be buried beneath its roots, it will eventually turn out, to use the local phrase, a “top-singer,” and there is a popular superstition that wherever the purple honesty (Lunaria biennis) flourishes, the cultivators of the garden are noted for their honesty.  The snapdragon, which in years gone by was much cultivated for its showy blossoms, was said to have a supernatural influence, and amongst other qualities to possess the power of destroying charms.  Many further illustrations of this class of superstition might easily be added, so thickly interwoven are they with the history of most of our familiar wild-flowers.  One further superstition may be noticed, an allusion to which occurs in “Henry V.” (Act i. sc. i):—­

 “The strawberry grows underneath the nettle,
 And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best
 Neighbour’d by fruit of baser quality;”

It having been the common notion that plants were affected by the neighbourhood of other plants to such an extent that they imbibed each other’s virtues and faults.  Accordingly sweet flowers were planted near fruit-trees, with the idea of improving the flavour of the fruit; and, on the other hand, evil-smelling trees, like the elder, were carefully cleaned away from fruit-trees, lest they should become tainted. [4] Further superstitions have been incidentally alluded to throughout the present volume, necessarily associated as they are with most sections of plant folk-lore.  It should also be noticed that in the various folk-tales which have been collected together in recent years, many curious plant superstitions are introduced, although, to suit the surroundings of the story, they have only too frequently been modified, or the reverse.  At the same time, embellishments of the kind are interesting, as showing how familiar these traditionary beliefs were in olden times to the story-teller, and how ready he was to avail himself of them.

Footnotes: 

1.  See Baring-Gerald’s “Curious Myths of the Middle Ages.”

2.  Ingram’s “Florica Symbolica,” p. 326.

3.  Stewart’s “Popular Superstitions of the Highlanders.”

4.  See Ellacombe’s “Plant-lore of Shakespeare,” p. 319.

CHAPTER XXI.

PLANTS IN FOLK-MEDICINE.

From the earliest times plants have been most extensively used in the cure of disease, although in days of old it was not so much their inherent medicinal properties which brought them into repute as their supposed magical virtues.  Oftentimes, in truth, the only merit of a plant lay in the charm formula attached to it, the due utterance of which ensured relief to the patient.  Originally there can be no doubt that such verbal forms were prayers, “since dwindled into mystic sentences.” [1] Again, before a plant could work its healing powers, due regard had to be paid to the planet under whose influence it was supposed to be;