it will gradually disappear if one buries thistle seed.[10] The aloe, by the Egyptians, is reputed to resist any baleful influence, and the lunary or “honesty” is by our own country people said to put every evil influence to flight.  In Germany the juniper disperses evil spirits, and in ancient times the black hellebore, peony, and mugwort were largely used for this purpose.  According to a Russian belief the elder-tree drives away evil spirits, and hence this plant is held in high respect.  Among further plants possessing the same quality are the nettle and milfoil, and then there is the famous St. John’s wort, popularly nicknamed “devil’s flight.”

Closely allied with this part of our subject are those plants connected with serpents, here forming a very numerous class.  Indeed, it was only natural that our ancestors, from their dread of the serpent on account of its poisonous sting, as well as from their antipathy to it as the symbol of evil, should ascertain those plants which seemed either attractive, or antagonistic, to this much-dreaded reptile.  Accordingly certain plants, from being supposed to be distasteful to serpents, were much used as amulets to drive them away.  Foremost among these may be mentioned the ash, to escape contact with which a serpent, it has been said, would even creep into the fire, in allusion to which Cowley thus writes: 

  “But that which gave more wonder than the rest,
  Within an ash a serpent built her nest
  And laid her eggs, when once to come beneath
  The very shadow of an ash was death.”

Gerarde notices this curious belief, and tells us that, “the leaves of this tree are so great virtue against serpents that they dare not so much as touch the morning and evening shadows of the tree, but shun them afar off.”

Hence ash-sap was a German remedy for serpent bites.  Lucan, in his “Pharsalia” (915-921), has enumerated some of the plants burned for the purpose of expelling serpents: 

  “Beyond the farthest tents rich fires they build,
  That healthy medicinal odours yield,
  There foreign galbanum dissolving fries,
  And crackling flames from humble wallwort rise. 
  There tamarisk, which no green leaf adorns,
  And there the spicy Syrian costos burns;
  There centaury supplies the wholesome flame,
  That from Therssalian Chiron takes its name;
  The gummy larch tree, and the thapsos there,
  Woundwort and maidenweed perfume the air,
  There the long branches of the long-lived hart
  With southernwood their odours strong impart,
  The monsters of the land, the serpents fell,
  Fly far away and shun the hostile smell.”