devil between eleven and twelve o’clock on Christmas night enables the bearer to do as much work as twenty or thirty ordinary men.  According to a popular piece of superstition current in our southern counties, the devil is generally supposed to put his cloven foot upon the blackberries on Michaelmas Day, and hence after this date it is considered unlucky to gather them during the remainder of the year.  An interesting instance of this superstition is given by Mrs. Latham in her “West Sussex Superstitions,” which happened to a farmer’s wife residing in the neighbourhood of Arundel.  It appears that she was in the habit of making a large quantity of blackberry jam, and finding that less fruit had been brought to her than she required, she said to the charwoman, “I wish you would send some of your children to gather me three or four pints more.”  “Ma’am,” exclaimed the woman in astonishment, “don’t you know this is the 11th October?” “Yes,” she replied.  “Bless me, ma’am!  And you ask me to let my children go out blackberrying!  Why, I thought every one knew that the devil went round on the 10th October, and spat on all the blackberries, and that if any person were to eat on the 11th, he or some one belonging to him would either die or fall into great trouble before the year was out.”

In Scotland the devil is said to but throw his cloak over the blackberries and render them unwholesome, while in Ireland he is said to stamp on them.  Among further stories of this kind may be quoted one current in Devonshire respecting St. Dunstan, who, it is said, bought up a quantity of barley for brewing beer.  The devil, knowing how anxious the saint would be to get a good sale for his beer, offered to blight the apple trees, so that there should be no cider, and hence a greater demand for beer, on condition that he sold himself to him.  St. Dunstan accepted the offer, and stipulated that the trees should be blighted on the 17th, 18th, and 19th May.  Should the apple-blossom be nipped by cold winds or frost about this time, many allusions are still made to St. Dunstan.

Of the plants associated personally with the evil one may be mentioned the henbane, which is known in Germany as the “devil’s eye,” a name applied to the stich-wort in Wales.  A species of ground moss is also styled in Germany the “devil’s claws;” one of the orchid tribe is “Satan’s hand;” the lady’s fingers is “devil’s claws,” and the plantain is “devil’s head.”  Similarly the house-leek has been designated the “devil’s beard,” and a Norfolk name for the stinkhorn is “devil’s horn.”  Of further plants related to his Satanic majesty is the clematis, termed “devil’s thread,” the toad-flax is his ribbon, the indigo his dye, while the scandix forms his darning-needles.  The tritoma, with its brilliant red blossom, is familiar in most localities as the “devil’s poker,” and the ground ivy has been nicknamed the “devil’s candlestick,” the mandrake supplying his candle.  The puff-balls of the lycoperdon form the devil’s