set out to milk the cows later than
usual; indeed, the stars had begun to shine before

FAIRIES AND THEIR FLOWER LORE 123

she had completed her task. Daisy (an en-
chanted cow) was the last to be milked, and the
pail was so full that the milkmaid could hardly
lift it to her head. So, to relieve herself, she
gathered some handfuls of grass and clover, and
spread on her head in order to carry the milk-pail
more easily. But no sooner had the clover touched
her head than suddenly hundreds of little people
appeared, surrounding Daisy, dipping their tiny
hands into the milk, and gathering it with clover
flowers, which they sucked with gusto.

Daisy was standing in the long grass and clover,
so some of these little creatures climbed up the
stalks and held up buttercups, convolvulus, and
foxgloves to catch the milk which dropped from
the cow’s udder. When the astonished milkmaid,
upon reaching home, recounted her wonderful
experiences to her mistress, the good housewife
at once cried out: “Ah, you put a four-leaved
clover on your head !”

Unless armed with this potent herb, the only
other means available to mortals who wish to make
the acquaintance of the fairies is to procure a supply
of a certain precious unguent prepared according
to the receipt of a celebrated alchymist, which,
applied to the eyes, is said to enable anyone with a
clear conscience, to behold without difficulty or
danger the most elusive fairy, sprite, or gnome
that he may meet at any time; this is an exact copy
of the preparation of this magic physic:

“A pint of Sallet-oyle, and put it into a vial-
glasse; but first wash it with Rose-Water and
Marygold water, the flowers to be gathered towards
the East. Wash it till the oyle comes white, then

124 THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

4

put it into the glasse ‘ut supra,’ and then put
therein the buds of Hollyhocks, the flowers of
Marygolde, the flowers of wild Thyme, the Buds
of Young Hazle; and the Thyme must be gathered
near the side of a hill where Fayries used to be, and
take some grasse from a Fayrie throne. Then put
these all with the oyle into the glasse, and sette it
to dissolve three dayes in the sunne and then keep
it for thy use, ‘ ut supra.’”

The Wood Sorrel, with its tiny white flowers
and delicate purple veins, is called by the Welsh,
“Fairy Bells,” and it was said that the merry peals
which call the elves to moonlight dance and revelry
are sounded forth by these miniature bells:

** These be the pretty genii of the flowers,
Daintily fed with honey and pure dew—
Midsummer’s phantoms in her dreaming hours,
King Oberon and all his merry crew,
The darling puppets of romance’s view;
Fairies and sprites, and goblin elves we call them,
Famous for patronage of lovers true.
No harm they act, neither shall harm befall them,
So do not thus with crabbed frowns appal them.”

According to the old pastoral poets, the fairies
are most wont to bestir themselves soon after
sunset, a time of indistinctness coupled with a sort
of silent mystic charm. . But it is at midnight that
the whole fairy kingdom is most thoroughly alive;
then it is that the faint music of the harebell is
heard ringing out the call for the assembly of fairies
and elves.

“Tis the hour of the Fairy ban and spell,
The wood-tick has kept the minutes well ;
He has counted them all with click and stroke,
Deep on the heart of the forest Oak.

FAIRIES AND THEIR FLOWER LORE 125

** And he has awakened the sentry Elve,
That sleeps with him in the haunted tree,
To bid him ring the hour of twelve,
And call the Fays to their revelry.”

The fairies are very fond of riding to the trysting-
spot on an aerial steed: either the ragwort (the
fairies’ horse), or a blade of grass, a fern frond, or a
straw, are some of their other methods of transit.
On arrival, the merry throng make their way to
some grassy bank or pasture, and their gay dance
through the night, causes those dark green circles
that are known to mortals as “ Fairy Rings.”

A Devonshire legend says that these rings are
caused by the fairies catching the colts found in the
fields, and riding them round and round. Michael
Drayton says of this:

“They in their courses make that round,
In meadows and in marshes found,
Of them so called the fairy ground.”

On these rings, rustic superstition maintains that
no sheep or lamb will browse, and in Ireland,
charmed home of the fays, no man would venture
to set foot within these magic circles, else will
he incur the dire displeasure of the “little people.”
Likewise, if a tree should fall athwart the fairy
ring, there it must remain—it is the property of
the fairies, and must on no account be moved. Dis-
regarding the charm of many ages which lingers
round this fairy superstition, and apparently quite
oblivious of the poet’s assertion that—

“ Of old the merry elves were seen
Pacing with printless feet the dewy green,”

126 THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

some naturalists tell us that the phenomenon of
these rings is due to lightning, others to the work
of ants, and others, again, to the growth of a small
fungus, Agaricus orcades. However, be that as it
may, doubtless there will always be found simple-
minded folk who prefer to believe that the rings
are caused ‘‘ by the fairies’ twinkling feet.”

The Peziza, a very beautiful fungus growth,
which is in the form of a scarlet cup, is the “ Fairies’
Bath,” in which they make their morning ablution,
at the close of the night’s festivities, whilst the dew
is still heavy on grass and flower and bush.

The peziza may be found growing on pieces of
broken stick, chiefly in dry ditches and hedges; it
does not frequent damp or very wooded spots.

In Wales, nearly all the fungi tribe were known
as “‘ Fairy Tables.”

Another fungus specially appropriated by the
fairies is “ Fairy Butter,” Yremella arborea; it is a
yellowish, gelatinous substance, found upon rotten
wood or fallen timber, and, according to old country-
time beliefs, it was said to be made in the night
and scattered about by the fairies.

In such esteem were the fairies or pixies held by
the countryfolk of Devon and Cornwall, that in
the olden days a share of the fruit crop was always
set apart for them, to ensure their friendship and
good offices. It was said to be most unlucky to
pick up any of the “‘ windfalls,” as these were the
property of the pixies, who must on no account be
robbed of their due. |

There are some of the fairy community known as
water-nymphs, who frequent the vicinity of pools
and the banks of streams and rivers, and they are

FAIRIES AND THEIR FLOWER LORE 127

always much concerned with, and interested in,
the plant life of stream, pond, and bog.

“* Say, knowest thou the Elfin people gay?
They dwell on the rivers’ strand;
They spin from the moonbeams their festive garb,

With their small and lily hand.”

A belief in the existence of good spirits who
watched and guarded wells, springs, and streams
was very common in former times.

On October 13, the Romans celebrated at the
Porta Fontinalis a festival in honour of the nymphs
who presided over fountains and wells; this was
called the Fontinalia, and during the ceremonies
wells and fountains were ornamented with garlands.

The saints and martyrs have long since taken the
place of nymphs and fairies as patrons of these wells,
and pilgrimages are made to many holy wells and
springs in the United Kingdom, for the purpose
of curing certain diseases, by the virtues contained
in their waters. It should not be surprising that
even in these days the fairies are fond of assembling
round these wells, and dancing their rounds, lighted
by the soft rays of the moon:

“* By wells and rills, in meadows green,
We nightly dance our hey-day guise,

And to our Fairy King and Queen
We chant our moonlight minstrelsies,”

In the historic fairy tales of Grimm, we are told
that the elves are fond of inhabiting oak trees, the
holes in the trunks being utilised by the fairies as a
means of entry and exit.

The Esthonians believed that during a thunder-
storm, and in order to escape from the lightning,

128 ‘THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

the timorous elves burrow several feet beneath the
roots of the tree they inhabit.

As a rule, these forest elves are good-natured, and
if they are not offended will do men a good turn
whenever possible, even teaching them some of the
mysteries of Nature, of which they possess the secret.

In our own country, oaks were always thought to
be the favourite abode of elves, and travellers upon
approaching groves, that were reputed to be haunted
by them, used to think it well to turn their coats
for good luck.

‘“* Would you the Fairy regions see,
Hence to the greenwood run with me;
From Mortals safe the livelong night, -
There countless feats the Fays delight.”

There are some plants and trees in whose names
we can still trace the influence of the elves. The
Elm is often known as the “‘ Elven,” as the fairies
specially delight in this tree.

It was a pretty fancy, back in the Dark Ages,
which pictured to us the fairies, or “ little peoples,”
as being very real inhabitants of the spirit world.
For they were said to be the angels who remained
neutral when “ Michael and his angels fought
against the dragon and his angels,” and because
they remained neutral they were cast by the
Almighty out of heaven, and some fell on dry land
and some fell into the sea; and these are most gentle
and beautiful creatures, who will do no harm if
they are left alone, and undisturbed by the presence
of mortals. In fact, they would do many kindly
deeds for those who thought kindly of them, and of
children they took especial care.

FAIRIES AND THEIR FLOWER LORE 129

After the Reformation, the belief in fairies in
England (in common with that of angels) suffered
a severe decline; in fact, it would almost seem that,
in the words of Bishop Corbett, Bishop of Oxford
and Norwich early in the seventeenth century,
they were “ banished for their religion.”

** Lament, lament, old abbies,
The Fairies’ lost command;
They did but change priests’ babies,
But some have changed your land;
And all your children sprung from hence
Are now grown Puritans,
Who live as changelings ever since
For love of your domains.

** Witness those rings and roundelays

Of theirs, which yet remain,

Were footed, in Queen Mary’s days,
On many a grassy plain;

But since of late Elizabeth,
And later James came in,

They never danced on any heath,
As when the time hath bin.

** By which we note the fairies
Were of the old profession,
Their songs were Ave Marias,
Their dances were procession.
But now, alas! they all are dead,
Or gone beyond the seas;
Or farther for religion fled,
Or else they take their ease.”
The Fairies? Farewell

CHAPTER XV
OUR LADY’S FLOWERS

“‘ Mystic Rose ! that precious name,
Mary from the Church doth claim;
In the lily’s silver bells,

The purity of Mary dwells.
In the myrtle’s fadeless green,
Mary’s constancy is seen.”

In the olden days, before men had been brought
under the influence of the Reformation, we find
that there were certain flowers and plants, that had
been held sacred to the heathen deities of classical
mythology.

The first two days of the week were set apart to
the sun and moon god, Tuesday was named after
Tuisco, Wednesday after Woden, Thursday after
Thor, the god of War and Thunder, and Friday
after Freyja.

To Freyja, as to Venus, many plants were dedi-
cated, and all these were quite naturally transferred
to the patronage of Our Lady. The ladybird was
once Freyja’s own insect, and Orion’s Belt, which
in Sweden is still called Freyja’s spindle, belongs
to Mary.

The Holy Virgin is our Rose of Sharon and
Lily of the Valley; and the poetry, no less than the
piety of Europe, has inscribed to her the whole
bloom and colouring of the fields and hedges.

The choicest flowers were wrested from the classic
130

OUR LADY’S FLOWERS 131

Juno, Venus, and Diana, and from the Scandinavian
Bertha and Freyja, and bestowed upon the Madonna,
whilst floral offerings of every sort were laid upon
her shrines.

In her own month of May does not all Nature
rejoice with Mary? All the woods are carpeted
with bluebells, who continually and softly ring the
“* Mary-Bell,” did we but listen and understand.

The horse chestnuts, most imposing of trees, put
up innumerable votive candles of pink and white,
all in honour of Mary, during her own month of
May. And, strange fact, throughout the country-
side there is a wealth of blue flowers, Our Lady’s
own colour.

“The happy birds Te Deums sing,

Tis Mary’s month of May;

Her smile turns winter into spring,
And darkness into day.

And there’s a fragrance in the air,
The bells their music make,

And oh! the world is bright and fair,
And all for Mary’s sake.”

A Catholic writer has recently complained that
at the Reformation “the very names of plants
were changed in order to divert men’s minds from
the least recollection of Christian piety; and a
Protestant writer of the eighteenth century, be-
wailing the ruthless action of the Puritans in giving
to the “ Queen of Beauty” flowers named after the
“Queen of Heaven,” says: “ Botany, which in
ancient times was full of the Blessed Virgin Mary,
is now as full of the heathen Venus.”

The snowdrop is the Fair Maid of February, as
being sacred to the Purification, or Candlemas

132. THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

(February 2), when her image was removed from
the altar and snowdrops strewed in its place.

To the Madonna, in her capacity of Queen of -
Heaven, were dedicated the almond, the white
iris, the white lily, and the narcissus, all appropriate
to the Annunciation (March 25).

The lily, and white and red roses, were assigned
to the Visitation (July 2), flowers typical of the
love and purity of the Virgin Mother.

To the Feast of the Assumption (August 15)
is assigned the Virgin’s Bower (Clematis flammula),
and to Our Lady’s Birthday (September 8) the
amellus (Aster amellus), and to the Conception
(December 8) the Arbor vite. The Rosary of
the Blessed Virgin, instituted by St. Dominic, was
so called as the beads were formerly made of rose-
leaves tightly pressed into round moulds, where
real roses were not strung together, and thus the
entire chaplet was called a rosary.

The use of the rose, during Our Lady’s own
month of May, isin Italy a national custom. Every-
one has roses in the oratory or on the table all the
month through. ‘As an emblem of the Virgin,
the rose, both white and red, appears at a very
early period, and it was especially so recognised by
St. Dominic, when he instituted the devotion of
the Rosary. The prayers appear to have been
symbolised as roses.”

There is a story of “‘ a lordsman who had collected
much goods of his lord’s, and who had to pass with
his treasure through a wood, in which thieves were
waiting for him. When he entered the wood he
remembered that he had not that day said ‘ Our
Lady’s Saulter,’ and as he knelt to do so the

OUR LADY’S FLOWERS 133

Holy Virgin came and placed a garland on his
head, and at each Ave she set a rose in the gar-
land that was so bright that all the wood shone
thereof.”

He was himself ignorant of it, but the thieves saw
the vision, and allowed him to pass unharmed.

The Rose of Jericho has been called ‘“ Mary’s
Rose,” and tradition affirms that when Joseph
and Mary were fleeing into Egypt, one of these
flowers sprang up to mark every spot where they
rested.

Tradition says that the clematis owes its name
of “‘ Virgin’s Bower” to the fact that several times
this plant afforded Our Lady grateful shade and
shelter during the flight into Egypt.

*“* When Mary left us here belowe
The Virgin’s Bower was full in blowe.”

A legend of ‘Tuscan origin condemns the broom as
a traitor. For as Our Lady, with the Holy Child
in her arms, was crossing an exposed pathway,
fearful of being seen by Herod’s soldiers, she sought
refuge among the brushwood.

But as she stooped for shelter the broom and the
chickpeas set up such a crackling and rustling that
they must have betrayed her if she had not observed
a juniper, who immediately opened its friendly
branches, closing them again at once upon the
Holy Mother and Child, thus affording them sure
concealment and protection.

A legend of the rosemary, not so well known as
many other plant legends, tells us how the plant
came by its blue flowers. It is said that Our Lady
threw her linen over a white-flowered shrub to

134 THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

bleach it, and ever after the flowers were as blue
as Mary’s robe.

“¢ What flower is that which royal honour craves,
Adjoins the Virgin, and ’tis strewn on graves?”

Tue Lecenp oF THE IRIs, orn FiEuR-peE-Lys.

There was once a knight, more devout than
learned, who could never remember more than the
two first Latin words of the “‘ Ave Maria.”

And in these words he continually addressed his
prayer to Heaven. Night and day his supplica-
tion continued, until at last the good old man died,
and was buried in the chapel-yard of the convent,
where, as a proof of the acceptance of his brief but
earnest prayer, a plant of fleur-de-lys sprang up
on his grave, which displayed on every flower, in
golden letters, the words “‘ Ave Maria.”

This strange sight induced the monks, who had
despised him during his lifetime for his ignorance,
to open his grave. On doing so, they found that
the root of the plant rested on the lips of the holy
knight.

An antiquarian writes: “‘ How soon flowers were
used for ecclesiastical purposes in England it is
difficult, nay, impossible, to say. We know that
gardens were devoted to the special cultivation of
flowers for the churches. There was one, for
instance, adjoining the Lady Chapel at Winchester,
and the spot, for a long time after the destruction
of the sacristy, went by the name of ‘ Paradise.’ ”

Henry VI., in his will, left particular directions
concerning a garden for the church of Eton College,
‘ which is left for to sett in certain trees and flowers,

OUR LADY’S FLOWERS 135

behovable and convenient for the service of the same
church.”

We read that William, Abbot of St. Albans
(A.D. 1214-35), appointed that ‘“‘ the wax taper,
which we are accustomed to wreathe about with
flowers, should be burnt before the beautiful image
of Mary, carved by William of Colchester, both
day and night on the principal feasts, and during
the procession which is held in honour of the Blessed
Virgin.”

The Lily, though not indigenous to Palestine, was
early known both in Syria and in Egypt, and so it
may quite likely be that the lily work which figured
so largely in the ornamentation of Solomon’s
Temple, was modelled from Lilium candidum.
As typical of purity and majesty, the Greeks
dedicated it to Hera, the sky-mother; so it was
quite a natural transition in the very early days of
Christianity for the lily to be given to Mary, emblem
of moral beauty and purity.

* From Visitation to St. Swithin’s showers,
The Lily white reigns Queen of Flowers.”

The Italian Masters portray Our Lady always
with a spray of lilies, and also St. Joseph, on account
of his staff having blossomed and brought forth a
lily. At the Annunciation, the angel Gabriel
carries in his hand a branch of the Madonna lily.

Tradition tells us that St. Thomas refused to
believe in the bodily assumption of Our Lady into
heaven, and desired that her tomb should be opened.
This was done, whereupon it was found to be full.
only of a wealth of lilies and roses.

In 1048, the Order of Knights of St. Mary of the

136 THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

Lily was instituted by Garcius, fourth King of
Navarre.

The Milk Thistle (Carduus marianus) takes its
name from Mary, and was known as “ Our Lady’s
Thistle.” It owes its name to the white veins
upon its leaves, for which legend accounts thus: One
day Our Lady, tired from a long ride, seats herself
beneath a hawthorn, and proceeds to feed the Holy
Child. Soon the Holy Mother slumbers, and the
Divine Babe, refreshed, sinks sweetly asleep also,
and some drops of the milk thus escape, and trickle
down upon a thistle growing by the Madonna’s
side. And it is the imprint of this accident upon ©
its leaves that gives to C. marianus the white
marks that distinguish the plant.

An Order of the Thistle, called the Order of
Bourbon, was instituted in France in 1370, in
honour of Our Lady.

The Iris, owing to its brilliant hues, the Greeks
named after the rainbow, symbol of light and
hope.

To Juno, Queen of Heaven, the iris was dedicated,
and was regarded as symbolical of eloquence and
light. From her, in Christian times, the iris passed
to Our Lady, to whom the white species more
especially is dedicated. |

In ‘‘ Flower Lore and Legend,” the Reverend
Hilderic Friend gives us an interesting summary
of Our Lady’s flowers. In chapter iii, “‘ The
Virgin’s Bower,” he says: “‘ How liberal we have
been towards Her Ladyship will appear when I
enumerate some of the plants with which She is
honoured. ‘Thus, as She reclines in Her. bower, we
provide Her with boots and slippers for Her feet,

OUR LADY’S FLOWERS 137

garters with which to keep Her hose in place, and
laces for Her shoes. We have found Her a thimble
and needle with which to sew, a smock and a mantle
in which to garb Herself, a cushion on which to
recline, and a comb and looking-glass for Her hair.
Having done all this, we plant around Her bower
trees, grass, whin, clover, cowslip, mint, bracken,
foxgloves, fern and thistles to make Her garden
gay.” This is a brief summary of the more
common plants dedicated to the Holy Virgin, or
bearing her name:

Lady’s Smocks * mi .. Wild Convolvulus, Mea-
dow Cress, and Cuc-
koo Flower.

Our Lady’s Mantle iii .. Ipomeea.

e , Ribbons. ay .. Ribbon Grass.

besa eiual | Muacieae “pf ui .. Deodderd

mt 5 Nightcap a .. Canterbury Bells.
Fs ,, Lhimbles bis .. Campanula.

in 5. Eressés 2 .. Quaking Grass.

i ,, Bedstraw rs .. Galium verum.

us , Cushion os .. Armeria (Thrift).
ipo) 2.) < Sapbesticies .. Oadip.::

‘ 3 Lapers Pi .. Mullein.
uppers i .. Cypripedium.

The dodder, although in some parts of the
country exclusively regarded as an evil plant, in
other districts is dedicated to Mary, under the
name of “‘ Our Lady’s Laces.”

In Mexico, the ipomoa grows so profusely that
its azure blossoms are § to 6 inches across, and
set so closely together that hardly a leaf can be
seen. The whole plant resembles a blue cloak,
and thus its name: “ Manto de la Virgin.”

The marigold, according to an old tradition, was

138 THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

so called because Our Lady wore the flower in her
bosom.

** What flower is that which bears the Virgin’s name,
The richest metal joinéd with the same ?”

A very ancient legend records that, before the
birth of Our Lord, Our Lady longed extremely to
quench her thirst with some cherries which hung
high above her head; so she asked St. Joseph to
pickthem. He, however, is reputed to have replied:
“ Let the father of thy child present thee with the
cherries if he will.” No sooner had these words
escaped his lips than, as if in reproof, the branch
of the cherry tree bowed spontaneously to the Holy
Virgin, and she gathered the fruit and ateit. Hence
the cherry is dedicated to Our Lady.

The flowering almond has always been dedicated
to Our Lady, as Queen of Heaven.

Among the Hebrews, the almond tree was
regarded as the symbol of haste and vigilance,
because of the suddenness of its flowering, which
announced the spring.

The Cedar of Lebanon, because of its height, its
incorruptible substance, and its healing virtues,
is by Catholics regarded as a symbol of Our Lady,
expressing her greatness, her beauty, and her
goodness.

The Jews evidently considered the cedar a sacred
tree, and hence it was used in the making of idols.

“* Wild and waste lay our desolate garden,
Stripped of blossom and leaf and fruit.
Lo! at last in the golden Autumn
Sprang the Lily from Jesse’s root.
Hope and Beauty came back to Earth
Once again in Our Lady’s birth.”

CHAPTER XVI
FLOWERS OF THE SAINTS

‘* The Snowdrop, in purest white arraie,
First rears her hedde on Candlemas daie;
While the Crocus hastens to the shrine
Of primrose love on St. Valentine.
Then comes the Daffodil beside
Our Lady’s Smock at our Ladye-tide.
Aboute St. George, when blue is worn,
The blue Harebells the fields adorn;
Against the day of Holie Crosse,
The Crowfoot gilds the flowrie grasse.
When St. Barnabie bright smiles night and daie
Poor ragged Robin blooms in the haie.
The Scarlet Lychnis, the garden’s pride,
Flames at St. John the Baptist’s tide.
From Visitation to St. Swithen’s Showers,
The Lilie white reigns Queen of the flowers;
And Poppies, a sanguine mantle spread
For the blood of the Dragon St. Margaret shed.
Then under the wanton Rose, agen,
That blushes for penitent Magdalen,
Till Lammas Daie, called August’s wheel,
When the long Corn smells of Camamile.
When Mary left us here belowe,
The Virgin’s Bower is fulle in blowe;
And yet anon, the full Sunflower blewe,
And became a starre for Bartholomew.
The Passion-floure long has blowed,

To betokene us signs of the Holy Roode.
The Michaelmas Daisies, among dede weeds,
Blooms for St. Michael’s valorous deeds;

And seems the last of flowers that stode,
Till the feste of St. Simon and St. Jude.

139

140 . THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

Save Mushrooms, and the Fungus race,

That grow til All-Hallow-tide takes place.
Soon the Evergreen Laurel alone is greene,

When Catherine crowns all learned menne.
Then Ivie and Holly Berries are seene,

And Yule Log and Wassaill come round agen.”

In a little book entitled “‘ Flowers and Festivals,”
the author writes: “‘In the ancient calendars nearly
every day in the year was dedicated to some saint,
who had his own legend and emblem.

‘““Flowers have, from the earliest times, been
connected with the great festivals of the Church,
or with the saints of the calendar. It is worthy
of observation that the flowers dedicated to, or
connected with the name of certain saints, are
generally in blossom at or near the time of their
festivals.”

The feeling which inspired this identification of
flowers and herbs with the saints and their festivals,
is gracefully expressed by a Franciscan in the follow-
ing passage:

“Mindful of the Festivals which our Church
prescribes, I have sought to make these objects
of floral nature the timepieces of my religious
calendar, and the mementoes of the hastening period
of my mortality. ‘Thus I can light the taper to
our Virgin Mother on the blowing of the white
Snowdrop, which opens its flower at the time of
Candlemas; the Lady’s Smock and the Daffodil
remind me of the Annunciation; the blue Harebell,
of the Festival of St. George; the Ranunculus, of
the Invention of the Cross; the scarlet Lychnis, of
St. John the Baptist’s Day; the white Lily, of the
Visitation of Our Lady; and the Virgin’s Bower,

FLOWERS OF THE SAINTS 141

of the Assumption; and Michaelmas, Martinmas,
and Holy Rood, and Christmas have all their
appropriate decorations.”

St. Joseph has allotted to him a white campanula,
which is known in Bologna as the “ Little Staff of
St. Joseph.” In Tuscany, the name of St. Joseph’s
Staff is given to the oleander. Legend recounts
that St. Joseph possessed originally only an ordinary
staff, but that when the angel announced to him
that he was to be the husband of the Holy Virgin,
he became so radiant with joy that his very staff
flowered in his hand. |

Another legend says that St. Joseph’s staff
blossomed and brought forth lilies. He is always
portrayed in statues and pictures with a spray of
lilies, emblematic of his chastity.

St. Benedict’s herbs are the avens, the hemlock,
and the valerian, which were assigned to him as
being antidotes; a legend of St. Benedict relating
that upon his blessing a cup of poisoned wine, which
a monk had presented to him with evil intention,
the glass was immediately broken to pieces.

St. Christopher has given his name to the royal
fern (Osmunda regalis); according to Parkinson,
in the sixteenth century this fern always went by the
name of ‘‘ Herb Christopher,”’ or St. Christopher’s
Herb. The idea probably originated on account
-of the fern growing along riversides, such as St.
Christopher was in the habit of frequenting when
he acted as ferry. Hence the connection between
the saint of the river and the fern of the river.

St. George has numerous plants dedicated to him
or named after him. In England, his flower is the
harebell, but abroad, the pzony is generally named

142 THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

after him. His name is also bestowed on the
Lilium convallium.

The herb of St. George is the Valeriana sativa ;
his root, Dentaria major; his violet, Leucotum luteum ;
and his fruit Cucumis agrestis. |

Senecio Facobea is the St. James’ wort, used in
veterinary practice, as St. James is the patron saint
of horses and colts.

The cowslip is dedicated to St. Peter, from its
resemblance to his emblem, a bunch of keys. Among
the old Sicilian legends there is a very curious
one about the mother of the holy Apostle St. Peter,
in which she is portrayed as being very mean and
niggardly. The only thing that she ever gave away
was a leek leaf, which she flung to a beggar who
worried her one day as she was washing her pots
and pans. When she died, it is said that hell
received her. Years afterwards St. Peter, the
doorkeeper of Paradise, heard a piteous voice saying:
“Son Peter, see what torments I am in; go and ask
the Lord to let me out.”” So St. Peter went and
asked. But the Lord said: ‘‘She never did a
nailparing of good. Except this leek leaf, she
never once gave a scrap away. However, here is a
leek leaf: this angel shall take it, and shall tell her
to lay hold of the other end while he pulls her up.”

So St. Peter’s mother grasped the leek leaf, but
all the souls in torment ran after her, and clung
to her skirts, so that the angel was dragging along
quite a string of them. Her evil disposition,
however, would not permit her to keep quiet. It
grieved her avaricious temperament that anyone
besides herself should be saved; so she struggled
and kicked in order to shake the poor souls off, and

FLOWERS OF THE SAINTS 143

in so doing tore the saving leek leaf and fell back
again, and sank deeper than before.

The daisy, as Herb Margaret, is popularly supposed
to be dedicated to ** Margaret that was so meek and
mild.”

The poppy also belongs to St. Margaret, as legend
tells us that poppies sprang from the blood of the
dragon slain by St. Margaret:

“‘ And poppies a sanguine mantle spread
For the blood of the dragon St. Margaret shed.”

Nigella Damascena (Love-in-a-mist), whose in-
florescence spreads out rather like the spokes of a
wheel, was called St. Katharine’s flower, after
St. Katharine, who suffered martyrdom on a wheel.

Angelica archangelica was said to have had its
virtues revealed by an angel in a dream. It is
specially under the patronage of St. Michael, and,
as may be imagined, it is particularly useful as a
protection against evil spirits.

The name of canterbury bells was given to the
campanula in honour of St. Thomas of England,
and in allusion probably to the horse-bells of the
pilgrims to his shrine.

To St. Agnes the Christmas rose, with its delicate
white flowers, was dedicated, and most appropriately,
since she is the patron of purity.

Of St. John the Baptist, and the miraculous flowers
of midsummer dedicated to him, much has already
been written in Chapters IV. and XI. The scarlet
lychnis used to be called the “‘ Great Candlestick”
(Candelabrum ingens), and was said to be lighted up
for St. John the Baptist, who “‘ was a burning and a
shining light.”

144 THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN
The legend of the Glastonbury Thorn should be

well known to all those interested in flower lore:

After Our Lord’s Resurrection, the friends of
St. Joseph of Arimathea urged him to go to another
land, for they were afraid that his life would be in
danger by reason of the hatred that the Jews bore
him. So St. Joseph set sail, taking with him eleven
brethren, to journey to other lands, and tell the
people about Our Blessed Lord. As they journeyed
they were greatly tossed and buffeted by the waves,
and came through many perils, till they were guided
to that fair spot in the West of England which
men call the Isle of Apples, or “ Inis Avallon,”
because fruit was growing wild everywhere in the
rich soil. This isle, though now surrounded by dry
land, was once a true island, and another name for
it was the “ Island of the Blessed.”

Here it was that, after weary journeyings, the steps
of St. Joseph and his companions were stayed.

They landed at the northern side of a hill, which
is called “ Weary All Hill,” because St. Joseph and
his followers were so tired that they sat down to rest
there. But first, St. Joseph bade them all fall on
their knees to give thanks to God for having led
them to such a pleasant land after all the perils
they had gone through. And St. Joseph, after a
little time, looking at the wondrous beauty of the
fields and flowers, started chanting: “ Benedicite
omnia opera,” and the brethren all joined in, when,
lo, as they reached the verse ‘Oh all ye green
things upon the earth, bless ye the Lord,” the dry
hawthorn staff which St. Joseph had stuck into the
ground began to bud, putting forth tender green
shoots. And as they sang, the green buds grew and

FLOWERS OF THE SAINTS 145

lengthened till, with the ending of the canticle, the
little staff was covered with fresh green leaves, as
though it had donned its sweet spring clothing to
welcome the holy men. And near this spot St.
Joseph built a church, known in after days as the
Abbey of Glastonbury. There St. Dunstan was born
and bred, and there, so tradition says, St. Patrick
and St. David were buried, and many another holy
man who had been taught St. Joseph’s faith, until
the end came in the reign of Henry VIII., when
the last abbot was cruelly done to death, and the
abbey was no more used for the service of God.
But the holy thorn which took root at St. Joseph’s
landing, flowers on the day of the Nativity. At
Christmas-time, when most other flowers and trees
are fast asleep, this thorn tree blossoms as though
there were no cold winds and bitter frosts, and during
each month of the year it will be found that the
tree is never bereft of flowers.

Archdeacon Holmes, in that most charming little
book “‘ In Praise of Legend,” says: “‘ Legend appeals
to something within us—something which we want
and have a right to; something which comes under
the law of supply and demand; something that
appeals to the sense of the lovely which exists in
nearly everybody. For there is something in most
of us which can never be really satisfied with L.S.D.,
which needs something more than iron safes and
well-bound ledgers, which is unsatisfied with cold
grey of abstract doctrine or dogma, however essential
such doctrine and storm-proof dogma may be.

‘“* What is this something? It is the love of the
lovely. And legend, and all that is lovely in legend,
contributes its quota to satisfying the demand.

19

146 ‘THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

And notice! This love of legend is both racial and
individual. |

“Every nation has its legends mixed up with, and
branching off into, traditions, fairy tales, fables,
myths, romances. As there are the Roman fabulez
or fables, and Greek myths, and Arabian nights, so
there are the old sagas, saws, or sayings, which play
so large a part in our legendary past, and have their
root in a God-given love of legend. No literature
would be complete without its legends, for any
literature which omits an element in an appeal to
the imaginative faculties ceases to provide for a real
want in its best students.”

“The cup, the cup itself, from which Our Lord
Drank at the last sad supper with his own.
This, from the blessed land of Aromat—
After the day of darkness, when the dead
Went wandering o’er Moriah—the good saint
Arimathzan Joseph, journeying brought
To Glastonbury, where the winter thorn
Blossoms at Christmas, mindful of Our Lord.
And there awhile it bode; and if a man
Could touch or see it, he’was heal’d at once,
By faith, of all his ills. But then the times
Grew to such evil that the holy cup
Was caught away to Heaven, and disappear’d.”
Tennyson: The Holy Grail.

i I

CHAPTER XVII

¢

FLOWER LEGENDS OF ‘* SAINTLY FAME ”’

“The Lord God planted a garden
In the first white days of the world;
And set there an angel warden.
In garments of light unfurled.

“‘ So near to the peace of heaven,
That the hawk might nest with the wren;
For there in the cool of the even
God walked with the first of men.”

Tue LEGEND OF THE RosE, AND HOW SHE CAME
BY HER THORNS.

Everyone is familiar with the old saying: ‘‘ There
is no rose without a thorn,” but, according to ancient
mythology, in its primitive state the rose was thorn-
less, a belief which Milton must have come across,
for when writing of the flowers in the Garden of
Eden he says: ‘‘ Flowers of all hue, and without
thorn the rose.”

According to an old Greek fable, the rose is sup-
posed to have been thornless, until one unfortunate
day when Cupid was smelling a newly-opened
bud, and a bee, who was busily engaged in the
flower, stung him angrily on the lip for his inter-
ference.

Cupid ran weeping to his mother, who, to pacify
him, strung his bow with bees, first removing from

147

}

- ax, GLORY Or THE GARDEN

ft stings, which she placed upon the stems
Hepa the tending rose. ‘ F
Zoroaster, apostle of the Persians, states that the
rose was thornless until the entrance into the world
of Ahriman, the spirit of evil, from which belief
springs the legend that when Satan fell from heaven
the idea occurred to him to make the thorns of the
briar rose serve as a ladder to reascend to the
celestial heights. But God would not permit the
briar to continue its upward growth; He told it to
grow breadthways, and because the rose obeyed the
Divine command, Satan was exceedingly angry, and
lowered the points of the thorns towards the earth,
so that ever since then the thorns of the briar point
downwards.

Tue LEGEND oF THE Moss Rostz.

Tradition tells us that one of the angels, whose
work it was to minister to the needs of erring earth
inhabitants, was one evening just about to return to
heaven, but so stormy and overcast was the sky,
that he returned to seek shelter at one of those
houses which he had blessed with his silent minis-
trations. ' |

But everywhere the door was closed, and at last,
tired out and feeling rather sore at heart, the angel
passes wearily down the village street, and a young
red rose sweetly opens to him her fragrant petals.

And there in her heart the angel sleeps, warmly
sheltered from the storm; and when he wakes and
sees how altogether lovely is this flower, and that
he can in no wise enhance her beauty of shape or
colouring, he throws over her a delicate green veil,

LEGENDS OF ‘“ SAINTLY FAME” 149

making Rosa muscosa one of the sweetest and
daintiest of all flowers.
** A veil of moss the angel throws,

And, robed in nature’s simplest weed,
Could there a flower that rose exceed ?”’

The rose for many years seems to have been
selected by the Catholic Church as her particular
emblem, and is pre-eminently Our Lady’s flower,
her children in all ages delighting to refer to her as
Rosa mystica, and the Rose of Sharon, and the Lily
of the Valley.

The rose is also said to be the “‘ flower of the
field ” spoken of in the Psalms, an expression which
has been taken to mean the flower of all flowers,

symbolical of the Church.

Tue LEGEND OF THE SNOWDROP.

Amongst the old books of plant lore there is an
interesting account of the origin of the Snowdrop.

One day, after the Fall, Eve sat weeping for the
beauties of lost Paradise and the many lovely flowers
she had tended there, and as she wept and meditated
thus, an angel was sent on the earth to comfort
her. Now since the Fall no flower had grown on
the earth, but incessantly the snow fell, and as the
angel sweetly talked with Eve he caught a passing
flake and breathed on it, and forthwith there fell
to earth a beauteous, fragile flower.

** And lo ! where last his wings have swept the snow,
A quaintly-fashioned ring of milk-white snowdrops blow.”

Another very old legend accounts for the origin
of the snowdrop in quite a different way: At the

150 THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

Creation, when all things were coloured, the sky
blue, the clouds grey, the earth brown, the trees
green, and the flowers all sorts of different colours,
the snow approached the Almighty, and complained
that for him no colour remained, and that therefore
he would be as little noticed as the wind or the
rain.

The Almighty told him to go to the richly-dowered
flowers and ask from them a colour. So he began
with the rose, but there was no flower that would
consent to share with the snow her beautiful colour-
ing, and drearily he was about to retire, when the
humble snowdrop sweetly said: “ If my white colour
is of any use to you, you are very welcome to it.”

And that is why the snow guards and cherishes
this generous and charming little flower, and keeps
it warm all through the bleakest of the winter
months.

Tue LEcEND OF THE CowsLIP.

‘The cowslip bending with golden bells,
Each glad hour’s ending with sweet chime tells.”

All through the South of Europe there is no more
popular wild flower than the dainty cowslip, of most
fragrant fame.

In former days it used to be known by the name
of Herb Peter, or St. Peter’s Herb, the name arising
doubtless from the resemblance of the clustered
blossoms to a bunch of keys, St. Peter’s emblem.

But apart from this, there is a very old legend,
connecting this humble little flower with the great
saint thus:

One day St. Peter heard a rumour in heaven that
people were contriving to gain admission by a back

LEGENDS OF “SAINTLY FAME” = 155

came one day to worship the Christ-child as He lay
in His manger-throne. And as she kneels there,
suddenly her eyes fill with tears, and a great sadness
weighs down her heart, as she realises that she has no
present to give the Holy Babe.

Then St. Gabriel appears, and speaks to the
little maid:

«Tell me, my little one—Why do you weep?
Is it because He’s so fast asleep?
See! I will wake Him,’ and Gabriel smiled,
As he kissed the face of the heavenly Child.”

But the little girl amidst her tears explains to
St. Gabriel that it is because she has no gift for the
Holy Child, not even a few flowers.

** Then Gabriel answered, ‘ Come, child, with me,
The flowers you wish for you soon shall see ’;
And he led her forth to a place most fair,
Where sweet blossoms scented the sunlit air.

“ She smiled to the angel in glad delight,
And filled her hands with the blossoms white;
Then ran with her burden of roses sweet,
And laid them all down at the Christ-child’s feet.”’

FLower LEGENDS OF THE PAssION.

In Chapter XV. a Sicilian legend is recorded
which condemns the broom as a traitor, and sad to
say there is another legend which associates the
broom with the Passion of Our Lord, and again it
plays the traitor’s part.

This legend tells us that as He was praying in the
Garden of Gethsemane a broom bush which was
growing near started to make such a crackling noise

156 ‘THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

that it at once-attracted the attention of those who
sought Him.

Whereupon He turned reproachful eyes upon the
treacherous shrub, and said to it: ‘* Mayst thou
always make as much noise when thou art being
burned.”

Tue LEGEND OF THE Crown ImpERIAL LILY.

The story of this beautiful and stately plant
does not redound to its credit, yet we cannot well
leave it out on that account.

Ancient legend tells us that the flower was origin-
ally white and erect, and grew in its full beauty in
the Garden of Gethsemane, where it was often
noticed and admired by Our Lord.

But in the night of His Agony, as He passed
through the garden, all the other flowers bowed
their heads in sorrowful adoration; the Crown
Imperial alone remained with its head unbowed,
but not for long. Sorrow and shame took the place
of pride, she bent her proud head, and blushes of
shame and tears of sorrow soon followed, and so
she has ever continued, with bent head, blushing
colour, and ever-flowing tears.

‘“‘ Bent down with penitence that flower appears,
And each gold cup is freighted with her tears.”

It is a fact that in the bottom of each of the bells
there are six drops of clear and shining water, and
how these drops are formed or what service they
occupy in the economy of the plant, science has
not been able to tell us—the explanation evidently
lies in the Crown Imperial’s early history.

CHAPTER XVIII

LEGENDS OF NATIONAL FLOWERS

Tue Rose, NatronaL Frower or ENGLAND.

“Tf Zeus chose us a king of the flowers in his mirth,
He would call to the rose, and would royally crown it;
For the rose, ho! the rose, is the grace of the earth,
Is the light of the plants that are growing upon it;
For the rose, ho! the rose, is the eye of the flowers,
Is the blush of the meadows that feel themselves fair,
Is the lightning of beauty that strikes through the bowers
On pale lovers who sit in the glow unaware.
Ho, the rose breathes of love! ho, the rose lifts the cup
To the red lips of Cypris invoked for a guest !
Ho, the rose, having curled its sweet leaves for the world,
Takes delight in the motion its petals keep up,
As they laugh to the wind as it laughs from the west
SAPPHO.

\>?

Tue rose has for many years held undisputed sway
as the emblematic flower of England, and historically
this fact seems to have originated at the time of the
Wars of the Roses, during the reign of Henry VI.
Now, the House of Lancaster wore as its badge
the Red Rose, or the “‘ Rose Gule,” and the House
of York wore the White Rose, or the “‘ Rose Argent.”
When they went into battle the soldiers all wore
either a red or white rose as an emblem in their
caps. There is a tradition that at the time when
Henry’s marriage united the contending houses,
a rose with white and red flowers first blossomed,
159

160 ‘THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

showing that the two opposing forces were now
blended, and this rose was called the “ York and
Lancaster.”

There was, says the tradition, then growing in
the garden of a certain monastery in Wiltshire one
particular rose-bush, which, during the troubles
of the land, had, to the amazement of all, borne
at once roses red and white. At the time of the
marriage of Henry and Elizabeth, all its flowers
blossomed forth with petals of red and white mixed
in stripes. People came, as may be imagined, from
all over the country to see this wonder, and hailed
it as a joyful omen of future peace and harmony.

But it seems probable that the symbolism con-
necting the rose with England has a much earlier
date, so remote as to have been mislaid in the dim
and shadowy recesses of the past. For we find Pliny
doubting whether the name Albion referred to the
white cliffs of our Island, or to the white roses which
grew there in such abundance.

Through many centuries the rose has been justly
regarded as the queen of all flowers, and symbolical
of all that is loveliest, brightest, and best upon the
earth. Gerarde, the old herbalist, enumerated a
long list of the virtues of the rose, which includes:
“‘ Strengtheninge of the hearte, and refreshinge of
the spirites,” and he declares that the rose gives
sleep to the fevered, allays inflammation, and
strengthens the inside, that it forms an ingredient
in “ Alle manner of counterpoysons,” that, mixed
with honey, it heals wounds and stanches bleeding;
and, in short, that it is generally “ profitable for
other griefes,” including the ague, “‘ and availing
the surgeon greatly to carry store thereof ”; besides

LEGENDS OF NATIONAL FLOWERS 161

the possibility of perfectly maintaining the health
by a morning diet of a salad of rose-leaves.

Pliny mentions briar-rose root as a cure for hydro-
phobia, and affirms that men derived their knowledge
of it from a dream, of which he tells the story.

With all these visible graces and invisible virtues,
is it any wonder that the rose of all flowers is the
queen, and reigns supreme as our national flower
and emblem?

Ancient fable tells us that the rose was dedicated
to Venus, under the supposition that when Minerva
sprang from the brain of Jupiter, and Venus simul-
taneously rose from the waves, the earth brought
forth this flower, so much more beautiful than any-
thing that had been before produced, to celebrate
the double birth; and therefore, says Gerarde, “* the
Easterns can by no means endure to see the leaves
of roses fall to the ground.”

The original rose was supposed to have been white,
and, the fable continues, the first red rose was that
upon whose thorns Venus trod, when flying to suc-
cour the wounded Adonis.

A more beautiful legend is that related by Sir
John Mandeville, who tells us that the rose never
existed at all in the Garden of Eden, and that the
first of the species ever seen, sprang up in a field
called Floridus, on the eastern side of Ephrata.
For there a fair maid, unjustly accused, had been
condemned to be burnt; when, on the faggots being
lighted, she prayed aloud that God would, “as
truly as she was not guilty,” make it known to all.
At the conclusion of her prayer she walked, in
the full confidence of innocence, into the midst
of the burning pile; upon which the raging fire

II

162 THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

was immediately extinguished, and the faggots as
suddenly turned to roses; those which were flaming
became red roses, while such as were not yet kindled,
appeared as white ones.

**’'The lily is all in white, like a saint,

And so is no mate for me;

And the daisy’s cheek is tipped with a blush,
She is of such low degree;

Jasmine is sweet, and has many loves,
And the broom’s betrothed to the bee;

But I will plight with the dainty rose,
For fairest of all is she.”

Tuomas Hoop.

Tue Tuistte, NationaL FLower oF ScoTLAND.

** Proud thistle, emblem dear to Scotland’s sons,
Begirt with threatening points, strong in defence,
Unwilling to assault.”

The Thistle of Scotland is believed to be the
Onopordon acanthium, the cotton thistle, which
grows by the highway; this is the national insignia,
and its flower-cup and bristling leaves accord well
with the motto: “‘ Nemo me impune lacessit.”

Tradition says that the thistle, with the motto
rendered in homely Scotch, ““Who daur meddle
wi’ me,” was adopted as the symbol of Scotland
from the following circumstance:

A party of invading Danes attempted to surprise
the Scots army. Now the Danes held it to be un-
warriorlike to attack an enemy by night, but on this
occasion they departed from their rule; noiselessly,
under cover of the dark, they crept towards the camp,
when one of the soldiers trod on a thistle with his
naked foot, and his cry of pain roused the Scots,

LEGENDS OF NATIONAL FLOWERS 163

who flew to arms and drove back the foe. Thus
“the guardian thistle to the foeman stern” was
chosen as the cognisance of Scotland, and is regarded
as the symbol of independence and retaliation.
It is dear to the Scotsman more than all other
flowers, “‘ excepting the rose, and he is the rose’s
husband.”

The thistle has given its title to a Scotch order of
knighthood, which is said to have been instituted
by Achaius, King of the Scots, when he obtained
a victory over Athelstan. The insignia borne by
the Knights of the Order of the Thistle is a gold
collar, with thistles and a sprig of rue interlaced.
A gold medal is also worn, bearing a figure of
St. Andrew.

According to ancient mythology, the thistle is a
lightning plant, and as such is dedicated to Thor,
god of war and thunder, so, in common with other
plants of the same nature, the thistle protects from
evil. Like the classic crane, the thistle discovers
and brings home crime to the perpetrator.

An old legend says that in a certain wild spot,
where once a murder was committed, every day at
noon there grows a strangely-formed thistle, and
on this weird plant can be distinctly seen human
heads, arms, and hands. When twelve heads have
appeared the ghastly plant mysteriously vanishes.

*“ In Scotland blooms a warlike flower,
Too rough to bloom in lady’s bower !
His crest, when high, the soldier bears,
And spurs the courser on his spears,
Oh ! there it blossoms, there it blows,
The thistle’s grown aboon the Rose !”

164 THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

Tue SHamrock, NationaL FLower oF [RELAND.

“© the Shamrock, the green, immortal Shamrock !
Chosen leaf
Of bard and chief,
Old Erin’s native Shamrock !”
Moore.

The shamrock, or trefoil in history, is the badge
of the kingdom of Ireland, and St. Patrick, the
patron saint of that isle, is represented in the habit
of a bishop holding a trefoil—St. Patrick’s Cross,
as it is often called by Irishmen. ;

Tradition tells us that St. Patrick was conducting
a mission in Ireland, and one day he made the doc-
trine of the Holy Trinity the subject of his dis-
course. His hearers were quite unable to grasp this,
until he plucked the leaf of a shamrock and used
it as an illustration. So easy and simple was this
application that their difficulties were removed
immediately, and they accepted Christianity.

The actual place where St. Patrick was preaching,
and from whence he picked the historic shamrock,
was said to be Tara’s Hill, near Dublin, the strong-
hold of paganism. ‘This was the same occasion on
which St. Patrick inaugurated the coming of Easter,
by kindling the Paschal fire on Tara’s Hill. The
pagans, across the plain, on the hills opposite, were
also keeping that night, their heathen festival of the
sun.

All fires on this night, were forbidden until the
sacred fire on the Hill of Tara was lit by them.
When, therefore, St. Patrick’s Paschal fire was seen,
the heathen king was filled with anger, and the
Druids said that if that fire was not put out before

LEGENDS OF NATIONAL FLOWERS 165

morning, it never would be put out. Accordingly
they went to St. Patrick, but he preached the faith
before them with such power and mighty signs and
wonders, that though the king remained a “son
of death,” he granted St. Patrick freedom to preach
the gospel in Ireland.

Ever since this time the shamrock has been the
national emblem of Irishmen, and has been worn
by them for many centuries on St. Patrick’s Day,
March 17.

Pliny, in his “‘ Natural History,” says that serpents
are never seen upon the trefoil, and it prevails
against the stings of snakes and scorpions; so, surely,
no more suitable emblem could have been chosen
by St. Patrick, as he is said to have driven all such
hideous reptiles from the Emerald Isle.

The word “shamrock” (which means “little
trefoil”) is from the Erse “ seamrog”’ and the
Gaelic “ seamrag,” a diminutive of “ seamar,”
trefoil.

The plant, which is figured upon our coins, both
English and Irish, is an ordinary trefoil; Queen
Victoria placed the trefoil in her royal diadem in
lieu of the French fleur-de-lys.

“St. Patrick’s Day! St. Patrick’s Day!
Oh, thou tormenting Irish lay.
I’ve got thee buzzing in my brain,
And cannot turn thee out again.
Oh mercy ! music may be bliss,
But not in such a shape as this,
When all I do, and all I say,
Begins and ends in Patrick’s Day.”
Exiza Cook.

166 THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

Tue Leex, Nationa FLrower or WALES.

“There is an aged cell, with moss and ivy grown,
In which not to this day the sun has ever shone,
That reverend British saint, in zealous ages past,
To contemplation lived, and did so truly fast,
As he did only drink what crystal Hodney yields,
And fed upon the leeks he gathered in the fields;
In memory of whom, in each revolving year,
The Welshmen on his day that sacred herb do wear.”
Micuart Drayton.

The leek has for many centuries been the emblem
of Wales, and this is said to be in memory of a great
victory obtained by the Welsh over the Saxons;
upon which occasion they, by order of St. David,
placed leeks in their caps. Thus the Welsh were all
known to each other, while the Saxons, having no
distinguishing mark, frequently mistook each other
and slew friend and foe indiscriminately.

From this circumstance arose the custom of the
Welsh wearing leeks in their hats on St. David’s
Day. Several of our oldest authors allude to this
usage, and Shakespeare makes Henry V. acknowledge
to the gallant Fluellen his pride of joining in the
practice.

“‘ T wear it for a memorable honour:
For I am Welsh, you know, good countryman.”

Some of the old writers say that the leek is most
truly the fitting emblem of Wales, combining white
and green in its stems, which were the old Cymric
colours.

St. David’s Day falls on March 1:

“ March, various, fierce, and wild with wind-crackt cheeks,
By wilder Welshmen led, and crown’d with leeks.”

LEGENDS OF NATIONAL FLOWERS 167

*] like the Leeke above all herbes and flowers,
When first we wore the same the field was ours;
The leeke is white and greene, whereby is ment
That Britons are both stout and eminent.
Next to the lion and the unicorne
The leeke’s the fairest emblem that is worne.”

Tue Iris or FRANCE.

“ Though right be aft put down by strength,
As mony a day we saw that,
The Fleur-de-lis, that lost her right,
Is Queen again for a’ that.”
Sir Water Scorr.

The iris, or fleur-de-lys, has been for many years
the emblematic flower of France, and was borne on
the royal standard as the special national flower.

There is a legend that Clotilda, the wife of the
war-like King Clovis, had long prayed for the conver-
sion of her husband, and at length Clovis, having
led his army against the Huns, and being in imminent
danger of defeat, recommended himself to the God
of his sainted wife. The tide of battle turned, he
obtained a complete victory, and was baptised by
St. Remigius.

On this occasion, owing to a vision of St. Clotilda,
the iris was substituted in the arms of France for
the three frogs or toads, which Clovis had hitherto
borne on his shield.

In the pictures of St. Clotilda, she is generally
represented as attended by an angel, holding a shield
on which are the three fleurs-de-lys. This occurred
early in the sixth century.

Louis VII., in consequence of a dream, assumed
it as his device in 1137, when engaged in the second

168 ‘THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

expedition of the Crusaders, and the iris flower
soon became celebrated in France as the “ Fleur-de-
Louis,” which was first contracted into ‘* Fleur-de-
Luce” and afterwards into “ Fleur-de-lys” (lily
flower), although it has no affinity to the lily.

“* We'll twine her in a friendly knot
With England’s Rose, and a’ that;
The Shamrock shall not be forgot,
For Wellington made braw that.
The Thistle, though her leaf be rude,
Yet faith we’ll no misca’ that,
She sheltered in her solitude
The Fleur-de-lis, for a’ that.”
Sir WALTER Scott.

CHAPTER XIX

LEGENDS OF MYTHOLOGICAL FAME

Tue LEGEND OF THE Poppy.

“¢ Stars they are, wherein we read our history,
As astrologers and seers of eld;
Yet not wrapped about with awful mystery,
Like the burning stars, which they beheld.”
LoNGFELLOW.

Tue true opium poppy (Papaver somniferum) has
white flowers, with a large purple stain at the base
of the petals.

Greek legend gives the origin of the plant thus:

When gathering flowers upon the plain of Enna,
Persephone, “herself a fairer flower, by gloomy Dis
. was gathered,”’ and Demeter, inconsolable for the
loss of her daughter, set out to seek her throughout
Sicily. As darkness falls, she hastens to Mount
Etna, and at its flame lights two torches, wherewith
to continue her search over all the world, and on her
journeying she calls on the gods to aid her in her
search and restore her lost child. They, powerless
to do what she demands and yet moved to compas-
sion by her grief:

“'To soothe awhile the poignance of her woe,
Large, heavy-headed poppies round her sow.”

At sight of which she stoops and eats the juice-
filled seeds, and heart and brain yield to the soothing
169

170 ‘THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

influence, and prone amid the flowers lies Ceres,
dead to all present sense of loss and pain, sunk in
that oblivion which it is the poppy’s peculiar
privilege to afford to suffering humanity.

The goddess Nox, or Night, and Thanatos,
god of death, were crowned with poppies to pro-
pitiate them. Virgil writes of the Lethean poppy,
and directs that it be offered as a funeral rite to
Orpheus.

A Bengali legend runs thus:

Once, long ago, there lived on the bank of the
Ganges a magician, in whose hut was born a mouse,
who became a great favourite with the seer, and was
gifted by him with the power of speech. After a
time, the mouse, growing discontented with its
lot, was transformed by the magician first into a
cat, then a dog, ape, boar, and finally into a beauti-
ful maiden, to whom he gave the name of Postimani,
or poppy-seed lady.

One day, as she was tending her flowers, the king
passed, and was invited in, and Postimani passed
herself off as a princess whom the magician had
found in the wood.

The king fell in love with her, and they were
married by the seer, and lived a very happy life
till, one day, as she was standing near a well, Posti-
mani felt giddy, fell im, and was drowned. ‘The seer,
on hearing of the tragedy, came and told the king
of the deception that had been practised upon him
and said: “ Let her body remain in the well, fill
it up with earth, and out of the flesh and bones
will grow a plant, which shall be called ‘ Posto,’
the poppy tree. From this will be obtained a
drug called opium, which will be either smoked or

LEGENDS OF MYTHOLOGICAL FAME 171

swallowed as a wonderful narcotic till the end of
time.

“The use of this drug, if abused, will generate in
the consumer one quality of each of the animals
to which Postimani was transformed. He will be
mischievous like a mouse, fond of milk like a cat,
quarrelsome like a dog, filthy like an ape, savage like
a boar, and high-tempered like a queen.”

On account of the sleep-bringing qualities of the
plant the Greeks, who regarded Hypnos as the
greatest healer and consoler of human misery,
represented him as crowned with poppies, and
reclining on a bed of them. The poppy is the symbol
of sleep, consolation, and death.

Tue LEGEND OF THE NARCISSUS.

On account probably of its poisonous qualities,
the ancients regarded this beautiful plant as typical
of deceit, and dedicated it to Demeter, and her
daughter Hecate, the queen of Hades.

Some legends identify it with the flowers which
Pluto caused to spring up to lure Persephone from
her Sicilian home. As she stoops to gather the
Elysian bloom, the whole plain quakes and trembles,
and suddenly Dis appears, seizes Persephone, and
places her in the waiting chariot, to bear her away
to the gloomy kingdom of which she became queen.

“‘ Narcissus ” is derived from the Greek word
“‘vapkn,” meaning torpor, in allusion to its narcotic
properties, and Homer says that, though the nar-
cissus “ delights heaven and earth by its beauty,
yet at the same time it causes stupidity, madness,
and even death.”

172. ‘THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

According to a Greek legend, the poetic narcissus
owes its origin to a youth of this name, whom, to
punish for his insusceptibility of heart, Nemesis
caused to become so enamoured of his own face in
the stream, that he fell in and was turned into a
flower. When the weeping Echo and her sister
nymphs, had prepared the funeral urn for him his
body was missing.

The poetic Narcissus of classic fame is always
therefore regarded as emblematic of self-love.

The botanical name of narcissus, having been
given to the daffodil, has confounded it with the
Greek narcissus, known in English by that name,
from “‘vdpxy,” torpor, on account of the overpower-
ing effect produced by the scent of the narcissus,
a quality from which the daffodil is perfectly free.

The name of daffodil is simply the Old English
“ affodyll,” or “ that which cometh early,” and it
was many years before the word was corrupted into
our present “ daffodil.”

Tue LecEND oF THE MIGNONETTE.

The word “ Reseda,” the generic name of the
mignonette, is derived from the Latin verb rese-
dare, to soothe.

Pliny states that the Reseda was considered to be
possessed of the power to charm away many disorders,
and it is doubtless owing to this traditional healing,
as also to its delicious scent, that this fragrant little
plant has come to be known as “ the emblem of
health !”’

This idea accounts for Shelley’s rather morbid
reference in the lines:

LEGENDS OF MYTHOLOGICAL FAME 173

** Wherefore hast thou sent to me
Sweet basil and mignonette,
Embleming love and health, which never yet
In the same wreath were set.”

Not only does the mignonette rejoice at the sight
of the sun, but “ follows with loving fidelity the
attraction of his rays, from his rising to his setting,”
and it is a noticeable fact that at sunrise and sunset,
its perfume is subtler and sweeter than during the
daytime.

An ancient legend makes the bees responsible for
the faint gold markings to be seen on each migno-
nette flower, giving us the story thus:

In very early days, the Reseda was an insignificant
little plant, bearing only very small, plain, green
flowers, which were scarcely distinguishable from
leaves. Therefore she was always passed over by
the bees, and felt their neglect very keenly, till
one fine day a bee chanced to brush accidentally
against a clump of mignonette, and was much
astonished at the delicious perfume.

In hot haste he went to fetch his comrades to
sample this wonderful new flower, but when they
came and saw the plain green unpretentiousness
of the mignonette, they were inclined to jeer, and
to think their comrade had madefunofthem. How-
ever, when they had tasted of the delicious nectar,
they could only feel grief at their previous neglect
of such delectable store, and as proof of their
reparation they agreed to leave one drop each of
the honey collected during the day, on each single
flower of the Reseda. And so, from that day for-
ward, the Reseda has jewelled the heart of her
green flowers with those pale golden marks which

174 THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

have made her one of the most sought after of all
blossoms.

Tue LEGEND OF THE VIOLET.

“ Spring’s little infant ’’ has been emblematic of
romance, poetry, chivalry, and love. With the
ancients it was regarded as the flower of honour,
and may be found in practically all parts of the world.
Several classic legends account for the origin of the
violet. JIanthea, one of the brightest of Diana’s
nymphs, was changed into a blue violet to save her
from the wiles of the sun god. Another legend
says the violet was once a young priestess of Juno’s
temple, called Io, whom Jupiter, to protect from
the jealous anger of his consort, had transformed
into a cow. And “when she in hunger stoops in
tears,” even as her lips meet the grass there springs
to her breath the first white violet.

According to another old legend, the violets were
all white till one day Venus, envious of Cupid’s
admiration of their purity and sweetness, turned
them blue.

Tue LEGEND OF THE VERONICA.

Our little blue-eyed speedwell has a very good
name among the plant myths and legends, as it was
renowned with magic powers and healing proper-
ties, and given first rank among the vulnerary plants.
One early legend says that a shepherd noticed how
a stag, bitten by a wolf, first rubbed his wound
against an oak, and then went to a place where
veronica grew. Here he remained for a week, eating
at intervals of the plant, after which he reappeared

LEGENDS OF MYTHOLOGICAL FAME 175

cured of his wound. Upon this the shepherd pre-
pared a vessel full of the healing flowers and set out
for the palace, where the king lay dying of leprosy,
and in due course that monarch was cured by the
healing virtues of the veronica.

The generic name is an altered form of the Latin
V era icon—true image, bestowed because the flowers
of the plant were said in olden days to display in
their forms and markings, the representation of St.
Veronica’s handkerchief, with which she was privi-

leged to wipe the face of Our Lord.

Tue LEGEND OF THE MyrtTLe.

Eastern fable tells us that in olden days the rose
herself named the myrtle the “ Prince of odori-
ferous Plants.” Like the rose, the myrtle is emble-
matic of love, and, according to classic tradition,
possesses not only the power to inspire, but also to
retain love. So the ancients dedicated the myrtle
to Venus, whom they worshipped under the name of
Myrtea, and to whom they consecrated a temple,
enclosed in a grove of myrtles. ‘The Graces, when in
attendance upon Venus, were crowned with myrtle,
and votaries, when sacrificing to their goddess, wore
myrtle chaplets.

From one of the myths we learn that when
Aphrodite sprang from the foam of the sea she was
met by the Seasons, who presented her with a rain-
bow-coloured scarf and a wreath of myrtle, and
when later, in order to subjugate Paris, and win
from Hera and Pallas the prize of beauty, she
“‘ bathed in all the blossoms that the Seasons bring,”
and ‘‘ clothed her gracious form in raiment that the

176 THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

Hours and Graces wrought,” it was myrtle that the
lovely goddess selected wherewith to wreathe her
brows. When pursued by a band of satyrs, who had
found her seated by the sea waves combing her hair
after bathing, it was to a grove of myrtles that the
startled goddess ran for protection. Also, it was
with a myrtle rod that she, as the queen of beauty,
caused Psyche to be chastised, for daring to out-
rival her own heaven-born charms, in the eyes of
Cupid.

The Greeks were devoted to the myrtle, and
dedicated it to Mars, god of war, and frequently
coupled it with the laurel, symbol of glory and
honour; but it was only after a bloodless victory
that the conquerors wreathed their swords with
myrtle.

There is an old tradition that the myrtle was the
only plant borne away from the Garden of Eden:

** No blossom from their garden bore away
Save one, that Adam snatches by the gate,
A myrtle spray.”

Tue LEGEND oF CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS.

There is an interesting legend giving a probable
reason for the decoration of houses with mistletoe
and holly, and it would seem that the custom is of
Druidic origin.

For it comes down to us on good authority that,
in the times of the Druids, the houses were decked
with boughs and branches in order that the spirits
of the forest might seek shelter among them, during
the bleak winds and frosts of the winter. How

LEGENDS OF MYTHOLOGICAL FAME 177

many people in these materialistic days think of
this, when they adorn their houses with these old
historic plants?

Tue LEGEND OF THE MISTLETOE.

According to Scandinavian mythology, Baldr
(the Apollo of the North) was rendered by his
mother Frigg, proof against all injury by the four
elements, fire, air, earth, and water. Loki, the
evil spirit, being at enmity with him, fashioned
an arrow out of mistletoe (which proceeded from
neither of the elements), and placed it in the hand of
Hodr, the blind deity, who launched the fatal dart
at Baldr, and struck him to the earth. The gods
decided to restore Baldr to life, and as a reparation
for his injury the mistletoe was dedicated to his
mother Frigg, while, to prevent it being used ad-
versely against her, the plant was placed under her
sole control, so long as it did not touch the earth,
the empire of Loki. On this account it has always
been customary to suspend mistletoe from ceilings,
and so it became a habit for persons of opposite
sexes, passing under the mistletoe, to give one
another the kiss of peace and love, in the full assur-
ance that this plant is no longer an instrument of
mischief.

The old astrologers affirmed that a sprig of mistle-
toe worn round the neck was a talisman against all
witchcraft, always and only providing that the
bough had not been allowed to touch the earth after
being gathered.

The Holly is always used in company with the
mistletoe for Christmas decorations, and the custom

12

178 ‘THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

is probably derived from the ancient Romans, who
used to send boughs to their friends during the feast
of the Saturnalia, which occurred about the same
period, and the oaks being then bare of leaves, the
priests instructed the people to bring in branches
of holly and evergreens. There is evidence that
the early Christians, disregarding the Church’s
interdiction on this matter, introduced the heathen
practice of decorating their houses with holly, and
in course of time it came to be duly connected with
the Christian observance of Christmas.

There is an old English superstition that elves
and fairies join the social gatherings at Christmas,
and this led to branches being hung in halls and
entrances in order that “‘the fays might hang
in each leaf, and cling to every bough during
that sacred time when spirits have no power to
harm.”

These decorations must be taken down on Candle-
mas Eve:

“* Down with the holly and ivy all
Wherewith ye deck the Christmas hall;
So that the superstitious find
Not one least branch there left behind;
For look, how many leaves there be
Neglected there—maids, tend to me—
So many goblins ye shall see.”

The disciples of Zoroaster, or fire-worshippers,
believe that the holly tree casts no shadow, and
both in Persia and India they employ an infusion
of its leaves for several purposes of their religious
observances. Pliny states that if the holly be planted
near a house it will keep away all malign spells

LEGENDS OF MYTHOLOGICAL FAME 179

and enchantments, and defend the house from
lightning.

“ Should you ask where Nawadaha
Found these songs so wild and wayward,
Found these legends and traditions,
I should answer, I should tell you,
‘In the birds’ nest of the forest,
In the lodges of the beaver,
In the hoof-prints of the bison,
In the eyrie of the eagle !’”
LoncreLLow: The Song of Hiawatha.

CHAPTER XX
LEGENDS OF FIR AND PINE TREES

‘* Ye who love the haunts of Nature,
Love the sunshine of the meadow,
Love the shadow of the forest,
Love the wind among the branches,
And the rain-shower and the snow-storm,
And the rushing of great rivers
Through their palisades of pine-trees,
And the thunder in the mountains,
Whose innumerable echoes
Flap like eagles in their eyries—
Listen to these wild traditions.”
LoncreLtow: The Song of Hiawatha.

Pines and Firs, sombre sentinels of the woods, are
more interwoven with myth and legend than any
other tribe of trees, and their stately grandeur has
appealed especially to the hearts of men through all
the ages.

In olden days the fir was always called the “ Fire-
tree,” being the most inflammable of all woods,
the reason being that it is so full of resin that upon
being lighted it will burn like a torch. Tradition
tells us that the ancient Egyptians adopted a fir
cone as the symbol of their goddess Isis, and in
the Northern countries the fir occupies a very
respected position: he is the king of the forest
trees, and thus in the old folk-lore the genii of the
forest are always depicted with an uprooted fir tree

in their hands. These genii make their dwellings
180

LEGENDS OF FIR AND PINE TREES 181

in fir trees, and by preference old trees, and if by
chance one of these trees is cut down the genil
grieve, and are extremely sad.

There is a legend of a colossal fir tree which
grew by itself at Tarssok, in Russia.

It was said to be several hundred years old, and had
withstood many blasts of lightning, as shown by its
barkless trunk and bare branches.

At last in a gale of wind it fell, but so great was
the respect and veneration felt by the countryfolk
for this fine old tree, that they would not make any
profits from the sale of the immense trunk, but gave
the proceeds to the Church.

In Denmark, Sweden, Russia, and Germany, it
has been the custom for a great number of years,
to use the fir exclusively as the Christmas-tree, and
this custom and idea has now become firmly estab-
lished in England.

The Pine Tree was dedicated to Bacchus, and this
connection is still maintained by the Greeks, who
put pine cones in their wine vats, to preserve and
flavour the wine, by means of the resin contained in
the cones.

The pine cone was considered a symbol of the heart
of Zagroeus, who was destroyed by the Titans, and
whose ashes were given to Semele, the mother of
Bacchus.

In some localities the pine was also dedicated to
Pan, because Pitys, a nymph whom he loved, was
changed into a pine tree, to escape the importuni-
ties of Boreas.

The wood of the pine was used in making the first
boats, and so the tree was also dedicated to Neptune,
the great sea god; therefore, being held sacred to

182 THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

three of the greatest mythological deities, it is small
wonder that the pine has been held in special
veneration by mortal men, through all the changing
vistas of the centuries. ,

The pine, and all the allied coniferous tribe, are
usually regarded as funereal trees, and symbolise
immortality, hence the reason for planting them
in churchyards and round about the church. Es-
pecially is this the case with the yew, which from the
remotest past has been always associated with the
shade and solitary quiet of the churchyard. Far
from adding an air of sombreness, as is suggested
by some writers, the presence of these calm sentinels
gives an extraordinary air of quiet peace, of something
perpetually alive, though at rest.

The Egyptians regarded the yew as a symbol of
mourning, and the idea descended to the Greeks and
Romans, who employed the wood as fuel for their
funeral pyres.

The ancient Britons probably learnt from the
Romans to attach a funereal significance to the yew,
and hence in course of time it came to be planted
in churchyards, and on account of its evergreen
nature was considered as a symbol of immortality
and resurrection.

Virgil attributed the notoriously unwholesome
quality of the honey of Corsica, to the bees feeding
upon the yew flowers, and cautions bee-keepers
to be careful that no yew trees grow near their
hives.

The Cypress is another tree that in all countries
from the very earliest times has been regarded as the
emblem of woe. Gerarde tells us that it had the
reputation of being deadly, and that its shadow was

\

LEGENDS OF FIR AND PINE TREES 183

unfortunate. Horace, Virgil, and Ovid all refer to
it as a tree both gloomy and funereal.

But in spite of all this, the cypress has been most
highly esteemed as an undying tree, both evergreen
and odorous, and a tree of which the wood, like the
cedar, is incorruptible, and proverbial for its dura-
bility. It was on this account that the people of
Athens employed it in making coffins for their heroes,
and also statues of their gods.

The imperishable chests containing Egyptian
mummies were made of cypress wood, and also
the gates of St. Peter’s at Rome, which have lasted
for a period of eleven hundred years, during which
time they suffered no decay.

Ovid tells us of the ‘‘ taper cypress”’ that it is
sacred to Apollo, and was once a fair youth, Cypa-
rissus by name. This youth became much attached
to a gentle stag, who was his constant companion,
and was one day unwittingly pierced to the heart
by an arrow from the hand of the unlucky youth.

Overcome with remorse, Cyparissus would have
killed himself but for the intervention of Apollo,
who bade him not mourn to such excess. Unable,
however, to conquer his grief, he prayed to the gods,
who turned him into a cypress tree, that he might
mourn for all succeeding time.

A very ancient legend, contained in the “ Gospel
of Nicodemus,” gives us much interesting informa-
tion concerning the cypress. Adam one day fell
ill, and he sent his son Seth to the Garden of Eden,
to ask the Guardian Angel for some drops of the oil
of mercy distilled from the Tree of Life. The
angel replied that none could have that till 5,000
years had passed, but gave him a slip of the tree,

184 THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

which was afterwards planted on Adam’s grave, and
grew into a goodly tree with three branches.

Another version of the story is that the angel
gave Seth three seeds, from which grew the cypress,
the cedar, and the pine. ‘These were later on carried
away by Moses, who cut his rod from them, and
King David transplanted them near a fountain at
Jerusalem, and under their shade composed the
Psalms and lamented his sins. Solomon afterwards
cut the tree down for a pillar in the Temple, but
none could fix it there.

It was then buried in the pool of Bethesda,
thereby accounting for the healing properties of
the waters. At the Passion it floated, and was taken
for the Cross, or, as some say, for the upright
beam. Some versions of the legend of the wood
of the Cross, state it was made of cypress, cedar,
pine, and box. One names cypress for the body,
palm for the hands, cedar for the support of the feet,
and olive for the superscription.

Another version states that the cross-beam was
of cypress, the upright beam of immortal cedar,
the title of olive, and the foot-rest of palm, and from
this arises the line:

“Ligna crucis palma, cedrus, cupressus, olivia.”

The Cedar has always been regarded as a sacred
tree, and many historical references are made con-
cerning it from the very earliest times. Josephus
tells us that the Cedar of Lebanon was first planted
in Judea by Solomon, who greatly admired this
noble tree, and built himself a palace of cedar of
Lebanon itself.

LEGENDS OF FIR AND PINE TREES 185

The celebrated Temple of Solomon was built of
hewn stone, lined with cedar, which was ‘‘ carved
with knops and open flowers; all was cedar, there
was no stone to beseen.” ‘The Jews always regarded
the cedar as a sacred tree, so it was employed for
making their carven images.

According to the ancient Chaldean magicians,
the cedar is a tree of good omen; protecting the good,
and overthrowing the machinations of evil spirits.

The Funiper in olden times was often called a
cedar, and these two distinct species were much
confounded, although Pliny distinguishes between
the two. Thus Virgil is supposed to have meant
the cedar when he says in the “ Georgics ”’:

“ But learn to burn
Within your sheltering rooms
Sweet juniper.”

The juniper was consecrated to the Furies; the
smoke of its green roots was the incense which the
ancients deemed most acceptable to the infernal
gods, and they burned its berries during funerals
to ban malign influences. ‘The juniper has always
been looked upon as a protective tree; its powerful
odour will puzzle the keen scent of the hounds, and
a hunted hare will thus find a safe retreat in the cover
of its branches.

In Italy, branches of juniper are hung on Christ-
mas Day in churches and houses, just as universally
as holly is employed in England.

There was a belief, common among the ancients,
that the burning of juniper wood expelled evil
spirits, and we find evidence of this in some parts
of Scotland, where it was customary during an

186 THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

epidemic to burn juniper wood, with certain weird
and mysterious ceremonies. In Italy and Germany,
the juniper has always been the object of a super-
stitious reverence, on account of its power for dis-
persing evil spirits.

Also the stables were preserved from the power of
demons and thunderbolts by means of a sprig of
juniper, just as our own houses and stables used to
be preserved from the power of witches, through
the magic horseshoe.

In Tuscany, the juniper receives a special blessing
on Palm Sunday; and in Venetia, juniper is burnt
to purify the air, thus recalling the ancient Roman
custom of burning it instead of incense on the altars.

The smoke of the leaves and wood was said to drive
away serpents, “and all infection and corruption
of the aire which bring the plague, or such-like
contagious diseases.”

The Larch, with the delicate beauty of its fresh
green branches, is one of the most beautiful sights
which delight our eyes and hearts in the early
springtime. ‘There has long been a superstitious
belief that the wood of the larch tree is impenetrable
by fire, and the story is told by Vitruvius of a castle
besieged by Cesar, which was built largely of larch-
wood, and was therefore most difficult to consume.

In the case of a forest fire, if larches are scorched
to the pith, the inner part exudes a gum, and Ben
Jonson, in the “‘ Masque of Queens,” speaks of this
gum or turpentine of the larch, as being used in
witchcraft.

Among all these ancient and some more modern
myths and legends, one feels how good and necessary
it is to step aside now and again, from the present-

LEGENDS OF FIR AND PINE TREES 187

day rush and turmoil, into the secluded paths of
garden fact and fantasy.

It is good surely to spare some time for these
fairy tales of Nature, relics of a time when the world
was younger and more trusting, an idea brought out
very beautifully by a writer who calls himself “‘ A
Pilgrim in Fairyland ” in a poem entitled:

THE SECRET OF THE PINE-TREES

“‘ T was dreaming on a woodland hill,
And as I lay listening very still
An angel vision came to me
Of the first beginning of every tree.
And this is what I heard and saw
Through the fairy mind—the Open Door.

** Long ago in the first earth day
When the trees were young and full of play,
Just fresh new-born from God’s great heart,
To live their life and take a part
In that wise, loving, mysterious plan
Which was crowned by our creation—Man.
The trees, I tell you, were full of play
In this glad youth-time of their day;
They sang and swung in child-like glee,
Waving their branches strong and free.
Then suddenly they were silent and still;
A hush was over each valley and hill.
For He, the Creator, God, drew near,
Wanting to speak to His children dear.
His children of Green Earth glad and gay,
Where fear was not, and where fairies play.
Then He called to the seasons He had made
To come and show themselves displayed,
So that the trees and flowers would know
What change they had to undergo.
First came Spring, just dancing down,
Clad in yellow cowslip and bluebell gown;

188 THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN

Then Summer with roses and happy face;
Then Autumn in many-tinted grace.
Last came Winter riding by
On a snow-flaked horse, with a whistling cry.
And when the trees saw him go past,
And felt the icy, chilling blast,
They shivered, and then they seemed to say
To their loving Creator, ‘ Must we stay ??
And He smiled lovingly, and said,
‘In Winter you all shall sleep instead.’
But the Pine trees listening heard Him sigh,
And looked at each other, wondering why,
And asked Him, ‘ Master, do you sleep, too,
All the cold, long winter through ?’
He answered, ‘I never slumber, nor sleep,
I ever a vigilant watch must keep.’
‘May we,’ they whispered, ‘ watch with you ?’
‘ Yes,’ He said, ‘ if your love is true,
For the cost is great, you can never be seen
In a fresh and gay Spring dress of green;
The darkest armour you must wear,
In Winter storm or Summer glare.”
‘Gladly,’ they cried, ‘ we’ll give up all
That we may be sentinels at your call.’

“ And because of the sacrifice they have made,
These trees, so strong and unafraid,
They have learnt the secret of the sea,
And can sing its song to you and me,
The song of Perfect Peace through pain,
Which only Jesus can explain.”

Se ee en
oe — ~ ~ .

rn)
fa Al

on
Cs

a Th

rat

New York Botanical Garden Library

OM