the university of Connecticut libraries X BOOK 398.2.SK3 c 1 3 'ilSa 0015M2t,i 1 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, TREES, FRUITS, AND PLANTS THIRD EDITION MYTHS and LEGENDS SERIES Bt CHARLES M. SKINNER American Myths and Legends Two Tolumef. Illu»trated. Cloth, gilt top, $1.50 net ; half morocco, I5.00 net. Myths and Legends of Flowers, Trees, Fruits, and Plants Illustrated. Large iimo. Cloth, ornamental, $1.50 net. Myths and Legends Beyond Our Borders Myths and Legends of Our New Possessions Myths and Legends of Our Own Land (Two Tolumet.) Illuitrated. iimo. Buckram, gilt top, $1.50 per Tolumc. J. B. LIPPINCOTT CO. PUBLISHERS FHILADELFHIA MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, TREES, FRUITS, AND PLANTS IN ALL AGES AND IN ALL CLIMES By CHARLES M. SKINNER PHILADELPHIA & LONDON J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY COPTBIGHT, 1911, BY J. B. UFPINCOTT COHFAITT FUBUSHBD SEFT£MBEB, 1911 PEINTKD BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPAKY AT THB WASHINGTON SQUAEK PEKSS PHILADELPHIA, U. S. A. CONTENTS PAOB Plant Lore „ 9 Eably Christian Legends 16 Fairy Flowers 22 Narcotics and Stimulants 24 Plants of III Renown 29 Flowers, Trees, Fruits, and Plants. y Acacia 34 Acanthus 35 Achyranthes 36 Aconite 36 Alligator Tail 38 Almond 39 Amaranth 42 Anemone 42 ^ Apple 43 Arbutus 50 Arum 52 Ash 53 Avocado Pear 56 Bahn 57 Balm of Gilead 58 Basil 59 Bean 61 Beech 62 Birch 63 Blackberry 64 Blood Tree 66 Box 67 Briony 68 Broom 69 Bugloss 70 Cabbage 70 Cactus 71 CameUa 72 Campanula. 73 Camphor 73 V CONTENTS Canna 74 Carnation 75 Carob 76 »^ Cedar 77 Chamomile 78 Cherry and Plum 79 Chestnut 82 Chicory 83 Chrysanthemum 84 Cinchona 87 Cinnamon 87 Citron 88 Gematis 88 Clover and Shamrock 89 Columbine 92 Cornel 93 Cornflower 93 Cotton 94 Crocus 95 Crowfoot 97 Crown Imperial 97 Cucumber 98 Cypress 98 J DahUa 99 Daisy 100 Dandelion 101 Dhak 102 Ebony 103 Edelweiss 103 Egg-plant 104 Elder 105 Ehn 106 Eryngo 108 Fern 108 Fig Ill Fir 113 Flax 115 Flowers of Parnassus 116 Forget-me-not 118 Gentian 120 Geranium 120 vi CONTENTS Ginseng 121 Grasses, Grains, and Reeds 122 Hawthorn 131 Hazel 132 Heath 134 Heliotrope 135 Hellebore 135 Hemlock 136 Hemp 136 Horehound 137 House-leek 137 Hyacinth 138 Hypericum 139 Indian Plume 139 Iris 140 Jambu, or Soma 142 Jasmine 143 Juniper 144 Larch 146 Larkspur 146 ' Laurel 147 Leek 149 Lily 150 LUy of the Valley 156 Lilac 157 Linden 157 Lotus 160 Maguey 162 Maize 164 Mallow 168 Mandrake 168 Mango 170 Maple V 172 Marigold 174 Marjoram 175 Melon 176 Mignonette. 177 Mimosa 178 Mint 178 Mistletoe 179 Morning-glory 182 vii CONTENTS Moss 182 Motherwort 184 Mulberry 184 Mustard 186 Myrrh 187 Myrtle 188 Narcissus 191 Nettle 192 Oak 193 Oleander 201 Olive 202 The Onion and Its Kind 204 Orange 205 Orchid 206 Pahn 206 Pansy 210 Passion Flower 211 Paulownia 212 Pea 212 Peach 213 Peepul 214 Peony 215 Pimpernel 216 Pine 217 Plantain 221 ^ Pomegranate 221 Poplar 223 Poppy 225 Primrose 228 Pumpkin 229 Radish 230 Ragweed 231 Resurrection Plant 231 J Rose 232 Rosemary 260 Rue 261 Sage 262 Saint Foin 263 St. Johnswort 264 Sal 264 Saxifrage 265 viii CONTENTS Shepherd's Purse 266 Sak Cotton 266 Snowdrop 268 SpeedweU 269 Springwort 269 Spruce 270 Stramonium 271 Strawberry 272 Sugar 271 Sunflower 273 Tamarisk 274 ^ Thistle 275 TuUp 277 Valerian 279 Violet 280 The Vines 284 Wallflower 288 Wahiut 289 ' Water-lily 291 Willow 293 Wormwood 298 Yew 299 Ylang-ylang 301 ILLUSTRATIONS PAOB Blossoms Frontispiece From the painting by Albert Moore The Wreath of Fruit 10 By Rubens Isabella and the Pot of Basil 60 By John W. Alexander Box IN THE Garden of Martha Washington at Mount Vernon 67 Plaster Figure Decorated with Dwarf Chrysanthemums, AT the Flower Festival, Tokyo 85 Carnation Lily, Lily Rose 151 From the painting by John Singer Sargent The Madonna op the Chair 200 From the painting by Raphael The Three Graces Garlanding a Statue of Hymen 247 From the painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds Phil^, the Temple Island 274 The Grape Eaters 284 By Murillo The Legend of the Willow 294 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, TREES, FRUITS, AND PLANTS PLANT LORE When the legends and fables of simpler times pertain to trees and flowers, they are especially luminative of the mental processes of unschooled men ; for the vegetable world has changed little in three thousand years, and the marks and colors that explain some beliefs are still impressed on the leaves and petals. The sjrtnbolism adopted therefrom is wide in meaning, and to this day is in common use. It is poetic, hence it appeals to every intelligence; for while we affect to prize poetry for its beauty, to the savage it was native speech, inasmuch as his vocabulary was alle- goric— a humanization of the skies, the sunsets, the storms, the flowers. "We sometimes hear that ours is a material, dull age, yet we perpetuate terms and usances which ally us to the childhood of the race, and which stand for imagina- tion and sheer loveliness. We still speak of laureled brows, palms of victory, the rose of beauty, the lily of purity, the oak of strength, willowy grace, fig-trees of shelter, and corn of abundance ; we extend the olive branch of peace, we put our legs under our host's mahogany, we indicate poison by nightshade and toadstools, and health by flowers and fruits. Though Bacchus is no longer with us, we emblemize him 9 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. in our reference to the vine. Moreover, states and nations choose their flowers, and certain Scottish Highlanders still wear them as badges of their clans. The liking for these things, their service to the eye, antedates history, and although Shakespeare lived when there was no botany, and only an enjoyment of nature in place of the study of it, his chance mention of one hundred and fifty trees and plants hints at the regard such matters enjoyed in those days. The very religions of all lands have fruits and trees in their cosmogonies, and plant-lore opens a quaint human document in its disclosure of that self-complacency which assumed the earth to be a strictly human property, in which all was for the service of man, and nothing existed of its own right. Out of this notion came the doctrine of signa- tures— '*a system for discovering the medicinal uses of a plant from something in its external appearance that re- sembled the disease it would cure.'* For instance, the leaves of aspen shook, hence it must be good for shaking palsy; gromwell had a stony seed, so it was prescribed for gravel ; saxifrage grew in cracks in the rocks, therefore it would crack the deposits known as stone in the bladder; knots of scrophularia were prescribed for scrofulous swell- ings, the pappus of scabiosa for leprosy, the spotted leaves of pulmonaria for consumption (notice how these beliefs and uses have named certain species), nettle tea was for nettle rash, blood-root for dysentery, turmeric for jaundice, because it was the color of a jaundiced skin ; wood sorrel, having a heart-shaped leaf, was a cordial, or heart restora- tive; liverwort corrected an inactive liver; dracontium, or herb dragon, was a cure for snake poison; briony cured dropsy, because its root suggested a swollen foot. The estimate of plants is denoted not merely in their common use as food and ornament, but in the adoption of 10 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. their names by people, civilized and other. Until the god- dess Carna was invented, Italy 's soil produced no vegetables without men's help, excepting spelt and beans; hence in her particular feasts the usual offering was beans. In the Roman courts or in public bodies where questions were put to vote, the ancient ballot was a bean, a white one repre- senting innocence ; a black one, guilt. Such, then, was the importance of the bean that we need feel no surprise that one of the foremost families in Rome, the Fabians, to wit, should have taken the name of it. The Coepiones of that day were merely the Messrs. Onion; the Pisones were the Peas; Cicero was Mr. Chick-pea; the Lentucini were the Lettuce family. To this day we have in like wise, among our friends, the Pease, Beans, Pears, Cherrysy Berrys, Olives, Coffeys, Nutts, Chestnuts, Oakes, Pines, Birches, Roses, Lillies, and Asters, while our Indians, excelling us in variety and fitness of names, give such to their daughters as Wild Rose, Budding Poppy, and Bending Lily. And as it was honorable to employ the name of a plant, a tree, a flower, in naming a dignified family of a dignified race, it came about easily that such plant or tree or flower was in place about the homes, the tombs and temples, of that family, and that in time it was borne upon the family coat-of-arms. Names do not always mark resemblances, for they are sometimes freaks of accident or have gone astray through wrong spellings. For instance, our ** butter and eggs" was originally bubonium, because it cured buboes — then; but a slip in a letter made it bufonium, and as hufo is toad, we have the name of toad-flax, which means nothing. In like manner, Jerusalem artichoke was twisted into girasole artichoke; tansy is alleged to be a corruption of athanasia, or immortality, though what the two have iri common no man can guess; while borage is a mispronunciation of 11 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. courage, for that (cor-ago: I bring heart) was supposed to be heightened by drinking decoctions of the herb. When the doctrine of signatures began to transcend the visible signs written on the flower or leaf, it widened the possibilities of medical practice wonderfully. Thus, the holy or blessed thistle {carduus henedictus), at first a cure for itch, became by force of its blessed state a sovereign remedy for sores, vertigo, jaundice, bad blood, red face, red nose, tet- ter, ring-worm, plague, boils, mad-dog bite, snake poison, deaf- ness, defective memory, and other ailments. Another va- riety of the plant, the ' ' melancholy thistle, ' ' was a cure for the blues if taken in wine. But the thistle was not the only blessed plant, by any means. One species after an- other developed saintly associations, and by virtue of them became a cure for more than its '^signature" would indi- cate. All flowers that bear the name of lady were dedi- cated to Our Lady the Virgin. Such are the lady's slipper, lady's hand, lady's tresses, lady's smock, lady's mantle, lady's bedstraw, lady's bower, lady's comb, lady's cushion, lady 's finger, lady 's garters, lady 's hair, lady 's laces, lady 's looking-glass, lady's seal, lady's thimble, and lady's thumb. Beneficent influences exerted by plants thus fortunately named or associated were instanced in a wider crop of super- stitions than had grown from the mystic or significant mark- ings, but the sanctifying of plants through their association with saints and angels was no new thing in Christian times. The heathen gods had their floral favorites, and the first garland was culled from the trees of heaven by the Indian Venus, Cri, who put it on the head of Indra's elephant. The animal, intoxicated with the perfume, flung the wreath to the ground, thereby so angering Siva that he cursed Indra for permitting the sacrilege and threw him to the earth also, thus condemning him to lose his vigor, and all the plants on earth to lose eternal life. The Greeks and 12 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. Romans planted sacred flowers in their gardens, those espe- cially loved by the Greeks including the rose, lily, violet, anemone, thyme, melilot, crocus, chamomile, smilax, hya- cinth, narcissus, chrysanthemum, laurel, myrtle, and mint. Laurel, narcissus, hyacinth, myrtle, cypress, and pine were nymphs or youths transformed from human shape; the mint was a woman whom Pluto loved; the mulberry was stained with the blood of lovers; it was Lycurgus's tears that begot the cabbage. The plane sprang from Diomede 's tomb. The rose-tinted lotus arose from the blood of a lion slain by Hadrian. The vine sprang, by miracle, near Olympia, and sports and ceremonies incident to its festivals in early Hellas are perpetuated as faint memories in the use of the eucharist and loving-cup. It took some of the early investigators a long time to overcome their repugnance to making practical use of plants associated with lengendary harm and violence; indeed, accurate observation of the remedial effects of plant juices and decoctions is a matter of recent days, although we find tokens of therapeutic study in other centuries. The rose- mary had no ** signature," but we discover reason in its use, whether the effects agreed with the allegement or not, in that it was prescribed for carrying by mourners and attendants at funerals two hundred years ago, the odor being hostile to the ** morbid effluvias" of the corpse. It was also burned in the chambers of fever patients. So, in time, this rose-of-Mary (it is reaUy ros marinum) because a token to wear in remembrance of the dead, and later it was prized as a stimulant to all memories. Poisons appear to have been studied almost as early as simples. Forbidden things of the dark were used in incan- tations, and the mysteries of diabolism and magic could not have been practised without vegetable material. Monks- hood was used to breed fever ; deadly nightshade caused the IS MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. eater of it to see ghosts ; henbane threw its victim into con- vulsions ; bittersweet caused skin eruptions ; meadow saffron and black hellebore racked the nerves and caused their victim to swell to unsightly proportions ; briony set the nose a-bleeding; eyebright sowed seeds of rheumatism in the bones. Larger and finer meanings are read into the older legends of the plants, and the universality of certain myths is expressed in the concurrence of ideas in the beginnings of the great religions. One of the first figures in the lead- ing cosmogonies is a tree of life guarded by a serpent. In the Judaic faith this was the tree in the garden of Eden; the Scandinavians made it an ash, Ygdrasil; Christians usually specify the tree as an apple, Hindus as a soma, Persians as a homa, Cambodians as a talok ; this early tree is the vine of Bacchus, the snake-entwined caduceus of Mer- cury, the twining creeper of the Eddas, the bohidruma of Buddha, the fig of Isaiah, the tree of ^sculapius with the serpent about its trunk. These trees of the early cosmog- onies are not all actualities, by any means. There is no botanical class for the tree of Siberian legend, which sprang up without branches. God caused nine limbs to shoot from it, and nine men were born at its foot : fathers of the nine races. Five of the branches, that turned toward the east, furnished fruit for men and beasts, but the fruits that grew on the four western branches God forbade to men, and he sent a dog and a snake to guard them. While the snake slept, Erlik, the tempter, climbed into the western branches and persuaded Edji, the woman, to eat the forbidden fruit. This she shared with her husband, Torongoi, and the pair, realizing their guilt, covered themselves with skins and hid under the tree. These relations between the human and the vegetable world are also indicated in legends of curses and blessings, 14 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. wherein faiths have grown from incidents, and in not a few of these instances the fortunes of men, towns, and even dynasties are related to trees. The old pear of the Unster- berg, for instance, would signify the end of imperial power by withering, and when the German empire was dissolved in 1806 it ceased to blossom ; but in 1871 it suddenly woke to life and bore fruit. To primitive people who thus symbolized natural phe- nomena, vegetable life was, in a manner, glorified, because it sustained all other life. The tree supplied lumber, fuel, house, thatch, cordage, weapons, boats, shields, and tools, as well as fruit and medicine. Everywhere the flowers are a calendar of the seasons, and in early moral codes and proverbs the tree is a likeness of strength and graciousness. The Brahmins have fitting metaphors for the kindness of the oak in shading the wood- man who hacks its trunk, and of the sandalwood that re- sponds to the blow of the ax with perfume, the meaning of these symbols being that the perfect one will love his enemies. The mystic is added to the symbolic through the ages, in that the leaves have been speaking to those who listened. The palm, stirring in the wind, spoke to Abraham in language that he translated as the words of deity, and Mahomet commands its worship as the tree of paradise, the date being chief of the fruits of the world, for it came out of heaven with wheat, chief of foods, and myrtle, chief of perfumes. 15 EARLY CHRISTIAN LEGENDS A THRONG of legends bring to mind Christ's agony and crucifixion, and some of them are betokened in usages of the present day. For example, it is believed in Austria that hawthorn and blackthorn were the materials from which the wreath of torture was fashioned ; hence on Good Friday there is a sport of retaliation in which Christian l^oodlums put *' thorn apples'' into the hair of little Jews. The veritable crown was reported by the faithful to have passed into the hands of Baldwin, who gave it to Saint Louis. That king received it as a penitent, barefooted and clad in a hair shirt, bore it to Paris in splendor and solem- nity, and built that perfect piece of Gothic architecture, the Sainte Chapelle, as a casket for the relic, though some of the thorns have been given to other churches, and they have as miraculously multiplied as have fragments of the true cross. The hawthorn is so covered by white blossoms in the spring that its long spikes are hardly seen, but they are capable of inflicting a painful wound. On the way to Cal- vary a bird fluttered down to the head of the Victim and pulled out a thorn that was rankling in his brow. The sacred blood tinged the feathers of the little creature, who has worn the mark since that day, and we call him robin red-breast. Hawthorn often flowers in a mild English winter, and the famous one of Glastonbury habitually puts forth blossoms at Christmas; at least, it is known to have been in bloom on Christmas day so recently as 1881. This holy thorn is — or, shall we say in our doubting time, was — believed to have been carried into England in the year '31 by Joseph of Arimathea, when he went to teach Christianity to the Britons. On reaching "Wearyall Hill, near the present 16 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. town of Glastonbury, he struck his walking staff into the earth to indicate his intention to abide there ; and leaving it thus, with its end in the soil, the sap stirred to fresh life, put forth leaves, and flourished for centuries, a noble speci- men. Some declared that it bloomed at the moment when the rod was forced into the frozen ground. The sale of its flowers, twigs, and cuttings brought large revenues to the monastery that was built near the scene of the miracle. It was finally destroyed by the Puritans as a reproof of the superstitions charged upon the followers of the Roman church. Another famous hawthorn is that of Cawdor Castle, scene of the *' Macbeth'' tragedy. The first thane of Caw- dor was told in a dream to load an ass with gold, allow it to wander free, and build a castle where it stopped to rest. This the dreamer did, and the donkey lay down under a haw- thorn. The heavenly injunction was so implicitly obeyed that the architect built the first tower with the hawthorn in the centre, and its aged trunk is still seen in the dungeon, its branches penetrating the breaches in the wall, and its root extending far under the flagging. Once a year Lord Cawdor assembles his guests about the trunk, and they drink health to the hawthorn, thereby signifying health to the house. Some maintain that Christ's crown came from the acacia, or shittim wood, while others say that the holly was the bush from which the crown of thorns was torn. Indeed, the name of the latter means ''holy," and it was only through a careless shortening of the vowel that it came to be as we know it. The use of this plant for Christmas decoration still further proves this association with Scrip- tural incident. The purple of the jack-in-the-pulpit and the red stain of the Belgian rood selken mark where the blood of the 2 17 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. crucified fell in the hour of agony, as the color of the red bud, or Judas tree, tells how the tree burned with shame when Judas hanged himself upon it. Speedwell, or ger- mander speedwell, is in the botanies disguised as veronica chamoedrys, yet in that name is a token of its history, for on the way to Calvary Christ paused for a moment while Saint Veronica wiped the blood and sweat from his face. The cloth she used in this ministration was stained there- after with a miraculous portrait of the Saviour a vera ikoniha, or true image; whence, Veronica. Where the blood dropped on the flowers she was wearing, they shared in the sacred impress, and so they took her name, because they are thought to show a human countenance like that upon her napkin. Cyclamen — *'cock of the mountain," the Arab calls it — strange flower with bent back, curved petals, and crim- son eye looking down, as if expectant of the earth to yield treasure to it, abounds in Holy Land, where it was dedicated to the Virgin because the sword of sorrow that pierced her heart is symbolized in the blood drop at the heart of this flower. For the like reason it was also known as the bleeding nun. Other legends respecting the crucifixion are indicated in the name of ' ' blood drops of Christ, ' ' as applied in Pales- tine to the scarlet anemone ; in the selection of the flowering almond as a symbol of the Virgin ; in the repute of the bul- rush, or cat-tail, that it was the sceptre that the Jews put into the hands of Christ when they mocked him as their king; in the monkish declaration that the red poppy con- tains a divine revelation, since it bears the cross in its centre ; in the Canary Islands the custom of cutting bananas lengthwise because when cut across they show the symbol of the cruciflxion; and in the story that the figs of the Cistercian convent in Rome, when cut through, show a green 18 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. cross inlaid on a white pulp, with five seeds at its angles representing the five wounds. The Rose of Sharon is also held to be a symbol of the resurrection, for when its blos- soms fall they are borne by the wind to a distant place there to root and bloom anew. Vervain {verbena hastata), once used for garlanding the poor brutes led to the sacrifice in Rome, has long been known as the holy herb. The Greeks so called it; the Druids and Romans employed it in magical and mystic ceremonies, and as a drug ; hence it was easily adapted into the Christian legends, and it became one of the crucifixion flowers. Because the spurge yields a milky juice, it is called Vir- gin's nipple, though we lack a tradition that connects the plant with any word or act of the Virgin. The white lily as well as the hierochloa, or holy grass, is sacred to her. ** Madonna lilies" burst into bloom on Easter dawn; they put forth from the rod of St. Joseph, and were borne by the angel of the annunciation. Walking in the garden of Zacharias, whither she often repaired to meditate on the burden laid upon her as the bride of God, the Virgin touched a flower which till then had exhaled no fragrance, but at that contact gave forth a delightful perfume. This was doubtless the lily. A careless use of the name by older writers leaves us in doubt as to the plant referred to in the sermon on the mount. The little flower we call Star of Bethlehem, whose bulb is roasted and eaten by orientals, is part of that very light which shone in the heavens at the birth of Christ : for after it had led the wise men and shepherds to the manger it burst, like a meteor, scattering acres of flowers about the fields. It was as if it had been drawn from the glorious company of the skies by the great glory of the Babe. Joseph, going out at dawn, gathered handfuls of these blos- soms from the wintry earth, and, pouring them into the 19 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. lap of Mary, said, * ' See, the star in the east has fallen and borne fruit in kind. ' ' Then, there is hellebore, otherwise black hellebore, Christmas rose, or Christmas flower. This was held in esti- mation from early times, though it was believed to absorb its ill odor from the sick. The Greeks regarded it as a remedy for madness, and in sending the insane to Anticyra, where it abounds, they afforded one of the few instances of anything like attention to the needs of the suffering and unfortunate in a land and age that were without almshouses, hospitals, and asylums. Down to the time of Queen Eliza- beth it was the hellebore cured melancholy, and the Grer- mans, who connected it with Huldah, the marriage goddess, later gave to it the name of Christmas rose. The story of its birth is this: On the night when heaven sang to the shepherds of Bethlehem, a little girl followed her brothers, the keepers of the flocks, under guidance of the light. When she saw the wise men gathered at the inn, offering vessels of gold and fabrics of silk to the child and its mother, she hung timidly back on the edge of the crowd, and was sad because her hands were empty ; because the look in the face of the babe had filled her with admiration and wonder, and she wished to testify her love. She had no goods, no money to buy them, so after a little she turned away toward the silent hills. But when she had gone back to her flocks, at the border of the desert, under the lonely stars, a light suddenly shone about her, and behold, one of the announc- ing angels — a glorious creature whose robe was like molten silver, whose locks were as the sun. *' Little one, why do you carry sorrow in your heart ? " he asked. ''Because I could carry no joy to the child of Bethle- hem," she answered. With a smile the spirit waved a lily that he carried, and suddenly the ground was white with Christmas roses. The 20 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. girl knelt with a joyous cry, filled her arms with the flowers, and hastened to the village, where the people made way for her, looking with wonder on the burden she bore that winter night. As she reached the manger the holy one, turning from the gems and gold of the magi, reached forth his tiny hands for the blossoms, and smiled as the shepherdess heaped them at his feet. The chrysanthemum, which was born at the same time as the babe of Bhethlehem, was the token to the wise men that they had reached the spot whither the star had bidden them; for, searching along the narrow ways of the village toward the fall of night, these rulers of tribes and ex- pounders of doctrine wondered greatly what should be disclosed to them. There was no excitement among the people, to denote a strange event ; there were no welcoming sounds of music, dancing, or the feast; all was silent and gloomy, when at a word from King Malcher, the caravan stood still. *' It is the place," he cried, ** for look! Here is a flower, rayed like the star that has guided us, and which is even now hanging above our heads.'' As Malcher bent and picked it, the stable door opened of itself and the pilgrims entered in. Malcher placed the chrysanthemum in the hand extended to receive it — ^the hand of a little, new-born babe — and all went to their knees before the shining presence, bearing as a sceptre the winter flower, white likeness of the guide star. Cacti are of power over witches, and that queer speci- men of the race, the ''old man," with its long gray spines like hair, is to the Mexican the soul of a baptized Christian, hence not to be touched by unclean hands. 21 FAIRY FLOWERS Flowers were as naturally associated with fairies as with sunshine, moonbeams, and other bright, beautiful, or tricksy things. The ''little people'^ hid in flowers, made their cloaks of petals, their crowns of stamens, their darts of thorns, their cradles of lilies, their seats of fungi. As the burly gods of the Norsemen and the majestic deities of Greece represented nature as force, so the fairies personated nature's gentler, daintier attributes. They were the souls of the flowers, mischievous when the flowers exhaled a poison ; beneficent when the flowers were wholesome. The mottlings of the cowslip and the foxglove, like the spots on butterfly wings and on the tails of pheasants and peacocks, mark where elves have placed their fingers. On the foxglove these marks are dull and threatening, deno- tive of the baneful juices that the plant secretes, and which as digitalis (digitus: a finger) we turn to account in our pharmacopoeia. This evil quality gives to it the name of dead-man 's-thimbles in Ireland, and its patches are held to resemble those on the skins of venomed snakes. In Wales, the plant is known as the fairy glove, but it is Virgin's glove or ** gloves of our Lady" in France, while in old English herbals it is witch's glove, fairy thimble, fairy's cap, folk's glove; yet in Norway Reynard claims it again, for there it is fox bell. A legend of the North is that bad fairies gave these blossoms to the fox, that he might put them on his toes to soften his tread when he prowled among the roosts. The anemone is a fairy shelter, curling up as night or storm approaches, and thus protecting its occupant, but the wee creatures sit oftener in the cowslip cups, and those human and undoubting souls that can listen at such a time with the ear of childhood hear a fine, high music, like a harmonized hum of bees. This oftenest comes from the 22 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. flowers when the sun is shining on them. In England the cowslip used to be the key flower, or key wort, or St. Peter's wort, because the umbel is supposed to resemble the bunch of keys carried by St. Peter ; indeed, the Germans still call it the key of heaven. Fairies protect the stitchwort, and it must not be gath- ered, or the offender will be *' fairy led" into swamps and thickets at night. One of the oddest of beliefs is that St. Johnswort and ragwort are a day disguise of fairy horses. If you tread them down after sunset a horse will arise from the root of each injured plant and that night will gallop about with you, leaving you at dawn either at home or far abroad, as it may happen. They have a kinder plant in China, although it bears the name of sin ; for, being eaten, it changes a man to a fairy and gives him a long lease of youth. England has a fungus known as fairy butter, and our country has fairy rings of toadstools and coarse grass that spring in the footsteps of the sprites as they dance. The fruit of the mallow is fairy cheese, toadstools are fairy tables, and the tiny cup fungi, like nests with eggs, are fairy purses. Our elm is elven, or elf tree, and fayberry is a name still extant for gooseberry. In Denmark a fairy is an elle, and elle-campane and elle-tree, or alder, are favorites with the * kittle people." Should you stand beneath an alder at midnight on midsummer eve, you may see the king of the elles, or elves, go by with all his court. The alder has understanding, too, and will weep blood if it hears talk of cutting it down. Originally the alder and the willow were two fishermen who refused to spare time from their labors to join in the worship of Pales, whereupon the goddess turned them into those two trees, and to this day they haunt the banks of streams, leaning over them as if watching for fish, and the willow letting down its lines into the water. 28 NARCOTICS AND STIMULANTS We who eat and wear and smoke the plants and drink their sap and juices find in them not only sustenance and shelter, but dreams, medicine, and death; the sharpening and dulling of our nerves ; support for the weak and refresh- ment for the fainting. We find, moreover, oblivion and in- spiration, so frail an instrument is this whereby we move and think, and so obedient to suggestions from without. There are persons so sensitive that a breath of air blowing from poison ivy will cause them to break out in an unseemly manner, though we are told that Indians make themselves immune to its outward poison by the occasional eating of its leaf. Out of the visions created by the action of drugs on the brain or nervous centres have come not merely the conse- cration of plants themselves, but the growth of religious practices and beliefs. We find in nearly all cosmogonies a recognition of the tree, and at this day among savage tribes vegetable life is exalted, as is that of humanity and the animals, in rites, observances, and faiths. The use of plants among priests and mediciae men indicates their remedial value in disease, and whatever confers health or happiness is by implication heavenly in its origin. It is an article of savage faith that certain of these plants are universal in their power, though we may doubt if serpents eat fennel to sharpen their sight, or hawks eat hawkweed for the same purpose. It is a fact, however, that cats, dogs, and other carnivorae resort to herbs as medicines and stimu- lants. The mescal {anhalonium Lewini) is a variety of cactus that grows in the desert all the way from Oklahoma to Mexico, and from it the aborigines gather the bean or button 24 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. which, in Moqui phrase, enables man to commune with God. The plant is revered in the same manner as is the rattle- snake who bears away the prayer for rain after the snake dance. Mescal produces on the optic nerve something of the same effect as rubbing the eyes. In spite of govern- mental and scientific objection, it continues to be used, and apparently causes a local inflamimation or congestion which reflects itself in a sense of bright colors in kaleidoscopic patterns and shifting clouds. To obtain these consolations, the bean is swallowed, and the colors sometimes take on fantastic shapes wherein one reads prophecy. Few, if any, races have escaped the influence of narcotics and stimulants, and, inconsistent though it seem, those who do with the least of them are not the most progressive peoples. The Chinese smoke opium, it is true, and the Indians tobacco, but civilized man has accustomed himself to opium, tobacco, wine, tea, coffee, and cocaine. The use of plants that estranged the senses from their sane functioning accounts for not a few religious practices. The Druids made their altars under the oak because that tree inspired to prophecy. Brahmins drink soma, the juice of asclepias acida, to obtain second sight, for it is " the essence of all nourishment. ' * The Delphic oracle ate laurel leaves, sacred to Apollo, to hasten the toxic effect of the volcanic gases which ascended the cleft where the sacred tripod was placed. Prophets slept on beds of laurel, also, as certain dream interpreters among the Russian peasantry sleep on beds of ** dream herb,'' or Pulsatilla pateus, for a like purpose. Among stimulants or irritants, not many of us would include the pretty yarrow, or milfoil, of our waysides, with its delicately fragrant and finely divided leaf, yet its other name of field hop points to its former use in beer, and the drink made from it is said to be more devastating than 25 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. the ordinary kind. In the Orkneys it is both a tea and a cure for melancholy, while in Scotland it is a salve. In Switzerland it sharpens vinegar, and in some other countries it is "old man's pepper'* and cures toothache. Its botani- cal name of achillea records its use by Achilles in healing the wounds of his soldiers. Tobacco was known to our Indians before white men ever heard of it, and they smoked it both for pleasure and as a ratification of contracts for centuries before the landing of Columbus. The first pipe was a tobago, or double roll of bark, placed at the nostrils and held over a bunch of the burning leaf, but the men of the north have had their stone pipes for a thousand years, no doubt, and they were shaped from the sacred rock at the command of the Great Spirit, who ordained the ceremonial of smoking in confirmation of brotherhood, the pipe passing from mouth to mouth as the loving cup passes at our tables. Smoking suggests coffee, without which it is hardly worth while. Coffee grew in Arabia for ages before it was the good fortune of the dervish Hadji Omar to discover it. This happened in 1285. He had been driven into exile from Mocha because of his attempts to establish the strange cus- tom of honesty among its governors, and in the extremity of his hunger he ravened upon coffee berries that were growing wild in the environs. They were pretty bad, so in the hope of softening their acerbity he tried the experi- ment of roasting them. This made them more tolerable, and they yielded a pleasant savor and an entrancing smell, but they were viciously hard. Hadji then boiled them in water, and they became more nearly edible, but the water was the best part of them. By eating and drinking of the coffee, he did not satisfy his appetite, yet he so effectually suppressed it that it was the next thing to having dined. Here, then, was a discovery! He hurried back to inform 26 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. the public of it, trusting to be forgiven for his reforms. And he was not only forgiven, but was promoted to be a saint. It took centuries to introduce the berry to a wider circle of admirers, for even in the middle of the sixteenth century it was disapproved by the priesthood of Constanti- nople, who said that the habit of idling over the coffee- cups was taking worshippers from the mosques, and that the coals on which the beans were roasted were the coals of hell. An enemy of coffee declares that its introduction to the world of men was made when an Arab herder in the fifth century discovered that his goats, having ignorantly eaten it, were cutting capers like those possessed of devils. He tried the berries himself, found they were a slow poison, introduced them delightedly to his *' system," and so died, beloved and indorsed by millions. Tea has left its record on American history, for who knows if the Revolution would have revolved without the Boston tea party? In the want of the herb the Yankee housewife solaced herself with substitutes derived from cat- nip, nettles, tansy, and other doubtful plants, and although she sternly refused to accept an article unjustly taxed, there is no doubt that she sighed for the better fortunes of her English sisters and brothers. In an old commendation, tea * ' easeth the brain of heavy damps ; prevents the dropsie ; consumes rawnesse ; vanquishes superfluous sleep ; purifieth humors and hot liver; strengthens the use of due benevo- lence. ' ' In Okakura Kakuzo's ''Book of Tea'* we discover that the brewings of the herb are more than a stomachic com- fort: they have spiritual importance, and there is even a **teaism," ''founded on adoration of the beautiful among the sordid facts of every-day existence." The leaves were formerly powdered before being placed in the water, and some heavy-handed cooks crushed them in a mortar, worked 27 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. them into cakes, boiled them with spices, ginger, salt, orange peel, milk, rice, and onions! In the Cha-king, or holy- scripture of tea, a book of three volumes, we learn that the best leaves must be wrinkled like a Tartar's boots, curled like a bull's dewlap, must unfold like mist from a valley, shine like a lake in the breeze, and in dampness and softness suggest the earth refreshed by rain. Another poet describes the effect of his various drafts: the first cup moistens his throat; the second relieves his loneliness; the third revives memories of books and stimulates him to write them; the fourth causes a sweat in which all that is wrong in life passes out at the pores ; the fifth completes the purification ; the sixth summons him to the gods, and the seventh wafts him into their presence. The Japanese tea-room is kept bare and simple, that the fancy, liberated by the draft, may not be arrested from its flights by the intrusion of unim- portant objects. 28 PLANTS OF ILL RENOWN There was once in the middle of Java a certain tree that dripped and breathed poison, destroying animal and vegetable life for miles around. Even the birds fell dead when flying past. It stood alone in a valley which it filled with vapors, and all about it the earth was covered with the skeletons of men and animals that had strayed into the neighborhood. This famous upas tree (upas is Malay for poison) was the only one in existence, but the name is still applied to a tree of the same order as the breadfruit and mulberry. Its juices, mixed with pepper and ginger, are smeared upon arrows to make them irritating, and its bark yields a fibre used in native cloth which will cause itching unless it is soundly washed before wearing. On so slight a basis was the legend of the upas reared. Allied to the dreadful tree of Java is the rattlesnake bush of Mexico, with its venomous thorns. From this arose a story of a tree of serpents that wound its arms about men and animals that tried to pass, and stung and strangled them to death. Nearly as vexatious is the kerzra flower, of Persia, for if you so much as breathe the air that has passed over it you must die. Nor is the manchineel an object of fond regard, inasmuch as death comes to any that shall rest beneath its branches and suffer themselves to sink into the sleep that its exhalations will induce. Trees usually bring luck to their owners, but the walnut is an exception. It is thought to kill vegetation near it, and to bear especial enmity to the oak. Paschal II hewed down a walnut in Rome because he discovered that the evil soul of Nero was living in its branches, and after the de- struction of the tree the Church of the People was built 29 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. upon its site as a security against the demon. Thus it appears that the wakiut is hospitable to wicked spirits. By some similar token, the yew was long thought to be dangerous to life and health, although thousands of men made bows from its wood and carried them without hurt except to other people. While the powers of good control various of the plants, others are under spell of evil creatures who work their will by poisons, but who also show themselves to those they would afflict. Belladonna is so beloved of the Devil that he goes about trimming and tending it in his not abundant leisure. He can be diverted from its care on only one night in the year, and that is Walpurgis, when he is pre- paring for the witches' sabbat. If on that night a farmer looses a black hen the Devil will chase it, and the watchful farmer, suddenly darting on the plant, may pluck and put the weed to its rightful use ; for by rubbing his horse with it the animal gains strength, provided the herb is gained in the way here indicated. The apples of Sodom are held to be related to this plant, and the name belladonna, or beautiful lady, records an old superstition that at certain times it takes the form of an enchantress of exceeding love- liness, whom it is dangerous to look upon. We may dismiss as mythical the travelled tale of a Venus fly-trap which was magnified into quite another mat- ter before Captain Arkright was through with it, for such tales grow larger the farther they go from their beginning. It was in 1581 that the valiant explorer learned of an atoll in the South Pacific that one might not visit, save on peril of his life, for this coral ring inclosed a group of islets on one of which the Death Flower grew; hence it was named El Banoor, or Island of Death. This flower was so large that a man might enter it — a cave of color and perfume — but if he did so it was the last of him, for, lulled by its SO MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. strange fragrance, he reclined on its lower petals and fell into the sleep from which there is no waking. Then, as if to guard his slumber, the flower slowly folded its petals about him. The fragrance increased and burning acid was distilled from its calyx, but of all hurt the victim was unconscious, and so passing into death through splendid dreams, he gave his body to the plant for food. Dreads such as are recorded in this narrative extended to the humblest forms of vegetation, and our uncanny fungi have not escaped the ascription of many evils. True, their reputation for poisoning is in part deserved, though there are more beneficent mushrooms than mischievous, and, as Hamilton Gibson proved, hundreds of tons of wholesome food go to daily waste in our fields for lack of knowledge among the people to recognize the edible varieties or to know when to gather and how to cook them. The common puff- ball is ripe for the kitchen while it is in its white state, for instance, but is past eating when it has turned leathery and throws out its gust of *' smoke" or spores when trodden. A giant puff-ball is reported which held food for at least one family, inasmuch as it weighed forty-seven pounds and was three feet thick ! It is the threads of old puff-balls that supplied our grandfathers with tinder in the days when fire was started with flint and steel, and their dust was also used to stop blood flow, as some use cobwebs in emergencies to-day. Punk, in use on our Fourth of July, is also made from fungus. In parts of England the puff-ball is Puck's stool and Puck's fists, and some etymologists identify Puck with pogge, or toad. Why are toadstools so named? Surely none ever saw a toad seated on one of them. The stools are apt to be kicked to pieces by the peasantry, especially if they are found growing in pixie rings, for then they surely shelter elves; and if an elf peers at you then quinine should be SI MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. taken, for you are ''due to come down with fever." If it is a cow that is looked at by the elf, she is thenceforth bewitched, and will give sour milk, or discover a disposition to dance and turn somersaults. These pixie rings are merely growths spreading centrif ugally and sometimes over- lapping. As grass inside the rings is shadowed by the fungi and loses a measure of its sustenance to them, the country folk ascribe the bare appearance of the sod to the dancing of the elves. The rings disappear in three or four years, and then it is said that the fairies have taken offense and gone elsewhere. The spores dropping from the parent plant exhaust the soil as they take root, and for that reason the growth is outward, not inward, the circles constantly widening toward new feeding grounds. The low form of life known as lichen spreads in a similar manner. It is the purple streaks on its stem rather than the scathe in its juice that gives a bad name to water hemlock — the plant that put Socrates to death — for these streaks are copies of the brand put on Cain's brow when he had com- mitted murder. The plant bears the names of spotted cow- bane, musquash root and beaver poison, in America, and is related to carrot, parsnip, parsley, fennel, caraway, celery, coriander, and sweet cicely, the latter also unwhole- some. Jack-in-the-pulpit, or Indian turnip, known in England as lords-and-ladies, is another plant from which it was wise to keep a distance. Its name, ariscema triphyllum, signifies bloody arum, because its spathe is purple where Christ's blood fell upon it at the crucifixion. In our own country the laurel or kalmia was regarded with such dislike that people were warned against eating the flesh of birds that had fed on its berries. Even worse than laurel is the savin, called likewise magician's cypress and devil's tree, because it was used by wizards in some of their 32 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. most sinful ceremonies. Our common milkwort, polygala vulgaris, is beneficent, and increases the milk of mothers who carry it in procession or wear it as a garland in Roga- tion week; but the Javanese variety, polygala venanta, is a dreadful herb, inasmuch as the native who touches it must sneeze himself to death. Another plant of fell property is the garget or poke, although its young shoots are boiled and eaten like asparagus, and its tincture is administered for rheumatism by granny doctors. The catalogue of roadside mischiefs would be incomplete without the henbane — bane of hens — or hog's bean, whose scientific mask is hyoscyamus, and which is held to be of so evil an aspect, with its woolly leaves and unsanctified- looking flowers, that one hardly needs to be warned from it. Witches use this in their midnight stews, and the dead in hades are crowned with it as they wander hopelessly be- side the Styx. S3 FLOWERS, TREES, FRUITS AND PLANTS ACACIA Our locust tree, the blossoms of which exhale ravishing odors in the spring, is the American variety of acacia, the ''incorruptible wood'* of which was made the ark of the covenant and the altar of the tabernacle. It also pro- vided thorns for the crown of Christ. The Buddhist, to whom it is sacred, burns its wood on his altars ; and a species of it, known as the sami, is used by Hindus in the cere- monial begetting of fire for sacrifices. A folk-tale of the nineteenth Egyptian dynasty is almost identical with a legend of our Arapaho Indians, except that in the American story a blue feather replaces the acacia. The Egyptian narrative is as follows : Bata, a predecessor of Joseph, is loved by the wife of his elder brother, but he will none of her, so, enraged, she tells her husband, Anpu, that Bata has attempted violence toward her. Bata proves his innocence, but he can no longer find comfort in his old home, so he mutilates him- self and departs, leaving Anpu to mourn his loss and kill the deceitful woman. Reaching the valley of the acacia, Bata removes his soul and places it in the topmost flower of that plant for safe- keeping. The gods pity the young exile, and the Sun orders that a mate be made for him, ''more beautiful in her limbs than any other woman in the land. ' ' Bata is comforted in her society, but tells her that while he is hunting she must keep to the house. She does not obey, but in his absence walks by the shore. The Sea reaches after her, roaring to the acacia to detain her; but the most the tree can do is to lower a branch and tear out a lock of her hair, which it MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS* ETC. drops into the sea. This floats to the Egyptian shore, where they are washing Pharaoh's linen. The perfume of acacia blossoms, clinging to the hair, so sweetens the Nile waters that it is imparted to the garments, and the King asks its origin. A priest tells him that the fragrance comes from the hair of a daughter of the gods. In his eagerness to know her, Pharaoh sends to all parts of the world. Bata slays all but one of the invaders of the acacia valley, but this one brings a larger force and abducts the woman. She is will- ing, and asks Pharaoh to destroy the tree on which her husband's soul is concealed. The king sends another troop into Bata 's land, and the tree is cut down. Bata falls dead. Far away, Anpu, sitting at his meat, calls for a pot of beer. It foams and boils. He calls for wine, but that is foul. By these signs he knows that his brother is dead, and he sets off for the acacia valley, to recover his soul, if possible. The body is there, but the tree that guarded the soul is gone. After a three-years' search, he discovers the seed-pod of an acacia, and in the hope that it may contain his brother's spirit, he puts it into a cup of water. The thirsty soul drinks until no drop is left. Then Anpu fills the cup again and puts it to the lips of his dead brother, whose limbs had shaken as the seed-pod absorbed the water. The corpse drinks eagerly, then stands erect again — a man. He goes to Pharaoh, sends away his wife, and on the king's death reigns for thirty years, being succeeded by Anpu. ACANTHUS The acanthus has been immortalized in architecture by the Corinthian column, the capital of which is a free copy of its leaves. Its use was suggested in this manner: A little girl of Corinth died and was buried in a spot where the acanthus grew. Her old nurse, carrying to the d5 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. tomb a basket of the dead child 's toys and ornaments, placed it upon one of these plants. When the young leaves came up they were bent by the burden into a curve and prettily framed the basket; and the sculptor Callimachus, chancing by, was so charmed by the grace of their lines that he perpetuated them in stone. ACHYRANTHES This plant is indigenous to India, and in one of the religious ceremonies of the Hindus a flour of its seed is offered at daybreak to the god Indra. Many demons had this hero-deity slain, but the monster Namuchi finally over- powered him, and Indra was glad to make peace with him by promising that he would never again slay any creature with either a liquid or a solid, by day or by night. This ap- peared to Namuchi to embrace all possible contingencies, but Indra plucked a plant, which is neither solid nor liquid — at least, in his reasoning — and, falling upon Namuchi in the dawn, when it is neither day nor night, he slew that astonished creature. As soon as the demon was dead, the achyranthes sprang from his skull, and with this plant Indra flogged all the other demons out of existence. ACONITE We call this plant '* monkshood" in America, because of its upper petal. Its cap-like form gives it the name of ' ' troll 's hat ' ' in Denmark, and ' ' iron hat ' ' and ' ' storm hat ' * in Germany, where it is also "the devlFs herb," for it is associated with the spells whereby witches invoke the devil. In Norway it is "Odin's helmet," there recalling the tarn- helm, or cap of darkness, which made its wearer invisible. The plant's power for mischief has been recognized since 36 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. the earliest recorded times, and even appears in the age of myth, as shall forthwith be disclosed : When Theseus returned from his wanderings he did not at once reveal himself to his father, ^geus, but resolved to learn first how he might be affected toward him. ' ' I have delivered the land from many monsters," he told the old king, ''and I ask for payment." Then entered Medea, the beautiful witch, and, standing close to Theseus, so that the subtle perfume of her garments soothed and enticed him, she poured a flashing liquid into a golden goblet. ** Welcome to the hero, the destroyer of evil," she said. *' Drink from this cup the wine which gives rest and life and closes every wound. It is the cup that gods might drink. ' ' Taking the vessel into his hand, Theseus held it toward her, seeming about to drink to her eyes. Then he stood transfixed, for while Medea 's face was lovely, and the cloud of hair about it shone like the sunset, the eyes into which he had looked were glittering and reminded him of a snake's. ''The wine is nectar from Olympus, and its odor enraptures the sense, but she who brings it is fair beyond all other mortals," he said. "It will give a finer flavor to the cup if she will taste it first, that the perfume of her lips may linger in the wine." Medea faltered and grew white. "I am unweU," she answered. "Drink, or, by the gods, you die at my hands!" cried Theseus, for he read the meaning of her hesitancy. The king and court looked on speechless with astonishment and fear. With a swift movement, Medea dashed the goblet to the floor, and ere the prince could strike had fled in her dragon chariot, never to be seen again. As the spilt liquor spattered over the floor, it caused the marble to crack and dissolve to powder, seething as it gathered into pools. 37 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. Then the prince disclosed himself, and the palace was filled with rejoicing. While from its action on the marble we should assume Medea's poison to have been a violent acid, tradition says that it contained aconite. It was with the juice of this plant that ancient armies anointed their spears and arrows, that a scratch might cause death, and it is said to be still used by some savage tribes. Chiron, the centaur, discov- ered the mischief in it by accidentally dropping an arrow thus poisoned on his hoof, dying in the discovery. By reason of its maleficence it was dedicated to Hecate, queen of hell, in whose garden it was sown by Cerberus, the three-headed monster who guards the place of shadows. ALLIGATOR TAIL In the old days alligators believed that life offered noth- ing more profitable than napping, eating, and lying in a shady swamp. But finally men penetrated the jungle, to the astonishment of the saurians, and as these men 's rude speech resembled the universal tongue of the jungle, some of the alligators understood. The men said such reptiles occupied the water on the other side of the mountains, and one stranger declared, ''Our people over there believe alli- gators to be gods, so they feed them and care for them." Here was a prospect to rouse wild hopes among the lis- teners. After the strangers had departed, several young alligators scrambled up the banks and awoke a veteran of their family. The veteran was unmoved. ''Those strange animals that have been talking here are called men," he told them. "Once they were monkeys, and lived in trees. They had to come down and walk on the earth because they cut off their tails, and ever since they have been so vain, because they are different from the rest, that there is no be- 38 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. lieving anything they say. They do not worship alligators, you may be sure. On the contrary, they worship only themselves. ' ' The young alligators ascribed the veteran's hlase air to an indisposition to move. So hundreds of them set off for the promised land. At night they were tired with their unusual exertions, and, crawling into the marshes of the river known as the Winding Snake, they fell asleep. As they lay there the water gods discovered them. Now, these gods, having bidden the saurians keep to the hot lands, resented this curiosity and intrusion on the secret places. So they seized every alligator and thrust his head into the earth, leaving his tail gyrating in the air. As alligators they ceased to be, but as plants they continue to this day, and explorers in the wilderness have, among other obstacles, to buffet their way through plantations of the tree known as the rabo de lagarto, or alligator's tail. These trees stand as a warning to all the alligator tribes never to leave the lowlands. ALMOND The Princess Phyllis, and the youth, Demophoon, whose ships had been wrecked on the Thracian coast, fell in love with each other, and it was agreed that they should wed. But first Demophoon, his ships being repaired at the cost of his host, the Thracian king, set sail, with the promise that he would return as soon as he could put his affairs in order. Alas for the frailty of his sex, he was met at home by a maid so much fairer, in his eyes, that he forgot his promise. Phyllis watched at the shore, her heart leaping whenever a sail appeared on the horizon. In time she grew ill, and at last faded away in grief. But she was not carried to the grave, for the gods betokened their admiration for her con- stancy by turning her into an almond tree, and in that form she kept her watch, her arms still beckoning the un- 39 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. faithful one. So she stood when Demophoon returned, whether repentant or in quest of some advantage does not matter now; at all events, he learned what had happened, and, conscience-smitten, he sought the tree, fell at its feet, and embraced its trunk, watering its roots with tears, where- upon it burst into bloom for gladness. And in the Greek tongue the name of the almond became phylla. In Tuscany branches of almond are used to find hidden treasure, as the hazel is used elsewhere. Catholics assign the tree to the Virgin; Mahometans see in it the hope of heaven ; and in Hebraic lore it was an almond that budded and fruited in the Tabernacle in a day, when Aaron had held it as his rod. Now, this rod of Aaron, being preserved with reverence, reached Rome and became the staff of the Pope, whereof another story. "Wagner has familiarized the world with the Tannhauser legend, though it long had currency in other than its musical form. The hero of the tale was a min- nesinger, and while on the way to take part in a singing contest, he came to a cave in the hill-side, at the entrance of which stood a woman of surpassing loveliness. Obeying her invitation, the minstrel followed her far into the moun- tain, where the cave broadened into a splendid chamber. It was Venus, queen of love, who had summoned him. Thought of time, duty, and memory of his fellow creatures slept in his mind for years ; but there came a day when the perpetual revel palled, and he hungered for the coarser fruits of the earth. In vain he begged his captor to lead him to the outer world again. At last he fell on his knees and implored the Holy Virgin to rescue him. At the end of a long prayer, with closed eyes, he felt a cool breath touch his cheek, and, looking up, he discovered that he was on the Horselberg, back in the world, the sun shining overhead. He wept for joy. 40 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. A priest to whom he confessed declared that no other man had so offended, and that absolution could come only from the Pope. Tannhauser plodded wearily to Rome and appealed to the holy father. The recital of his experience filled Pope Urban with horror. ''Guilt like yours," he cried, ' ' can never be forgiven ! Before God Himself could pardon you, this staff that I hold would grow green and bloom!" The doomed one went his way, and in course of time found himself at the Horselberg once more. In sud- den desperation, he called aloud to Venus to take him back. The goddess did so, and three days after the mountain had closed upon them, the Pope's staff suddenly put forth almond flowers and leaves. A great horror and a great sorrow filled the holy father, for he understood that God's judgments are gentler than ours. He sent messengers in pursuit of Tannhauser, but to no purpose. He was lost to the world. Another legend concerns the novice in a monastery, who, in order that he might learn patience and obedience, was commanded to w^ater a branch of styrax daily for two years, although he had to carry the water from the Nile, two miles away. Patience was rewarded when the branch, seemingly dead, burst into flower. Indeed, these legends of blossoming staffs and branches go back to the Romans, at least, for Virgil tells of the miracle in his ^neid. Tur- pin's history of Charlemagne also relates an occurrence of this sort, but more unusual and startling, for the spears of the emperor's troops, which had been thrust into the earth when he made camp, became a forest during the night and shaded the tents. In Jewish lore the terebinth grew from a staff carried by one of the angels who visited Abra- ham. It is also said that the staff carried by Joseph, when he sought the hand of Mary, broke into leaf in token of heaven's sanction of the compact. 41 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. AMARANTH In the faith of the ancients, amaranth, *Hhe never- fading, ' ' gemmed the fields of paradise. Though the aspho- del was the flower of death, the amaranth, as the flower of immortality in the symbolry of the Greeks, was used for funerary purposes. The Swedes have a national recog- nition of the flower in their Order of the Amaranth. That variety of the plant which we call *' love-lies-bleeding, ' ' be- cause of its bloody crimson, and that in France is ''the nun's scourge," sirse to the Gallic mind it suggests the flagellations endured by penitents, is almost the only form of it familiar in our gardens. In countries that confess the Roman faith, the amaranth is one of the flowers chosen to decorate the churches on Ascension Day, thus showing the persistence of its Greek association with the life hereafter. Globe amaranth, prince's feathers, cock's comb, flower gen- tle, velvet flower, flower velure, and floramor are recent and ancient names for the plant. ANEMONE When Adonis had fallen, pierced by the fangs of the boar in whose pursuit he was more eager than in his re- sponse to the proffered love of Venus, that goddess be- dewed the earth with tears, and as too precious to evaporate back into air, the earth, with heaven's alchemy, translated them into anemones. Their English name of wind-flowers commemorates the belief that they opened at command of the first mild breezes of the spring. To the Chinese, they are flowers of death, hence there is a wide association of them with grief and suffering, and they are often regarded as dangerous — a recent notion, for the Romans gathered them as a cure for the malarial fevers that the mosquitoes carried into the city from the Campagna. 42 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. In another legend, the ''little wind rose/' as the Ger- mans name it, was a maid attached to the court of Chloris, where she was seen and loved by Zephyrus, the god who caused flowers and fruits to spring from the earth by breathing on it. Chloris fancied that the wind god was about to sue for her hand; hence, on discovering his pas- sion for Anemone, she drove that nymph from her presence in anger. Finding her broken-hearted, and hence dismal company, and having also to make his peace with Chloris, Zephyrus abandoned the poor creature, but in taking his leave changed her into the flower that bears her name. The ancients gathered the anemone to decorate the altars of Venus, since they were the tokens of her love, and also to wreathe the faces of the dead. The idea of immortality seems to have long pertained to it, and it is still known in parts of Europe as the Easter flower, or flower of the resur- rection. As "the cow bell," it garlanded the cow in the Easter festivals of the Germans. In the holy land it is *'the blood-drops-of -Christ" (a name oddly given to the wall-flower, also), for the sacred blood fell upon the anem- ones that were springing on Calvary on the evening of the crucifixion, and they became red from that hour. As the fathers employed the triple leaf of this plant to symbolize the three personalities of the godhood, it also took the name of ''herb trinity." APPLE There is much symbolic use of the apple, and it appears in folk-lore as well as in Scripture; for it is grown in all lands where the sun is not too weak or too hot. We connect it with the oldest legend in the world — though there is really nothing in Scripture to show that the fruit with which Satan tempted Eve was not a pomegranate or a pear. The apple was also related to Venus, and praised by Solomon. 43 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. It was eaten by Swiss lake-dwellers, and prized by the Greeks and Romans, who tell how Atlanta lost her race by stooping to pick up the golden apples dropped by her com- petitor, whose life was forfeit if he failed to reach the goal ahead of her. It is the apple that unhappy Tantalus strives to reach, that he may ease hell's torments, but its boughs are ever tossing upward as he has them almost in his grasp, just as the stream flows away from him when he stoops to drink. The apple of discord, and the apple of the Hesperides, are familiar figures in poetry. In the Norse legend Iduna kept a store of apples which the gods ate, thereby keeping themselves young. Loki, the fire-god, stole the fruit, and affairs went badly till the other deities had recovered it. A golden bird that seeks the golden apples of a king's garden figures in northern fairy tales. The Poles tell how an adventurous youth, by fixing a lynx's claws to his feet and hands, climbs to the summit of a glass mountain where grow golden apples, and there frees a princess from enchantment. In a German folk-tale, a girl who consents to act as godmother to a babe of the dwarfs is rewarded with an apronful of apples that turn to gold as she emerges from their underworld. The apple-tree supplanted the May-pole as a phallic symbol in England, and young people danced about it, singing their hopes for a year of plenty after sprinkling it with, cider. In various lands the fruit or seed or blossom is used in divination, and I have seen Yankee cooks toss a paring over the shoulder, when they were peeling the fruit for sauce or pies, that they might learn the initial of their future husband, the paring as it fell being expected to shape itself to those letters. In England a girl will name a number of seeds for her pros- pective sweethearts, and the seed that stays longest when moistened and placed on her forehead indicates the man who will marry her. MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. The legend of St. Dorothea has two versions, one of which (see under head of roses) represents her as return- ing from heaven with flowers for the gibing Theophilus, while in the other she sends fruit. This latter recounts that the lawyer cried tauntingly to the saint, when she was led to death for heresy, ' ' Send me some fruit from heaven. ' ' **As you wish, Theophilus, ' ' she answered; then asked the guard to halt a moment while she prayed. Suddenly a beautiful boy was discovered standing near, whom no one had seen to approach. In his hands was a basket of flowers, and, lying upon them, three great apples, streaked with emerald green and ruby red, vied in color and perfume with the blossoms. The saint said, *'Give these to Theo- philus, and tell him there are more in paradise, where I hope to meet him. ' ' A little later her head was struck off. Theophilus, smelling and tasting the fruit, was filled with wonder at the miracle, and presently embraced the faith he had despised, thereby winning martyrdom for himself, and with that heaven. In Persia, the apple is the fruit of immortality, as we learn from the tale of Anasindhu, a holy man who lived in a wood with Parvati, his wife, speaking only thrice a year, and giving all his waking hours to meditations on virtue. The reputation he gained for wisdom and good- ness made him tho admiration of his country; but he had his heavenly reward also, for Gauri gave him an apple as a token that the gods wished him to live such a life forever. He placed it at his lips, but before tasting it his wife came into his mind — his overlooked and discontented wife. She had shared the hardships of his secluded life; why not its blessings, now that they had come? But to his aston- ishment she refused the fruit. * ' Why should I wish immor- tality?" she asked. ''I could never be happy here in the forest, seeing no other faces, sharing no happiness with others, and begging from every passing pilgrim." 45 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. Anasindhu was indignant. *'If the gods wish me to live thus, is it for you to protest ?' ' he cried. And she, be- ing a woman, was silent. But after a little she asked, * * Can you not be as useful to the gods and more useful to men in town? Are you always to live in this wretched place? What harm to see our fellow creatures, to hear music, to eat better food, to see the palaces and temples and splendor of the capital? Oh, I would have servants and a golden carriage and a palanquin of perfumed wood, and you should be the king's minister, and all should hold you in awe and obey you. And you should build great temples and be admired. ' ' **I can not do these things, woman — I who beg and am poor.'' **But you can sell the fruit of immortality for a price." The holy one was shocked, yet the woman artfully showed how the money could be put, not merely to his advantage, but to the welfare of the race and the glory of the gods. *'In the first place," she said, ''you have nothing to prove that it is an apple of life, and if a spirit has merely made you a subject of pleasantry, you will be none the better for eating, and none the worse for losing it. If it is really a gift of heaven, you will never be happy on earth if you continue this joyless life, whereas you may glorify the gods if you sell it, and be happy in good works so long as you may live, even if you are not chosen the more surely for immortality for this service." Anasindhu was struck by this pleading, and the end of it was that he went to the city and sold the apple to the king. But the king also aspired to holiness. He thought how selfish it would be in him to monopolize the gifts of the gods; he reflected on the charities that the pious hermit would doubtless give with the money received for the fruit ; he thought of the gain in heaven that would come of re- 46 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. nunciation. **No," he cried; ''I am not worthy to be immortal. ' ' In the garden, where he went to meditate, he saw his queen. ''Eat," he exclaimed, ''for this is the apple of immortality. There is none in the world so worthy to live as you, none so beautiful, none of such a bird-like voice, none of such gentleness. Eat, and delight the world with your beauty forever." The queen smiled brilliantly and took the fruit with thanks, while the king, after kissing her feet, returned to the palace. But when it was dark, and he was asleep, the queen crept forth into a shaded place w^hence presently came the sound of kisses. And in the morning the captain of the guards walked proudly about the garden with the apple in his hand. Yet he was not happy. He looked at the fruit with longing, for it was a queen 's gift, but he remem- bered also a little serving-maid whom he loved more dearly than his queen. "I will make her a goddess," he mur- mured. "She shall have the apple, and her beauty and goodness shall never fade." But, lo ! on the next day a girl in humble dress fell at the king's feet and offered to him a withering apple. He started when he saw it. "Great ruler," she said, "I am only a servant, but there has come into my hands this apple which, being eaten, confers immortality. I am not worthy to touch so great a gift. I pray you eat it and become as the gods, doing great deeds and worshipped by all mankind." The king grasped the apple and demanded, "Who gave you this?" "My betrothed, sire; the captain of your guard." The captain was sent for. When he saw what his sweet- heart had done he was much afraid, but confessed at last that the queen had given the fruit to him. At this the king, in a blaze of anger, ordered him to instant execution, 47 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. and commanded that the queen be burned in the square. **And this is human grandeur!" he reflected bitterly. ** Yesterday I was happy; to-day I am the most miserable of men." Then, calling his chief priest, he commanded him to give all his riches to the poor, dressed himself in his oldest garb, and left his kingdom forever, to sleep at the roadside and beg his way through the land. As he left the palace, Anashindu came by dressed in silks, and riding in a golden litter attended by many servants. The king extended the apple to him. ^ ' Take it, ' ' he cried, * ' for there is none other in this kingdom worthy to receive it. Be immortal, and, if you can, be happy. ' ' Anashindu gladly took the fruit and put it at his lips. *' There is no doubt," said he, ''that the gods wish me to live forever." But as he opened his mouth a jolt of the litter caused him to drop the apple, and a dog that was running by gulped it at a mouthful. So immortality is denied to men, but in the East a dog is wandering from hamlet to hamlet, unable to die, and taking little happiness, A sombre tradition concerns the Micah Rood apples, or bloody hearts, that made their appearance in Franklin, Connecticut, but are now widely cultivated in other towns and States. They are sweet of flavor, fragrant, hand- somely red outside, and while most of the flesh is white, there is at the core a red spot that represents human blood. Near the end of the seventeenth century there lived in Franklin a farmer named Micah Rood, who was regarded by his neighbors as of rather a worthless sort, fond of leisure yet fond of money. In the early days of the colony trading was done mostly by roving peddlers, and while these gentry gained modestly in their dealings with people who were of the narrowest means, they sometimes carried sums that would excite the cupidity of men less moral than the New Englanders. One day a peddler, making the 48 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. rounds of the settlements, was found dead on the Rood farm, with a gash in his head and his pack empty. Rood was suspected, and either knowledge of this suspicion or the proddings of his conscience forced him into strict seclu- sion. If he had robbed the man, he had small good of his plunder, for he spent money no more freely than before. Indeed, he became neglectful of his farm, and his house fell into disrepair. That year the tree beneath which the peddler had died did a strange thing: it put forth red apples instead of yellow, each with a blood stain at its heart, as if in witness against the murderer ; and the gossips would have it that the decay of the farm and the air of misfortune that clouded the life of Micah Rood in his last days were the results of his victim's curse. Rood died without revealing his secret, if he had any, but his tree lived, and its fruit has been grafted on hundreds of other orchards. Although there is plenty to prove that St. Dunstan pulled the devil 's nose with hot tongs, and so freed himself from temptation for all time, the farmers of the south of England will have it that the saint, who was brewer as well as blacksmith, sold his soul to the fiend on condition that his beer would have a better sale than his neighbor's cider. As part of the bargain, all apple-trees were to be frosted or blighted on the 17th, 18th, and 19th of May, so these dates are watched anxiously by farmers. The 19th is not only St. Dunstan 's Day, but brings Frankum's Night, when one Frankum compacted with witches for a specially good crop of apples, and got a frost instead, as he deserved. The apples of the south of England are famous for the quality of cider that they make. The monks of Tavistock Abbey had a fine orchard, and the drink they brewed from it would turn almost any man into a monk ; yet at times it was edgy or sharp, and as mixing it with wine was expen- 4 49 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. sive, to say nothing of the effect of the blend on heads that should be filled with pious thoughts, the abbot offered a prize for some process that should make rough cider smooth. Ere many days a little old man with a limp applied for work, saying that he knew all about orchards and cider-presses, and would be satisfied not to lodge in the monastery — an empty cask would do. The appearance and conduct of the man roused the curiosity of Father John, who had the making of the cider, and, peeping into the barrel when the ancient was napping, he was not half astonished to discover that the stranger had one foot shaped like a hoof, while a yard of snaky tail was hanging out at the bung-hole. As quickly as the good friar could pipe new cider into that sleeping apartment he did so, and with a vast spluttering and curs- ing the hired man leaped out of the cask, shot into the air, and disappeared ; incidentally giving off such quantities of hot and sulphurous breath that the cider was almost boiling. Father John gave a grunt of satisfaction that he had rid the monastery of so dangerous a guest, and when the drink was cool he had the hardihood to taste it. His eyebrows went up, and his heart, too, for the cider was sweet and rich and smooth. So he took his lesson from the devil, and thereafter poured the harsher kinds on burning sulphur, making it the best of all cider. Devon men call fine cider ** matched," because it has been treated with brimstone. And that is how it happened. ARBUTUS Old Peboan sat alone in his ragged tepee. His locks were white, scant, lank as the icicles that festooned the pines above his lodge. He was wrapped to the nose in furs, yet he was cold, as well as weak with hunger, for he had found 50 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. no game for three days. ''Help, Great Spirit!" he cried, at last. ''It is I, Peboan, the winter manitou, who calls. I am old, and my feet are heavy. There is no food. Must I go into the north to find the white bear?" He breathed on the morsel of fire; it flared for a moment, and it was as if a warm wind stirred the deerskin cover of his lodge. Peboan crouched over the little flame and waited. He knew that the Great Spirit would hear him. Presently, the tepee door was lifted and there appeared a handsome girl with fawn eyes full of liquid light. Her cheeks were rose ; her hair, of deepest black, fell over her like a garment; her dress was of sweet grass and young leaves. In her arms were willow twigs with velvet buds upon them. "I am Segun," she said. "Come, Segun, and sit by my fire. I have called for help from the Great Spirit. "What can you do?" *'Tell me what you can do, yourself," answered Segun. "I am the winter manitou. I was strong when I was young. I had only to breathe and the streams would stand still, the leaves would fall and the flowers die. ' ' "I am the summer manitou," the maiden replied. "Where I breathe the flowers spring. Where I walk, the waters follow." "I shake my hair, and snow falls like the feathers of the swan. It spreads as a death-cloth over the earth." "I shake my hair, and rain comes, warm and gentle. When I call the birds answer. The grass grows thick under my feet. My tepee is not close and dark like this. The blue lodge is mine — the summer sky. Ah, Peboan, you can stay no longer. The Great Spirit has sent me to say that your time has come." The old man looked up and drew his furs yet tighter about him, but his strength went out in the effort. His head fell upon his shoulder, and he sank at length upon the 51 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. earth. The patter of melting snow began to sound. Segun waved her hands over the prostrate manitou, and he grew less and less till at last no trace of him was left. His furs turned to leaves, his tepee to a tree. Some of the leaves were hard with ice, but Segun, stooping, placed them in her hair ; then, as they changed color, she put them into the ground and breathed on them. At the touch of the warmth they freshened and flushed and gave out a delicate perfume. **The children shall find these,*' she said, *'and they will know that Segun has been here, and that Peboan has gone away. This flower is my token that I possess the earth, even though there is snow about it. When the rivers run the air shall be sweet.'* And this was the planting of the trailing arbutus. ARUM The arum vies with the skunk cabbage in its eagerness to take the air after the long confinement of winter ; hence it is out of the earth almost before the snow has cleared, though it shows less haste in blossoming, for its flowers are often delayed till June. When these flowers convert to red berries, and the hood that covered them disappears, we see why the plant gained the name of *' bloody men's fin- gers." It has many other names, however, such as snake's food (which of course it isn't), adder's meat, poison berries, Aaron, Aaron's root, Aaron's rod, cuckoo pint, cuckoo pintle, priest's pintle, parson in the pulpit, parson and clerk, devil's men and women, cows and calves, calf's foot, starchwort, karup, friar's cowl, wake robin, wake pintle, lords and ladies, passion flower, and Gethsemane. Because of the poison in its root, and its curious faculty of increasing in temperature while its sheath is expanding, the arum was long regarded as a plant to be avoided, although it is significant that the evil being who invented 52 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. starch, for the torture of his fellow creatures, extracted that malefic substance not merely from corn and potatoes, but from the arum, thereby deepening its disgrace. Two thousand years ago, it was believed that there was food in the arum, and that when bears awoke from hibernat- ing they were restored to vigor by eating it. When the spies of Israel went into the promised land, it was said that they carried Aaron's rod, as a part of their belongings, and used it in transporting the bunch of grapes they picked at Eschol, since the fruit was so heavy that two men could lift it only by attaching it to the staff. When they arrived with the grapes they mechanically struck the rod into the ground, and the arum grew upon that spot to symbolize the abundance they had proved. To this day the plant is held to indicate a season's fertility, and farmers in some parts of the world gauge the size of their crops in advance, by the size of the spadix of the arum. ASH The name **ash" was derived from the Norse aska, meaning man, for it was from a twig of this tree, crooked like an arm, that Odin fashioned the first of our race. Achilles used an ashen spear, and Cupid made his arrows of the wood. The clubs of early warfare were often of ash, for its wood is tough and lasting. Its names of ' ' husband- man's tree" and *' martial ash" indicate its importance in the industries and arts of battle. Pliny, in his unnatural natural history, assures us that evil creatures have a dread of it, and that a serpent will cross fire rather than pass over its leaves. English mothers would rig little hammocks to ash trees where their children might sleep while field work was going on, believing the wood and leaves to be a protec- tion against dangerous animals and more dangerous spirits. 53 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. A bunch of the leaves guarded any bed from harm, and that house which was surrounded by an ash grove was secure in- deed. ''May your footfall be by an ash's root," is an old English form of wishing luck. The Germans gave honey from the ash to the new-born babe, just as the Scottish Highlanders give a drop of its sap to the infant as his first food. During Yule-tide festivals the ashen log was burned, and the ashen fagot carried the sacred fire from the old year to the new. In England the burning of ashen logs and fagots at Christmas was the gladdest occasion of the year, and the first withe that broke in the fire indicated the early marriage of the girl who had chosen it. In Scandish legend, the foundation of the world was the sacred ash Ygdrasil, which sprang from the void, ran through the earth (a disk with a heavenly mountain in the centre), and threw its branches into the higher heavens. Its leaves were clouds, its fruits the stars. Its three roots delved into hell, or Hela 's realm, where, before the creation, was no light, no life. At each root gushed a spring — the spring of force, the spring of memory, the spring of life. Beside the main stem were the wells, that of Mimir in the north, from which the ocean flows; and that in the cheery south, where the waters of Urdar spread, with swimming swans that symbolize the sun and moon. Says the Voluspa : *'An ash I know called Ygdrasil, high and refreshed by purest water that comes back in dew, it stands ever green over Urdar." Midgard, or the world, was attached half way up the trunk and supported by the branches. Outside of the habitable land stretched the ocean, and on the earth's extreme rim, lying on the surface of the sea, lay the serpent, its tail in its mouth as it encircles the world, symbolizing continuity and eternity. Still outside the ocean were moun- tains forming a barrier to any adventurous foot that might wander so far. On the fruit of the tree, which Iduna, god- 54 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. dess of life, threw down to them, the gods lived and in- creased in strength, though other forms of the legend say that the fruit was not ash-berries, but apples. Three sis- ters, or norns, representing the past, present, and future, kept the tree flourishing with melted snow from the northern hills. Other Norse legends are associated with Ygdrasil: Odin 's leaving his eye to Mimir as a pledge means only that the light of his eye was darkened when the sun sank every evening in the sea — when he descended to learn wisdom of the dwarf. The life-giving mead that Mimir drank every morning was the daybreak. The fourth day of the fourth week was Ash Odinsday, or Wodensday. And every year the people were taught of Ygdrasil by the priests : how its life pervaded all lesser things, making of men who shared it the relatives of beasts and even of the trees; how be- neath the tree is hid the gialler horn that shall sound over the world when comes the twilight of the gods, or day of judgment; how on that day Ygdrasil will bow, the sea rush foaming over the land, heaven open, and the fire spirits leap from below, spreading ruin everywhere. Yet after the destruction Ygdrasil shall grow again, larger and more beautiful than before, the gods will reassemble, men shall live, and the chain of being will be carried higher than it has yet reached. There is a little tree known as the sorb, roan, rowan, or mountain ash, that saved the life of Thor when he was swept away by a flood in the Vimur. Feeling himself lifted from his feet in the current, he laid hold on the tree, and so came into vogue the saying, *Hhe sorb is Thor's salvation." For a long time after the North was nominally converted, it was still the custom for ship-builders to put at least one plank of sorb into the hull of every ship, in the belief that Thor would look after his own. 55 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. The Scottish Highlanders put a cross of rowan over their doors in order to keep their cows in milk, for no witch would enter where this cross was placed. To ' make the cattle doubly safe, hoops of rowan were fashioned that the cows might be driven through them on the way to stable. Good fairies are kind to children who carry rowan berries in their pockets, for these berries may at one time have been prayer beads, the occurrence of the ash near Druid monuments giving rise to a belief that it was sacred in more than one faith. In Iceland, the tree springs from the graves of innocent persons who have been put to death, and lights will shine among its branches; yet it is a mischievous thing, for whereas Thor's plank will save a Norwegian ship, it will sink one made in Iceland ; it will destroy a house, moreover, and if buried on the hearth will estrange the friends who sit around it. The variety of ash called the service tree, which is related to the shad bush of this country, has edible berries, and yields an intoxicating beverage. As the spirit of this tree watches cattle, a Finnish shepherd wiU sometimes plant a stick of it in his pasture, when offering prayers for the protection of his stock. AVOCADO PEAR The avocado, or alligator pear, a soft and rather salve- like fruit, used pleasantly in salad, was a favorite food of Seriokai when he inhabited the wilds of Guiana, and he often rambled about the forests of the Orinoco gathering store of it. During one of these excursions the tapir saw the woman, fell in love with her, and at last won her heart. When the unsuspecting Seriokai went to gather fruit, as usual, his wife followed close with a stone ax, for cutting 56 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. fuel. As the man was descending an avocado tree she struck at him so vehemently that his right leg fell from his body, and he lay helpless. Gathering up the fruit, the woman hurried to the tapir's hiding-place, and the wicked couple went away together. Seriokai was found by a neighbor, who stanched his wound and took him home, where he was nursed back to health. So soon as he could, he mended his leg with a wooden stump ; then, armed with bow and arrows, he started after the runaways. Although their path had long been oblit- erated, the Indian traced them through the wilderness by the avocado trees that had sprung from the seed scattered by the faithless wife. It was a long and weary following. He climbed moun- tains and forded rivers, but always there were avocado trees stretching away and away, and leading him nearer to his revenge. The trees grew smaller, showing that they were young. They shrank to saplings. They became mere sprouts. At last there were no trees, but only seeds, and then footprints. And so, at last, he overtook them. The outraged husband sent an arrow through the body of the tapir just as the beast bounded off from the edge of the world, and, seeing her companion so transfixed, the woman leaped also. Hot in his thirst for vengeance, Serio- kai followed, and he still hunts the unrepentant ones through space. He is Orion, the woman is the Pleiades, and the tapir is the Hyades, with bloody eye. BALM Garden balm, or melissa, cured hypos and heart troubles. Paracelsus saw in it the elixir of life. Taken in wine, it cured the poison of snakes and of rabid animals. Of faith in its medicinal virtue we have a tale from Staffordshire: 67 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. It was the Wandering Jew who was crossing the moors on a Whitsun night, suffering from thirst. He knocked at a cotter's door and craved a cup of beer. This the cotter gave to him, and the Jew, refreshed, commented on the pallor and weakness of the man. ' ' You are ill ? " he asked. *'Yes, past help. It is a consumption will end me pres- ently." *' Friend, do as I bid you, and by God's help you shall be whole. In the morning put three balm leaves in a pot of thy beer and drink as often as you will. On every fourth day put fresh leaves into the cup, and in twelve days you will be whole." The sick man pressed the stranger to stay and break bread with him, but the Jew's doom of unease was upon him, and he rushed away into the night. The peasant culled the balm, and in twelve days was sound in health again; wherefore the memory of the man who has been wandering about the earth since the crucifixion is not wholly evil. BALM OF GILEAD It is said that not an ounce of true balm of Gilead leaves the Turkish empire, although it was long an article of com- merce. Joseph's brothers were trading in it when an excess of the business spirit prompted them to sell him into slavery. The tree amyris yields it in three forms : xylobal- samum, which is obtained by steeping the new twigs ; carpo- balsamum, expressed from the fruit; and opobalsamum which is extracted from the kernel. The best, however, is the balm, or sap, obtained from incisions in the bark. It was believed that, so powerful was this substance, if one would coat his finger with it he could pass it through fire or even set fire to it without suffering. Hence we continue to use the phrase, ** There is balm in Gilead," when we 58 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. would signify that there is healing and comfort for the ill and afflicted. In the East the balm sweetened the bath, for it was deemed that when the pores of the skin were open, they would absorb the perfume and return it to the air. It was also a safeguard against plague. BASIL Basil, or sweet basil (ocymum), bears the name of king (from the Greek, hasileus), for reasons unknown, unless it be that it was once a king over pain. It was a subject of almost fantastic differences of opinion between medicine men in the old days, some declaring that it was a poison, and others a cure. Some hold that the name basil is short- ened from basilisk, a fabulous creature that could kill with a look. In India, where the basil is native, it is a holy herb, dedi- cated to Vishnu, whose wife, Lakshmi, it is in disguise. To break a sprig of the plant fills him with pain, and he com- monly denies the prayers of such as trespass against it ; yet it is permitted to wear the seeds as a rosary and to remove a leaf, for every good Hindu goes to his rest with a basil leaf on his breast, which he has only to show at the gate of heaven to be admitted. In Persia and Malaysia basil is planted on graves while in Egypt women scatter the flowers on the resting places of their dead. These faiths and ob- servances are out of keeping with the Greek idea that it represented hate and misfortune, and they painted poverty, in apotheosis, as a ragged woman with a basil at her side. In Roumania, the maid who has set her cap for a young man will surely win his affection if she can get him to accept a sprig of basil from her hand. In Moldavia, too, if he so accept it, his wanderings cease from that hour, and he is hopelessly hers. In Crete, where it is cultivated as a 59 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. house plant, it symbolizes "love washed with tears/' but in parts of Italy it is a love-token, and goes by the name of little-love and kiss-me-Nicholas, a name that of course invites the swain when he discovers it in the hand or in the hair of his mistress. Voigtlanders hold it to be a test for purity, as it withers at the touch of the unchaste. Isabella, whose story has been told by Boccaccio, Keats, and Hunt, in tale, poem, and picture, was a maid of Mes- sina who, left to her own resources by her brothers — they being rich and absorbed in business — found solace in the company of Lorenzo, the comely manager of their enter- prises. The brothers noted the meetings, but, wishing to avoid a scandal, they pretended to have seen nothing. Finally they bade Lorenzo to a festival outside of the city, and there slew him. They told their sister that Lorenzo had been sent on a long journey, but when days, weeks, even months, had passed, she could no longer restrain her uneasiness, and asked when he would return. **What do you mean?" demanded one of the brothers. *'What have you in common with such as Lorenzo ? Ask for him farther, and you shall be answered as you deserve.'* Isabella kept her chamber for that day, a victim to fears and doubts ; but in her solitude she called on her lover, mak- ing piteous moan that he would return. And he did so; for when she had fallen asleep, Lorenzo's ghost appeared, pale, blood-drabbled, with garments rent and mouldy, and addressed her: ''Isabella, I can never return to you, for on the day we saw each other last your brothers slew me." After telling where she might find his body, the speaker melted into air, and in fright she awoke. Unable to shake off the impression of the scene, she fled to the scene of the tragedy, and there, in a space of ground recently disturbed, she came upon Lorenzo, lying as in sleep, for there was a preserving virtue in the soil. She was first for moving the From a Copley Print, Copyright, 1898, by Curtis & Cameron ISABELLA AND THE POT OF BASIL BY JOHN W. ALEXANDER MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. corpse to holy ground, but this would invite discovery, so with a knife she removed the head, and, borrowing * * a great and goodly pot, ' ' laid it therein, folded in a fair linen cloth, and covered it with earth. Some basil of Salerno she then planted, and it was her comfort to guard the growing plant sprung from her lover's flesh, and water it with essences and orange water, but oftener with tears. Tended so with love and care, the plant grew strong and filled the room with sweetness. Her home-staying and the pallor of weep- ing led the brothers to wonder, and, thinking to cure her of a mental malady, they took away the flower. She cried unceasingly for its return, and the men, still marvelling, spilt it from its tub to find if she had hidden anything beneath its root; and in truth she had, for there they found the mouldering head which, by its fair and curling hair, they recognized as Lorenzo 's. Realizing that the mur- der had been discovered, they buried the relic anew, and fled to Naples. Isabella died of heart-emptiness, still la- menting her pot of basil. BEAN By what mad inversion of reasoning, defiance of obser- vation, or perversion of use came the bean into its ancient disrepute? If one reads the records truly, it begat insan- ity; it caused nightmare; to dream of it meant trouble; even ghosts fled shuddering from the smell of beans. The goddess Ceres, in doing good to men, set apart the bean as unworthy to be included in her gifts. The oracles would not eat it lest their vision be clouded. Hippocrates was that kind of physician who taught avoidance of it, lest it injure sight. Cicero would none of it, because it corrupted the blood and inflamed the passions. The Roman priests would not even name it, as a thing unholy. 61 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. The only tradition concerning the bean relates it to the philosopher Pythagoras, who spread among the Egyptians the belief that on leaving their bodies certain souls became beans. Believing, then, that the bean was half -human, he refused to eat it. Being pursued by enemies who required his life, because he was reputed to be a magician, he came to a bean-field, and, recognizing in the vines only fellow souls that he could not trample, he stood still and permitted himself to be killed. BEECH In Tusculum the hill of Corne was covered with beeches, curiously round like evergreens in a topiarian's garden, and dedicated to Diana, to worship whom the people came from miles around; and one of these trees was a favorite of the orator Passenius Crispus, who read and meditated in its shade, embraced it familiarly, and often testified to his regard by pouring wine on its roots. It was of beech that Jason built the Argo, too — all but its speaking prow — and Bacchus quaffed his wine from beechen bowls, possibly cut from the purple beech, which shows wine stains in its leaves. Our Indians occasionally buried their dead in trees and under them, that no wild animals might reach the bones, and it was to save the body of chief Polan that it was hidden under a beech after the battle of Sebago Lake in 1756. His brothers pried the tree out of the earth till a hollow was left below the roots in which they placed the dead in panoply of war, his silver cross on his breast, and bow and arrows in his hand ; then the sapling was straight- ened, and it grew to a fine height, feeding on the corpse and marking the resting place of the brave with a noble monument. One of the marriage ceremonies in India is an exchange 62 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. between bride and groom of a betel for an areca nut. The betel is esteemed for no less than thirty virtues, which pos- sibly become implanted in those who chew its leaves indus- triously. Indeed, there should be compensations for this employment, and one of them is that it dulls appetite. It is said that among the wretchedly poor of India and other eastern lands the betel is chewed less to sweeten the breath than to allay the bite of hunger. In the belief of the Hindus the plant was brought from heaven by Arjoon, who stole it from a tree he found there. In memory of this performance, the Hindu who desires to plant a betel steals the shoot. BIRCH The birch, praised as lodge and canoe, used as plate, pail, basket, and cloak, was also the paper for the books of Numa Pompilius, written seven hundred years before Christ, and the sybilline leaves bought by Tarquin were of its bark. And it must have been highly useful in the past, for it was variously a safeguard against lightning, wounds, barren- ness, gout, the evil eye, and caterpillars. The fasces of the Roman lictors — ^bundles of rods with battle axes in the center — were of birch wood, and its expression of authority lingers with us, though the schoolboy, smarting from it, found surcease from sorrow in nibbling at the black birches spicy bark. It is a graceful tree, the birch, though its dwarf variety has never regained the stature it enjoyed before Christ was beaten by rods of it, for it was stunted, then, with shame. The Russian still believes the tree a symbol of health, because its *'wine," or sap, is a **cure" for consumption, its oil a lubricant, its bark a torch, and it is a cleanser, for in the sweat baths the defendant is flogged into a perspira- tion with birch. In the top of a birch the Virgin disclosed 63 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. herself to the faithful of Buian — a disclosure that folk- lore associates with that of the Wild Woman of the Wood, who shows herself to a German shepherdess, asking her to stop her spinning, and dance. The shepherdess, dazzled by the shining white of the stranger's raiment, and admir- ing the beauty which is heightened by a crown of wild flow- ers, complies, and the twain dance together gleefully for three days, the Wild Woman stepping so lightly that she does not bend the grass. Then she fills the girl's pockets with birch leaves that turn to gold as soon as she has reached home. In Russia, however, the genius of the forest is masculine, and is invoked by cutting down young birches, placing them with points inward, in a circle, then standing in the inclosure and calling him. When he appears he is conducted respectfully to a seat on a stump, facing the east ; his hand is kissed, and he is implored to grant various favors, which he does willingly enough if the petitioner will give his soul in return. BLACKBERRY Blackberries are luxuriant in Cornwall, where John Wesley, preaching to the poor people of that county, had to subsist largely on the fruit he picked along the roadsides. **We ought to be thankful that there are plenty of black- berries," he remarked to a brother in the church, *'for this is the best county I ever saw for getting a stomach, and the worst I ever saw for getting food." It is in that quarter one hears the story of the Princess Olwen, fair daughter of a dark, sour man, and twin of a dark and bitter woman who in nature was her father over again. Between the two girls there was no quarrel till the king's son stopped at their door to beg a cup of milk : for it was Olwen, the fair, who gave it, while it was dark and jealous 64 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. Gertha who had hoped to ensnare him. In order to leave the field to Gertha, the father sent Olwen away to be eared for by a witch. Of course, the prince went back in a day or so for another cup of milk, and was so visibly sad when Gertha poured it for him that she hated her good sister more than ever. The prince soon learned where Olwen had been sent, and went to see her, but was told that she had died and that a blackberry, blooming out of season across the way, marked her grave. The witch had turned the girl into a bush, but released her back to her human form when the prince had gone, not realizing that a wizard's wit is as good as a witch's, and that the prince had an adviser at his court who was skilled in white magic. This man of science put the prince into the form of a chough, that he might fly to the witch's hut and see what would be happening; and the young man was delighted to meet his adored Olwen, released from her bush, and willing, when he was a man again, to go with him to the ends of the earth. They were making desperate love when they were discov- ered by the witch, who ended the meeting by changing the girl to a vine, while the prince, as a bird, flew to his palace. **Put the form of a bramble on Olwen forever," shouted the wicked old parent, when he learned how the prince had outwitted him, ''and make her fruit green and black by turns, and sour, and the stems thorny." But the court wizard, as he disguised his lord for another flight, cautioned him, *'To your love, and kiss the bloom, and when the berry is sweetest, bring it." And when the berry was black and shining and full of honey the prince carried it to the wizard, who undid the spell of the witch and restored Olwen to her own fair form. Perhaps because of this brief association with virtue the devil hates blackberries, and, having nothing better to do when St. Michael had defeated him, he specially cursed 5 65 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. the plant, so that it never bears fruit till St. Michael's day has passed. A better reason for the devil's hatred is that it furnished the crown of thorns that pressed the brow of Christ, and it was also the burning bush in which the Lord appeared to Moses. On St. Simon's day, October 28, the fiend stamps around the blackberry patches, and not a berry appears after. As if his other feats of villainy were not enough, the devil throws his cloak over the bushes and withers them whenever and wherever he can, though in Ireland it is not the arch-rascal, but Phooka, one of his imps, that does the mischief. If you have loose teeth, snake bites, rheumatism, pop eyes **that hang out," and a few other ailments, eat the leaves as a salad, and you may feel better; and if you burn or scald yourself apply the leaves, wet with spring water, saying, ** There came three angels out of the East. One brought fire and two brought frost. Out fire and in frost. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen." BLOOD TREE The tree with whose juice the Aztecs dyed their cotton of a fine dark red, and which their descendants tap to- day, has its blood legend : In Amatlan lived a prince whose delight it was to deck himself in gold and precious stones. He had a corps of bandits in his employ, and whenever a merchant went from one town to another, his spies in- formed him, and, doffing the raiment of a prince, he rode with his company to a defile in the hills or the depth of the woods and there awaited his victim, who went on with empty saddle-bags and an aching heart. "When the prince had shared with his troopers, reserving the lion's share for himself, he dismissed his band, all but a single slave, with whose help he buried his treasure. MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. As the slave bent to place the plunder in the pit, the prince slew him, tumbling the corpse into the hollow and covering it, with his own hands, for the ghost of a person buried with treasure would guard it forever. For years the prince pursued his evil course, but the Teckoning came. After a successful foray he withdrew to bury the loot, after his fashion, but this time the slave who was to dig the pit turned suddenly upon his master and with a blow of a spade clove his skull. He flung the body into the cavity, covered it, and carried away the treasure. And presently blood trees grew above every pit where dis- honest money had been hidden, but the sap of the tree that sprang from the grave of the robber prince was the deepest red of all. BOX Box, trimmed in grandfather's garden to hedges and borders, and in older pleasances tortured into shapes of animals, decanters, and rolling-pins, has become so rare in this country that stout plants which have taken a hundred years to grow are valued at a hundred dollars or more. As it resembles myrtle or bay, the box was regarded with appre- hension by the ancients, for they feared that if it were used by mistake for that other tree in the rites of Venus, that goddess would revenge herself by destroying their viril- ity. Boxwood was a precious stuff, to be carved and inlaid with ivory for jewel caskets. Its branches were convenient for the Jews, also, when they would celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles ; and to this practice of symbolizing or conven- tionalizing the lodges in the wilderness with a green bough may be due that of masking English fireplaces at "Whitsun- tide with foliage. The Turks plant the tree in cemeteries, and in rural England it was till lately the custom to cast sprigs of it into the grave at burials. 67 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. BRIONY In mediaBval Atri, Italy, stood an old tower with briony striving for a hold on its wall. And this vine tells a story that has lived through several centuries. We have Longfellow's version in his "Bell of Atri." It was the king's order, proclaimed through the region by heralds, that if any citizen suffered wrong he was to ring the bell in the tower and demand justice, and it would be given to him. It was not often that the bell rang, for the people were disposed to honesty and peace; hence the bell-rope frayed with age, and some one tore off a branch of the briony and braided it upon the end, leaving it fresh and green and covered with leaves. There lived in Atri a knight who, from a joyous and adventurous youth, had lapsed into a mean and saving age. Of the relics of his active days he held to only one — a poor old horse outworn in his service. But his daily thought was how to save, and at last he said, ' ' This horse is useless. The pennies I squander for hay could as easily go into my cash-box. There is plenty of grass. He shall go into the roads and live for himself." So the equine wreck was whipped into the highway, and the stable locked against him. The poor beast shambled on till he came to the bell-tower, and there was the rope, new mended with briony, the first green, inviting thing he had seen in weeks. He laid hold of it in earnest, and his tugging caused the bell to rock on its trunnions. The people, always curious as to trouble, came pouring out of their houses to learn of the matter. Great was their aston- ishment when they recognized in the lean old hack, ringing for justice, the horse of the miser knight. The magistrate of the town, reading a lesson in the incident, commented on the pride that went forth on horseback and came back afoot. MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. adding that greatness was not in wealth or titles, but in deeds, and deeds of kindness most. On being told what his horse had done, the knight was not much disturbed, and affected to treat the matter lightly, saying that he could do as he liked with his own; yet for shame's sake he made no resistance when the multitude marched back with the animal and saw him safely installed in the stable of his owner. The people exacted an assurance that he would be treated with better humanity in future. BROOM Planta genista, or broom, has lent its name to the Plantagenets since the day when Geoffrey of Anjou thrust it into his helmet, as he was going into battle, that his troops might see and follow him. As he plucked the badge from a steep bank, which its roots had knit together, he cried, **This golden plant shall be my cognizance, rooted firmly amid rocks, yet upholding what is ready to fall. I will maintain it on the field, in the tourney, and in the court of justice.'' Another origin is claimed for the heraldic use of this yellow flower in Brittany, of which province it is the badge. There a prince of the house of Anjou assas- sinated his brother and seized his kingdom, but derived no comfort from the power and riches that crime had won, so that he was fain to leave his castle and make a pilgrim- age of repentance to Holy Land. Every night on the journey he scourged himself soundly with a brush of ** genets," or genista. Louis XII of France continued the use of this token, and his bodyguard of a hundred nobles wore the broom-flower on their coats, with the motto, ' * God exalteth the humble." When Christ was praying in Gethsemane on the night before the tragedy he was disturbed by the sawing and MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. crackling of a broom plant. It continued its noise till those who sought him approached, with Judas at their head, when, seeing the array of swords and spears, he said to the broom, *'May you always burn with as much noise as you are making now." It was the broom and chick-pea, also, that by their rustling and snapping so nearly disclosed the hiding-place of Mary and Jesus when they had taken refuge among them from the soldiers of Herod. Hence the plant has reason for the humility which its employment for sweeping continues to enforce, and it has additional disgrace in that it was a choice of witches who chose to ride abroad on it at night. BUGLOSS Among the plants that thrive in the unlikeliest of places is the bugloss, -with its furry stems and juiceless-seeming leaves. The flowers issue as magenta, but fade to a blue of quality that suggests red litmus paper after it has been dipped into alkali. It was anciently held to be a plant of lies, because the root of one variety, anchusa tiTictoria, was used to falsify the complexions of fayre ladyes. It pro- vided a rouge before carmine had been discovered. In common speech the plant is viper's bugloss, rather than bugloss, because its seeds are thought to resemble snake heads, that likeness under the doctrine of signatures specify- ing it as a cure for the bites of serpents. CABBAGE It has become generally forgotten that the man in the moon was sent there because of his predilection for cab- bage. His hankerings for this fragrant vegetable had be- come so keen that one evening he could resist them no 70 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. longer, and, having no cabbages of his own, he filched one from his neighbor. Such conduct is not uncommon, but this particular evening happened to be the 24th of Decem- ber, and he who would steal cabbages on Christmas eve is worthy to be translated. He was. Comes a child in white, riding, who says, ''Since you will rob on this holy night, let you and your basket go to the moon!" Whisk! He was lifted beyond all temptation, and where all who see may offer him as on object lesson to youth. But there is another legend concerning the cabbage: Lycurgus, prince of Thrace, having destroyed the vines in Dionysius 's vineyard, was bound to a vine as punishment, and he lamented his lost liberty so earnestly that his tears had substance and took root as cabbages, in which is sym- bolized the old belief that the cabbage is an enemy of the grape and will cure intoxication. Indeed, the cabbage has been held as an enemy of all other plants, because it draws to itself the fatness of the earth and starves its neighbors. It was so sacred a plant, despite its stupefying properties and its smell when cooking or decaying, that the lonians swore their oaths upon it; and fairies travel on the stalks, as witches do on broomsticks. CACTUS The arms of Mexico are an eagle with a serpent in its beak, resting on a cactus. When the Aztecs set off on their pilgrimage, seeking the land of plenty and security, their wise men told them to build where they should find an eagle, a snake, and a cactus. Reaching what is called by the people of the present Mexico City the plaza of Santo Do- mingo, in 1312, they beheld that for which they were seek- ing, and there they rested, and built, laying the foundation for a finer and greater state than they had dreamed. 71 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. Sorcerers in Peru are said to use the thorns of the cactus to accomplish the death or injury of people at a distance, after the manner known to Voodooists. An image of the person to be afflicted is made of rags or clay, and this the Peruvian wonder-worker jabs with cactus thorns, mutter- ing spells the while. The cactus stores water in regions almost waterless, hence it is precious to those who are lost in the desert ; and it also exhibits a glory of bloom that is little appreciated by those who live in countries where the wild flowers are of gentler aspect. Of the six hundred species, we make use of the nopal as a food for cochineal, while others yield fruit, fodder, and cordage. It is believed in some parts of the South that if a horse rubs against a cactus and is pricked by its spines, his white spots will be poisoned, whereas if he has no white spots he will not suffer. CAMELIA This flower is named for Kamel, a Moravian Jesuit, who, returning to Spain from the Philippines in 1639, had audience with the queen, Maria Theresa, and gave into her hands a glossy shrub bearing two flowers of intense white. The queen accepted the gift, and immediately dis- mantled it of its blooms, for her husband, Ferdinand, was pacing the next room in a fit of melancholy, and she wished to divert his thoughts. Fortunately, that celebrity was in a mood to be pleased, and he ordered the plant to the royal greenhouses. The camelia is a type of purity, since it is not only of the whiteness of snow, but is devoid of odor. Yet the younger Dumas has bestowed a sinister meaning on it by naming the erring heroine of his famous play Camille, or, **the lady of the camelias." 72 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. CAMPANULA Campanula speculum, also known as bell flower, is held to resemble an ancient mirror; hence its name of Venus' looking-glass. Venus, it seems, owned a mirror which had the power of adding to the beauty of what was reflected in it. She mislaid this treasure, on one occasion, and it was found by a shepherd, who, suddenly enraptured of his own perfections, stood as a fixture, gloating. Cupid, who was seeking the glass, came upon him, and, half in amusement, half in vexation that his mother's treasure should be thus handled by a yokel, struck it out of his fingers and left hun wailing. But the object, being divine, left its impress on the sod in a host of flowers — the campanula. There is a variety of this flower known as Canterbury bells, which takes its name from a resemblance to the bells rung by pilgrims while wending toward Canterbury to pray at the tomb of Thomas a Becket. CAMPHOR As disclosed in one Japanese legend, the spirit of the camphor tree has power over the elements. One of these trees, a big and gnarly specimen, stands in the temple grove at Atami. Here once lived a pious hermit, who from his place of meditation could look over the water and warn the sailors of coming storms, or of those rufflings of the surface that indicated the incoming of a school of herring. In one of the seasons of scarcity the priest, weary with praying and advising, fell asleep and dreamed that the shore was heaped with fish. He was about to go to the water and give thanks to the sea spirits, when he awoke, terrified by a roaring and hissing and the uproll of vast clouds out of the sea. A volcano had exploded under the ocean, vapor 73 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. darkened with dust was rushing for miles into the air, and the steam had killed the fish, which lay in heaps along the beach. The ground shook, and the people, half -choked with steam and gas, were running inland in alarm. There was a great lurch in the ground in which the camphor tree split from crown to root, and a beautiful figure stepped from the trunk, and, holding toward the hermit a branch which the earthquake had shaken down, bade him take it, wave it three times above the boiling ocean, and in the final turn cast it into the water in the name of the goddess Kwanon, the lady of mercy. The hermit hurried to the shore and in a loud voice called on the sea to be calm, whereupon the eruption ceased, the fish swam safely once more, excepting such as had left their bodies to feed the villagers, and there was peace. The priests say that the goddess who emerged from the camphor tree, as if she were the soul of it, was the goddess Kwanon herself. CANNA Our canna, with its pompous banners of red, is dear to the oriental in that its seeds are the beads of the Indian rosary. According to the Burman, the canna sprang from sacred blood. The diabolic Dewadat, jealous of Buddha's influence and fame, and hearing that he was to undertake a journey, climbed upon a hill and awaited the saint's com- ing. He had poised a monstrous boulder at the brink of a slope, and when the object of his hate was passing the fiend pushed the mass over. The boulder plunged to Buddha's very feet, where it burst into a thousand pieces. A single fragment, striking the good man 's toe, drew blood, which, as it soaked into the earth, arose again — the canna ; while the earth, with equal sensibility, opened just under the feet of the wretched Dewadat and swallowed him. 74 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. CARNATION In our grandparents' day the carnation was known as the pink, because the more popular varieties were pink in color. In that very fact some essayed to read the occasion for its later name, for pink is the hue of carne, or flesh ; but we are also told that carnation is no more than coronation, because the spicy-smelling blossom was used for crowns and garlands with which the ancients decked themselves. The flower was held in affection, too, because cooks had learned to use it as a seasoning for dishes, and experts in drinking also found that it gave tang to beer and wine. The flowers were candied, like rose-leaves, and these con- serves ** wonderfully above measure do comfort the heart." There is a popular belief that the plant springs from the graves of lovers, hence it has come to be used as a funeral ornament ; but it should also be a flower of rejoicing, inas- much as it is one of those that appeared on earth for the first time when Christ was born. The Italian house of Ronsecco displays the carnation in its armorial bearings for the reason that it was a parting gift of the countess Margharita Ronsecco to her lover, Or- lando, when he was hurried from her side on the eve of their bridal, to rescue Christ's tomb from the Saracens, A year later a soldier brought her news that Orlando had fallen in battle, and he returned the lock of her shining hair that Orlando had carried as his talisman, together with the withered carnation, which his blood had changed from white to red. Margharita discovered that the flower had begun to set its seed, and these she planted in memory of her beloved. The plant budded, and there was revealed a white flower, such as she had given to her knight, but with a red centre like none ever before seen in a carnation. 75 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. CAKOB There is a Talmudie legend that finds its counterpart in the folk-lore of half the world, the version we best know being "Rip Van Winkle." The Hebraic narrative sets forth that the Rabbi Chomi, wandering abroad, came upon an old man who was planting a carob by the wayside. Chomi laughed at him for his foolishness. * ' Do you expect to gather fruit from it — you, with your hair of white? It takes thirty years for the carob to ripen, and before that time you will be gathered to your fathers. ' ' **It is true, master," replied the old man humbly. *'I am not planting for myself. I have eaten carobs that other men have planted, so why may not I do the like for other men ? The sons of my sons will eat of this and thank me. ' ' Chomi wandered till he was overcome by weariness and dropped upon the earth to rest. When he awoke the sun was rising, and, grieving for the anxiety he had caused to his family by sleeping in the field all night, he arose and began to retrace his steps. But his limbs had suddenly grown weak and shrunken, his joints were stiff, his head was heavy, and his thoughts were slow. After a time he came to the spot where he had met the old man, and he started in wonder, for instead of a sapling there was a great carob, filled with ripened pods. A boy was looking up at it with longing, and to him Chomi put the question, * ' Who planted this tree?" *'My grandfather. He put it here the day before he died." Chomi turned away and resumed his journey, doubting the truth of his senses. Passing his hand over his face, in the way people have who have freshly waked, he was startled by discovering a long white beard. Arriving at his town, he did not know a single face. Yet he knew the 76 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. house of his son when he had reached it, and entered there with joy. But the woman nursing an infant in the corner was a stranger to him, and the bearded man who turned to question him he had never seen before. *'I ask pardon for my mistake," the rabbi faltered. *'I took this for my — for the house of Chomi's son.'' **Chomi's son was my father, and both he and Chomi have been dead these many years." ''Dead! My son! Is he, then, dead?" ''Perhaps you knew my father," said the bearded man. "If so, you are welcome." "Yes, I knew Chomi." "How could that be?" "I am Chomi." "Chomi? Impossible! It is seventy years since he died. He wandered away, and somewhere in the wilder- ness he fell prey to beasts." "No, no! I tell you, I am Chomi. I am not dead." He grew so weak that he could no longer stand, and his grandson — for the bearded man was the son of Chomi 's son — supported him to a couch. He lingered there for some days, but his heart was heavy and his soul eager for the beyond. And so, as the pods were opening on the carob tree that had been planted under his eye, he blessed his survivors, and passed into the everlasting sleep. CEDAR When the fragrant cedar was cut for Solomon's temple and cunningly carved by artisans, the trees grew plentifully on Lebanon, but they are now disappearing there and everywhere because of the ruthlessness of men. As it was a tree of good fortune, much of its wood was demanded for figures of saints and gods — idols, in common term. The 77 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. name, ' ' life from the dead, ' ' that it bore two thousand years ago, betokens it an emblem of eternity, but this name may have signified no more than that its oil drove insects from the tombs. Because of its preservative qualities, the Egypt- ians used it for mummy-cases, and it has proven wonder- fully lasting, for carved figures of a supposed age of three thousand years have been taken from the burial places and may be seen in our museums. In a Chinese tradition, the king of a country set his evil eyes on the wife of a faithful subject, whom he threw into prison on a baseless charge, to have him out of the way, and there the husband died of grief, while the unhappy woman flung herself from a height to escape the hateful attentions of the monarch. Even in death the twain were divided, by the king's order, but a cedar sprang from each of the graves, as if to reprove and lament his wickedness, and, rising to a vast height, interlaced their roots and branches. They were known as ''the trees of the faithful loves. ' * CHAMOMILE This humble and rather rank-smelling wayside plant, with its innocent, daisy-like flower and finely-cut leaf, is an ingredient in a tea wherewith ''granny doctors" used to afflict the youth of the country, in the attempt to "break up colds" and exercise like mercies. It is hardy, doing its best on the cold and foggy shores of New Brunswick, where its blossoms vie in size and seemliness with those of our own whiteweed or daisy. It has a wide range, however, and was esteemed in Egypt to the degree of rever- ence, for it was sanctified to the gods. Incidentally, it cured the ague, and among the Romans it was one of the innumerable remedies for snake bites. 78 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. CHERRY AND PLUM It surprises the stern citizen of the west to learn that years are given by the Japanese to such a matter as flower arrangement. The art originated in Japan with Buddhism. In the fifteenth century Yoshimara disclosed his system, which he had developed that he might present his floral offerings in a way that would be acceptable to the gods. So the Japanese are pilgrims to cherry groves and iris gardens, they decorate their houses, they devise special flower arrangements for feasts and seasons, and they show the stems and leaves as integral in beauty and importance with the blossoms. Combinations they seldom use, for they believe that the single flower should show its beauties to the full. They avoid symmetry, and never crowd flowers into masses. But it is the orchards in which the Japanese most de- light. April, their cherry month, instals the simple pleas- ures of the year. The cherry is small and crooked in its native hills, but skilful nurserymen have evolved from that type the large and gorgeous bouquets on stalks that are the gathering-places of festive companies. The newspapers announce the probable date of the buds' opening as gravely as an American newspaper announces the opening of a social season. On Sunday, when labor leaves its tools, and the housewife her home industries, the Japanese throng to the parks where the trees are flowering, and there is much eating and drinking, much singing and jollity. It is the unfolding of the plum blossoms that really marks the spring in Japan, and this is a great occasion in '*the silver world,'' as the plum grove near Tokio is called. After the plum, ''eldest brother of the hundred flowers," and used with pine and bamboo as an emblem of long happiness, sheds its petals, and its fragrance be- 79 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. comes a memory, the brighter cherry makes the wood's edge gay and the nightingale sings among its branches in the moon. As the Japanese cherry has no food value, its fruit being small, acid, and not abundant, and its bark alone having uses in the arts, its perpetuation is due to the islanders' keen sense of color. It was an emperor of the fifth century who, sailing on a lake beneath the cherries, held forth his saki cup to drink, and some of the pink petals fluttered into the wine, crowning his cup as the Romans crowned their goblets with roses. So pretty were these silken flakes as they swam on the saki, that the em- peror kept the practice of taking his wine beneath the trees at every season of bloom ; hence wine-drinking is now a part of the celebration. A later emperor, who praised the cherry in verse, caused it to be planted abundantly about his palace and so estab- lished it in common favor. And that the regard for its beauty is genuine may be inferred from that tablet at the Sumadera monastery which bears the warning, ''Whoever cuts a branch from this tree shall lose a finger. ' ' The gods of the woods resent an injury to their favorite cherries, pines, and cedars, and the maid who has been disappointed in love seeks her redress by presuming on that fact. If she has resigned hope of winning back the recreant lover she dresses as if for a conquest, and in the middle of the night attaches three lighted candles to her head dress, and a mir- ror to her neck. In her left hand she carries a straw image which represents the deceiver, in her right a hammer and nails ; then, in the temple grove she nails the doll to a tree and prays the gods to take the traitor 's life, promising that as soon as this is done she will draw the nails and trouble the tree and the gods no more. For several nights she goes to the sacred grove and repeats her prayers, adding a nail at each visit, confident that the gods will sacri^ce 80 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. a life in a land where lives are so many, to keep their trees, that are so few. It was to support the cherry at lyo that one Japanese gave his life. He was a soldier who in youth had played under its branches, and yearly, when not on service, sat in its rain of April blossoms. Time passed, and he attained great age ; his wife, his children, and all his other relatives were dead. All that linked him to the past was the cherry tree. One summer it died. In this he seemed to read the command of nature to himself. The people planted a young and handsome tree close by, and he pretended to be glad, but his heart was sore. When winter came, he bowed himself under the dry branches and said, ''Honorable tree, consent to bloom once more, for I am about to give my life for you." Then, spreading a white cloth on the ground, he committed hari-kari, and as his blood soaked into the roots and his spirit passed into the sap, his tree burst into bloom. And every year it blossoms on his death day, even though the ground is white and all other trees are leafless. We have no legends of the cherry, except that one was cut by the youthful Washington, but the Reverend Mr. Weems, who gives this touching and ennobling instance, has been, to put it rudely, discounted by the historians. We have, however, one historic fact concerning the cherry that is worth record, because it affects the comings and go- ings of millions in the American metropolis. Broadway should not only have been broad, as it is not, but straight, and in the original plan it was so ; but where Grace Church stands was a cherry tree beneath which Hendrick Brevoort, tavern-keeper, loved to smoke his pipe on warm evenings. When map-makers arrived with a street plan which contem- plated the extension of Broadway, and the Herr Brevoort found that it ran straight across the roots of his cherry tree, he went to the officials and swore it was not to be 6 81 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. thought of; so they, realizing that the city would never grow so far as his tavern, obligingly diverted the street, and he peacefully smoked his pipe beneath his tree for some years longer. The site of the peaceful inn where he sold his flip and mulled his ale is one of the busiest spots in Gotham to-day, and the multitudes who follow the crook of the street westward as they go up-town do not know that they are turned out of a straight path by a cherry tree that died long, long ago. The plum is held by our Pawnees to symbolize plenty, but in parts of Europe it is held to be unlucky, because its stone is said to inclose the damned soul of a suicide. The mjTPobalan plum, too harsh for food, but used as medicine, was no such matter to the Hindu, for the wife of Soma- carman struck it thrice with her wand, whereupon she ascended as an eagle and alighted on a golden hill in a city of gold. Like all stone fruits, the cherry and plum con- tain a trifle of prussic acid, most virulent of poisons; hence their reputation and effect may be related. CHESTNUT We in America have done little to keep our chestnut in favor by trying to improve its size and quality, but in Europe the tree is so well esteemed that venerable speci- mens receive all the care that is given to famous oaks and elms. One in the grounds of Tortworth Castle is a thou- sand years old, and was noted for its size in the eleventh century. A group of five chestnuts on ^tna, that grew into a single tree a hundred years ago, making a trunk seventy feet thick, was known as the Tree of a Hundred Horsemen. It has been suffered to fall into ruin, but is perpetuated in old accounts and engravings. It was on the chestnut that Xenophon's army lived during the retreat, and indications 82 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. of a sacred significance are found in the solemn eating of it on St. Simon 's day, and distribution to the poor on the feast of St. Martin. What we know as the horse-chestnut is thought to have obtained its name from the likeness to a horse's hoof in the leaf cicatrix; indeed, it may have been in accord with the doctrine of signatures that the nuts, crushed as a meal, were given to horses for various diseases. The horse- chestnut originated, however, in Turkey, where it was created by a Mahometan saint — Akyazli. This anchorite, desiring to roast his meat, thrust a stick into the earth to support it over the fire, and such was his sanctity that heaven caused the wood to strike into the earth and increase to the tree we know. CHICORY In the meadows about our New England towns, there is in summer a pretty show of pink and blue blossoms, shaped like those of the dandelion, but growing from scraggy plants: the chicory, or succory. Its leaves, when young and tender, are pleasant as a salad, but it is somewhat out of estimation because it has become a common adulterant for coffee. The plentiful rays of the flower make it almost inevitable that it should have become the subject of a sun legend, and we find it in Roumania, where Florilor, ''the lady of the flowers" — a name she enjoyed in virtue of her gentleness and surpassing beauty — attracted, first the notice, then the admiration of the sun god, who descended from the skies to make love to her. Realizing the disparity in their posi- tions, and doubting if he meant marriage, Florilor repelled him, to his indignation and astonishment. In retaliation for the slight, he commanded her to become a flower. She took the form of chicory, in which shape she is compelled MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. not only to observe the sun from dawn to dark, but, as in mockery, to wear his likeness. So its old names are sun- follower and bride of the sun, and the Germans name it the way-light. For centuries the plant has been prized as a love potion, the seed being secretly administered by the lover to his mis- tress to secure her affection. In a German story, a girl whose lover had gone away on a voyage devoted her life thereafter to sitting at the wayside and looking for him. She kept her watch so constantly that she finally took root and became the pale blue flower known as the watcher of the road. One version of the story attributes the woman's desertion to good cause, and where that idea prevails the plant is known as the accursed maid. CHRYSANTHEMUM In 246 B.C. the throne of China was occupied by a cruel monarch, who learned that in the islands off his coast was a rare plant that would yield an elixir of life. But only the pure in heart could touch it without causing it to lose its virtues. Evidently the emperor himself could not do the errand, nor could he rely on his court; but a young doctor in his employ suggested that three hundred young men and three hundred girls should undertake to cross the narrow seas and search for the flower. The emperor ap- proved the plan, and ere many days the expedition was on its way to what is now Japan. Whether they ever found the flower we do not know, but the junks never reap- peared, and the emperor died. But there is a notion that, having landed on the pleasant islands out of his majesty's reach, the physician concerned himself a great deal more with furthering flirtations than he did with even so glorious a bloom as the chrysanthemum — if he found it. He may 84 Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, New York PLASTER FIGURE DECORATED WITH DWARF CHRYSANTHEMUMS AT THE FLOWER FESTIVAL, TOKYO MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. have selfishly extracted its juices for his own advantage. It is a part of the legend that he knew when he was well off, and that he remained king of the new country, which his followers replenished with a stock more moral, able, and vigorous than they had left in China. But the chrysanthemum is of Chinese origin, and was introduced into Japan only a couple of thousand years ago. It became the national flower in the fourteenth century after a '*war of the chrysanthemums'' that may be likened to the war of the roses, save that, owing to the lack of quick-killing devices, it lasted for fifty-six years. The kiku, as it is called, symbolizes the sun, and in the orderly unfolding of its petals marks perfection, a like symbolism being denoted in the crystal balls which the Japanese cut so skilfully, as they stand for the orb of the sun, betokened on Japan's flag. The flower is less varied in the Mikado's country than in ours, where new strains are sold for extra- ordinary sums, but it grows in beauty and abundance and is admired by all classes, the commonalty cheerfully paying their two and a half cents a head to see the annual show in the Dango-Zaka, or florists' quarter of Tokio where figures shaped of withes and plaster are clothed entirely in chrysanthemums, which likewise become figures of animals and boats, and are even placed on floral waves as foam. This is topary at its most grotesque, though the flowers are not cut, but rooted in the straw with which the figures are stuffed. Every night the exhibits are drenched with water, and in this way the flowers are kept for weeks. Flowers are sold cheaply at this great bazar and in the gardens whole acres blaze with red, white, and yellow. The Japanese have two hundred and fifty varieties of chrysanthemum, but other florists are creating new strains with bewildering frequency, by the crossing of forms and colors, symmetrical and ragged, prim and flam- 85 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. boyant, streaked, spotted, and single-hued, straight and curled, a foot wide or an inch. Our catalogues show more than five hundred varieties, one of which is green and one lavender, the nearest that the flower can approach to blue. Extreme oddities are so far removed from nature's intent with the flower that they seldom produce seed; yet many thrifty forms of to-day did not exist twenty-five years ago. It is said that blossoms are made to show color on one-half the disk and white on the other by covering up the latter half so that the sun shall not strike it. The plant has been urged into bushes twelve feet high, and it has been en- couraged to hide close to the earth and put out stars no bigger than buttercups. Coming at the ripeness of the year, it symbolizes human perfection. Its lasting qualities give to it a meaning of longevity which is taken literally in Kai, where a certain stream is bordered with these flowers. As the petals fall into the water, the people drink of it, believing that it will increase their days on earth, and to the same end they sometimes place chrysanthemum petals in their wine cups. Chrysanthemums grow all over the Mikado's empire, save in Himaji, where it is ill luck to raise them, for this reason : In a castle of thirty towers in that city lived a lord who employed a servant named Okiku (kiku, chrysanthe- mum,) to look after his bronzes, figures of brass, jewels, shrines, carvings, crystals, porcelains, and other works of art. Among these objects were ten dishes of gold. In counting the dishes one morning she discovered that one was missing, and, though innocent of its loss, she so dreaded her employer's anger that she cast herself into a well. Her ghost returns nightly to count the golden dishes, and cries loudly when it has counted nine, so distressing the populace that Okiku 's flower — the spectre plant — is no longer grown there. 86 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. CINCHONA Quinine — known also as Jesuits' bark, Peruvian bark, and cinchona — has been a popular medicine for nearly a century. Its virtues were discovered in a singular manner, according to the legend: A high wind had thrown some cinchona trees into a pool which had been used by certain people as a reservoir. They noted the unusual harshness of the water, and sought a supply elsewhere. One man who had fallen ill of a fever, being consumed with thirst and wandering near the tarn where the trees were steeping, went face downward at the shore and drank greedily. He began to mend of his illness directly, and went about telling of the bark that had imparted its virtues to the water. Its curative powers being thus made known to the Countess of Cinchon, vice-queen of Peru, she caused the bark to be powdered and experimented with by the faculty, the drug being therefore known originally as ** countess' pow- der," and so introduced to Europe. CINNAMON The spice which is known as cinnamon is the inner bark of the laurus cinnamonunij whose leaves, woven into wreaths, decked the temples of Rome, while an oil extracted from the wood was used to anoint the sacred vessels and the persons of the priests themselves in the Hebrew taber- nacles. So greatly was the bark esteemed in Arabia that only priests were allowed to collect it, and they were re- quired to give the first bundle to the sun god, placing it on his altar, where he was expected to light it with a ray of fire. As cinnamon most abounded in valleys where poisonous serpents were, the men who gathered it were forced to wear bandages on their hands and feet to protect 87 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. them against stings, and this fashion of reserving it from the touch of naked flesh may have had its part in sustain- ing its aristocratic reputation. CITRON Such popularity as the citron has, among those who use it as an addition to their dietary, is due to the Jews, who carry it to the synagogue, in the left hand, during the Feast of Tabernacles, and eat it as a conserve during that observance. It was regarded almost with reverence in the Middle Ages, for it was so powerful an antidote for poisons that criminals, condemned to die by snake bite, often ate freely of citrons and returned from the ordeal in health and gayety of spirits, leaving the authorities in sad plight as to what to do with them, since, having been bitten by law, they were legally dead. In India the citron was carried by widows going to immolation in the suttee, and probably in that case it symbolized life turned bitter because of the death of the mate. CLEMATIS Our clematis, once called love, for its clinging habit, was also traveller's joy, because it afforded shade for inn porches and at roadsides where the wayfarer might refresh himself. Wild vine, smoking cane, tombacca, devil's cut, devil 's twine, Bohemian plant, ladies ' bower, virgin 's bower, old man's beard, and beggar's plant are other and puz- zling names. Tombacca and smoking cane indicate the use of its stems as filling for pipes and substitutes for cigars, as boys occasionally smoke rattan. The gray, in- substantial down that floats the seeds to new anchorage justifies the comparison with an old man's beard, and the apparently insulting name of beggar's plant came from the practice of professional mendicants abroad, who rub its 88 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. leaves on cuts made for the purpose till they have created ulcers of hideous aspect. The plant secretes an irritating juice that causes a superficial sore, and where pauperism is encouraged by miscellaneous giving, an invented affliction of this nature appeals to the charitable as strongly as do pretended lameness and assumed blindness. CLOVER AND SHAMROCK The considerable family of which clover is the type is widely distributed and highly useful. Honey is made from the clover of our fields, and the deliciously fragrant wild clover, that forms bushes six feet high, is a common haunt of bumble-bees. The long-headed crimson variety lately introduced into the Eastern States makes a field of color as brilliant as a flower garden. The leaves, too, are as oddly marked as are those of ornamental plants. At the quaint cemetery of St. Roch, in New Orleans, you are sometimes accosted by children who ask if you will buy clovers with Jesus' blood on them. You pay your nickel only to discover, shortly after, that patches of the plant with a red, heart-shaped spot on the upper side of the leaf are to be found all over the cemetery. Although this is called the mark of Jesus' blood, there is no local or other warrant for such a tradition. On the contrary, the old people of the French quarter recall the tale they had of their parents, to the effect that a girl who died on the eve of her marriage was buried here, in old St. Roch, and in despair her lover shot himself beside her tomb. His blood flowed over the sod, and all the clover that grew there afterward had the spot of red on its leaves. Clover has long been esteemed a flower of good luck when it has four leaves instead of three, and we still use the phrase *'in clover" to denote good fortune and plenty, MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. although that symbol expresses rather the joy of grazing animals on being turned loose in a field of it than any super- stition as to luck. Those wise in visions tell us that even to dream of clover is fortunate. The clover which we call wood sorrel was anciently a charm against snakes and other poison-dealing creatures; and witches, too, would none of it. On going into fights soldiers would tie a sprig about their sword-arms, or to the handles of their blades, that they might be secure from the foul strokes of enemies who had black and secret ways of killing. The Arabic word for the trefoil is shamrak, and Persia makes it sacred as ''emblematic of the Persian Triads." Our wood sorrel is white with faint ruddy or purple streaks in the petals. A pink variety appears in England earlier than the white, but, as in other flowers, the farther north we go, the more of white appears in the flower, bluebells being white in Russia, and red campion emulating the snow in Arctic lands. "Wood sorrel is "the hallelujah" in Spain and Italy, because of its blossoming when the Hallelujah is sung, after Easter ; the Welsh name it fairy bells; the Scots call it hearts and gowk's meat. Cuckoo sorrel is a common name for it in the British islands, where it appears when the cuckoo begins to sing. Among the plants one no longer eats is this same wood sorrel, once used as a salad. Sheep or field sorrel, which is of a different botanical family, is still used as greens, though it is sharp to the untrained palate. The acid of wood sorrel (oxalic, from the botanical name of the plant, oxalis) is extracted as ** salt of lemons," a chemical in some demand for commercial purposes, but a rank poison. Its leaves yield five per cent, of acid. Be- cause of their heart shape, the doctrine of signatures pre- scribed them as a remedy for heart troubles. The variety cultivated in Bolivia as oca has a tuberous root as well 90 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. prized as the artichoke; another four-leaved variety is used on Mexican tables; the Peruvian species, arracha, is also eaten, both root and leaf stalk. Wood sorrel is held by many to be the original sham- rock, as its Persian name implies, although the plant com- monly worn as such on the 17th of March, when all the world bows to St. Patrick, is Dutch clover. It is a little disconcerting that the authorities are not a unit as to what shamrock is. The Erse word seamrog is from seamar, three- leaved, and og, meaning small. It occurs variously as seamrog, seamsog, seamroge, shamrote, shamrocke, shamrug, seamar-oge, and chambroch. The plant actually used by St. Patrick may have been Dutch clover, or trifolium repens, or tri folium minus, or wood sorrel. Early references to it in Irish literature represent it as a food plant. Campion, in his history of the island, printed in 1571, speaking of ''shamrotes, water cresses, and other herbes they feed upon." Matthias Lobel, a Flemish botanist, tells of the purple and white trefoil, and says of the white variety that it is good for fattening cattle, but that it is also ground into meal for consumption by the peasantry. Spenser, the poet, also relates how, during the wars of Munster, the people escaped starvation by feeding on cress and *'sham- rokes"; and Fjoies Moryson describes them as devouring this herb of sharp taste, the acrid wood sorrel, one may fancy, ** which as they run and are chased to and fro, they snatch like beasts out of the ditches." If, however, the ditches contained water, the plant was probably cress, which we still use as a garnish to our meat. The religious association of the shamrock, and its adop- tion as the emblem of Ireland, is due to an inspiration of the pioneer of Christianity in that country : After his land- ing St. Patrick found his pagan subjects in deep trouble over the Trinity. Preach and argue as he might, he could 91 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. not prevail on them to accept its possibility till, looking down on the earth, in the course of one of his homilies, he chanced to spy the little divided leaf of the shamrock. It exemplified his point to a nicety. Stooping, he plucked it and showed how, though a leaf, it was yet three leaves in one. After the Irish accepted Christianity, they used the shamrock as their sign, the three leaves typing, in their formulary, the national virtues of love, heroism, and wit. The leaf was already in general use as a defense against witchcraft in St. Patrick's time, and many a peasant plucked a trefoil before he ventured across the moors and bogs where banshees cried and fairies stole the souls of way- farers. It was the power of the shamrock, indeed, over poisonous and maleficent things, that enabled St. Patrick to drive the snakes from Ireland, for he had only to hold it toward them to see them go scuttling into the sea. COLUMBINE The pretty flowers of scarlet, red, purple, and white that grow on our rocky hillsides and also make a handsome show in our gardens, take their name of columbine from the Latin columba, sl dove. The scientific name of aquilegia shows that it suggests quite another sort of bird from the dove to some observers, for that is derived from aquila, an eagle. Its old name of lion's herb points to a belief that it was ' ' a favorite plant of lions. ' ' An association has been formed to make this the national flower of the United States, as the rose is the flower of England and the lily of France, for its common name sug- gests Columbus and Columbia, its botanical name associates it with the bird of freedom, it can be raised from seed in almost any of our gardens, and it is native to nearly all of our States. 92 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. CORNEL The Rome of centuries-to-be having visioned itself in splendor before the imagination of Romulus, that founder of empire began to set bounds and sites for its defenses, and, wishing to advance the walls to the Palatine, he hurled his spear from a distance and saw it plunge into the earth upon that hill. The handle of the weapon was cornel wood, and where it struck the earth it put forth roots and branches and so became a great and thrifty thing, foreshadowing in its growth the spread and strength of the Roman state. It came to be so vehemently regarded by the populace that if any one observed it in a drooping condition, as would happen now and then in a hot and drouthy season, he set up a shout of alarm that brought the citizens hurrying to its rescue with pails of water. The Greeks have it that the first cornel (cornus mas- cula), or Cornelian cherry, sprang from the grave of Poly- dorus, who was slain by Polymnestor, and that it dripped blood when -^neas tried to tear its limbs from the trunk. CORNFLOWER Since the German imperial family *s adoption of the centaurea kyanus, it has gained in popularity on both sides of the sea. Queen Louise, of Prussia, flying from Berlin before the advance of the first Napoleon, hid in a field of grain with her children, and beguiled the tedium by braid- ing cornflowers into wreaths for their little heads. The blue flower was remembered by one of those children, the gruff old Emperor William, who, when he retaliated on the French by conquering the third Napoleon, made the centaurea his emblem, and it was adopted by his people, in whose fields it grows abundantly. Like the poppy, which also grows in the grain, the cornflower is thought to have 93 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. its origin in the east. Among its names are blue bottle, blue cap, blue bonnet, blue bow, bluet, flake flower, bachelor's button, and hurt sickle. In its name it commemorates the centaur Chiron who, poisoned by an arrow dipped in the blood of the hundred-headed hydra, covered the wound with its flowers and so recovered. The hydra legend persists vaguely in a belief that if cornflower is burned snakes will fly the premises. The qualifying adjective, kyanus, com- memorates a Greek youth who worshipped Flora with ardor and was forever gathering flowers for her altars. When he died, in a field, with unfinished garlands strewn about him, the goddess gave his name to the blossoms, and they were known as the kyanus. COTTON According to the story of a colored ''auntie," this is the beginning of cotton: ]\Iany years ago there lived at a swamp's edge a tiny fairy who occupied her time in spin- ning, and made the most beautiful and delicate fabrics imaginable. Her wheel whirled so fast that it was nothing but a blur, such as a fly's wings make when he is tangled in a flower, and her spindle was the sting of a bumble-bee — her uncle — who had left it to her, for any good use, in amends for a life so grouchy that none of the other creat- ures would have anything to do with him. Still, one inhabitant of the swamp was worse than the bee, and the fairy was as mightily disturbed when she dis- covered that he had taken up his abode on the very next bush. He was an enormous spider, big as a bird and hide- ously gorgeous with red, blue, and yellow. He took some pride of himself as a spinner, but when he saw the shining tissue that the fairy was weaving, he realized that his own art was cheap and poor in comparison, and he was jealous, and determined to destroy her. She caught up her wheel 94 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. and spindle and ran, with the spider in pursuit. She asked the mouse for shelter, but he was afraid and shut the door ; she begged the toad to protect her, but he only ran out his tongue. Finally a firefly came along, with his lantern lit. He saw the fairy; he saw the spider; and, calling on the fairy to follow, he fled with her across the field, lighting the way, for it was now night. They soon reached a bush that bore a handsome pink blossom. *'Jump into the flower ! ' ' commanded the firefly. Still clutching her wheel, the fairy put her last strength into a spring and alighted in the heart of the blossom. The spider was close upon her, but as he put his ugly claw on the lower petal to draw himself up after her, she gave him such a stab in the leg with her spindle that he lost his hold and fell to the ground. In another second the flower closed over the fairy, gather- ing its petals so tightly that the spider could not get in. He wove his web about it, believing that he would catch her when she ventured out in the morning ; but when morning came, she did not appear. The spider kept watch; but finally the petals dropped to the earth, and when he saw no fairy he knew it was all up, so he bit his own body, and died. But the fairy was not dead. She remained snuggled in the little ball that the plant put out behind the blossom, and in a few days the ball opened, and all the beautiful fabric she had been spinning while in hiding poured out in a tassel of snowy white. And men wove the threads to make garments for themselves, and they bless the fairy of the cotton plant and are glad when she escapes the weevil as well as the spider. CROCUS The crocus, first gem of the earth in spring, we prize for its beauty only ; but the little bloom was once valued for other reasons. The stigmas of the saffron crocus, the fall variety, were a cordial, and the juice of the flower was 95 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. esteemed by the women of Rome as a hair-dye, for which latter reason it was disapproved by the fathers of the Church. Henry VIII. forbade the use of crocus as a dye for linen by the Irish, who had formerly employed it for this purpose, believing that cloth so colored did not require to be washed as often as white, and that the stain had some sanitary virtue. Until recently, safi:ron gave a lively hue to cakes, and in cookery during the six weeks of Lenten fast it kept up the spirits of the public, although the faith that it would do so may signify no more than that the ancients used it to decorate their banquet-rooms and tables and wreathe about their wine-cups, for the effect of banquets and wine is to lift the spirits. In Cashmere, saffron was long a monopoly of the rajah, but an English traveller, who penetrated the country as a pilgrim in the day of Edward III., stole a bulb at the risk of his life, concealed it in his hollow staff, and so reached his home in Walden, where he planted it, and such a harvest of flowers came from that single root that the place has been Saffron Walden ever since. The plant and its dye were greatly esteemed in India, and it is said that when in their wars the rajahs saw themselves doomed to defeat they put on their saffron robes of state, gathered their unhappy wives about them, and submitted to be burned to death. The spring crocus was so named by the botanist Theo- phrastus, who applied the Greek word kroke, or thread, to its stigma, but tradition, old in his day, had it that the flower sprang from the warmth of Jove's body on a bank where he had lain with Juno on Mount Ida. Yet another legend has it that saffron is that child Krokos who, being accidentally killed by a quoit flung from the hand of Mer- cury, was dipped into celestial dew and changed into a flower, while our spring crocus came from some drops of the ©lixir of life that Medea was preparing for the aged .^son. 96 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. CROWFOOT This cheery yellow flower from Illyria has its counter- part in the buttercup, or, if you like the old English names better, the king's cup, gold cup, gold knobs, leopard's foot, and cuckoo bud. These ranunculi — the botanical name from rana, a frog, shows that they like to grow where frogs are plenty — are acrid, and cattle avoid them, as a rule; but the crowfoot is alleged by Pliny to have this merit: that it stirs the eater into such a gale of laughter that he scarce contains himself; in fact, unless he drinks pineapple kernels and pepper in date wine, he may guffaw his way into the next world in a most unseemly manner. With one species of the plant the ancients smeared their arrows, to poison them, yet the root of another kind, the double crowfoot, or St. Anthony, would cure the plague if rubbed on the spot most affected, and was good for lunacy if applied to the neck in the wane of the moon, when it was in the sign of the bull or the scorpion. CROWN IMPERIAL The golden cups of the crown imperial, or fritillary, are held to resemble a crown when viewed in mass, and the commanding aspect of the plant lends color to its claim of empire over the lesser creatures of the garden. This Persian lily was a queen whose beauty, instead of contenting her husband, the king, made him jealous, and in a moment of anger and suspicion he drove her from his palace. She, conscious of her innocence, wept so constantly at this injustice, as she wandered about the fields, that her very substance shrunk to the measure of a plant, and at last, in mercy, the Divine One rooted her feet where she 7 97 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. had paused and changed her to the crown imperial, still bearing in its blossoms somewhat of the dignity and com- mand she had worn in her human guise. CUCUMBER As a phallic emblem, the cucumber symbolized fecundity, and of the sixty thousand offspring of Sagara's wife, in the Buddhist legend, the first was a cucumber, whose de- scendant climbed to heaven on his own vine. Jews and Egyptians revelled in cucumbers, but at the contemplation of them, the English owned to a fright, that lasted for cen- turies, not daring to taste lest they should **kill by their natural coldness." **Cool as a cucumber" is a common saying, and as the fruit is mostly water its malignity has been exaggerated. CYPRESS Cyparissos, a boy much liked by Apollo, was in turn attached, not to a god, but to a stalwart playmate — a stag that grazed on sacred Ceos. Having killed the animal in an accident, he begged the gods to let him mourn forever, and, that he might do so comfortably, Apollo changed him to a cypress, dark, drooping, distilling tearful dews. Venus wreathed twigs of the cypress for her brow when she mourned Adonis ; the tragic muse, Melpomene, was crowned with it; and its wood coffined the Egyptian mummies. Still, it was also used for roofing temples, which are for the worship of the principle of life, no less than for con- solation in death, for it was fragrant and strong and lasting. A cypress near the tomb of Persian Cyrus had the un- happy faculty of leaking blood every Friday — the Ma- MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. hornet an Sabbath — hence it was an object of veneration ; but elsewhere it was freely cut and is thought to be the gopher wood of which Noah's ark was made. As its cone shape suggested flame to the Oriental, it was planted before temples of the fire worshippers in Persia, and Zoroaster himself lived in its shadow. Even in Cyprus — so named for the tree — it was worshipped as the symbol of a god. Ceres plugged the crater of ^tna with it and thus imprisoned Vulcan at his forges beneath the mountain. The oldest tree in Europe is held to be a cypress at Somma, Lombardy, one hundred and twenty-one feet high and well grown in Caesar's day. Napoleon, who spared so little, allowed it to remain when he built his road across the Simplon. DAHLIA Josephine, empress of the French, was born on the West Indian island of Martinique, but though this is within easy reach of Mexico, the birthplace of the dahlia, she never knew the flower till she had gone to France. The Swedish botanist, Dahl, had done so much for its cultivation and improvement that his name was bestowed on the plant, and it bloomed in such splendor at Malmaison, where Josephine planted it with her own hands, that she declared it her favorite flower. She invited princes and ministers to visit Malmaison that they might see it, but she would not allow a bloom, a seed, or a root to go out of her possession. A Polish prince who possibly would not have lifted his hand to pick one of the blossoms had they been free for all comers bribed a gardener to steal a hundred of them, paying him a louis apiece. After this Josephine petulantly refused to cultivate them any longer. 99 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. DAISY The wee, crimson tippit flower of Burns, and known to the English as the daisy, is with us a pot and bedding plant, save where it has made an escape from gardens, which is not to a large extent as yet. Our own daisy is a more glorious creature — the white weed, detested by farmers, but beautiful in their fields in June. It is near to the chrysanthemum in form and height and leaf, and is so plentiful and so lovely that it should have a better con- sideration in the discussion respecting the choice of a national flower. The French and German name of marguerite is per- missibly applied to the daisy because that means pearl, and signifies the delicate whiteness of its petals. It also wears that name in honor of one of the six Saints Margaret : the daughter of a heathen priest who drove her from his home in Antioch when she would not renounce the Christian faith. The devotee became St. Margaret of the Dragon, and her flower appropriately bears her name because in her prayers and meditations she always kept her face toward heaven. Various Marguerites of history have made the daisy their flower also. She of Anjou had her courtiers broider it on their cloaks and robes. Queen Margaret, mother of Henry YII., wore three white daisies. Margaret, sister of Francis I., wore it. And it is also claimed as the flower of the **maid Marguerite, meek and mild,'* of An- tioch, whose prayers for women about to become mothers saved many lives and enshrined her in their loves. Bellis, the botanical term for the old world daisy, comes from the Belides, dryads of the mythologic age, one of whom, while dancing on the green, was seen by Yertumnus, god of spring. That observer, smitten with a sudden passion, ran forward to clasp the white and graceful creature in 100 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. his arms, when, to his grief and wonder, she turned an eye of fear and aversion on him, and, through divine aid in the transformation, sank to the earth in the form of the little daisy. The daisy has several names in Europe that commend themselves for quaintness or poetry. The Welsh call it trembling star ; the Scottish go wan means the same as bellis ; the French have christened it the little Easter flower, and the German name of Easter bowl also allies it to the Norse divinity, Ostara, goddess of spring — whence our word Easter. Other German names are little goose flower, Mary's flower, a-thousand-charms, meadow pearl, and measure of love. The last name comes from the practice of maids who have given their hearts, without knowing whether they are to get them back again, and who resort to the flower to read the fortune of their affection, repeating Marguerite's for- mula, ''He loves me — loves me not," as they pull off petal after petal. The last petal and the last phrase determine the situation — unless the young man in the case determines otherwise. DANDELION An Algonquin tale of the love of the south wind for the dandelion, which is made in likeness of the sun : Shawon- dasee, the south wind, heavy, drowsy, lazy, likes to lie in the shade of live oaks and magnolias, inhaling the odor of blossoms and filling his lungs so full of it that when he breathes again you detect the perfume. One day Shawon- dasee, gazing over his fields with a sleepy eye, saw at a distance a slender girl with yellow hair. He admired her, and but for his heaviness he would even have called her to his side. Next morning he looked again, and she was istill there, more beautiful than ever. Every day he looked, and his ^ve sparkled when he saw the maid in the warm 101 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. green prairie. But one morning lie rubbed bis eyes and looked hard a second time, for be did not trust tbem at first: A woman was standing wbere the maid bad been at sundown, but what a cbange ! The youtb was gone, the brightness fled. Instead of a crown of golden glory, here was a faded creature wearing a poll of gray. *'Ah," sighed Shawondasee, ''my brother, the North Wind, has been here in the night. He has put his cruel hand upon her head, and whitened it with frost.'* Shawondasee put out such a mighty sigh that it reached the spot where the girl had stood, and behold! her white hair fell from her head, tossed off upon that breath, and she was gone. Others like her came, and the earth is glad with them ; but in the spring Shawondasee sighs unceasingly for the maiden with the yellow hair as he first saw her. Dandelion is a corruption of dent de lion, or lion's tooth, and the plant is so called because the leaf does not in the least resemble a lion 's tooth or any one else 's. As a lion was once a sjnnbol of the sun, and as the flower suggests that luminary, the association of the plant with the lion is more excusable on such a ground than on that of a resem- blance between its leaf and teeth. DHAK The palassa, or parana, or dhak tree of India (hutea frondosa), sprang from the lightning, and its triple leaf is held to typify the thunderbolt, therein resembling the rod of the fire-carrier, Mercury. It is employed by the people of the east in such ceremonies as the blessing of cattle and sheep, to make them rich in milk and wool. In some accounts the dhak yields the nectar of the Hindu gods, the soma (see soma), which perpetuates life, and in the Vedas it grew from a feather dropped by a 102 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. falcon that had stolen soma from the demons who guarded it. One of the angry fiends shot an arrow after the bird, causing the plume to fall, take root, and yield the fluid for which the gods were athirst. It yields red sap and red bloom, symbols of the divine fire, and as the falcon was sacred, the tree born of its feather became sacred also. EBONY The heavy black wood of which so many canes and •batons have been made was the subject of an uncanny superstition in the time of Sir John Mandeville, that ready believer, or awful prevaricator. It was that the wood changed to flesh at certain times, and yielded an oil which, if it were put away and kept for one year, would change into ''good flesh and bone,'' though of what animal the his- torian forgot to tell us. The blackness of ebony has made it a frequent figure in our language, as when we speak of ebon night and the ebon-hued negro. It was fitting that the throne of Pluto, in the nether world, should be carved from this timber, and the Pythian Apollo is also said to have been shaped from it, as were the statues of many of the Egyptian gods. EDELWEISS Edelweiss (noble white), a velvet flower, greenish- white, and of unobtrusive aspect, is by reason of its modesty over- looked, save by thrifty urchins who gather it to sell, and travellers, who regard it as the type flower of the Alps. In one legend the edelweiss is related to heaven, so near to which it grows, for an angel, wearying of her celestial home, longs to taste once more the bitterness of earth. She receives permission to take her shape of flesh again, but, unprepared to mingle with a humanity that even to her 103 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. sympathetic eyes is enacting a tragedy of poverty, crime, oppression, misfortune, and discontent, she chooses a home among the highest and wildest of the Swiss mountains, where she may look off upon the world, yet be not of it. The angel soul of the visitant illumines her face and trans- figures her form to marvellous beauty. Having been seen by a daring climber, the icy fastness where she hides her loveliness is invaded by men eager to behold, and, from the joy of beholding, doomed to love her, hopelessly. She is kind but cold to all, and, unable to endure the sight of so beautiful a presence and be separated from it, her lovers join in a prayer to God that as they may not possess her they may at least be relieved from the torment of her loveliness. The prayer is answered : the angel is taken back to heaven, leaving her human heart in the edelweiss, as a memento of her earthly residence. EGG-PLANT As the Arab women use henna juice to redden their palms and soles, so the egg-plant is used to blacken the teeth of women in Japan, but for a different purpose, for whereas the henna stains are regarded as beautiful, the blackened teeth are a confessed disfigurement. Tradition says that the custom arose from the wish of a handsome young wife to cure her husband of a causeless jealousy. The color is obtained by dropping peel of egg-plant into water that contains a red-hot iron. After applying it to the teeth, they are brushed till they shine like metal. The practice was continued until the empress appeared in public with white teeth, when society in Tokio dutifully followed her example. Among the commoners, however, the use of tooth- dye is continued to a considerable extent. The variety of egg-plant known as the apple of Sodom, 104 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. or Dead Sea fruit, is often pierced by an insect, whose sting has the effect of shrivelling it and converting its inside to bitter dust. The name of Dead Sea apple, however, is applied to a gall nut, like that borne on our oaks, which also results from the stings of insects. The true egg-plant which bears that name because of its shape, and not for its flavor, was anciently believed to be a poison, especially to wits, wherefore it had the names of raging apple and mad apple. ELDER Lurking in swampy isles and borders, and hiding un- known things in its shadows, the elder came to be regarded as having a supernatural consequence: it was possessed of a spirit, and none might destroy it without peril to himself. Its name associates it with Hulda, or Hilda, mother of elves, and the good woman in northern myth. In Denmark Hulda lived in the root of an elder, hence the tree was appropriately her symbol, and was employed in the cere- monies of her worship on the Venusberg. If the forbidden wood is used in buildings, the occupant will presently com- plain that mysterious hands are pulling his legs. The dwarf variety is believed by some to grow only where human blood has been shed, and in Welsh its name signifies plant-of-the-blood-of-men. Yet the elder has its virtues, and on the night of January 6 you may cut a branch from it, first having asked permission, and spat thrice if no answer comes from the wood. AVith the branch you will mark a magic circle in a lonely field, stand at the centre, surrounded with such kinds of bloom and berry as you have saved from St. John's night, and, so prepared, you will demand of the devil, then abroad, some of his precious fern-seed that gives to you the strength of thirty men. Though the evil one is 105 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. foot-free on that night, he is still under the spell of the good Hulda, and when a wand of her wood is directed against him he must obey, and the fern-seed will be brought by a shadowy somebody, folded in a chalice cloth. Incidentally elder wood cures toothache, keeps the house from attack, fends off snakes, mosquitoes, and warts, quiets nerves, interrupts fits, removes poison from metal vessels, keeps worms out of furniture, and guarantees that he who cultivates it shall die in his own house. If this cross be planted on the grave — as in the Tyrol, where peasants lift their hats to the elder — the beatitude of the buried is under- stood when it bursts into bloom and leaf; if it fails to flower, the relatives may draw their own conclusions. ELM America claims the elm, though its original is said to have come from Italy, where it was often used as a support for vines. As it yielded no fruit, the ancients had but a small opinion of it, and, like other such trees, they put it under protection of the infernal gods and made it a funeral emblem, as we afterward made the willow. To our Indians, it was a demulcent, even a food, and the Iroquois called the red or slippery elm * ' oohooska, ' ' meaning ' ' it slips. ' ' In classic legend the elm was a creation of Orpheus, or a gift of the gods to him, for when he had returned from the vain attempt to release his wife from Hades and be- taken himself to his harp for consolation, the listening earth took new life, and crowding over it came a grove of elms, marching to his song, and forming a green temple in whose shade he often pondered, and uttered melody while he re- mained on earth. Thus it should be the tree of Orpheus, but by some strange perversion it became the tree of Mor- pheus, god of sleep, and dreams hovered and roosted in its 106 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. branches, ready, it would seem, to pounce on the unwary who stole a nap beneath it and fill him with conceits and terrors. In saintly heraldry the ''attribute'' of Zenobio is an elm putting forth fresh leaves, for this holy man restored so many from the dead and lived so prayerful a life that the people crowded about his body at the funeral, exactly as they crowd to-day about the hearse of a beloved rabbi in New York, to touch his coffin and obtain healing. In the crush the corpse of Zenobio was thrown against a withered elm and instantly on this contact the tree put forth a crown of leaves, showing that he had brought the tree to life as he had raised men and women from the tomb. It has been claimed that the lotus, which, being eaten, causes the traveller to forget his native land and be content forever in the country of the stranger, is no lotus at all, but the species of elm known as European nettle, also called hackberry and sugarberry. Sundry of the famous trees of this country are elms. Such was the Penn treaty tree, which stood in a suburb of Philadelphia until 1810, marking the spot where the only fair agreement was ever made between white men and Indians. That under which Washington took command of the American army in Cambridge is still standing, de- spite the appeals of a street railroad company for more track room. Our New England green with its border of monumental elms, has a likeness and precedent in old England, where an elm on a village common was a gathering place for the people when they were to debate public matters, or hold court for the trial of minor cases. In at least one instance it served as a stake for the burning of a poor wretch " for the profession of the gospel." There are not infrequent instances in folk tales of the dependence of human lives on those of plants and trees, 107 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. and one such instance has been noted in the superstition relative to the great elm of Castle Howth, near Dublin. For years this tree received care, its limbs being propped or tied when threatened with decay, in the belief that when- ever a branch was broken the head of the Ho^vths would die, and that when the tree itself should have lived out its life the family would become extinct. ERYNGO The hapless maid Sappho loved a boatman, a stalwart, handsome fellow, and to compel his love she wore sprigs of eryngo, or sea holly, for it was a faith of that age that whosoever would conceal this upon him and set his mind on the object of his affection would clinch that object to him as with bands of steel. But the boatman was of low tastes, and when she read odes to him he responded with indifference. Sappho could not abide these rebuffs, and ended the pain of them by rejecting the eryngo, singing her death-song on a cliff, and casting herself into the deep. Eryngo was formerly used as a tonic and confection. Lord Bacon is authority for it that when taken with am- bergris, yolks of eggs, and malmsey, eryngo roots are nour- ishing and also strengthen weak backs. According to Plu- tarch, if a goat took a sea holly into her mouth, it would not only bring her to a standstill, but affect the whole flock, so that they would remain like a group of statues, gazing into vacancy, till the herdsman, discovering the cause of the trouble, violently possessed himself of the herb and so broke the spell. FERN Few ferns have commercial value, though a New Zealand variety is used as a food, and the fragrant shield fern, yielding an odor that is compared to both primroses and 108 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. raspberries, is boiled by the Siberian Yakoots as a substitute for tea. The commoner brake, or bracken, or eagle fern — pteris aquilina — so called from a fancied likeness between its frond and an eagle's wing, and which grows to seven feet in British Columbia and fourteen feet in South Amer- ica, is believed to be the ' ' f earn ' ' of old England that gave to the villages such names as Landisfearn, Femham, Fern- hurst, Farndale, Farnham (fern home), Farnsfield, Farns- worth, Feamall, Feamow, Farningham, and the like. Rarer than this variety is that known in old times as lunary and martagon, but in our day as moonwork, rattlesnake fern, and (in extreme cases) hotrychium lunaria. This would have been a most unsafe thing to have growing about one 's doorstep, because on putting it into a keyhole, it will open a door ; it will unlock fetters ; it will loosen the shoes from a horse's feet if he but cross a pasture where it grows. In- deed, one of its ancient names is unshoe-the-horse. But rarest of all is the fern of Tartary called the barometz, or Scythian lamb, the root whereof, with its hairy rootlets, is likened to a sheep or dog. Lucky-hands is the name given by a limited number of people to that fern which is called aspidium filix mas. Its unexpanded fronds resemble hands, and fronds as well as roots were used to keep off spells of warlocks and witches. Glass made from the ash of it had magic properties. Some say that the ring of Genghis Khan contained it, for when- ever he wore it he could understand the ways of plants and the speech of birds. But the really precious part is the seed, for the plant flowers only once, and then in the dark. If you are abroad on St. John's night and look closely, you may see the dark red blossoms open, but only then, and at dawn they have fallen and been wholly absorbed into the earth. In the belief that it is good to see them, Eussian peasants spend that night tramping through dells where 109 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. the pretty plants are found. If the flowers do not appear, you may still, possibly, see the fern seed, shining like molten gold in the dark, and the seed is most precious of things, for if you scatter it, at the same time making a wish that the treasures of the earth be revealed, you shall see these treasures in a dim, blue light, as if the earth were glass. The sap of the flowering fern, when drunk, con- fers eternal youth. This seed can be gathered only on Christmas, just before the clock strikes midnight ; and keep your wits about you, for the Devil has the care of it. At the appointed time take your stand at a lonely cross road, where a corpse has recently been carried, and where un- canny things are flocking, half visible to you. These creat- ures will sometimes cuff your ears, or knock off your hat, or will try to make you speak or laugh by making myste- rious noises in the shrubbery, or by whispering fantastic ideas into your head. You must resist all temptation to make a sound with your lips, for if you do, either you will be changed to stone or torn to pieces. Just go forward silently till you find the fern with its seed glowing and sparkling, lay a chalice cloth under, lest the devil extend his hand to catch it, and collect such of the seed as falls before sun-up. When you begin the search you will see hideous snakes running over the frozen earth, yet they are only guides that lead the way to what you seek, and in following them should you become entangled in that fern which causes one to lose his way and sense of distance, change your shoes, putting that of the left foot on the right, and vice versa, and you will regain the road. The invocation of the spirit of the plant against magic seems to be indicated in a practice among the Syrians of printing the form of the lady fern on the hand of a woman about to be married. A leaf of this fern, known to them as bride's gloves, is laid on the hand, bound into place, 110 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. then the ruddy dye of the henna tree is washed over the skin. The back of the hand, covered by the leaf, is pro- tected, and the form of it remains as long as the stain. It is obviously the thin, black, shining stalk that gives to the adiantum its name of maiden hair, for the Greek adiantos signifies dry, and refers to the hair of Venus, which was not bedraggled when she arose from the sea, wherefore this fern was anciently Venus 's hair, and also. Virgin's hair, and, for unguessable reasons, was dedicated to Pluto and Proserpine, the gods of hell. Was the Greek myth carried to England, or how came it that in that country the fern was still a plant of mischief? True, the male fern averts sorcery and the evil eye, but you must not carry a fern, or snakes will chase you till you throw it away. All ferns are haunts of the fairies, who in Corn- wall are the spirits of such as died in paganism, before the coming of Christ, and are punished for lacking the true faith by the shortening of stature and the strange life of the woods. FIG The fig, first known, probably, in the east, is relative of almost as many useful forms of vegetation as the rose. In its family are the famous but now little dreaded upas, the nettle, the Indian hemp, the hop, the breadfruit, the mulberry, the rubber, and other plants of milky sap. Fig wood was used by Egyptians for mummy cases, better wood being scarce in their almost treeless country, and roaming tribes have pitched their camps in its shade. The fruit still forms an important part of the diet of these wanderers, especially that of the ever-blooming species, known as the sycamore-fig or mulberry fig — to primitive tribes, as sacred as the oak to the Druids. Beneath it the nature worshippers performed rites, some of which were better unperformed, 111 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. for which reason, no doubt, as well as for Judas 's choice of it to hang himself upon — he seems to have destroyed himself on all the trees in the wood, from the rose-bush to the palm — imps have been hiding in it ever since : ' ' obscene monsters," St. Jerome called them. Yet another saint, Augustine, to wit, found it no such matter, for when he had cast himself, despairing, under a fig tree, unable at the moment to believe some statements in the Scriptures, the fig spoke to him in a child's voice, bidding him read anew: which he did, and his doubts were solved. It is dangerous for some people to sleep under a fig, for they will be waked by a spectral nun, who offers a knife and asks how it will be taken. If the victim offers to take it by the blade, she will pierce his heart with it, but if he grasps it by the handle, she is compelled to give him good fortune. Christ deepened the fig in disrepute when he cursed it for its bar- renness, w^ith the result that it lost its leaves and died. Even its wood was worthless, for when they cast it into the fire it merely smoldered and would not burn. The fig furnished our first parents with what one old Bible called ' ' breeches, ' ' and some scholars claimed it as the original tree of knowledge, instead of the apple. When Mary sought shelter for the infant Jesus from the soldiers of Herod, it was a fig that opened its trunk to hide them till the pursuers had gone by. And in eastern mythology we also find the tree associated with the divine, for Gautama dreamed of his approaching empire under that form of fig known as the banyan or peepul, ''the sacred tree of many feet, ' ' and when he had achieved deity he sat beneath it as enthroned. Vishnu, too, was born in the cathedral shade of the peepul. These trees grow to vast size and vast age, the Holy Bo, of Ceylon, grown from a scion of Buddha's tree, being ''the oldest and most venerated idol in the world," according to Kipling. The banyan near Surat, 112 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. India, is held to be three thousand years old, and is never touched with steel, lest the god who lives in it be offended. One near Patna spread over nine hundred and twenty feet and was supported by sixty stems growing downward to the earth from its horizontal branches. Another immense ficus in the ruins of Padjajarian, Java, 'Hhe Vegetable Giant," is visited by many pilgrims, who believe that the souls of the dead occupy its branches. In classic myth the fig is Lyceus, a Titan, changed to a tree by Rhea, while another story ascribes its invention to Bacchus. It was growing on the site of Rome when the cradle of Romulus and Remus stranded under its branches, and was worshipped there, down to the time of the empire, the women of the city wearing collars of figs as symbols of fecundity in the Bacchic feasts and dances, and the men carrying statues of Priapus carved from its wood, in the holiday processions. In Rome, when Calchas challenged his fellow prophet, Mopsus, to a test of soothsaying, and the latter, answering his question, told him, ''Yonder fig tree has 9999 fruit" — which proved to be the case — Cal- chas, unable to guess anything of equal importance so nearly, hated himself to death. FIR The fir, which has been a sacred tree ever since it was hewn for the ceiling of the Temple at Jerusalem, was Atys — he whom Zeus changed to a tree, that he might thus appease the anger of Cybele, for Atys, a priest of Cybele, had lapsed from virtue: hence his punishment. So strong was the regard for the tree in France that when St. Martin arrived and began to raze the temple erected to heathen gods, his proposition to destroy the firs roused such anger that he was forced to desist. Some remains of its heathen 8 113 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. association linger in the Hartz, where girls dance about it in their religious festivals, singing songs that are not Chris- tian, and decorating it with lights, flowers, eggs, and gew- gaws. In circling about it thus, they prevent the escape of an imp concealed among its branches, who must give to them whatever is in his keeping or resign hope of going free. This is held to be the origin of the Christmas tree, and the imp has grown to the benevolent St. Nicholas, Santa Claus, or Old Nick, who is believed by Grimm and other students of folk-lore to be no other than Odin himself. Christianized somewhat out of likeness. When you light up the tree on Christmas eve, making sure it is a fir and not a pine or spruce or hemlock, for we use all sorts of ever- greens in our celebration, you may learn your fate, if you have courage to look at your shadow on the wall. If the shadow appears without a head, it signifies that you are to die within the coming year. If you will cut off a branch and lay it across the foot of your bed, it will keep away nightmare. A stick of fir, not quite burned through, fends off lightning, and a bunch hung at the barn door keeps out evil spirits that want to steal the grain. In Christmas celebrations in the neighborhood of the hill in the Hartz mountains known as the Hubinchenstein, cones gathered from the firs growing thereon are silvered and used for ornament, and if you ask why, you learn that long ago, when a miner fell sick, leaving his wife and chil- dren in straits for food and fuel, the wife climbed the Hubinchenstein, intending to pick up cones, which she might possibly sell for another day's living. As she en- tered the wood, a little old man with a jolly face and long white beard emerged from the shadows and pointed to a fir tree that he said would yield the best seeds. The woman thanked him, and when she reached the tree there was such 114 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. a downfall of cones that she was frightened. The basket was extraordinarily heavy, too; indeed, she could barely reach her home with it, and the reason for this was soon evident, for when she emptied the cones upon the table, every one was of silver. In the northern countries respect for the fir, as king of the forest and home of the wood genius, is so genuine that some choppers refuse to cut it, and when a monster fir is thrown down by storm in Russia the wood is not sold, but is given to the church. FLAX Hilda, the earth goddess, having taught to mortals the art of weaving flax, revisits us twice in the year, emerging from her cave near Unterlassen, in the Tyrol, and going about to see if the people are still profiting from her in- struction. She comes in answer to the summer's call, when the flax is putting out its blue, and her first concern is to know if enough has been planted. In winter she looks to see if the women have flax enough for spinning on their distaffs, or if there are hints of a proper industry in the fresh linen of the household. If she fails to find these tokens it means that the family is thriftless, lazy, or unfit, and she inflicts punishment by blighting the next year's crop. Because Hilda is the goddess of plenty, flax, in the re- gard of some of the northern people, has become the type of life. When a German baby does not thrive they place him naked on the grass and scatter flaxseed over him, in the be- lief that such of the seed as, falling on the earth, takes root and flourishes, will join his fortunes to the plentiful life that is everywhere about him ; so he must begin to grow when the little plants appear. 115 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. FLOWERS OF PARNASSUS Legend clothes Parnassus with poetry as nature clothes it with beauty. Many flowers of our gardens were born there, and they come to us bearing not only color and per- fume, but history and allegory. This storied hill loomed above Delphi, where Apollo spoke through his oracle. It towered into a region of snow, but its sides were green with olive, myrtle, and laurel ; and on a ridge of the moun- tain the Thyades held their revels in honor of the vine. Here grew the narcissus, translated body of that swain who wept himself to death for love of his own image. When Adonis died he became the adonium (in one version of the story), and the tears that Venus wept for him changed into anemones. The adonis autumyialisy also known as May flower, pheasant's eye, and rose-a-ruby, is stained red with his blood. Here grew the beech, wherewith victors in the games were crowned, till Daphne had become a myrtle, when the leaves of that tree were substituted, since Daphne was loved of Apollo, god of arts and grace and light. Here sprang roses, first white, but changed to red for shame V and pity when Venus, running toward the dying Adonis, was pricked by their thorns. The snowdrop bloomed here, but to the Greek it was the magic moly, wherewith Ulysses protected himself and his companions from the spells of Circe, when they had been wrecked on her island. Those who had drunk from the cup she offered became swine, but Hermes had provided the hero with a moly root that Niade it safe for him to drink. Here grew the elichrysum, an '* everlasting " named for the nymph Elichrysa, because she had woven it into a wreath for Diana; here grew mandragora and enchanter's nightshade, of evil note ; the dark hellebore, the fatal hem- lock, and the agrimony wherewith Mithridates countered 116 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. the poison administered by his courtiers ; here was the eye- bright, or euphrasy, named for the grace, Euphrosyne, and restorative of sight to hurt eyes ; here the yellow gentian and vervain used by Medea in her enchantments; here grew the filbert which is the metamorphosed Princess Phyl- lis ; the fleabane that drove vermin from couches ; the gilli- flower, called clove for its spiciness, and blooming for men in paradise; the mullein or hag taper, a funeral torch and gathered by witches for their incantations ; and the hawk- weed, dedicated to the bird that names it and eats it to clear its sight. Juno's tears (coix lacryma) bloomed! among the trees sacred to the gods who sat on Olympus, not far distant. Daphne's chase by Apollo is recalled by the laurel, for she was transfigured into that tree. The orchis commemorates the assault of the satyr Orchis on a priestess of Bacchus, his death at the hands of the out- raged worshippers, and the conversion of his body to this flower. Parsley gathered in Parnassus 's shadow wreathed the conquerors in the Nemean and Isthmian games, for it was chosen by the strenuous Hercules as his first garland; yet it decorated graves and biers, and was so commonly accepted as a funeral plant that a body of Greek troops was once thrown into rout by meeting some mules laden with parsley — a certain forecast of ill fortune. With the loosestrife, or lysimachia, growing here, king Lysimachus found that he could quiet unruly oxen, if he placed it about their necks. Here might be plucked the primrose, the flori- fied Paralisos, the poppy created by Ceres that she might forget grief in the sleep it induced, and the violet where- with Diana changed the nymph she would save from the embraces of her brother Apollo. To his Delphian temple, they carried the rampion, or campanula ranuculus, on golden plates, to be eaten as food or used as a funeral decor- ation. Here Syrinx, chased by Pan, was rescued from him 117 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. by a sudden conversion either into a reed, or the syringa that still blooms for Greece ; and tansy, bearing its old name of athanasia, recalls Jove's command to give eternal life to Ganymede, his cup-bearer, by causing him to drink of it. Thyme, which also covered Mount Hymettus, renewed fainting spirits, and symbolized vitality. The country hereabout is also favorable to the growth of quinces, which were consecrated to Venus and called golden apples. It was possibly with this fruit, not with apples of real gold, that Hippomenes won his race against Atlanta, for she could not forbear to stop and pick them up when he threw them to the ground. It was fondness for them that induced Hercules to fight the dragon of the Hesperides gardens. FORGET-ME-NOT Not many of the flowers retain their legends in their names, but the forget-me-not indicates its own history: A young man walking beside the Danube with his sweet- heart notes her admiration for some flowers — blue as her eyes — that grew on an islet in the stream. He tosses off his shoes and hat and coat, kisses her hand laughingly, and leaps into the river to pluck them for her, regardless of the current, the fangs of rock that lift through the foam, the cold of the evening, and the protest of the girl. He crosses safely, plucks the morsels of color, and is almost at the bank again when he is wrung by a cruel cramp, and can no longer hold his way against the whirl and surge of the rapid. The roar of the fall, not far below, is in his ears; he realizes that his hour is come. Looking into the white face of his beloved, he flings his bouquet at her feet with his last strength, cries, ''Forget me not!" and disap- pears. She never does forget him, but wears the flowers in her hair till her own death. 118 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. The flower was adopted by the fourth Henry of Eng- land in his exile, with the motto, or petition, **Eemember me." An order of knighthood in the fourteenth century wore the flower as a device. In Italy they tell you that it is a flower of love, and is the changed form of a pretty maid who was drowned. In France, where it likewise symbolizes affection, it is sometimes known as *'the eyes of our lady. ' ' An old tradition cites that when Adam — one version says, God — named all the plants in Eden, as he supposed, he overlooked this plant because it was so small. After- ward, as he passed through the groves and gardens, he called these names, to find if they were accepted, and every plant bowed and whispered its assent. His walk was almost over when a small voice at his feet asked, **By what name am I called, Adam?" and, looking down, he saw the flower peeping shyly at him from the shadow. Struck with its beauty and his own forgetfulness, he answered, **As I for- got you before, let me name you in a way to show I shall remember you again: You shall be forget-me-not." A Persian relates how in the world's morning an angel sat weeping at the gates of light, for he had loved a daugh- ter of the earth, and so forfeited his place in heaven. He had first seen the girl at a river edge, decorating her hair with forget-me-nots, and as punishment for losing his heart to her he was barred from paradise till the woman had planted forget-me-nots in every corner of the world. It was a tedious task, but for great love she undertook it, and so for years, in all climes and weathers, they wandered over the globe together, planting this little flower. When the task was ended the couple appeared once more at the gates, and behold, they were not closed against them. The woman was admitted without death. *'For," said the keepers of the way, **your love is greater than your wish for life; 119 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. and as he on whom you have bestowed yourself is an angel, so love of the heavenly has raised you above corruption. Enter, therefore, into the joys of heaven, the greatest of which is unselfish love/' GENTIAN This lovely flower has its American analogues in the fringed gentian, the inspiration of Bryant's poem, and the closed gentian, with its strange, unopened, bud-like promi- nences of intense and glorious blue. Physicians of old held the plant to be **sovrayne'' for poisons, pestilences, indi- gestions, dog bites, stubborn livers, weariness, lameness and other maladies. It bears the name of Gentius, king of lUyria, who discovered it to be useful in medicine. In Hungary the plant was Sanctus Ladislas Eegis Herba, in honor of Ladislas, the king, whose reign was vexed by a plague. In despair, Ladislas went into the fields bearing his bow and arrow, and prayed that when he shot at random the Lord would direct the shaft to some plant that might be of use in checking the ravages of the disease. He shot, and the arrow was found sticking into a root of gentian, which he immediately culled, and with which wondrous cures were wrought. GERANIUM The geranium has many forms, ranging in showiness from the much cultivated garden varieties to the humble crane's bill of the shadowed roadside, and in the old world common among hedges. It is a splendid thing in the east, is our geranium, almost worthy to be called a tree. There heaven created it to honor the virtues of the Prophet, for when Mahomet washed his shirt one day, he hung it to dry 120 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. on a lavender mallow at the water's edge. It did not take long for the moisture to evaporate, but in that time a wondrous change had taken place, for the plant was no longer a mallow: it was head high, adorned with flowers of brilliant red and exhaling a spicy and piquant odor. It had changed into a geranium, the first of all its tribe. Of the wild variety common in England and America and known as herb Robert, statements conflict as to the meaning of the name. Some hold that it was intended to commemorate certain concealed virtues of the highwayman Robin Hood, but in the belief of others it bears the name of a gentler Englishman, Saint Robert, founder of the Cistercian order, who was born on the 29th of April, when this herb commonly unfolds in the mild air of the old country. At all events, it was this saint who used it as a cure for Ruprecht's plague. An easier solution of the name is offered by a Scottish botanist, Dr. Macmillan, who traces it to the Latin rubor, or red. GINSENG Ginseng is in demand by the Chinese, and the plant is gathered for export by American rustics, from Vermont to the hills of Georgia. The Chinese carry the dry root as an amulet, and their name for it is genshen, meaning man's wort. The roots, which affect rocky places, are compelled to turn and twist in getting into the ground, that they may avoid stones and enter crevices. In appearance it is some- what like the mandrake, and as the mandrake is held to be shaped like a man, it follows, according to the doc- trine of signatures, that appears to be still effective in the east, that it is intended for men 's use ; hence it is esteemed not merely as a prophylactic and demulcent, but as a charm against evils. It is good for ills and weaknesses that have 121 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. been inherited ; it refreshes memory, calms passion, and begets pleasant dreams. Though the Tatars would shoot an arrow at random, saying that where it fell ginseng would be found, it is so no longer, for the Chinese have as indus- triously rooted the plant out of their dominions as we are destroying it to-day, we being a reckless race that seldom thinks to sow where it reaps. Our shipments of it aggre- gate probably fifty thousand dollars a year, but the individ- ual earnings of the gatherers seldom amount to as much as they could make in an equal time in the fields. A hunter may tramp over wooded hills and undergo much hard- ship in collecting a dollar 's worth. GRASSES, GRAINS AND REEDS The most common form of vegetation in all parts of the world, a form that is familiar in poetry and art, pervades tradition to but a slight extent. It appears as a simile in our own and other religious teachings and histories, and wherever the Bible is read the sayings will be recalled, **A11 flesh is grass," ''If God so clothe the grass of the field, how much more will he clothe you!" Grass-blades were once eaten to achieve second-sight and prophecy, and sods were thought to be barriers against witches. Sods were also given with title deeds as proof of a valid transfer. Conquerors exacted grass and water from the enemy in token of submission. In some of the wars in India, when a tribe was overcome, the fighters would go upon their bellies and eat grass from the ground, as an assurance that they had become as cattle under the hands of their enemies. Indeed, when the Cid surrendered to King Al- fonso, he and his fifteen knights knelt and ate grass. The Masai hold grass in the hand or tie a wisp of it to the dress when they would denote welcome, they throw it over one MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. whom they wish to bless, and they cast it into rivers as a peace-offering to the water spirits, tokening therein an appreciation not unlike that of the Romans, who gave a crown of it to the captain who should deliver a town under siege, the trophy being known as the corona obsidio- nalis, or siege crown, and also the corona gramiriea, or grain crown. It was woven of grass that grew in the beleaguered camp. The Hindus, who speak of kusa grass as the ornament of sacrifice, and the purifier, use it in fires of incense on the altars of the Hindu trinity, Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva. As Brahma once sat on a tuft of it, and thereby made it holy, so the wise and wonderful, who in the east, as elsewhere, live to meditate, strew their floors with kusa, and carry blades of it for good fortune, as harder-headed people carry four-leaved clover. Albeit grass is the commonest of weeds, and witch grass is one of the worst pests with which the farmer has to con- tend, there is only one poisonous variety, namely the lollolmm temulentum^ which is the tare of Scripture, that the enemy sows in the night. In a Welsh superstition there is danger in tussock grass, because it is occupied by fairies, who must be treated with consideration or they may revenge themselves. Early botanists, who formulated the doctrine of signa- tures, observed in the shaking of grass a token that it must be usefully employed in human diseases, so the kind known as quakers, or shaking grass, became a cure for chills and fever. In an English tradition of last century, the grass did not merely tremble on the happening of a tragedy ; it refused to deck the grave of a man unjustly put to death. In the churchyard at Montgomery is a bare spot of the size and shape of a coffin. It is told that a young farmer incurred the enmity of two prosperous neighbors, who 123 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLO^VERS, ETC. brought a false accusation and had him arrested for high- way robbery. He was convicted and sent to his death — for in those times robbery was a hanging matter. Before the execution he said, ''If I am innocent of the crime for which I suffer, the grass, for one generation at least, will not cover my grave.'* So soon as the bell began to toll for the hanging, the sky darkened, and as Davies put his foot on the scaffold there was a glare of lightning and an appalling roar of thunder that struck terror to his accusers, and the multitude that had assembled to see the killing fled, crying that the end of things had come. In 1852, thirty years after the hanging, a village clergyman in Mont- gomery wrote that the grass had not yet covered the grave, and that, although attempts had been made to induce a growth, it always died, leaving the soil cold and bare, as if burned off by lightning. The rush, or reed, came into existence when the burly, jealous Cyclopes, Polyphemus, found Galatea in the arms of the shepherd Acis, whom she loved. Polyphemus crushed his rival with a stone, and Galatea, unwilling to leave him in his gory state, yet unable to restore his life, caused the blood of the shepherd to change to water and flow forever. When it had completely lost its color a form like that of the dead youth appeared waist deep in the stream, and while the weeping nymph looked on the arms began to lengthen, the shoulders to sprout green blades, and pres- ently the brook was edged with a growth of rushes. The reed or rush, long associated with kingship, seems to have represented the royal sceptre. We learn that Moses's cradle anchored among rushes that beaconed above his head, as pointing the way to high station among his people. We see the reed placed in the helpless hands of Christ as he is mocked before his death. It is reported that William the Conqueror fell on the floor at his birth. 1^4 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. It was then the fashion, and for long after, to strew halls and churches with rushes, to relieve their bareness and collect dirt, it being easy to change them for cleaner. The little William, rolling among these rushes, grasped a num- ber of them in his tiny hands, whereupon all the bystanders who had been invited to witness the function, broke into a cheer, for this was promise of kingship. When Isis set sail to recover the body of Osiris she wove her boat of papjTus, and the crocodiles respected it, allow- ing it to proceed along the Nile in peace. It was of this great water-grass also that the basket boat of the little Moses was made, when he was committed to the river, and boats of the same grass have been made in our day, though its more important use is the making of paper, sheets of which made from papyrus two thousand years ago are still in existence. Bamboo represents shelter and friendship, in Indian sjrmibolism. Though its flowers irritate delicate noses, pro- ducing something like hay-fever, its huge stems are used for houses, corrals, fences, furniture, and furnishings, and we are told how Chinese not rich enough to own a garden make a raft of bamboo which they cover with earth, and so raise vegetables on lakes and rivers. Our Indians of the southwest relate the preservation of man and the brutes through the deluge to the canebrake : When the earth was about to be overwhelmed, the red Noah called his family and the representative animals to enter the hollow of a monster cane-stalk with him, and, closing the break, they mounted higher and higher into its wood as the waters spread and deepened. Now and then the big rush threatened to break in the sway of the storm, but by repeatedly strengthening it with scarfs of cloud they kept it fast. At last the flood had reached its height, and, crawling up on the side of the cane, the preserver of 125 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. the race reached its tip, and, pulling off the feather he wore in his hair, he swept it against the sky, in memory of which act the canes have worn feathers ever since. In the cosmogony of Japan it was a bulrush, budded at its tip and piercing the misty heaven from the misty earth, that carried the seed of life into the infinite. The bud opened and from it came four pairs of heavenly be- ings, the last couple, Izanagi and Izanami, god of the air and goddess of the clouds, undertaking the creation of the earth. They first cast rice grains abroad, to dispel the darkness that prevailed; then the air god let down his spear and stirred the sea, which began to eddy, turning faster and faster till by its speed it had brought up land from the bottom and thrown it out at the feet of the gods. When this earth had dried a little, the rice had root-hold, and so the means of supporting animal life was provided, while the spear remained where Izanagi had thrust it and became the centre of the earth, around which all things turn. Then the gods begat the sun goddess, who in turn begat all the flowers that lend beauty to this whirling sphere. This rice-straw figures curiously in one of the Japanese legends, for it is because the straw held firm that Japan has a summer: Amaterasu, goddess of day, had fled, discon- tented, to a cave, to escape the persecutions of her jealous brother of the dark — he known as Susano, the moon god. So long as she hid her lights there could be no warmth, no vegetation, not even any water, for in the chill did not the springs freeze fast? A conspiracy was planned among the earth dwellers to lure her from retirement. Eight hun- dred girls were assembled before the cave and told to laugh their heartiest. Amaterasu, startled from her melancholy, stepped into the air for a moment, and so soon as she was at a little distance from the grotto and the world was filled 126 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. with light again, they held a mirror to her face and bade her look at her new rival. Never before having seen her own countenance, the goddess stood admiring it long enough for the plotters to close the cavern 's mouth with a stout rope of rice straw. Finding the way into the earth barred, real- izing, too, how prettily she had been tricked, the sun goddess laughingly confessed the cleverness of the earth people, and mounted again to her place in the sky. Then, as if to amend for the suffering she had caused by with- drawing light and warmth from her worshippers, she sent her grandson, Prince Plenty, the Rice Prince, to live among them, granting into his keeping the magic mirror, from which all Japanese mirrors have been designed for cen- turies, and which indicate the sun in their round and shin- ing shape. This Rice Prince lost hold on the heavenly life by coming to our planet ; he was the son of gods, made man, and he devoted his life to the teaching and guidance of the human race. Although generations of kings come and go in other lands, the Prince's line has continued un- broken, the oldest royal family in the world; for the Rice Prince is ancestor of all the mikados who have ruled Japan. Japanese farmers who have not been reached by the mis- sionaries still pray to the god of rice for plenteous harvest, and hold the grain as a symbol of generation as well as of abundance — a symbol that has extended to other lands, for even in our own country bridal couples are showered with rice when they set off on their wedding journey. In India the Brahmins throw the rice over the shoulders of the couple after they have mixed it with saffron, and when the children arrive the little fellows are taken into an apart- ment where the father empties a quantity of red rice over their scalps, to keep off the evil eye. Long ago the priests of Japan lived on roots and plants, but while meditating on the ineffable, one of the brother- 127 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. hood found his thoughts drawn to earth by the behavior of a mouse that was skurrying to and fro, carrying something to its nest. The priest set a trap, caught the little creature, and, having tied a thread to its leg, followed it as it scuttled across the hills and into a watery country he had never seen before, where wild rice grew plentifully. This the priest found so good that he sent for his people to cultivate it, and when it had become the food of the nation the mouse entered into the respect of the public to that degree that you shall find him in bronze, paint, ivory, and porcelain, for he, too, is sacred. The Arabs do not admit this: they claim the first rice grains to have been drops of sweat from the brow of Mahomet. The other nations have their lore of grain, which in the north was under protection of Hulda, or Bertha, benevolent earth mother. In her anxiety that her fields should have a plentiful crop of seed, she protected them against damag- ing visitors by stationing were-wolves at the boundaries. Loki, the mischievous fire god, would sometimes steal past the wolves and sow his wild oats ; and when heat shimmers over his farm the Jutlander says, * ' Loki is sowing his wild oats.'' Two weeds still carry his name, in the north: the polytrichium commune, which are Loki's oats, and the yel- low rattle, or rhinanthus, which is Loki's purse. For some reason rye-fields at that time were affected by devils, of whom the peasantry were so afraid that when they reaped the harvest they left the last sheaf for these imps to quarrel over while they hurried the rest of the crop into the barn. But demons never quarrelled over the bed straw, galeum verum luteum, because it was too holy for their touch: it filled the manger where the child Jesus lay ; hence it became a custom to strew such of it as had been used in the Christ- mas festivities over the fields, to bless them and increase the harvest; also to spread it in the stalls as a litter for 128 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. cattle, to keep them from disease, and lastly, to heap it on the floor as a bed for the whole family on Christmas night. When the Spanish adventurer Cortez came to this west- ern world, he was more concerned for gold than he was for grain, yet he became the unwitting agent in the begetting of more wealth for us than he could ever have taken away, had he lived till now: for it was from a few kernels of grain, brought by one of his party through sheer oversight, and shaken upon the earth of Mexico, that the crops of this country are alleged to grow. So largely is our wealth a matter of wheat, rye, oats, and barley, that if we were a more imaginative people, we should be justified in a revival of the ancient festivals, held at harvest time, in honor of the goddess of grain, who in her various names and aspects is Ceres, Rhea, Hera, Demeter, Cybele, Tellus, and Isis. Proserpine, passing six months on earth and six in Hades, types the plant that sleeps in winter and flourishes in summer, and this tale of the nymph who is spirited away to lightless depths to emerge again for a season has its complete or partial likeness among primitive peoples, east and west ; in fact, a survival of the ancient rites of Greece is found in India, where the bride is crowned with corn as a symbol of fertility. Grain was Egypt's wealth, and in many tongues we read the parable of the man who bade his son search diligently, for there was buried treasure in his field. The son plowed and dug for years, and discov- ered no buried coin, but his plowing resulted in splendid crops, and from these he earned much money, so that he was content; and when he had become so, and had earned the right to rest, he understood that the treasure was the earth's fatness, and that in increasing its yield of yellow grain he had lived more happily and usefully than if he had uncovered gold. It has been claimed for millet that if eaten on New Year 9 129 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. day it will make the eater rich, and this despite the poverty of many whose diet is millet, mostly. The unaccountable wanderings and shiftings of these fancies, as we deem them, but of symbols and figures as they often are, discover con- nections in beliefs that appear widely unrelated at first glance. For instance, this belief in New Year luck relates millet to an earlier faith among the Germans that it was the food of the great storm dragon, and also to the fancy that grain took its color from gold. For when the thunder beast, from his hiding in the clouds, dropped red lightning, it signified that gold had fallen on the earth where the bolt had struck, whereas if he spat blue fire it meant that he had sown millet for his own eating. Hence gold and millet, being made by the same power and process, were in a meas- ure transmutable. In Persia, the myth takes a different form, yet is recognizable as a relative, for there the dragon is still an inhabitant of the sky, and is a more pleasing object than the lightning: he is the rainbow. And instead of throwing gold to the earth, he drops it gently, so that you shall find treasure where the end of his body rests upon the ground. No amative significance attaches to grain in America, but there is a custom in New England of pairing young men and women at the corn huskings, when neighbors aid one another to strip the ears of maize, and this carries with it the privilege of a swain to kiss the girl beside him if he finds an ear with red kernels. In old England the last ear of grain in harvest is cut by the prettiest girl, who permits no such consolation to her admirers. There is one grain known to every city child: the se- same; for was it not by that magic name that Ali Baba opened the cave of the forty thieves? The sesame, or se- samum, is described as an oily pulse that is sown before the rising of the seven stars, and was created by the god 130 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. of death, whence the orientals use it in services of repent- ance, expiation, or purification. Sesame is mixed with rice and honey in the cakes offered to the dead, and ' * the offer- ing of the six sesames" being duly made, at six different times, the giver believes that the departed has received his admission to heaven. When an Hindu funeral is over and the body is burned, the friends leave half a pound or so of sesame on the bank of the river where the burning has occurred, and on which the ashes are drifting, that the dead may feed on it and gather strength for the long journey into the hereafter. HAWTHORN While Christ was resting in a wood during the pursuit prior to his crucifiixion, the magpies covered him with haw- thorn, which the swallows, ''fowls of God,'' removed as soon as his enemies had passed. From this circumstance the plant gained holiness, and in the chapter on Christian legends may be read how Joseph of Arimathea planted the white thorn of Glastonbury, which, to prove its saintly asso- ciation, flowers on Christmas eve, no matter what the weather. A kindred instance is recorded in the life of Charlemagne, when he knelt before the crown of thorns, which is alleged to have been fashioned from the hawthorn. The wood, dry for centuries, burst into bloom and the air was filled with a wondrous fragrance. After thousands of Calvinists had been put to death dur- ing the St. Bartholomew's massacre, the wearied slayers, surfeited with slaughter, were fain to allow the survivors to escape. But the priests spurned the flagging spirits of the people by declaring that heaven applauded the stamping out of heresy, and had proved it by kindling into new life the hawthorn bush in the cemetery of the Holy Innocents, 131 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. **as if it had drunk the blood of heretics and gained new strength from it. ' ' So the populace marched to the grave- yard, where, true enough, the hawthorn, or **holy thorn," had put forth a wondrous mass of bloom; and, seeing it, the men who had done what they truly believed to be the will of heaven, fell on their knees and worshipped the inno- cent flowers of the * ' albespyne. " At Bosworth field the crown of Richard III. was hid in a hawthorn, and, being recovered after the death of that misshapen monarch, was placed on the head of Richmond, who thereon took as his device a crown in a hawthorn. HAZEL Moncure D. Conway associates the name of hazel with the Syrian hazeh, meaning hazy, since mysteries associated with the ancient religions were of that effect on beholders and participants. He also believes that our word hazing is derived from the same root, that being a process of induc- tion into the mysteries of study, the excesses of which were best corrected with the hazel rod of the schoolmaster. The hazel, too, was a tree of Thor, and protected buildings and graves against lightning. It took on sanctity because the holy family was sheltered by a hazel in the flight to Egypt. It is used as a means of securing crops, warding off lightning, curing fever, and driving devils out of cattle. It takes only three hazel pins to preserve a house from fire, if they are driven into its beams ; also, a hazel cut at twelve o'clock on Walpurgis night and carried in the pocket will prevent the one who carries it from tumbling into holes, though never so drunk. If you cut it on Good Friday or St. John's eve, you can lash your enemy with it in your own apartments, and without seeing him. Merely name him and lay stoutly about you, and your foe will 132 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. dance and bellow, no matter if he is a thousand miles away. The hazel is the caduceus of Mercury, which roused in all who were touched by it love of kin, country, and the gods ; and, as everybody knows in our time, it is the divining rod, cut in a Y from a dividing branch, one handle held in the right hand, the other in the left, its point toward the ground, and so held it is to indicate hidden springs, or gold and silver. It is told that Linnaeus, having no belief in these tales, hid a purse of a hundred ducats under a ranunculus, and bade a fellow find it with a hazel wand, if he could. An unasked company, hearing of money in the ground, tore up the pasture and destroyed the ranun- culus and other plants, so that the owner of the ducats could no longer tell where he had hidden his wealth ; but the man with the hazel, disregarding all guesses and advice, pres- ently marked the spot where, sure enough, the coin was hidden, and from which it was safely removed. Another such experiment, said the botanist, and he would believe in the witchery of hazel himself. But it was observed that he risked no more of his ducats in experiments. When Adam was expelled from paradise God pitied him to the degree that he allowed him to create new animals by striking water with a hazel rod; and he, having so produced a sheep. Eve, forsooth, must try her prentice hand and bring a wolf into the world, which forthwith sprang at the sheep. Adam regained the rod, and with it summoned into existence a dog that conquered the wolf. The first Christian church at Glastonbury, England, was a wattled house of hazels ; it was a wand of hazel with which St. Patrick drove the Irish snakes into the sea ; and the pilgrim's staff was made of this wood and often buried with him when he died of disease or exhaustion on his way to Jerusalem. Magicians used it also in summoning fiends ; 133 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. Circe employed it in turning her lovers into swine ; in one version of the legend, Aaron 's rod was made of it ; and such was the sanctity it obtained from that circumstance that oats fed to horses in Sweden are touched with hazel boughs, in God's name, that no harm may come to them from the eating. In that country, too, the hazel nut is one of the magical agents in making its carrier invisible. Divining rods must there be cut at night on the first of the new moon, or on Good Friday, or Epiphany, or Shrove Tuesday, the cutter facing east and lopping a branch from the east side of the tree. HEATH The heath, or heather, that decorates the Scottish hills, commemorates in its name the efforts of the Christians to convert the Picts. When the latter were visited by armed missionaries who ordered them to cease the worship of false gods, the Picts unreasonably gave battle, and the plants that were bedewed with the blood of the heathen became the heathen, or heath, for short. When all except two of the tribe had been killed, these survivors — father and son — were taken before Kenneth, the conqueror, who promised them life if they would tell him how to mal^e heath beer. They remained silent. Thinking to force the older man to compliance, the king put the son to death before the father's eyes. In anger and disgust, the old man refused to grant any favor to so brutal a victor, and the secret of the drink was never known, although, for shame's sake, Ken- neth suffered his prisoner to live. In the Jura the secret still survives, for the peasants of that region continue to make a beer in which two parts of heath tops are combined with one of malt. But the heath of the Jura is not stained with a people's blood. 134 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. HELIOTROPE The Greek word heliotrope means to turn toward the sun. We apply the name to a modest flower of purple color and delightful odor, that came from Peru, and, being adopted into France, was called there herb of love. What the original heliotrope was, we do not know with certainty, but it is supposed to be a plant known in Germany as God's herb, and to have many healing qualities. In the Greek myth the sun god Apollo is loved by Clytia, for whom he cares so little that he goes a-wooing the princess Leukothea. Clytia reveals the liaison to the king, who, furious at the misconduct of his daughter, buries her alive. Apollo returns to the heavens without so much as a look for the unhappy Clytia, who, bitterly conscious of the mis- chief she has done, falls to the ground and lies there for nine days, watching the passing of Apollo in his chariot, and praying for a look of pity. Seeing her wasted with privation and sorrow, the gods have mercy and change her into the heliotrope. She still lies at length upon the earth and looks toward heaven with half averted eye, as waiting complete forgiveness and acceptance. So our purple helio- trope is wrongly named, in that it does not turn toward the sun. Various plants have been instanced as foundation for Ovid's story: sunflower, wartwort, spurge, salsify, anagallis, elecampane, aster, marigold, and blue marigold. HELLEBORE This plant (see early Christian legend of the Christmas rose) is commonly called black hellebore, because of the color of its root. It was a cathartic medicine so long ago as medic- inal use was made of plants, and it also purged human habi- tations of such evil spirits as had gained entrance, provided 135 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. the perfuming of the house was accompanied by proper rites and hymns. Cattle were blessed with hellebore that had been dug within a circle drawn on the earth with a sword, the digger first asking leave of Apollo and Askle- pias. Arrows were rubbed with hellebore, that the flesh of animals to be killed with them should be tender. The plant cured insanity; and one of the earliest instances of a care for the soul-sick is found in the shipping of patients of a gloomy temper to Anticyra, where the herb grew plenti- fully. HEMLOCK Hemlock — conium maculatum: not the tree we call hem- lock— was prescribed instead of the gallows and the axe as a means of death for certain political offenders in the past, and was a common drug of suicide, since it was sup- posed to give a painless death. The plant was considered by the ancients as so deadly that snakes would wriggle away even from a leaf of it as fast as their ribs would carry them, lest they be chilled into a paralysis. It was mixed with the hell broths and ointments brewed and blended by witches for mischiefs, and in Eussia and Germany it is still re- garded as the devil's own property. It was by means of hemlock that the philosopher was put to death, after having annoyed Athens beyond endurance by exploiting his love for argument. HEMP ** To stretch hemp " is a cant phrase for hanging, hence the plant that furnishes the means for death might be thought to be of evil omen; but since more rope is used for goodly purposes than for shutting off the wind of rogues, the weed has a kindly aspect, especially for maids who wish to see their future husbands before they are led 136 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. to the altar, that they may make their plans wisely and put in train their fascinations. The damsels must run around a church at night, scattering hemp seed as they go, and repeating, **I sow hemp seed. Hemp seed I sow. He that loves me best, come after me and mow. ' ' And, looking over her shoulder, the sower experiences a pleasing terror, for she will behold the wraith of a man, chasing her with a scythe which he swings through the phantom crop that springs in her footsteps. Sicilians use hempen threads as a lure for lovers, for there would seem in this to be a suggestion of the tying of hearts together. An ill use that is made of hemp is that of extracting the hashish. The eater of this intoxicant bewilders his brain with grotesque and unearthly visions. Under its influence the Arabs be- lieve they can hear the words and even read the thoughts of others at a distance. HOREHOUND Horehound candy was popular in our fathers' day, be- cause it was ''good for the system.'' Horehound, horse- radish, coriander, lettuce, and nettle are the five bitter herbs ordered to be eaten by the Jews at their Passover feast, and the name of the first also bespeaks antiquity of service, for it is the seed of Horus, which the Egyptian priests dedicated to that god ; but how the name of hound attached to it nobody knows. In Egypt horehound was like- wise bull's blood and eye-of-a-star. It was one of those many plants that defended the eater against poison. HOUSE-LEEK The house-leek, which is not a leek, and grows in old gardens and on old walls as readily as in houses, may have taken its name from a command of Charlemagne 137 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. that it should be planted plentifully on the roofs of houses in his kingdom that it might protect them against ''thun- der." This curious little plant, with its rosettes of leathery- leaves, was anciently known under the names of Jupiter's beard — ^not in the least like anybody's beard — Jupiter's eye, ayegreen, and thunder flower. It cured fevers inflicted by witches; babes dosed with the juice of it were assured of long life; and if a person rubbed it over his fingers he could then handle hot iron — once. HYACINTH The hyacinth symbolizes misfortune and sadness, though to the gardener none is more welcome than this early visitor, with its luscious perfume and softly radiant color. The name was borne by a handsome boy, who was beloved by both Zephyrus and Apollo. The lad preferred the god of day to the inconstant master of the winds, but in ex- pressing his preference he did not realize what danger he incurred. Apollo having challenged the young fellow to a game of quoits, Zephjrrus lingered in the wood, resolved to take his revenge. When Apollo hurled his discus at the mark, the wind god deflected it full against the brow of Hyacinthus, and killed him. But the sun god declared that while the beauty of the boy had departed, it should be recorded in the finer beauty of a flower, and he sum- moned the hyacinth out of the earth, sighing upon it '*Ai, Ai ! " which words of grief some will affect to see, in Greek character, on hyacinth blooms. Yet because the sound is like that of ^i (eternal), the plant has come to signify remembrance; hence it used to be sculptured on tombs. The wild hyacinth, or bluebell, otherwise known as wood hyacinth, St. George's flower, and bending Endymion, represents benevolence in florography, and all hyacinths ex- 138 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. pressed affection of old, no less than ill ending, for Venus bathed in their dew to increase her beauty, and they formed the couches of Jove and Hera, and of Adam and Eve. HYPERICUM Like fern seed, the hypericum, or St. Johnswort, has a way of revealing itself on the eve of St. John in a golden glow, surpassing the brightness of its flowers in the sun. It was the early missionaries to the north who, finding this plant devoted to witches that fought against the sun (dark- ness and ill weather in symbolry), gave to it a new and wholesome consecration, which was no doubt suggested by its ruddy sap. This, the good fathers said, indicated the blood of the martyred John the Baptist, and, thus blessed by name, it began to bless in purpose in that it keeps off the witches who, of all nights in the year, are abroad on Walpurgis night, the eve of St. John. When a sprig of St. Johnswort is placed above the door, along with a cross, no witch or demon can enter. The Tyrolese moun- taineer puts the wort into his shoes, believing that so long as it is there he can climb or walk without fatigue. INDIAN PLUME An Indian girl living near Lake Saranae loved a youth whose straightness of form and swiftness in war and the chase had caused him to be named The Arrow ; but before the time set for the wedding a fearful pestilence appeared and ravaged all the Adirondack villages. The Arrow was among the first to die. The people implored the Great Spirit to be merciful, whereupon he showed himself on the crest of the Storm Darer. It was their sins, he said, that had brought punishment on them : they had grown too fond 139 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. of war and bloodshed ; they had held too lightly their pacts with other tribes; they had been careless in good deeds; they had grown haughty and selfish. Nothing but the blood of one much beloved would appease his wrath. The people of Leelinaw's village gathered to consider this revelation. After a time Leelinaw arose and entered the circle. *'I am a blighted flower," she said, "it is my blood that shall flow for you. Place me beside The Arrow. ' ' So speaking, she caught a stone knife from the belt of the priest, and slew herself. The Great Spirit saw from his mountain top, and his heart was softened. He swept away the pestilence ; but he did more, for he eternalized the memory of the sacrifice by causing the flower we call the Indian plume, or Oswego tea, to spring from the spot where Leelinaw's blood had been shed. IRIS No plant more sweetly recalls the gardens of our grand- mothers than the iris, or fleur-de-lis. Though showing by its hollow stem that it prefers to be near water, it grows in all manner of soil, and was generally to be found near the porch of the farm-house, where its blossoms, blue, purple, white, or yellow, were eagerly looked for as the spring advanced. It vies with amethyst in the depth of its color, and with the lily in its delicate, almost watery text- ure. In flower poetry it typed wisdom, faith, and courage ; but in the rude medical practice of earlier days it cured *' spleens," coughs, bruises, fits, dropsy, snake-bites, and anger, and one had only to lay its petals on a black-and-blue spot for a couple of days to restore the bruised flesh to its natural condition. Scrofula and other blood diseases were cured by creating an open wound and inserting a bead 140 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. of iris root. The root was also to be used for infants to cut their teeth upon, and the practice of placing beads of iris, or orris, as it is oftener called in the drug-shops, about the necks of the little ones extended itself to adults, who wear them for ornament. Leghorn and Paris export twenty millions of these beads in a year. Orris is also used to throw upon fires and give out a pleasant odor; to remove the smell of liquor, garlic, and tobacco from re- f ormable breaths ; and to simulate violet in sachets. The Iris is really meant when we speak of the lilies of France and Florence. Near the Italian city, it is raised for the sake of its fragrant root, while in France it was conventionalized on the royal arms and standards. King Clovis, of France, had for his coat-of-arms three black toads. In peace they served him well enough, but every time he went to war the toads on his shield were soundly battered, and some fear was felt lest the swords of the enemy pass through them and pierce the body of his maj- esty. But one day a holy hermit, gazing from his cell in contemplation, was startled by the appearance of an angel bearing a shield as blue-bright as was the sky, with three flowers of iris enameled on it and shining like the sun. The old man took the shield, with news of its heavenly origin, to Clotilde, the queen, who gave it to the king. Clovis expunged the toads from his armorial bearings, and in his next fight bore the angel's shield, observing, when it was over, that all stains of battle had disappeared, and that the lilies shone. From that day his armies triumphed in every field, and France, inheriting not only his prowess and his fame, but the shield itself, adopted the lilies for the royal standard. The iris then symbolized Christianity, which faith Clovis at once adopted, in accordance with his vow to do so if he should win a victory against the Germans. Doubters say that he never wore the toads as a blazon, 141 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. but took the iris on his accession to the throne. The blos- soms, being badly represented by the rude artists of that day, were mistaken for toads. At all events, they became more like lilies as time went on, and kept their place till the Revolution brought in the symbolry of the cock, the eagle, the Roman fasces, and the bee. The seventh Louis adopted the iris in his crusades of 1137, for it appeared miraculously pictured on his white standards; hence it became known as the flower of Louis, though its earlier name may have been flower de luce, or flower of light. At first the royal standards were thickly sown with this em- blem, but Charles V. reduced them to three, to typify the trinity. JAMBU, OR SOMA A huge tree bearing a great fruit, known to the Hindus as the jambu but to botanists as eugenia jamhos, is the * * fruit of kings ' ' that gave its name to the continent Jamb- duvipa, and was one of the four trees — ghanta, kadamba, ambala, and jambu — that marked the cardinal points where the four giant elephants held up the world. Four great rivers run from this tree, in the cosmogenic myth, for its fruit was then as large as elephants, and breaking as they fell, when ripe, they released the flood now called the Jambu River. This stream, fed expressly from its fruits, is therefore sacred, and a stream of health, as near to the precious soma of the gods as mortals may hope to know. Brahma having breathed upon the tree and imbued it with eternal life, it exhales the perfume of his breath. The dead climb into its branches for new strength as they begin the journey to the sky where the immortals are. It is as the soma, however, that the tree is king of plant life in the world, for soma yields the divine ambrosia, the drink of eternity. When the gods arrived on Mount Himavant in 142 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. their boat of gold, the costus, or kushtha, threw forth such a light that it revealed this neighbor tree, which, in its earlier aspects, yielded night and day before the sun and stars were created. It formed a visible body for Brahma himself, bore every kind of fruit known to the world, and the gods sit in its shade drinking soma and constantly renewing their youth. The Hindu soma is thought by some scientists to be asclepias acida, a name that seems to relate it to our milk- weeds. In the Punjab, where it is known as the moon plant, it represents or emblemizes the moon god, who seems, in turn, to have a care for it, and the sap, fermented and described as **a very nasty drink," is an elixir of life. The juice is variously called sharp and acid, and astringent and bitter; hurtful in large doses, because it is a narcotic, and, without inducing sleep, benumbs the body and dan- gerously lowers vitality. To the Oriental mind, always eager for equivalents and parables, the milkiness of its sap symbolizes the motherhood of nature, while the division of its blossom into five petals has a mystic meaning for the Indian; hence, the yogi, or wise man, drinks soma at his initiation into the mysteries of priesthood, and sees that which the common man may not, who is unworthy to taste it. JASMINE We who know the jasmine only as a greenhouse plant with a few white blossoms do not realize the possibilities of the species, for in tropical lands it becomes a tree-cloud of flowers, white and pink, and deliciously fragrant. And in spite of the abundance of flowers in the hot countries the people prize them as we do not always prize our sunsets and our northern lights. True, we are developing a better appreciation of the common and neglected beauties 143 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. of the wood and wayside, but we make no such use of flowers, even in our social functions, as the Mexicans and Central Americans make of rose, flamboyant and jasmine. They are sold in the towns for little money, hence the people can afford them for decorations as we can afford the goldenrod and daisy, and they use them lavishly in their churches and homes on feast days. Many flowers died of sorrow on crucifixion night, but the jasmine merely folded its leaves and endured its pain, and in the morning, when it reopened, it was no longer pink, as it had been before: it had turned pale, and was never to show color again. In the east it is highly esteemed, and the Indian women braid it into their hair when they receive it from their lovers, inasmuch as it promises long affection. It is worn in bridal-wreaths for that reason, though its oriental name of dark-and-thoughtful suggests no connubial delights, nor is its legend gladsome, for that represents the despair and suicide of a princess who dis- covers that the sun god has transferred his love from her to a rival. From her tomb sprang the night jasmine, known as the sad tree, whose flowers still shrink in reproach and horror from the sun, shedding their petals at the dawn. To the Arabs, again, it is a flower of love, imaging the charm of a sweetheart, though they call it the yas min, which means, despair is folly, and suggests an Omar Khay- yam mood of heedlessness rather than the tenderness of love. JUNIPER Venerable antiquity pertains to the German tradition of the juniper : that a boy entering a chest to pick up an apple is caught and killed by his step-mother, who boils his flesh for soup, and buries his bones under a juniper. She is disconcerted when the tree takes fire and a bird leaps 144 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. from its branches, flying over the land and spreading the story of the murder. The bird carries gifts to the boy's sister, and breaks the head of the wicked woman by causing a mill-stone to drop upon it; after which exploit the bird reenters the flames of the juniper and takes on human shape : he is the boy once more. Under the following circumstances, the juniper serves as a thief -catcher : Bend a young juniper toward the earth and hold it down where you have placed it with two weights: a big stone and the brain-pan of a murderer. You are then to say, ** Juniper, I bend and squeeze you till the thief" (here you name the suspect) ''returns what he has taken, to its place." So soon as the rascal feels an unaccountable impulse coursing through his legs and mind to restore the abstracted property, your injunction is in process of fulfilment, and you are then in all speed and kindness to release the tree from its cramped position. To the Greeks the juniper was a tree of the furies, though it had not then been distilled to gin. Its berries were burned at funerals to keep off demons, while its green roots smoked as incense on offerings to the god of hell. It is one of the trees that opened their arms to afford hiding to Mary and Jesus in the flight to Egypt. It sheltered Elijah, too, from King Ahab; and the idea that it is a refuge for the weak or hunted continues in the supposition that hares find safety in its shadow when hounds pursue, and that its odor will kill any scent that dogs can follow. In later years it was burned in, or its sap was smeared over, dwellings and stables, to keep off evil spirits, and in Italy it is a protection against witches, because when they find one at a door they are compelled to count all its leaves before they can enter — a task so hopeless that they usually give it up. 10 145 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. LARCH Have a larch about the house, for when burned it dis- turbs snakes. Sundry Romans built their bridges of this timber, because they regarded it as almost fire-proof. A ship of larch that had been floated after sinking in twelve fathoms of water was declared to be absolutely indestruc- tible by fire, so hard had the sea made it. To the French, this tree, the pinus larix, yields a manna that would appear to be little different from the gum that keeps so many American jaws wagging, for it is chewed by mountaineers in order to * 'fasten their teeth.'' This gum was also used by witches, along with the blood of basilisks, the skin of vipers, the feathers of the phoenix, the scales of salamanders, and other commodities that were commoner once than they are to-day, in the dreadful stews which were boiled at mid- night as a preliminary to cursing the neighborhood. LARKSPUR This flower had on its petals the letters A I A, signify- ing Ajax, terror of the Trojans. Disappointed in a divi- sion of the spoils after one of his battles, this hot-tempered soldier rushed into the open and wreaked his anger on a flock of sheep, stabbing several with his sword before he recovered from his madness. Ashamed of the spectacle he had made of himself, he turned his sword into his own vitals and perished. His blood, pouring over the sod, flow- ered into the air again as the delphinium Ajacis, but some who are able to read only so far as the first two letters of his name on the petals, construe them as the wailing cry of Ai, Ai! still to be heard in the east when Fate oppresses. The name delphinium is applied because the buds were held 146 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. to resemble a dolphin ; but it has suggested many things to many eyes, for it is also known as lark's heel, lark's toe, lark's claw, lark's spur, and knight's spur. LAUREL However it came by its symbolry, the laurel, or sweet bay, was prized by the Greeks as an averter of ill, and hung over their doors to keep off lightning. From a token of safety, it became a badge of victory. Generals sent dis- patches to the emperor encased in laurel leaves. The leaves were woven into garlands and crowns for victors in the games, as were myrtle, olive, pine, and parsley. If laurel were put under a rhymester's pillow, they made a poet of him, and if he read his verses in a university he was crowned with the leaves and berriesj so we have the word baccalaureate, which means, laurel berry; and as the stu- dent was supposed to keep so closely to his books that he had no thought for matrimony, the derivative word bache- lor came to be applied to an unmarried man. ^Laurel also gave power to soothsayers to look into the future. The Delphian oracle chewed its leaves before seating herself over the volcanic fumes on the tripod, and those who asked her service appeared with laurel crowns and nibbling the leaves that grew about Apollo 's temple, j It shocks us a little to discover of the emperor Tiberius that his faith in the protecting power of laurel was such that whenever a storm blew up he clapped on a laurel crown and crawled under the bed, remaining in this unkingly attitude till the trouble was over. LWhile standing under a bay tree one was safe against wizards; and the berries kept off various diseases ;j at least, Nero believed so, for during a pestilence he retired to Laurentium that he might save his precious health by breathing air that the laurels had purified. 147 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. We should be in an oratorical plight indeed if we were deprived of our laurel. It is long since we have used it for personal decoration, though at intervals the triumph of a musician is confessed in the laurel wreath that is passed across the footlights. Where did the fashion begin? Un- countable years ago, when Apollo chided Cupid for wanton conduct, and the boy revenged himself by shooting the god with his golden arrow, dooming him to love the first woman he should meet. Not content with that, he sped a second shaft, with a leaden tip, into the breast of the offended deity, so branding him that he was bound to create a feel- ing of repugnance in whomsoever that woman might be. Ere long Apollo met the wood nymph Daphne, and laid siege to her heart, but Daphne was repelled, and the more eager he became, the more frightened and indignant she. At last she found that her only safety lay in flight, but Apollo was close at her heels, and when it became plain that her pursuer must overtake her, she prayed to the gods to take away the form that had enchanted him and deliver her from his persecutions. Hardly had that wish been uttered ere her feet struck into the earth; her arms, that she had flung aloft in appeal, began to thicken, and they, too, became immovable ; her face disappeared in knots and wrinkles; her fair skin turned brown; her hair, that a moment before had been streaming on the wind, now rustled as leaves; and Apollo, coming up with outstretched arms, clasped nothing but a laurel tree. Though the god was cast down in sorrow, his love was unquenched. He still preferred his Daphne to all the trees of the field, and he ordained that locks of her shining hair — the leaves that should be borne in winter as well as summer — should crown all who excelled in courage, service, or the creation of beauty. 148 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. LEEK The Egyptians and the Druids viewed the bulbs of the allium species — lily, onion, garlic, and leek — as represent- ing the universe. Each successive layer about the centre corresponded to the successive heavens and hells of ancient cosmogonies. The leek was much used in secret ceremonies in the temples of the Nile. "To eat the leek," which is synonymous with eating crow pie and humble pie, is a phrase that extends into the antiquity which saw the rising of the pyramids, for an inscription uncovered in one of those monuments shows that the leek was a common food of the poor: hence its association with humility. In the Egyptian legend, Dictys, who corresponds to the Greek Endymion, was drowned while gathering the leek from a river, to the grief of Isis, the moon goddess, who loved him. Greece respected the leek because Latona, hav- ing lost her appetite, found it again when she had eaten freely of leeks. The leaf of the leek, too, is ' ' the ribbon of Saints Maurice and Lazarus,'* and it is the cord by which St. Peter's mother sought to be lifted out of hell, in an odd legend of the Sicilians. It appears that this woman was stingy and grudging to a degree, and in all her life had never given anything away except the leaf of a leek, which she threw to a beggar to quiet his pleading. When she died and was consigned to eternal torment, she begged her son to intercede with the Lord in her behalf. Peter begged the favor, but was coldly received. Said the Lord, * * The woman never did a particle of good ; still, I will send an angel to her with this leek leaf, and if it is strong enough to lift her out of hell, let her be free." The angel flew to the pit and offered the end of the leaf to Peter's mother, but no sooner had she risen a few feet than all the rest of the damned laid hold on her so that they might 149 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. be lifted, too. She kicked wildly at the host, and struggled so viciously that the leaf broke and she fell into gloomier depths than ever. The Poles assume that the leek was the reed borne as a mock sceptre by Christ when He was crowned with thorns, and they place its flower-stalk in the hands of His statue on certain holy days. White and green, the hues of the leek, are the Cymric colors, and on the 1st of March the Welsh wear them in celebration of St. David. It has been alleged that St. David, being a holy and frugal man, subsisted considerably on leeks, inasmuch as they grew wild in his neighborhood. On leaving his cell to engage the Saxons in battle, he or- dered his soldiers to put leeks into their caps, that in the turmoil, when men were striking at close quarters, the Welsh might not only spread terror into the ranks of the foe by charging the air with this most appalling smell, but could also know one another. The device was not unusual, and several heraldic cognizances had their beginnings in the custom, notably that of the Plantagenets in the planta genista. As the Welsh carried the field on this occasion, they continued to wear leeks in memory of their victory. LILY Because of its purity, it is especially fitting that the lily should represent the Virgin and decorate her altars, for her tomb was found to be filled with lilies and roses after her ascension. This miracle was accomplished in order to aUay the doubts of St. Thomas, who could not be persuaded that the Virgin had really risen from the dead ; but, stand- ing beside her flower-filled tomb, he saw her hovering in the air; and when she had flung her girdle to him he was forced to believe. In the s3mibolry of the Church, the lily is also the *' attribute'' of St. Francis, St. Joseph, St. 150 W. A. Mansell & Co. Photo. CARNATION LILY, LILY ROSE FROM THE PAINTING BY JOHN SINGER SARGENT MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. Barnard, St. Louis de Gonzague, St. Anthony, St. Clara, St. Dominick, St. Katharine of Siena, and the angel Gabriel. The lily fell from grace in Gethsemane when Christ walked there on the night before his death, for every other flower in that garden bent its head in sympathy and sorrow as he passed. The lily, shining in the darkness, said in the conceit of her own beauty, "I am so much fairer than my sisters that I will stand erect on my stalk and gaze at him as he goes by, in order that he may have the comfort of my loveliness and fragrance. ' ' As he saw the flower, he paused before it, for a moment, possibly to admire, but as his eye fell upon it, in the moonlight, the lily, contrasting her self- satisfaction with his humility, and seeing that all other flowers had bent before him, was overcome with shame, and the red flush that spread over her face tinges it still. We call it the red lily for that reason, and it never erects its head as it did before that night. The decorative qualities of the lily have always been appreciated. In our own days Mr. John S. Sargent has introduced it abundantly in his celebrated painting '* Car- nation Lily, Lily Rose.'* Like Diana and Juno, Lilith, the first wife of Adam, carried the lily as an emblem. The Greeks and Romans regarded it, as we do, as a sym- bol of purity, and they crowned the bride and groom with wreaths of lily and wheat, indicating a cleanly and fertile life. Among older nations, it typed virginity and inno- cence, like most of the white flowers ; hence the lilies on our altars at Easter — relics of a sun worship begun in Egypt — will sometimes have their anthers removed, that the lilies may remain virgin. The symbolic use of the lily persists, and it was long regarded as of good fortune, Judith wear- ing it on the night when she went to Holofernes, to keep off the evil she intended to inflict on him. In Spain it was held MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. that the lily could restore human form to any who had fallen under enchantment and been changed to beasts. In a garden in that land, in 1048, an image of the Virgin was seen to issue from this flower, and as a sequence to this apparition the king, who lay ill of a dangerous disease, suddenly left his bed as sound as ever he was. In recog- nition of the divine help, he organized the Knights of St. Mary of the Lily, three centuries before a similar order was instituted by the ninth Louis of France. Under the rain the lilies of the Caucasus used to change, sometimes to red, sometimes to yellow. Maidens tell their fortunes in these revealments, for, having chosen a bud, they look at it after the shower, and if it has opened yellow they suspect their lovers of unfaithfulness, but if it is red they know them to be true. In an eleventh-century legend of that land, an officer returning to his home in the hills, after the pains and trials of war, brings with him Plini, son of a fellow soldier, whom he adopts. The lad, intro- duced to the general's home, meets his daughter, Tamara, a blushing damsel who has known so little of the world that she is as innocent as the birds that sing among the vines and trees at the door. Plini, finding her ignorant of books, teaches her to read and speak the Greek, even as the poets spoke it. He finds her unskilled in music, but under his instruction she learns to sing and play on the harp. They study together, they walk the fields hand in hand; time is not for them, for the world rolls on in an eternity of happiness. But Tamara has been promised to an official of consequence in the Georgian state, and, learn- ing of this, Plini and Tamara realize that they love each other; that apart they can hardly endure to live. Still, the girl is dutiful, and will not listen to her lover when he pleads with her to fly with him to Greece. She promises only to pray for a way out of the difficulty, and, hoping to obtain it, she visits a monk who lives alone in the moun- 152 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. tains. Her retinue remains outside while she questions the old man in his hermitage, and it is thrown into terror by a storm in which the place is pelted with lightnings and shaken by thunder. When this has passed Tamara is no longer seen. The attendants rush into the presence of the monk and demand that she return to them. *'God has heard our prayer, '^ he answers. ** Tamara is no longer troubled. Behold her!" The people follow the monk's gesture with their eyes and observe a splendid lily in his garden where none grew before, and its fragrance comes to their nostrils like incense. But the people are doubters, and they will not believe the miracle. They drag the recluse from his cell, search the building and the shrubbery, and with cries of anger fall upon and kill him. Not content with this, they set fire to all that will burn, destroying the house, its statues of the saints, its ancient trees, its library, so that when they go to break the news of the girl's disappearance the lily stands alone in a field of ashes. In the excess of his grief Tamara 's father dies, but Plini hastens to the scene of the floral transfiguration and, standing before the flower, cries, **Is it indeed you, Tam- ara ? ' ' And there is a whisper, as of wind moving through its leaves : * * It is I. " The youth bends above the lily, and his tears fall on the earth beside it. Yet, blinded as he is by grief, he cannot but observe that the leaves turn yellow as with jealousy. The next drops fall into the flower itself, and it flushes red with joy. That night he falls into such a passion of weeping that the Lord changes him into a rain-cloud, that he may the oftener refresh the lily that was his love. And in after years, when dryness bakes the earth, the girls go out from their villages and strew lilies over the fields, singing Tamara 's song as they march. See- ing these flowers, the cloud arises and pours warm tears over the land. 153 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. A boy regarded as an "innocent/' or imbecile, was accepted by a kind abbot as an inmate of his monastery near Seville. The brethren did their best to instruct him, but as he seemed to remember nothing from hour to hour he was put at work in the fields and about menial tasks in the building. He did with patience what was expected of him, but was shy because of his infirmity, and at every chance would steal into the church, where he might sit alone, murmuring to himself, ' ' I believe in God ; I hope for God; I love God." And there, after a day in the garden, they found the guileless fool, his hands folded, a serene smile on his face: dead. The words he had so often re- peated were carved on the cross at his head when they buried him. Shortly a lily sprang from the grave, and, curious to know its origin, the abbot ordered the body to be exhumed, whereupon it was found that the heart of the innocent had become the root of the flower. In a folk-tale of Normandy a knight who had resisted the charms of the sex till he had acquired a reputation for coldness that exempted him from its assault, was accus- tomed to spend much time in graveyards, where he would be seen in a listening attitude, as if he expected some message from the dead which would show him the way to happiness. And the way came as he did not expect it, for, so wandering among the tombs, he met on a fair morning a woman of beauty such as he had never before imagined. She was sit- ting on one of the marbles, dressed in precious stuffs, with glowing jewels at her waist, and hair as yellow as the pollen of the lily she held in her hand. Her presence breathed a sweetness that filled him with admiration and awe, and, kneeling, he kissed her hand, at which salute the lady woke, as from a dream, and, smiling on him, said, **Sir knight, will you take me to your castle? You have sought me long, and I have come at last, for I have been waiting the hour when I might disclose myself. That happiness 154 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. you have denied to yourself so long, it is mine to give. But before I go with you I must exact one promise, and it is that none shall speak of death when I am near. Think of me as representing the life of the world, the bloom of youth, the tenderness of love, and think of this as yours forever. ' ' The knight, enraptured, lifted the maid to his horse; the animal cantered away without seeming to feel her added weight, and as they rode through the fields the wild flowers bent their heads, the trees murmured musically, and fra- grance filled the air, as from unseen beds of lilies. So they were married, and were very happy. If now and then some touch of his old sad manner was seen in the knight, his wife had only to place a lily against his brow and all melancholy disappeared. Christmas eve arrived, and a great banquet was ordered. Flowers of magic size adorned his table, the dames sparkled with smiles and jewels, and the lords wore so brave a mien it was inspiriting to look at them. And while they feasted a minstrel sang, now of love, now of war, of knightly adventure, of noble deeds and high resolves ; then, tuning his harp to a more reverent strain, he sang of heaven and the earning of it through death. At the word the lily wife turned pale and began to fade like a flower touched with frost. Her husband caught her in his arms with a cry of anguish, for now she began visibly to shrink, and in a few moments grief and bewilderment possessed him, for, behold, he was clasping a lily in his arms, and its petals were dropping to the floor. A great sighing was heard in the air, and the room was filled with a sweet odor. The knight turned away with a despairing gesture and went out into the darkness, never again to be seen by those about his board. And out of doors a change had come. It had grown cold and bleak, and the angels were scattering over the earth the lily petals of the snow. 155 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. LILY OF THE VALLEY No sweeter flower blooms than the lily of the valley. It expresses the virtues of purity and humility. There is somewhat calming in its whiteness, and something holy in its perfume. It seeks quiet, half -shaded places, as if avoid- ing the ruder contacts of the world. Little May bells is one of its German names, and in England the old names of May flowers and May lilies are still applied, but these are trite, and ** ladders to heaven" commends itself as a better. To the French, a tender meaning tells itself in *'the tears of Holy Mary." Ostara, Norse goddess of the spring, was a patron of the flower that marked her coming. We find a fitting use of it in the Saga of Frithjof, where Inge- borg, lamenting her hero, describes his grave as covered with these tender blooms. Lilies of the valley are appro- priate gifts to be offered by young swains when they visit their ladies; and, indeed, the homage and implication of purity and sweetness is poetry in itself. Is it any wonder that the perfume distilled from these holy flowers should have been held so precious in other times that only gold and silver vessels were fit to receive it? In the allegory which has been localized as a legend in Sussex, England, St. Leonard met the frightful dragon. Sin. For three days he struggled against it, sometimes almost fainting, often desperate and fearing, yet never giving over the fight. On the fourth morning he had the satisfaction of seeing the creature trail its slimy length into the wood, weak with pain, never to encounter with him again. Yet it had left its marks. Wherever its claws or tusks had struck him and his blood had dewed the earth, heaven marked the spot and sanctified it, for there sprang the lily of the valley. Pilgrims might trace his encounters in white all about the wood; and those who listened could hear the lily bells of snow chiming a round to victory. 156 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. LILAC The lilac, which comes from Persia and retains the name it bears in that land, lilag meaning flower, was car- ried to Europe in the sixteenth century and brought to this country by the Puritans. It grows wild in southern Asia and southwestern Europe, but with us, who have known it as prince's feather and duck's bills, and also as laylock and blow-pipe tree, because pipe-stems were made from its smaller branches, it is a loved occupant of the garden; and what more beautiful than a lane of lilacs in May with heavy heads nodding over the walk and dripping dew and perfume? Though picked for May festivals it was introduced charily indoors, for to many it was a flower of ill luck — a result of the association of its purple color with the hues of mourning. An old proverb declares that she who wears lilacs will never wear a wedding ring, and to send a spray of lilac to a fiance was a delicate way of asking that the engagement be broken. An English noble- man having ruined a trusting girl and caused her death of a broken heart, a mound of lilac blooms was placed upon her grave by friends, who averred that in the morning the flowers had become white, though when put upon the grave they were rosy mauve. This, the first white lilac, is pointed out to-day in the churchyard of a hamlet on the Wye, in Hartfordshire. LINDEN To the old Germans, the lime, or linden, was a holy tree, yet a haunt of dwarfs and fairies; and under it the dragons lay so often, for the shade, or for some protecting property, that they became known as lindenworms. The custom of magistrates of sitting beneath it to give sentence also lent importance to the lime and caused it to be known as the tree of judgment. In the mythology of the north, 157 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. when Sigurd, after killing the dragon Fafnir, bathes in its blood, a linden leaf falls on his shoulder and makes it vulnerable to Hagen's spear, since it prevents the blood from touching the skin at that point ; hence the linden was a tree of ill-fortune. Like other trees, it is occasionally bound up in the fortunes of a family or tribe, an instance being that of the ''wonderful tree" of Susterheistede, which was to be green so long as the Ditmarschens kept their freedom, but was doomed to wither when they lost it, as the event proved ; but the people say that the day is com- ing when a magpie will build in its branches and rear five young, and the ancient liberties will then be restored to the land. A tradition of the tree had fresh telling in America when Prince Henry came to us on his friendly errand, with Ad- miral Baron von Seckendorff as chief of his suite, for the history of the Seckendorffs begins in the year 1017 in this wise : When Henry II. was on the throne, the favorite pastime of the court was hunting. In one of his expedi- tions, the emperor roused a bull, which attacked him fiercely. Henry had only a sword for his defence, and had nearly given up hope, when the underbrush was shaken, and a young man bounded into the clearing with a lance, which he cast into the body of the bull. As the animal sank with a groan, the young man respectfully uncovered, while the king mopped his brow, and gazed from the bull to the spearman, as if doubting their existence. On coming to himself, he embraced his preserver, crying, ''So brave a man is destimed to father a race of heroes;" and led him to a linden, where his retinue had now assembled. There he related the incident, his story being greeted with applause. "What is your name?" asked the king. "Walter," replied the stranger. 158 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. Henry reached into the tree and, breaking off a branch with eight leaves, bent it into a wreath and placed it on the young man's brow. **I have no chain of gold to give to you here," he explained, **so take this spray of linden as a sign of better favors from your emperor. ' * Then, com- manding him to kneel, the monarch dealt the accolade, saying, *'Rise, sir knight; and because you have risked your blood for mine, be your device a red linden branch on a white field. The lands and castle of Seckendorff are yours. ' * The linden is one of the elements in the well-known tale of Philemon and Baucis, the contented old couple who served Jove and Mercury in their humble cot, when those gods descended in disguise, and who, in recompense, were spared from destruction in the deluge that overwhelmed their neighbors in Phrygia. Their home was transformed into a temple, and there they served as priest and priestess to the end of their days, which were long in the land. That neither husband nor wife might survive after the other was gone had been their prayer; so at the appointed time, when they came into the morning light, they knew that they should never see the sun again through human eyes, for on the head of each was a crown of leaves, not new placed, but growing. There was time for a last embrace. *'Good-by, my love,'' said Philemon, and **Good-by, my dear," said Baucis. Then, hand in hand, thej faced to the east and spoke no more. Slowly their human guise was lost. Their forms, bent and withered, passed into the shapes of trees with corrugated trunks, but not trees that expressed age. On the contrary, they ascended high and higher, unfolding large and larger crowns of leaves to the sky, and so they stood for ages and may stand yet: Phile- mon an oak, Baucis a linden. Something of human spirit lingered in both and the Scythian soothsayers turned to 159 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. the linden when they were to prophesy and twined its leaves about their fingers when they sought inspiration, as if it spoke to them. LOTUS The symbolic use of the lotus is various and remarkable. It is the representation of the sun and moon ; the attribute of silence; the symbol of female beauty; the breath of gods ; the source of nectar that gives eternal life ; the cradle of Moses ; the seat of Buddha ; a memorial of the ark ; the resting place of great spirits. Lakshmi, the Hindu goddess of love, is couched upon it, the fragrance of her body filling the heavens; Kamadiva, the Hindu Cupid, floats down the Ganges on this flower; the Japanese Mercury, Fudo, glides through the air on lotus sandals ; the new-born Buddha, in setting foot on earth causes a lotus to spring from it, and in his first seven steps northward a lotus marks each footfall. With the Egyptians it is the flower of Osiris, the sun god; and Horus, or Harpocrates, son of Osiris and god of silence, sits like Buddha, on a lotus, with finger on his lip, enjoining peace. This peace of eternity is expressed in the contemplative figures of Buddha, which the Japanese carvers have put into such exquisite form, and which represent the god as seated on an opened flower, ready to listen to the prayer of the faithful, that begins, "0 God, the jewel of the lotus." In the Greek legend this *' bride of the Nile" is the body of a lovely nymph, who, deserted by Alcides, flung herself into the river and was drowned ; but among the mystic orientals it is an emblem of the world, for Brahma, springing into life from the navel of Vishnu, alighted on a lotus, and from that rostrum com- manded all worlds into being. This flower, simple, decorative, and attractive in its form, appears in the architecture of Egypt, in the capitals 160 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. of its temple columns, in paintings and wall ornaments of the east, in the carpets of Turkey and Persia. No doubt it was first regarded merely for its beauty, and painters and sculptors used it as we might use the daisy or the maple leaf, without a thought of symbolism : but its petals, flaring to the light, suggested sun rays, and so it entered into the aspects and appliances of sun worship. Professor Good- year, in his *' Grammar of the Lotus," gives to it a high place in the arts of thirty centuries before Christ. He evolves the Ionic capital from its twisted sepals ; the Greek fret or meander he also traces to that; and the fret or key pattern doubled is the swastika, earliest of symbols and ornaments, to be found in pottery and on the temple fronts of the old world and the new, where it represents light and dark, death and life, male and female, good and evil. The triangle of its calyx has doubtless served, like the shamrock, as text for those who expounded the Trinity, and the old figure of the cornucopia, showering plenty on the world, may easily have come from these seed vessels. The seed were closed in balls of clay and thrown into the water, that they might root and create new plantations; hence the saying, **Cast thy bread on the waters and thou shalt find it after many days." For, despite the sanctity of the lotus, the Egyptians, Chinese, and others eat the bread made from its kernels; but in their case it seems to exercise none of the spell ascribed to it by the poets, who tell of lotus-eaters that care for no other food and so remain where it grows, forgetting their own countries and all pertaining to them. The lotus was a sacred flower in Egypt four thousand years ago, and was used to decorate guests at banquets, the stem being wound about the head and the bud hanging on the forehead. The Japanese still make ceremonial use of the lotus, which they buy on holi- days for temple decoration, and they use its leaves or pads 11 161 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. to wrap up food that is offered to the dead. In Siam, where the lotus is the national flower, this heaven is suggested in the great ponds of lotus in the king's park near Bangkok. MAGUEY Maguey, or agave, is often known as the century plant, because it blooms so seldom that most people believe it flowers only once in a hundred years. As a matter of fact, it blooms once in eight years in its own country, but in a cooler climate can be persuaded not to bloom at all. In Mexico it throws its leathery leaves to a height of fifteen feet, and its stalk, a veritable candelabrum, bearing about four thousand white blooms, is twenty-five feet high. When it has flowered it seems to have fulfilled its mission and dies down, leaving the ground to be occupied by sturdier off- spring, often from the old roots. Miles of country are covered by the maguey, for it has a commercial value in that it is food for cattle, its cores are baked for food, it fur- nishes thatch for cabins, fuel for kitchens, and fibre for thread and paper. The spike at its leaf-tip is used as a needle, its flower-stalk is a house-pole, and it stores water for the thirsty. These sweet juices, the agua miel, or honey water, that would otherwise go to the making of flowers, are drawn from a hollow cut in its heart, fermented, and made into pulque, or native beer. A plant will yield six quarts a day for four weeks, and is then exhausted. Pulque induces laziness and sleep, but the more fiery mescal, also made from a variety of this plant, involves the applicant in riot. The maguey is associated with the Virgin of Totoltepee, where the Aztecs had reared a temple to their gods, but which the Spaniards invaded to place the Virgin among the ruder statuary — a thing allowed, for peace's sake. When 162 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. the people, unable to endure the arrogance, the persecutions, and the looting any further, arose and drove them forth, the Spanish troopers hid the image beneath a maguey, near the top of Totoltepec. Twenty years afterward a Christian- ized Aztec, wandering near the hill, was dazzled by a light, and, looking up, beheld the Virgin, who, smiling at him kindly, said, *'Dear son, my image is hid near where you stand. Find it and enshrine it. ' ' Cequauhtzin found it under the maguey, and took it home for safe-keeping. In the morning it was gone, but an ''inward voice" told him it had gone back to the hill, and sure enough he found it once more, under the maguey. Again he took it to his house and put it into his stoutest chest, making his bed on the lid; yet in the morning the figure was gone again, and he found it a third time under the maguey. To the Fathers he went and told all that had happened, and they saw that the Virgin's wish was that a shrine should be built over the plant in whose shade she had rested for so many years ; accordingly, the splendid church of Our Lady of the Remedies was erected on the hill-top, the Aztec tem- ple being destroyed to make room for it. This church is now a resort of thousands seeking health and pardon. The slab in the altar records that ''This is the very spot where the Holiest of Virgins was found under a maguey by the chief, Don Juan Aguila" (the Indian's Christian name), "in the year 1540, where she told him, on appear- ing before him, that he should seek her. ' ' A curious mark of patriotism was shown by the Mexi- can congress in 1830, when it ordered that no legal docu- ment should be written on any other material than the paper of the national plant, the maguey. One writer offers a theory that Mexico means no more than the land of the maguey, the word mex-tli signifying a maguey, personified. 163 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. MAIZE It was a common belief among the American Indians that corn was of divine origin ; that it was the food of the gods that created the earth, and when they flew back to heaven, pained by the ingratitude of men, seeds of maize fell from their hands, and, rooting on the earth, sprang up to be the food of millions. Our farmers kill the crow, but some of the Indian tribes protect it, for this bird was the seed-bearer who brought the corn from heaven. But two legends of the Iroquois tell another story. One is, that a chief, having climbed a mountain where he might be alone with the Great Spirit, begged the deity to give more food to his people, for they wearied of meat and berries, and longed for the food of the gods. The Great Spirit bade him go to the plains with his wife and children in the moon of rains, and wait for three suns. This the man did, and while waiting he and his family slept. Others came to seek them, and behold, the old man and his wives and children had changed to corn. The prayer had been answered. The other tale is of a man who for love of a beautiful girl would sleep in the wood near her wigwam, fearing lest some accident might happen, or a daring hostile creep into the camp and steal her. On a summer night he was awakened by soft foot-falls leaving her lodge, and, spring- ing up, he saw her walking in her sleep. He followed, but the faster he pursued, the faster she ran, till at last, in a field, he overtook her and clasped her in a strong embrace. It was Apollo and Daphne again, for, to his astonishment, he grasped, not a girl, but a plant such as he had never seen before, a tall and graceful stalk, with leaves as long as grass. The fright or^ waking far from home, and in the grasp of a man, had caused the girl to pray that she 164 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. might be so changed, and her hair became the silk and her lifted hands the ears that are now eaten. It was a com- mon belief among our eastern Indians that human beings could change their shapes in time of need, unless they were under the spell of an evil spirit. Corn dances, celebrating the bounty of nature, are prac- tised among many tribes, and among the Hopis of the southwest there is perpetuated a drama which symbolizes the growth of corn and the beneficent and malefic powers that affect it, figured in the appearance and conduct of strange creatures, represented in part by the Indians them- selves and in part by rude figures operated from behind a screen. The front of the stage represents a field of growing corn, with actual blades in mounds of earth, and this field is swept by the demons of storm and drouth, while shamans perform saving incantations, and heroes end the play by overwhelming the demons. In one of the earliest of the Indian corn legends, the First Mother was born of a beautiful plant. Seeing her children suffer during a famine, she begged her husband, the First Father, to kill her and scatter her body over the fields, so that the distress of hunger would be ended. The First Father appealed to the Great Spirit, who bade him do as his wife desired. So he scattered the fragments far and near, and after a time green blades came up, ripened, and were corn. So it is that the wise say, *'A man is a grain of corn. Bury him and he rots. Yet his spirit lives and leaps from the earth again, to make him as he was. ' ' The Chippewas tell how the demigod Wunaumon, son of Hiawatha, lived alone, a mighty hunter, from whom the beasts flew or slunk away when they saw his shadow on the earth. He roamed freely through the forests of the Mississippi, and in one of his long tramps reached the prairies, which were like an endless lake of land save 165 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. that far away he saw a strip of wood. *'I will know what is there/' he said, and with great strides gained the other side of the country. As he stood under the trees a stranger came to meet him — a stranger with a shiny coat which was hard, like husks, and a flowing, ruddy feather in his scalp-lock. He was short and stubby, not likely, one would say, to offer battle to the big Wunaumon ; indeed, he seemed to have no such intent, for after a short talk he produced a pipe and exchanged a whiff or two with the hunter. But the spirit of fight was in Wunaumon, who, looking down at the stranger, remarked, ' * I am very strong. Are you?" ''I have the strength of a man," said the little fellow candidly. *'I am Wunaumon. What is your name?" * * I will not tell unless you beat me in wrestling. Throw me, and you shall find out. And it will be worth while to try, for you shall win more than the knowing of my name. ' ' ''Come, then, Red Feather!" cried the hunter, strip- ping off his ornaments. "I am not Red Feather. Try me, and perhaps you shall know. If you conquer, it will be for the good of all your people." They struggled, feinted, broke away for breath, and went at it again, without the slightest advantage of one over the other, for hours. Wunaumon looked at his little adversary with astonishment. At last, as the sun began to sink, he braced himself for a mighty effort. He planted his feet far apart and threw his arms about the other wrestler with a hug like a bear's. Something seemed to burst, and the man collapsed. *'Ha, Red Feather, I have beaten you!" cried Wunau- mon. **Now tell me your name." 166 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. * ' I am Mondahmin. I give my body to your people. Where I have fallen cover me with fine earth; then come back to me often. You shall see me again, and I will bring gifts out of this land for you. ' ' Wunaumon laid the body in the earth, covered it with dust, and in a month he came back to see two green feathers waving on the grave. The wind passed, and a voice like singing came from the plumes, saying, ''This is corn, the gift of Mondahmin. Watch it, take the seed to your people, and tell them to make a feast to Mondahmin in the Moon of Fruits." This did the hunter god, and the seed sprang up in strong, tall stems, bearing store of delicious grains that people planted, so that in times of famine it might save the lives of many. For this was that Mondahmin, who, after the Great Spirit had destroyed all men but one, by dropping the world into the great lake, came from the unknown and won the new-created sister of the survivor. He was the fifth of the spirit suitors for White Earth, and her brother had told her to keep silence till the fifth had come. The first was Usama. When White Earth refused him, his blanket fell from his shoulders and he became tobacco. The second was Wapako, and when she turned from him, this round and pudgy man rolled down the hill, a pumpkin. Next came Eshkossim, the melon; and Kokees, the bean ; and they too fell as if dead when White Earth refused them. But at the call of the fifth voice, which was like a musical rustling in the trees. White Earth looked the new-comer in the face and took him for her husband. After the wedding feast great rains fell, and from where the other suitors had disappeared sprang up the leaves of tobacco, pumpkin, melon, and bean, but tallest and most prized were the stems of com, the plant of Mondahmin. 167 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. MALLOW Our common little mallow, whose seed-pods — ^the ** cheeses" of children — are eaten seriously in the east, ap- pealed to Mahomet so greatly, through his joy in a rope woven of its fibre, that he glorified a plant of it into the pelargonium — an achievement worthy of Burbank. Taken in the morning, the mallow protects one from disease for that day. Marsh mallow, however, was held to be ^Hwice as good ' ' a medicine, and nobody is much hurt by eating the confections sold as *'marshmallows," even in these days of adulterations. As ointment, the mallow cured those affected by witchcraft, and it had the more wonderful effect of pro- tecting from hot metal. MANDRAKE Because of its supposed power as an aphrodisiac, the fruit of the mandrake was apples of love to the Greeks, but devil 's apples to the Arabs. More than twenty solemn books have been written on the medicinal, spiritual, and diabolical nature of this plant, with its forked, flesh- colored roots that were carved into figures of men and car- ried as charms. It was a most dangerous plant to dig, hence it had to be pulled from the ground by a dog, that died of fright on hearing it scream — ^the shriek ''like man- drakes torn from the earth" — for the sound was death or madness to any that heard. The dog's owner tied the tail of his faithful animal to the stem, first making the sign of the cross thrice over the plant, retreated to a safe dis- tance, whistled to the dog, closing his own ears tightly, and up came the angry vegetable. In time men acquired a bet- ter control over the plant, or themselves, for it sufficed to pry it out with a sword, if the digger would keep to 168 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. windward of it and direct his face to the west. If he failed to dislodge it, the earth opened and he disappeared forever in the grasp of a fiend. Having taken the root, the owner is to keep it in a white cloth, in a box, bathe it every Friday, and save the water in which it is washed, as it has medicinal properties. This ''earth manikin*' brings luck to the house, and, carried under the coat, protects one against reverses in courts of law. Possibly for this reason it was a more than suspicious circumstance to have a mandrake about one's premises. It branded the owner as a wizard, and in 1630 three women were put to death in Hamburg on no other charge than that of having mandrake roots in their homes. The devil had a special watch upon these objects, and unless one succeeded in selling one for less than he gave for it, it would stay about him till his death. Throw it into the fire, into the river, smash it, fling it from a cliff, lose it in the woods, so soon as you reached home there would be the mandrake, creeping over the floor, smirking, human-fashion, from a shelf, or en- sconced in your bed. After dread of the mandrake had worn away to some extent, it was still observed with respect, was handed down from father to son, and in one case was kept in a coffin and infolded in a picture representing a thief on the gallows, with a mandrake growing at his feet. Sometimes the root bore a startling likeness to a human head, one such speci- men being shown in the College of Surgeons, in London: a double bulb, each showing every feature of a human coun- tenance, including a beard. German miners said that the root went far into the ground, and that it was the kobolds who cried when they saw it disappearing upward. The merits of mandrake became practical, as years went by, and referred less to fortunes than to health, since it tended to cure barrenness, nightmare, cramp, and tooth- 169 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. ache, and protected the owner against robbers and bad weather. A common association of the plant with a buried corpse is thought to arise from the burial of Medusa's head under the Agora at Athens : whence its name of man- dragora, and it may be because of the stupefying and fatal effect of Medusa's gaze, while she lived, that this output from her tomb should be regarded as an opiate and poison. Shakespeare speaks of ** poppy, mandragora, and all the drowsy spirits of the east." In Iceland, where it is thieves' root, because it grows from the mouth of a rascal who has been hanged, it will draw to itself the money from unguarded pockets if the owner puts beneath the man- drake a coin which he has just stolen from a poor widow at a high festival of the church, between the chanting of the Epistle and the Gospel. MANGO Travellers in the tropics endure mingled emotions in their experience with the mango, the exceeding juiciness whereof suggests that it be eaten in overalls, and which, when all is said, tastes to most of us like a door-mat soaked in turpentine. But the mango is prized by the blacks and the browns who live in the shade of it, and in a Canarese legend it is the tree of life itself. In that story a king had a magpie that flew up to heaven, and returned bringing mango seed, which it gave to the king, saying, * * Plant this, and when it has grown, eat of its fruit; for it will give everlasting life to all who taste it." The king put it into the ground forthwith, and in due season the tree had grown large, fair, with glossy leaves and glowing, ruddy fruit. It chanced, however, that the first mango he chose had been poisoned, for a snake in the grasp of an eagle flying overhead had dropped some venom on it. In some doubt 170 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. as to its wholesomeness, the king ordered an old man in his court to eat the mango, and, the poison working in his vitals, he fell in torment and died. The king, astonished and angered, took the unfortunate magpie by the neck and beat its life out, and for a long time after nobody dared touch the tree. It was called, in fact, * ' the poison mango, ' ' and might have been cut down and burned had it not been for an old woman who had been flouted and whipped by her son and his wife, and had resolved to commit suicide by eating a mango, that her death might be charged upon the undutiful pair. She ate the fruit and instantly was as a maid in her teens. Others, hearing of the wonder, ate also of the fruit, became young, and rejoiced. But the king did not eat. He thought on his wickedness in killing the affectionate bird that had brought to him the tree of eternal youth, and in remorse he slew himself. In a Hindu parable a mango tree is denoted, filled with fruit. A black man chops at it with his axe; a blue man tears off a branch; a red man pulls off fruit; a yellow man perches on a bough, eating ripe mangos ; and a white man pauses on his way to pick up a fruit that has fallen to the ground. This is an allegory of life, and the use we make of it. The black one, with his axe, seeking only destruction, is the conqueror, or criminal; the blue man is the careless egotist who spoils, but in smaller measure ; the red man will not injure the tree, but he is still greedy enough to require the best; the yellow man is temperate and wise, taking only what he needs and leaving enough for others ; but the white man shows humility and accepts what the rest neglect, living content with the smallest share, pausing in his walk and service only long enough to take a single fruit, for the hungry will afterward pass that way. Yet the fruit he eats is sweetest. 171 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. MAPLE Various legends concerning Manabozho — or Hiawatha, or Hoyawentha, or Glooskap — relate to trees and plants. For example, it is said that he flogged the birch, so often used in the flogging of others, and left the rings about its bark; that he gave thorns to the roses, out of his love for them, that the animals might not eat them; that he stole the first tobacco from a giant, and that the smoke of it, as he blows it abroad in the fall, makes the haze of Indian summer. The blood from sundry cuts in his flesh flowed to stain the red willow, which has never since lost its color ; blisters from his burned back have become lichens on the rocks. As a crowning gift to his people, he created maple sugar, though this latter tradition is disputed by some eastern tribes, who assert that the sugar was discovered by a squaw who, having to cook moose-meat in early spring, and being at a distance from water, tapped a maple-tree and drew enough of the sap to fill her kettle. Having run away from her domestic duties to gossip with the neighbors, she was horrified, on her return, to discover that the liquid had boiled to nothing, and that the meat was immersed in a sticky mass of unpleasant aspect but inviting odor. To offer such a joint to her husband, whose step was even then heard in the wood, was to endure a beating, so she fled. What was her astonishment, on creeping to the camp, a little later, to discover her lord luxuriously seated at the fire, licking his fingers, which were coated with the brown substance, and quite neglecting the burned and hardened meat. She made bold to approach and was about to apolo- gize for her neglect when the brave arose and, throw- ing his hands about her neck, addressed her in terms of thankfulness and endearment; for she had discovered what was worth much moose-meat, and should continue to 172 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. be his bride forever. In tbat episode was discovered a solace and a source of revenue that has advantaged good New Englanders and Canadians to this day, and may have had its influence upon the latter in their choice of the maple- leaf as the provincial insignia. When frosts touch the earth, and the year fades to its sunset, it is the maple, more than all other trees, that glorifies the landscape and turns the hills to heaps of ruby and topaz. Anciently, the maple was an emblem of reserve, because of the quietness of its flowers. Its root cures lameness of the liver, says Pliny. Cicero had a table of maple- wood that cost ten thousand sesterces, and another was sold to an opulent Roman for its weight in gold. Maple, too, was a common material for cups, in the scarcity of gold and glass, and the fair Rosamund drank her fatal draught from such an one. The Hungarians tell how a king 's blonde daughter falls in love with a shepherd, who has charmed her with a maple flute — still blown in Cornwall on May day to bring in the spring with music. This daughter went into the fields with her two sisters to gather the first strawberries of the season, their wretched old parent thinking so much more of his victuals than of his kingdom or his kindred that he promised his crown to the first who should return to him with a basket of the fruit. The blonde 's basket being first filled, her prospects maddened the brunettes with jealousy ; hence, they killed her, buried her under a maple, and divided her berries between them, returning with a probable story that a deer had eaten her. Vain were the lamenta- tions of the king ; vain, too, the pipings of the shepherd on the hill, for, blow as he might, the maple-wood made no answer, nor would his lady appear. On the third day the sheep-herder, passing the maple where the princess had been buried, noticed a fair new shoot that had sprung from 173 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. the tree. He cut off the branch and fashioned a new and better (flute), which began to sing when he put it at his lips, not in wordless notes, but in downright speech : ' * Play, dearest! Once I was a king's daughter; then a maple shoot; now I am a flute." Astonished at this disclosure, he rushed to the palace, demanding audience of the king, who was amazed, as well he might be, when, on putting the wood to his own mouth, he heard it say, ' * Play, my father ! Once I was a king's daughter; then a maple shoot; now I am a flute." Wishing to test his senses, he called the wicked daughters and commanded that they blow into the instrument, but as each did so it cried, ''Play, murderer! Once I was a king's daughter; then a maple shoot; now I am a flute." Realizing what a crime had been committed, the king drove them from his home, while the shepherd went back to his sheep and solaced his loneliness with the voice of his beloved. MARIGOLD Like other yellow flowers, the marigold was an expres- sion of light — "the bride of the sun," ''the golden flower" — yet, strangely enough, it has been chosen to express jealousy and fawning. In one legend it is a girl who, consumed with envy of a successful rival in the affections of a young man, lost her wits and died. But while in one floral dictionary it stands for envy, it more clearly means constancy, because of its bright face, its devotion to the sun, its cheer. Odd are the names the members of this family have borne : death flower, cowbloom, gouls, goulans, goolds, king cups, butterwort, bull flower, pool flower, care, horse blob, water dragon, drunkard, publican-and-sinner, yolg of eggy Mary bud, gold flower, shining herb, and left- hand-iron, the latter name coming from Provence, where it was suggested by the likeness of the open blossoms to a 174 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. shield. The Greek name, kalathos, or cup, from which its botanic name of caltha is derived, may indicate that the Greeks had their own story of its origin, and in Ger- many a tale survives that strongly recalls the Greek: A maid, Caltha, fell in love with the sun god — so deep in love that she lived only to see him. She would remain in the fields all night, that she might meet the first glance of his flashing eye. So consuming was her love that she wasted till she had become entirely a thing of spirit, rising from the earth and losing herself in the rays that shone about the being of her adoration. And where she had long stood the first marigold appeared, its form and color recalling the sun, and on its petals a drop that might have been dew or a tear of happiness at the maid 's translation. Quite other is the marigold of Mexico, for its petals are red — the blood of Aztecs put to death by Spaniards in their eagerness for land and gold. It was alleged that the Virgin wore the plant on her bosom; hence the name of Mary- gold ; but a likelier origin is marais (marsh) or meer (pond, or lake,) since the marsh marigold, so called, elects damp places to enliven with its color. MARJORAM Marjoram is one of those rare plants that yield no poisonous quality. It not only gives spice and savor to viands, but was believed to have antiseptic value, and was therefore used in chambers of the sick and for strewing over church floors at funerals. The German name of the plant, ''happy-minded," and its older name of joy-of-the- mountain, indicate a festal rather than funereal signifi- cance. In Greece and Rome it was one of the hymeneal flowers, because Venus created it, and it is the touch of her fingers that lingers as a perfume. In Cyprus they 175 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. ascribe its origin to Amarakos, a page in the household of the king, who, passing through the palace with a jar of perfume in his arms, slipped on the marble floor, and dropped the vase, which was shattered into a thousand pieces. The king arose to chide him, which so terrified Amarakos that the life instantly went out of him, and he lay white and still in the bath of floral essence. From his burial-place arose the plant we call marjoram, cor- rupting it from his name — when we do not ruthlessly dub it origanum vulgare. From Cyprus the marjoram found its way to the main- land, and as dittany it blooms as far away as England and Germany. In those countries it was formerly prized as a charm against witchcraft, for no person who had sold herself to the devil could abide it. MELON For some reason this fruit stirred the ire of Elias, pos- sibly because he had eaten thereof and they disagreed with him, and on Mount Carmel, when you climb to the top, you shall see a field of stones which were melons once, but which he cursed so bitterly that they became more indigestible than ever and hardened into their present shape. A king of Tuscany was once father to triplets, whom he never took the trouble to look at, because his sisters, jeal- ous of his queen, told him they were not human, but were a cat, a snake, and a stick. The king believed them, cast his wife into prison as a witch, and ordered the progeny to be thrown into the sea. The gardener, to whom the last task was allotted, took the poor little people to his home, reared them as if they were children of his own, and taught them to raise flowers and fruits. One of the first fruits that came from their garden was a watermelon, 176 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. so big and tempting that it was deemed fit for the king, so to his table it went. When he cut it, behold, its seeds were precious stones. * ' Oh, wonder ! ' ' roared the monarch. * ' Can a melon produce stones ? ' ' *'As easily as a woman may give birth to a cat, a stick, and a snake," declared a maid of honor. **What do you mean?" blustered the ruler. Then they labored with his primordial intellect till at last he understood; whereupon he released his wife, took his children home, and, instead of drowning his sisters, ended the scandal by making a public show of them at the stake — and incidentally exposing his preceding imbecility. MIGNONETTE To work in the garden of a summer morning, when the breeze, blowing over the mignonette, brings the delicate rapture of its odor and the hum of bees who are plundering its sweets, is to know a moment of old paradise. To be sure, the charm of the flower is in its perfume ; it has no splendor for the eye; but its constancy and generosity of bloom en- dear it to every one whose patch of ground is big enough for heaven to brood upon. The mignonette, or sweet resada — meaning, to soothe — is one of the blessings we owe to the Orient, where it expresses health. Nor is it difficult to imagine, if, indeed, it is imagination that affects us in this case, that lesser aches and ills are charmed away by in- halation of its fragrance. There are subtleties of cure, of stimulation and narcosis, in odors that our nose-blind race has forgotten. Because of its modesty, mignonette can be blent with almost any combination of blossoms, and be- cause of the readiness of its growth, it is a favorite wherever it is known. 12 177 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. MIMOSA Most curious among forms of vegetation is the sensitive plant, that folds its leaves together and hangs as if wilted when it has been pinched or struck. It seems as if it were moved by an instinct to **play 'possum," as animals will do to prevent their falling prey to carnivorge that will not touch a dead body. The sensitive plant has sturdier rela- tives, however, to whom a pinch is no great matter. One of these is the Egyptian mimosa, which supplies the gum known as frankincense. In a Greek legend, the sensitive plant was the maid Cephisa, who inspired Pan with so violent a passion that she fled from him in terror. He, pursuing, caught her in his arms just as her appeal to the other gods for protection was answered in her transformation to the mimosa. In an old belief, the delicacy of the plant was so extreme that if a maid passed by after a sin, it would fold its leaves as if it had been touched. MINT Pluto was not a deity to inspire love, even in the heart of his wife, when, after long waiting, he was able to steal one. Men figured him as a dark and angry god, wto flour- ished a staff as he drove unruly spirits to their last abodes of gloom. Pluto spent most of his time in the underworld, yet he did visit the light occasionally, and on one of his emergings he saw and loved the nymph Mintho. Now, his wife, Proserpine, watched him more closely than he knew; not that she was fond of him, but, being a woman, she could not endure to divide the affections of her lord. Hence at the first opportunity she revenged the slight he had put upon her by turning her rival into an herb, in which guise she lost some outward beauty, yet still attracted men by her freshness and fragrance. 178 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. Of the several varieties of mint, the catmint, or catnip, commends itself especially to the feline race. In an old belief this herb will not only make cats frolicsome, amorous, and full of battle, but its root, if chewed, ' * makes the most gentle person fierce and quarrelsome." The mint called pennyroyal, which has value in the rural materia medica because it purifies the blood, disperses fleas, and, smeared on the face with vaseline and tar, keeps off gnats and flies, was used by witches in a malignant medicine which caused those who swallowed it to see double. MISTLETOE Our custom of decorating the home with mistletoe goes back for centuries, to the ceremonials of the Druids, and is a reminder of their winter custom of keeping green things indoors as a refuge for the spirits of the wood, exiled by the severities of cold and snow. Because of its pagan associations, mistletoe was long forbidden in the church. Five centuries ago, however, assemblies were held in public squares to greet the sacred plant, and its continued use as a protector against spells is reported in Worcestershire, where the farmer offers it to the first cow that calves after the new year, thereby securing his stock against illness and trouble for a twelvemonth. In Germany, if you will take the trouble to carry a sprig of mistletoe into an old house, the ghosts who live there will appear to you, and by means of it you may force them to answer your ques- tions. The symbolism of mistletoe in Druid rites was spirit, hence its relation to spirits, for, like the orchids, it grew not on the earth, but in the air, on the sacred oak ; at least, it was most prized when found clinging to that tree. "When the Druids required it at the end of the year, it was cut by a white-robed priest with a golden sickle, and was not 179 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. allowed to touch the ground, a white cloth being held for it as it fell. Two white bulls were then slain beneath the oak where it had grown, and the twigs of the parasite were distributed among the people, who placed them over doors, or twined and carved them into rings and bracelets, to keep off evil; for it is a remedy against fits, witches, apoplexy, poison, tremors, consumption, and the like. The wide extension of the plant is due to the birds that eat its sticky berries and carry its seeds from tree to tree. Its fruit ripens after snow begins to fly, for which perver- sity it may be said to entitle itself to renown for strength. Virgil says that ^neas could go down into Tartarus only on condition that he bore a mistletoe in his hand. Probably it kept off devils. The old Saxon name of mistl-tan means ** different twig'*; that is, it differs from the twig of a tree to which it may affix itself. But it was not always the lean parasite that it is to-day ; it was a tree till its wood was used for the cross of Christ, when it shrank to its present proportions. The old-time monks named it **wood of the cross, ' ' and swallowed chips of it, or water in which it had been steeped, or wore fragments about their necks as cures for all diseases. Mistletoe was common in America before the landing of old-world peoples, and is not, therefore, an introduction from Europe. It was better known abroad, however, and to the Norsemen, as to the Druids, was fateful. Freya so loved her son Baldur that she asked all things of earth and air to cherish him. But one plant she over- looked : the mistletoe, hardly seen in a notch of a tree, even when its berries whitened. This plant grew on an aged oak, near Valhalla, and in the shadow of the oak Baldur dared the gods to harm him, offering himself to their rough sport, standing unmoved and unhurt when they shot their spears and arrows against him. Loki, jealous of the favor 180 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. and beauty of Baldur, disguised himself as a woman and asked Freya why her son never suffered pain. Freya told him it was because the creatures and things of the earth and air and water had promised to be kind to him ; therefore nothing would bruise him or cause his blood to flow. *' And there is nothing that can touch him ? ' * Loki asked. ** Nothing," answered Freya, ''except the mistletoe. But that is so small and feeble it could hurt nothing. ' ' Loki went back to the wood in his own shape, plucked the stoutest twig of mistletoe he could find, trimmed off its leaves and berries, and sharpened its end to a point. Soon after, the gods again assembled about Baldur, testing his invulnerability against bows and slings. Hodur, the blind one, stood apart, and Loki went to him. *'Why don't you share the sport?'' he asked. ''I can not see, and, besides, I have nothing to throw," answered Hodur. **You can at least play at the game," insisted Loki. * ' Throw this, in fashion of a spear. ' ' He put the weapon fashioned from the mistletoe into Hodur 's hand, and turned his face toward the spot where Baldur stood. Hodur threw, and the point pierced the breast of the young god, stretching him lifeless on the earth. By the combined power of all the gods, Baldur was restored to life. They made the mistletoe promise never again to lend itself to harm, and, to make sure that it kept its vow, they dedicated it to Freya and gave her special authority over it. It promised never to do harm to any so long as it did not touch the earth, and that is why, thousands of years after, people who have never heard of Baldur and Hodur and Loki, hang the mistletoe in their houses in the season of gladness, and kiss one another as they pass beneath it, for it brings happiness, safety, and good fortune so long as it is not beneath our feet. 181 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. MORNING-GLORY Looking up to the new day with its mild eyes, and plentifully starring its vine with color, the morning-glory needs only perfume to be of exceeding value. It is one of the most persistent of plants, and, once sown, is sure to continue itself without other attention than the planter may give to uprooting the thousand offspring that gather about it when life renews at the end of winter. It should be the emblem of courage and energy, despite the tran- siency of the flower. That wild form known to the Eng- lish as large bindweed, but to the French as belle of the day, appears less beautiful when we learn that, mashed or boiled, it was applied to vulgar swellings that disfigure the human countenance. Poetry should have dissevered morn- ing glory from the mumps. Gerarde, however, will not sanction it for even this purpose, for, says he, *'It is not fit for medicine, and unprofitable weeds and hurtful to each thing that groweth next them, and were only adminis- tered by runnagat physickmongers, quacksalvers, old women leeches, abusers of physick and deceivers of people." Still, the English country folk were not afraid of it: they even pickled the young shoots of sea bindweed as a sub- stitute for samphire. MOSS The modesty of moss has not led to its neglect by the myth-makers, for we know that the siipercilium veneris, the hair moss used by Lapps for bedding, is claimed for both Freya and for Thor's wife, Sif. We are told, also, that the hyrum, now spread over walls of Jerusalem, is the hyssop of Solomon; and as hyssop had a medicinal worth, it may have been the particular moss that covered the cross of King Oswald, in Northumbria, and worked miracles 182 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OP FLOWERS, ETC. after his death. For example, a citizen crossing the ice toward this venerated object fell and broke his arm, where- upon a friend tore some of the vegetation from the cross, clapped it upon the injured member, and the bones knit instantly. Another moss of a marvellous sort is that which grows on a human skull in a church-yard, for this is a cure for ' * chin cough ' ' and fits. Lycopodium selago, or club nose, probably the golden herb or cloth of gold of the Druids, was likewise remarkable, not as a medicine, but as a protection against unearthly creatures and black magic; only, it must be gathered by a person whose feet were clean as well as bare, and who had offered sacrifices of bread and wine. Thus qualified, he picked the moss with his right hand pushed through his left sleeve, and placed it in a new cloth. The Druid nuns on the island of Sain, in the Loire, made the gathering yet more difficult and interesting when they required the moss for the altars of Ceridwen, the Isis of their faith, or their warriors asked it to poison arrows. The maid who gath- ered it was stripped of clothing, that she might better per- sonify the moon. She must avoid iron, for if that touched the moss, calamity was near. The selago being found, a circle was drawn about it, and she uprooted the moss with the tip of her little finger, her hand being covered, mean- time, with a white cloth never used before. Until our theatres were '^ electrified, " lycopodium was an agent in imparting the delightful terrors of a storm — that, and cannon-balls rolling down zigzag troughs to simulate thunder, and peas shaken in a box to imitate the sound of rain; for dried club moss ignites almost like powder. The moss wives of German lore are good fairies who live in hollow trees, couch on moss, and when startled hide themselves in this green growth. Their time is largely 183 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. occupied in weaving moss into the most delicate fabrics, soft as silk, luminous as velvet, and colored in the green, gold, brown, and red of the woods. When a person has done a kindness to them, or they have taken him under their protection, they prove their interest by embroidering for him one of these moss cloaks. They give other benefac- tions, too, for a poor child who had climbed the Fichtel- birge to gather strawberries for her sick mother, was met by a tiny moss wife who asked for some of the berries. The child cheerfully allowed the little creature to take her fill from the basket. On reaching home she found that all the remaining berries had turned to gold. MOTHERWORT Drink motherwort and live to be a source of continuous astonishment and grief to waiting heirs. Its English name denotes its medicinal value for women, and in Japan it is also a herb of life. A certain stream in that country courses down a hill that is covered with this plant, and people drinking of the waters are wonderfully preserved and endowed with long life. Saki, or Japanese brandy, is supposed to contain a wee bit of motherwort, its flowers being dipped into the liquor; and a beer is also brewed from them. The Japanese motherwort festival, on the ninth day of the ninth month, is signalized by the drink- ing of these fluids, and mixing flowers of the wort with rice. Cups of saki are dressed with the flowers that neighbors pass from hand to hand with wishes for a long life. MULBERRY The Greeks dedicated the mulberry to Minerva, because of some attribute of wisdom that its growers have not always shown, for when James I. introduced the tree into 184 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. England in 1605, to raise silkworms and create a new industry, he brought in the black mulberry, which the worm will not eat, instead of the white. An equally disas- trous attempt to introduce it into the United States involved many farmers and nurserymen in loss. One of the trees early grown in this country was planted at Clay Court House in 1840 by a Scotch peddler who was taken ill in that place, and in the intervals of his gripes he prayed for some sedative, or even poison, for he was so deep in misery that he desired his death. As if in answer to his prayer, a small plant intruded itself on his notice: a plant of minty and therapeutic odor — pennyroyal, probably — which he eagerly bit upon. His torment was appeased, and in gratitude he marked the place by planting a mulberry seed he had brought from Scotland. Milton 's tree at Cam- bridge still bears fruit, but the mulberry planted by Shakespeare in his Stratford garden was cut down by the man who bought the property, because people bothered him so by asking to look at it. The mulberry is worshipped outright in Burmah, where the European superstition is not shared : namely, that the devil blacks his boots with the berries. In the east it is an innocent custom to make a thick preserve from it on the 15th of the first month, because a fairy, in payment for that dainty, engaged with one Chang Ching to make his mulberries yield an hundredfold more than they had ever done before, and he had a won- drous crop of silk in consequence. Pyramus and Thisbe are the classic forerunners of Romeo and Juliet. These two young Babylonian lovers were parted by their cruel parents, yet contrived to meet secretly, and between-whiles they breathed affection through a chink in the dividing wall. Their favorite tryst was in the shade of a white mulberry at the tomb of Ninus, out- side of the city gates. One day Thisbe, having first arrived, was frightened by a lion that made its appear- 185 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. ance, fresh from the plunder of a sheepfold. She sought refuge in a cave, but in her haste she let fall her veil. It was torn by the claws of the beast and drabbled in the blood of a lamb it had slain, and when Pyranus discov- ered it, he set up a loud lament, convinced that he had lost the maid. * ' Since you are gone, ' ' he cried, * ' my blood shall mingle with yours.'' After moistening the veil with his tears, he plunged his sword into his heart. After wait- ing till she felt sure the lion had gone, Thisbe ventured from her hiding place and came to the tree once more. A human form was lying under the mulberry. It was her Pyramus, and as she caught his head to her bosom the last glance of his glazing eye was fixed on her. Exclaiming, **As love and death have united us, let us be buried in one tomb," she struck the steel into her own soft breast, with such force that the blood spouted over the berries hanging overhead. As her eyes turned toward the heaven, blue and calm beyond the branches that shadowed her, she gasped, **You tree, bear witness to the wrongs our parents have done to us. Let your berries be stained with our blood in token of their misdoing." The lovers were buried to- gether and since that day the mulberry has been red. MUSTARD As a condiment, mustard has been known to men for centuries. It is noted in parable, for the smallness of its seed and the comparative consequence of the plant make it a type of small beginnings and large endings. There is a parable by Buddha which tells how a mother, bereft of her child, carried the little body from house to house, imploring the people to heal it. To a wise man she put her constant inquiry, *'My lord and master, what medicine will heal my boy?" 186 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. Looking on the still face, he answered, ''He requires a handful of mustard-seed from a house where no child, husband, parent, or servant has died. ' ' She hurried on, but wherever she asked, ' ' Has there been no death in this house?" the answer would be, ''Assuredly, for the living are few and the dead a multitude." Day followed day; still her search promised no ending. She understood its uselessness at last, and knew the wisdom of the phj^sician, for she realized the selfishness of her grief. Others had suffered and sorrowed as much as she. So she parted from the dead child in a wood, and, going back to the wise man, confessed that she had not found the mustard-seed, but had found his meaning. "You thought that you alone had lost a son," said he, "but death rules all." In India the mustard symbolizes generation, and it is told that a farmer, having plowed over the site of a temple in which the nymph Bakawali had dwelt immovable for twelve years, her body having been transformed to marble, sowed mustard over the freshened earth. This, ripening, was eaten by his wife, who till then had been childless. The pair soon became the parents of a little one, lovely as a nymph, whom they named Bakawali, and who was be- lieved to be no less than the original Bakawali, still in progress through the states of being. MYRRH Gum of balsamodendron is one of the precious sub- stances used in religious observances, and its employment for this purpose began at least two thousand years ago. It blended with the oil wherewith the priests were anointed, anciently, and ran down the beards of Aaron and his sons when they were exalted to leadership. With it the Jews 187 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. gave fragrance and sanctity to the tabernacle, the ark, the altars, the cups, and other holy vessels. During the year required for the purification of women, myrrh was employed for the first six months and other perfumes after. It is a tradition that Nicodemus bought a hundredweight of myrrh and aloes in which to embalm the body of Christ, follow- ing a custom of the Egyptians. Incense smoked before the sun god at Heliopolis thrice a day, myrrh being chosen for the noon offering, another resin at daybreak, and a blend of aromatics at evening; and the Persian kings re- garded themselves as sufficiently holy to wear myrrh and labyzus in their crowns. Indeed, the ceremonial use of the gum by royalty occurred so lately as the reign of George III., who made in the royal chapel a ** usual offering" of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, in memory, ostensibly, of the gifts that the wise men laid at the feet of the infant Christ. Yet, if ancient legend be true, myrrh is a sufficiently irreligious matter, being no less than the tears of that wretched Myrrha who, conceiving an unnatural attachment for her own father, the king of Cyprus, was pursued by him out of his kingdom. Recovering her reason in exile, and wandering for months in hostile deserts, she came at last to the Sabaean fields, in Arabia, and there, her strength gone, she implored the gods both to pardon and to punish. The gods changed her into myrrh, in which guise she remains, weeping tears perfumed of repentance. MYRTLE Myrtle, which figures so largely in poetry and myth, is thought by some to be the bilberry or whortleberry, or bay. Indeed, the bay is a variety of myrtle, and has among its congeners the giant eucalyptus, the guava, pi- 188 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. mento, clove, and pomegranate. There is reason to assume, however, that the myrtle of the ancients was the myrtle that abounds in southern Europe and has extended into other lands. In its human origin it was Myrtilus, the rogue son of Mercury, who took a bribe from Pelops to pull a pin from his master's chariot- wheel. This enabled Pelops to win a race and thereby claim his master's daughter. The master showed scant gratitude, for he seized the aston- ished young rascal and incontinently flung him into the sea, scorning the traitor he had made. But the sea would none of him, either, and tossed him ashore, where, in mercy, his human form was taken from him, and he became a tree. In another legend the myrtle, which loves salt air, is a creation of Venus, who was known in some states of Greece as Mjnrtilla, or Myrtea, and whose head was decked with it when Paris judged her most beautiful of the gods. In that legend a girl Myrene, who had been carried from home by a robber band, was rescued by Venus, who made her priestess in her temple. During one of the festivals, My- rene chanced to see a member of the pirate crew, and in her rage for vengeance pointed him out to her lover, promis- ing to yield to his entreaties if he would put the robber to the sword. The lover succeeded, but Venus, angered by her priestess's desertion, cast the young man into a fatal illness and changed Myrene into the myrtle. When Venus found that her wayward son, Cupid, had fallen in love with Psyche, it was with a myrtle rod that she beat the weeping nymph, and again, when pursued by satyrs, it was a myrtle that received her into its friendly shadow. In a legend possibly yet older, the myrtle was created by Minerva, and the subject of the metamorphosis was Myrsine, a sprightly maid who had beaten the goddess in a foot-race. Rogero, the Moorish knight, landing from his hippogriff on an unknown coast, tied his steed to a myrtle tree, while 189 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. he slaked his thirst at a fountain that bubbled forth in a neglected garden. He had laid aside his helmet, shield, and weapons to rest, when a voice issued from the tree, saying, ''Do I not suffer enough, that I must endure this rudeness?" The knight, hurrying to untie his winged monster, answered, '' Whatever you are, tree or mortal, I ask forgiveness for my unwitting fault, and am ready to do what I can to repair it." Tears, like thin gum, trickled down the bark, and the tree spoke again : ' ' I am Astolpho, paladin of France and by renown one of the bravest. Re- turning from the east, we reached the castle of dreaded Akina, who took me, a willing subject, to her island seat. There we passed happy days till, tiring of me, as of all who yield to her, she changed me to this form : a myrtle. Of my friends, some are here as cedars, olives, palms; some she changed to springs and some to rocks and some to beasts. Beware, for this may be your fate." Rogero attached too little importance to the warning. He, too, met Alcina, and, bewildered by her beauty, suffered himself to be led to her palace, with its walls of gold and pillars of diamond. In the end he also was changed into a myrtle; but, recovering his human form through white magic as powerful as her black, he avenged himself on the enchantress and released Astolpho and his friends. To the Greeks, myrtle was an emblem of immortality, because it kept green throughout the year ; and because the work of great men is immortal, in humanity's conceit, the populace bound myrtles on their favorites ' brows when they had produced successful plays and epics. In the markets a large space was always reserved for the sale of these shrubs and they figured in feasts and ceremonies. One of the wreaths of myrtle carried in the procession of Europa at Corinth measured ten feet in diameter. Being a tree of love, the myrtle was viewed askant by the pious of the ancient world. When the festival of the 190 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. Bona Dea came around, it was allowable for the Romans to use every plant, flower, and leaf in the decorations, save only the myrtle, which was barred on the ground that it encouraged sensuality. Yet the Greeks wore the leaves not only in their celebrations, but in their religious mysteries. The custom of crowning people with myrtle, especially brides, was passed on by the Romans to the Jews, and by them to the Germans, who are fond of it as a wedding ornament, and to the Bohemians who employ it contrari- wise for funerals — a lovely custom, this bowering of the dead in green, signifying immortality. To the Jews, who used myrtle in their feast of tabernacles, and to their rela- tives, the Arabs, the myrtle was reminder of the bounty of deity when Adam was expelled from paradise, for the first father was allowed to take with him wheat, chief of foods ; date, chief of fruits ; and myrtle, chief of scented flowers. NARCISSUS Narcissus is that Narkissos of the ancients, a seemly youth who won the love of Echo, but did not love her in return. In despair, she faded to a voice, and you shall hear her calling, sadly, in waste places. But the youth had his punishment : having caught sight of his own reflec- tion in a spring, he was lured back to lie on its brink for hours, admiring the face he saw there. He would not eat nor sleep for love of the image, and worshipped so ardently that he died of sheer weakness; or he may have fallen forward into the spring and been drowned. When the nymphs came to remove the body to the funeral pyre, they found no corpse, but in its stead the whit« flower we call poet's narcissus. It came at once into the favor of the gods and men and was planted everywhere. Pluto used it to entice Proserpine to hell, or else to so dull and drowse her senses and those of her attendants that her danger 191 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. was not seen. In the Greek belief, it wreathed the harsh locks of the Eumenides. It also starred the brows of the Fates, and when the dead went into the presence of the gods of the underworld, they carried crowns of narcissus that those who mourned had placed in their white hands when the last good-byes were said. We learn from Sophocles that narcissus was the crown of the goddesses on Olympus, blooming constantly, moist and fragrant with the dew of heaven. If the Greeks wove the narcissus about the brows of dreaded Dis and the Furies, if they placed it in the coffins of their dead, it was because it gave off an evil emanation, producing dulness, madness, and death. Indeed, narhe, the Greek word from which the flower really takes its name, signifies narcotic. NETTLE Tender-handed, grasp the nettle, and it stings you for your pains. Grasp it like a man of mettle, and it soft as silk remains. This ancient saw many good people believe and take on other men's authority, for the nettle is an irritating plant, its stems being covered with fine, sharp hairs that have a poisonous effect on the skin they pierce. It is, or was, occasionally stewed into a tea by country women and ad- ministered to the helpless and unfortunate as a cure for anything that might be the matter with them. It is one of the five bitter herbs which the Jews were commanded to eat at the Passover. The Roman nettle, that thrives in England, was planted there by Caesar's soldiers, who, not having breeches thick enough to enable them to withstand the climate, suffered much in the cold, raw fogs ; so, when their legs were numb they plucked nettles and gave those members such a scouring that they burned and smarted gloriously for the rest of the day. 192 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. OAK In the speech and letters of all men, the oak is the symbol of strength. It was Jove's tree; the Thunderer's of the North, no less; Merlin worked his enchantments in its shade ; beneath it the Druids held their mystic rites. The Hebrews held it in liking, for under it Abraham re- ceived the angels ; Saul, his sons, and Deborah were buried beneath it; Jacob hid in one of them the Shechem idols; it was an oak from which Absalom was hung by the hair; the anger of Ezekiel was roused by the images of wrong gods that ''stood in every thick oak"; and in its shadow towered the angel who spoke to Gideon. Doubtless it was the service which this excellent tree has given to mankind that keeps it in use in oratory and poem, as it is useful in the arts. It has furnished us with house, ship, arm, tool, funnel, and food. Back in the golden age the oaks dripped honey, and men lived in peace and comfort with no shelter but their boughs. In the silver age they left these coverts and stripped away the branches for their huts, thus isolating themselves and departing from their primitive communism. In the brazen age they shaped from the wood handles for their weapons. In the iron age, the age of crime and violence and greed, the oaks were wrenched from the hills for battle-ships, aid- ing to curse where once they blessed. Erisichthon, the law- less and irreverent, ordered his servants to fell an oak that stood in a grove of Ceres. They, fearing the anger of the gods for such a sacrilege, debated till Erisichthon, whose anger was not to be slighted, either, grasped the ax from the hands of the unwilling woodmen and assailed the trunk himself. A spectator who reached forward to take away the implement caught the blow of the ax on his neck, so that his head rolled at the tree^s foot and bathed the roots 13 193 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. in blood. Now furious, Erisichthon attacked the oak with such energy that it fell, amid the cries of the beholders. But he enjoyed no triumph from this act. From the fallen body of the tree came a voice saying, **I who live in this tree am a nymph of Ceres, and in my death hour I warn you of punishment." Retribution came speedily. The goddess whose nymph had been so cruelly slain condemned the cutter to unending hunger. He squandered all his for- tune on food; he ate continually; yet nothing nourished him, and he died at last, gnawing at his own flesh. An- other instance of the speaking tree is found in the oaks of Dodona, which retained their power to talk, even after cut- ting, for the prow of the Argo, being fashioned from one of them, directed the crew and warned Jason to purge himself of the murder of Absyrtus. Of old it was noticed that oaks were oftener struck by lightning than were most other trees, hence it was supposed that Jupiter launched his arrows at them in warning, when he would express his displeasure at the perversity of the human race, the oaks being worthier and stronger to receive these bolts than other objects. The oak known as the holm, or ilex, a funeral tree in which the ravens croaked forebodings, ''drew lightning" to that degree that ancient farmers planted it as a lightning rod, or spite vent for the gods, which may account for its sombre reputation. When Christ 's fate was known in the forest the trees held council and resolved not to lend their wood for the execution. Every tree that the ax-men tried to cut, splintered and broke, or dulled the tool with knots, till the ilex was reached. That alone remained whole, and of that the in- strument of death was shaped; but though it thus became accursed, Jesus forgave it as content to die with Him, and in the shade of an ilex he reappeared to the saints. The Greek drus, a tree, gave the name to dryads, and 194 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. later to Druids; and belief in dryads merged into a faith in fairies, the northward progress of this belief being trace- able into far countries. These fairies affected oaks, making their homes in hollow trunks and going in and out by the holes where branches had fallen; hence it is healing to touch the ''fairy doors" with a diseased part, if church-bells have not driven the elves away. The barbarians thought so much of a certain oak in Hesse that St, Boniface swore to cut it down. A tree so esteemed could be nothing less than an idol. As he laid his ax to the trunk, the heathen stood afar off, looking to see him maimed or blinded, cursing him under their breath, yet too frightened for interference. When half-severed the great creature trembled, and it seemed as if a blade had flashed from the sky, for of a sudden it split into four equal pieces, and came to the earth spread apart, like petals of a great flower. Now, there may have been some who saw in this no greater favor for the new gods than the old, but the saint claimed it as a show of approval for his effort, and several were con- verted on the spot; so in a few days the timbers of Thorns oak were hewn into an oratory, where they celebrated the new faith. Other oaks were resanctified from the worship of Thor to that of Christ by carving crosses on their stems, and legend confuses us when we find that whereas the fair- ies avoided the signs of the Christian faith in some parts of the world, in others they fled to these protected trees, even as men did. In one pathetic happening, we find the tale of Apollo and Daphne transferred to Germany: A young farmer marries an elf, believing her human, but when he embraces her she changes suddenly into an unre- sponsive oak. If we pass eastward from Germany the oak is still a tree of legend, and among the blonde Lithuanians we discover traces of their ancient forest worship. They were a quiet people, even when savagery encompassed them, 195 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. and were much buried in woods, which they worshipped as abodes of deities — secretly worship to this day in isolated communities. Offerings from the people were placed at the feet of the biggest oaks, and the chief priest, or krive, known also as judge of judges, headed a hierarchy of no less than seventeen orders of priests and elders of forest wor- ship. Lithuania was not christened till the fifteenth cen- tury. Despite these heathen practices and associations, despite the ancient belief that from it came the race of men, the oak presently became acceptable to disciples in the new faith, and was early regarded as the tree of Mary. In a Greek legend its roots went down to hell; but in early Christian lore its boughs are heard praying to heaven. The druide, as the Gaels called the oak, was sought by the very ones who had rebuked the popular affection for it. In Ireland St. Bridget at Kildare abode in ''the cell of an oak" and founded there the first religious community of women in that island ; at Kenmare, St. Columba had her favorite oak, and a tanner who had impudently peeled the bark from it to season leather for shoes was smitten with leprosy for his insolence; another saint, Colman, was the guardian of an oak, a fragment of which kept in the mouth, safeguarded the faithful a-gainst hanging, if they had been forgetful in their morals. Augustine chose an oak for his oratory, also, when he addressed King Ethelbert to convert him. The chair of St. Peter, in the Vatican, is an oak board in a frame of acacia. It was to be expected that superstitious people would ascribe virtues to a tree that meant so much for their faith, their practices and their history, hence even in our country we find survivals of that belief in the curability of diseases by pushing the patient no longer through the ''fairy doors," but through the forks of an oak, or a gap made artificially, 196 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. with axes, and thereafter to be repaired with loam. The tree is benignant even to the Wandering Jew, for he can have no rest unless he finds two oak trees growing in the form of a cross. There he can fling himself to the ground and take the sleep that has been denied to him for months. St. Anthony's fire, toothache, and other disorders were cured by the wood, bark, or even by the moral influence of the oak, and people fastened locks of their hair to it when they sought its help, and fed its galls to spavined horses. In Finland they tell of an oak so tough that it grew only bigger and stouter when attacked by woodmen with their saws and axes — a legend that embodies popular re- spect for the tree: a respect that in Saxony took shape in a law forbidding its injury. Similar protection was given to the Stock am Eisen, in Vienna, an ancient tree into which every apprentice, starting on his year of wandering, after the good Teuton fashion, thrust a nail for luck. It is the survivor of a holy grove in which, originally, the cathedral stood. Many are these oaks of history and observance: the Parliament oak; the oak of Robin Hood; John Lack- land's oak in Sherwood Forest; William Rufus's in New Forest; the Volkenrode oak of Gotha; the oak at Saintes, France, estimated to be two thousand years old ; Westman 's oak of Dartmoor ; the oak of Dorset, sixty-eight feet around, with a chamber sixteen feet wide in its trunk, that was fitted as an ale-house ; the Wadsworth oak on Genesee river ; the oak at Flushing, New York, that served George Fox as a Quaker meeting-house; the oak at Natick, Massachu- setts, a ''peace tree" of the Indians and a shelter for Eliot when he translated the Bible into Algonquin. The oak that inspired Morris to his adjuration, ''Woodman, spare that tree, ' ' grew, not as might be supposed, on his premises, but in St. Paul's churchyard, a few steps from roaring Broadway. 197 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. In a tradition of the Mission Indians, Wyot, son of Night and Earth, guardian of all things, told of his death ten months in advance — **when the great star rises and the grass is high.'' He bade his people gather shoots of bushes and make a basket for his ashes, for he had taught the arts to them; and when they burned his body and en- tered on a season of mourning his spirit did not suffer in the fire : it ascended to the skies and became the moon, or, in another version, a bright star, believed to be Vega. The frog, then a creature fair to look on, with flesh white and red, and big eyes, had yet thin and ugly legs, and the sight of men with legs more shapely made her jealous and wishful to injure them ; hence, when Wyot was drinking at a spring she fouled the water and spat in it three times, accusing him of her defects of shape. Wyot drank the water and became ill, dying as he had said, in May, with a promise that from his ashes should spring a precious gift to all his children. And while his soul went skyward his mortal part became the oak. Seeing it fair and strong, the people who had cherished it said to the crow, **Go to the great star and find Wyot, that we may know all the uses of the tree he has given to us.'' The crow flew high, but came back; then the eagle was dispatched, and he, too, returned with- out a message ; all the birds in turn undertook the errand, but none was strong enough to reach the star. Finally the humming-bird was told to seek the absent one, and he flew from the earth with the speed and straightness of an arrow. After some days he reappeared and gave the words of Wyot: **The tree I have given to you with my body is for the sustenance of all people and animals and birds. Men will make flour of its nuts and this flour can be made into cakes." So the feast of acorns became a yearly ordi- nance, and the acorn is still a food of the Mississippi Indians. 198 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. It is recorded that Jeanne d'Arc went to her death the sooner because she had been accused of frequenting the Fairy Oak of Bourlemont, hanging it with garlands, danc- ing and skipping about it during mass, and reviving the worship of its spirit, who in return, had given to her the charmed sword and banner with which she led her country- men to victory. But of late centuries it is oftener the saints who have appeared in the trees, and so late as the nineteenth we hear of a girl, frightened by thunder, taking refuge under an oak on the Roman Campagna — the most dangerous place one can choose in a storm, for tall trees draw the lightning — and begging the Virgin to save her from the elements. The Virgin, neglecting the rest of Italy to protect one who had presence of mind to pray to her, appeared and remained beside the young woman, allaying her fright and keeping every drop of rain from the leaves, although it poured a deluge roundabout. There used to stand in Bologna a famous cork tree, a variety of oak, in which a pious shepherd placed a statue of the Virgin. That was well enough, save that the young man had thoughtlessly borrowed the image from a church, without asking leave of the clergy, because he conceived that they were neglecting it. And to this tree he would repair every day and play his flute before the Virgin. Having been caught in the act, and the robbery being brought home to him, he was sentenced to death, and the statue was taken back to the church; but that night it indignantly stalked out of the building, away from the keeping of the neglectful fathers, and, opening the prison door, released the inno- cent thief, so they were found together in the tree next day. They were taken down, locked up, but the miracle was re- peated, until the people were convinced that it was the Virgin *s will, so the tree became a shrine. Perhaps from 199 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. that incident began the practice of hanging small images of the Virgin in oak trees in country districts. Father Bernardo, a holy hermit who lived far from cities, was often besought to solve moral problems and guide his people in worldly transactions. Though his time was mostly spent in prayer, he derived comfort from his *'two daughters": terms playfully applied to little Mary, the daughter of a vine-dresser, who brought delicacies to soften the hardness of his fare and cheer him with her prattle, and a big oak that defended his hut from snow and rain. This oak was his daily companion. He watered its roots if it thirsted, talked to it, caressed it, and fancied its thanks in the murmur of its leaves. Once, when the coun- try had been devastated by freshets that swept away his cabin, he found refuge in the tree, and thither went the speaking *' daughter," carrying food and cover, for after three days of imprisonment among the branches he was like to die. Several lumbermen wanted to cut the tree into beams, but Bernardo would never consent, and during his life the oak suffered no injury. As his last days drew near he implored heaven to mark ''his two daughters" in some way to signify the use and beauty of their lives, but at first it did not appear as if this were to be done, for Mary became the wife of an artisan, and the big oak was at last sacrificed for its wood, which Mary's father converted into wine casks. As the young woman sat nurs- ing her infant before one of these casks a handsome stranger drew near, just as the older boy of Mary ran to her with a little cross he had fashioned from a couple of sticks. As if struck by the incident, the young man asked leave to make a picture of the group. Hardly waiting permission, indeed, he seized the cover of the cask and on its smooth surface outlined the picture known to the world as the * ' Madonna delle Sedia. ' ' For the young man was Raphael. 200 THE MADONNA OF THE CHAIR FROM THE PAINTING BY RAPHAEL MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. And thus the prayer of Father Bernardo was answered, for the two '^ daughters" became elements in one of the highest expressions of beauty. OLEANDER In an humble home in Spain a girl lay ill of fever. Her mother had done what her small means allowed for her comfort, yet the patient made no gain toward recovery. Reduced almost to illness herself by the sense of unavailing service, the mother fell on her knees at the bedside and offered a fervent prayer to St. Joseph for the sufferer's recovery. A reviving shock of joy went through her when she raised her head and found the room shining in a rosy light that seemed to emanate from a figure which bent above the child — a man of lofty aspect. The stranger placed on the child 's breast a branch of flowering oleander, pink and unfading, as if freshly plucked in paradise. Then the light faded, and when the mother rubbed her eyes to see the man more clearly and thank him for his coming, the chamber was empty, save of the patient and herself. But she saw that the girl was in a calm sleep, the first since her illness, and bowed her head anew with tears of gratitude. The recovery was swift, and from that day the oleander became the flower of St. Joseph. In spite of this legend, the plant has an unpleasing repu- tation. We of the north, who prize it for its beauty and spend much for greenhouse specimens, do not suffer from its presence, but in Greece and Italy it was a funeral plant, and poison to cattle. The Hindu calls it the horse-killer; but he so appreciates its charm that he decorates his tem- ples with it, and of its lovely clusters he makes wreaths for the brows of his dead when they go to the burning ghat. 901 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. OLIVE The olive is significant of security and peace, because it was with the olive-branch that the dove returned to the ark, and it is of record in holy writ because it figures in the parable of Jotham. Its oil has been in use for thousands of years, and was the base of those perfumed ointments sold for so large a price in Rome and Athens. It kept alight the lamps in the Tabernacle. It anointed the heads of priests and kings. When peace was sought between war- ring nations, the messengers bore olive-branches, as did the Athenian who sought the Delphic oracle, or waved them in the temples of Artemis to avert the plague. Young saplings that rise about the parent stem afford our com- mon simile of olive branches, as applied to offspring. It is Minerva's tree — the olive. She bade it rise from the earth when Neptune caused a salt spring to open on the Akropolis. For in the contest between Athena and Poseidon for possession of the city that afterward took her name, the deities declared that whichever of the twain bestowed upon it the gift best worth men's acceptance should command the city's worship. Poseidon came out of his element to create the horse ; but Athena created the olive, and every gourmet owes a silent thanks to her as he nibbles its fruit or pours its oil upon his salad. And so the city went to Athena, not Poseidon. The commoners of the city believed its destinies inwrought with that of the olive, so the lamps of their Parthenon were lighted with its oil ; and as the favor it enjoyed in Athens led to its being planted roundabout, it came into use to mark comers and boundaries of estates. The general reverence led Solon to promulgate a law for its planting, as the symbol of freedom, hope, mercy, prayer, purity, and order. In neighboring Italy this sanctity continues to our day, for a 202 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. branch of olive hung above a door will keep out devils and wizards. In the Temple at Jerusalem, the doors, posts, and cherubim were of its wood ; and the importance of the tree is suggested in the name of Mount of Olives, and Gethsemane, the latter word meaning *' olive-oil press.'' When Adam felt his end approaching he sent Seth, his son, to the gates of paradise for the promised oil of mercy. Although four hundred and thirty-two years had passed since the exile, the path made by Adam through the fields and woods was as plain as if marked but the day before, for no grass might grow where feet accursed of God had trodden. Seth walked on and on till at last he saw a tree of wondrous size and beauty, standing in an open place where four great rivers sprang from a single foun- tain. Although it bore not a leaf, the tree was of com- manding height and grace. A serpent twined about its trunk (here we see a likeness to Ygdrasil), and in its top- most branches sat a child in shining vestments: the child appointed by heaven to give the oil of mercy when the time for pardon should have come. As Seth looked upon these things and basked in the loveliness of the landscape, an angel advanced from the tree, bringing three seeds from the forbidden fruit, which were to be placed in Adam's mouth when he was buried. So when Adam died, Seth did as the angel commanded, and lo, from the seeds sprang three several trees : a cypress, a cedar, and an olive. When Moses started on his wanderings through the wilderness, he took these saplings to the Valley of Consolation, the tears and blood of the consecrated keeping them alive in the forty years of marching up and down through the little state. One of them was the burning bush in which Moses saw the Lord. When, at last, the saplings that had rooted in the mouth of Adam were planted, they grew, within thirty years, into a single tree, beneath which David wept 203 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. for his sins. Solomon, more philosophic and practical, saw its chief beauty in use, and, like any modern investigator, hewed it doTvn to see what manner of timber it would make. It seemed to be sound, but, strangely enough, no amount of shaping and trimming could make it fit its place as a beam for the Temple in Jerusalem, and, finding it blessed or cursed with some uncanny quality that kept it from the use of men, Solomon preserved it as a sacred relic in the grounds of the Tabernacle itself. Here one day a woman of the Romans, one Maximilia, carelessly leaned against it, then sprang away in fright, crying, '* Jesus Christ, thou son of God, help me!'' for flame had leaped from it and ignited her robes. At the call the fire ceased, but the Jews, who had seen and heard, said she was a witch. "To say that Jehovah had a son is blasphemy," said they. **We will hunt this woman from the city." And they did so. Years afterward the incident came to mind again, for this was the first speaking of the words, ' * Jesus Christ. ' ' Finally, the timber was thrown into a marsh, where the queen of Sheba crossed it, to dry ground, when she visited Jerusalem. As her feet rested there a vision arose before her, and she saw Christ suspended on a cross at the hill-top, undergoing shameful death. And so it came to pass, for after a time the log floated to the surface of the morass again, and on the night of the betrayal it was lifted out and shaped into the cross, some say by the hand of Christ Himself. The pale color of the olive leaves is due to their still reflecting the glory that shone on them when the Sufferer was transfigured on Olivet. THE ONION AND ITS KIND That fragrant lily we call the onion has long been esteemed, not merely for its culinary uses, but as medicine, and it also figures in verse and tale as a symbol. The 204 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. leek was a food of the poor in the orient, therefore it came to mean humility, though it also became the emblem of Wales, because it had the Cymric colors, green and white. Garlic, another relative of the onion, is given to dogs, cocks, and ganders in Bohemia, to make them fearless and strong. Onions are endowed with magic properties, and if hung in rooms where people congregate the vegetable draws to itself the diseases that might otherwise afflict them. In the onion the Egyptians symbolized the universe, since in their cosmogony the various spheres of hell, earth, and heaven were concentric, like its layers. The onion is sacred to St. Thomas, and at Christmas be- comes a rival to the mistletoe. At the old holiday sports, a merry fellow who represented the saint would dance into the firelight when the Yule log blazed, and give to the girls in the company an onion which they were to cut into quar- ters, each whispering to it the name of the young man from whom she awaited an offer of marriage, waving it over her head, and reciting this spell : Grood Saint Thomas do me right, and send my true love come to-night, That I may see him in the face, and him in my kind arms embrace. The damsel will be in her bed by the stroke of twelve, and if the fates are kind she will have a comforting vision of the wedding. ORANGE Certain poets would have us believe that the golden apples of the Hesperides were no apples, but mere oranges — too common, surely, to justify the heroics of Hercules, for that much tried man, in his picking of the fruit, in- volved himself in a journey to Mount Atlas, and a battle with the fearsome dragon that guarded them j yet his labors 205 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. brought no gain, for, as the fruit would not keep, except under the eyes of Hesperus's daughters, Minerva carried it back; so ^gle, Arethusa, and Erythia regained their golden apples, as the Rhine maidens regained the stolen Rhine gold. They would even have us believe — ^these poets — ^that when the crafty Hippomenes outfooted the swift Ata- lanta it was only oranges that he cast over his shoulder. Be- cause Jupiter gave the orange to Juno when he married her, orange-blossoms are still worn by brides, though the flower 's waxy whiteness and luscious perfume entitle it to popular- ity for its own sake. ORCHID Beautiful as is the orchid, there was nothing beautiful in its origin, for the first Orchis was the son of a nymph and a satyr, hence a fellow of unbounded passion. At a festival of Bacchus, being warm with drink, he attacked a priestess, whereupon the whole congregation fell upon him and rent him limb from limb. His father prayed the gods to put him together again ; but the gods refused, tem- pering their severity, however, by saying that whereas the deceased had been a nuisance in his life, he should be a satis- faction in his death, so they changed him to the flower that bears his name. Even the flower was alleged to retain tem- per, and to eat its root was to suffer momentary conversion into the satyr state. PALM The palm supplies rude tribes with food and shelter, oil and fuel. From its dates the Babylonians made wine. It stands in the desert as a mark of cooling water wells, and lines the shore with graceful plumes. In Egypt the admiration for its shapeliness expressed itself in capitals of temple and palace columns, which are conventionalized 206 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. from its tufts of leaves. In the dawn of history the tree signified riches, generation, victory, and light; hence the Greeks sanctified it to Apollo and venerated it as immortal. The date palm is held in respect among the Tamaquas of Mexico as the founder of the human race after the flood. In the east it was Mahomet who created the palm, causing it to spring from the earth at his command. Typifying Judea, it was the seal of that nation on the coins of the Roman rulers, for to the Jews it was a token of triumph, to be carried in procession, and waved before conquerors; a reminder, too, of the pleasant wells of the promised land, and the successful wars they waged to reach them. Palestine, indeed, is said to take its name from the palm, and its Hebrew name, tamar, was given to women, signify- ing their grace and uprightness. We still keep Palm Sun- day in memory of the day when Christ entered Jerusalem and the people waved and strewed palms before Him — an incident now denoted in the wearing of crossed fragments of palm in hats. Before that time the Jews had their own palm festival, when they retired from the city for a week to live in tents and cabins of palm branches, passing a season of merry-making and family reunions, for it memo- rialized the final success after forty years of camp life. To sufferers for religion, the angels brought palm branches before their souls fled through the smoke, and so the tree came to be called a token of martyrdom. On All Souls' Day, palms are thrown into the fire, and as they rise in smoke they are seized in proof of victory by the souls that day released from purgatory. In the traditions of some countries the palm was the forbidden tree of paradise, and in the coat of arms of South Carolina we read a suggestion of this myth, for we find there a palm circled by a serpent. In the northern lands fragments of palm were precious, for not only would 207 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. they subdue water devils, but with a leaf of it one might cast down the Wild Huntsman himself. In superstitious uses, it prevents sunstroke, if the person seeking its pro- tection has burnt it as a sacrifice during an eclipse; it averts lightning if a cross of its leaves be laid on the table while the storm is raging; it cures fever if bits of the leaf are swallowed ; it drives away mice when placed near gran- aries; and if one would be rid of fleas he puts a palm leaf behind the Virgin's picture on Easter morning, at the first stroke of the resurrection bell, saying, ' ' Depart, all animals without bones." For one year the fleas will stay away; which is a great comfort. It was a palm that St. Christopher used as a staff when, in his pre-Christian character of Offero, he bore the weak and small across the raging river and so carried Christ Himself. As the giant stood marvelling that so great a weight could be expressed in so small a body, Christ bade him thrust his staff into the ground, where it would blossom in token of the importance of his service. This he did, and it burst into flow^er and fruit, for it was a date tree. And the dark mind was enlightened. He understood that it was no man child of a common sort he had carried through the river, and he knelt and worshipped, taking the name, Christofero, or Christ-bearer; and, having lived and died in the odor of sanctity, he was gathered to the saints. Another saint is Clara, founder of the order of Poor Clares, who renounced the world on Palm Sunday, receiving from St. Francis of Assisi the palm branch which in those days was the mark of sanctity. In the legends of the holy family, the Virgin commanded the palm to bend its leaves above the little Jesus during the flight into Egypt, in order that the babe might have its shade. At another time when the mother of Christ was hungry and asked her husband to gather dates for her, 208 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. Joseph demurred, but the infant Jesus ordered the tree to bend so that she could pluck the fruit, and this it did so willingly that He blessed it and chose it as a " symbol of salvation for the dying," promising that when He entered Jerusalem in triumph it should be with a palm in His hand. In her ''Legends of the Madonna," Mrs, Jameson tells how the Virgin was comforted, after the crucifixion, by an angel who appeared, crying, ''Hail, Mary, blessed of God! I bring a palm that has grown in paradise. Let it be car- ried before your bier on your death, for in three days you shall join your son." The angel then took his flight, leav- ing the branch on the ground, where it shone and sparkled gloriously. And when the friends and disciples were come from the mount of sorrow, Mary gave the palm to John and asked him to bear it at her burial. That night, amid the sound of singing and a gush of strange perfume through the house, the Virgin died with angels about her bed and such a blaze of light arising from her body that those who prepared it for burial were nearly blinded. And the palm was carried to her tomb, where another miracle occurred, for she was rapt to heaven in the flesh and welcomed by choiring angels and players upon harps beyond number for multitude. Looking into the tomb afterward, it was found to hold no corruption, but to be filled with roses and lilies. We have a palm in the southwest that is peculiar to that region: the desert fan, or Washington filifera, from whose fibres the Indians make their baskets, ropes, and roofs, and with which they sweeten their meal of mesquite beans. Be- fore the coming of trouble, in the form of the white race, the Cahuilas carried each male child to the mountains, soon after birth, and there allotted to him a particular tree which served him as reminder of the deity. It was his to care for and to worship as a natural altar, and when he died it was killed by burning. The Caribs tell us that 14 209 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. when the deluge began to cover the earth, people tried to escape by climbing the cocorite palm, whose top reached heaven. An old woman in the lead became dizzy and frightened when half way up, and so became stone, as did all those who tried to pass her; but all who climbed the komoo palm were saved. PANSY Our pansy is a development from the violet, the little spots which show clearly in the white violet having been enlarged through cultivation to the markings that have so queer a suggestion of a face. An old German tale represents that it once had as fine a perfume as the violet, but as it grew wild in the fields the people sought it with such enthusiasm that they heedlessly trampled the grass needed for cattle, and even the vegetables required for their own tables. Seeing the wreck that was wrought by this eagerness, the flower prayed to the Trinity to take away its odor, that it might be no longer sought. This prayer was granted, and it was then that it took the name of trin- ity. To the monks, it was the flower of trinity, or herb trinity ; to the laity, it was three faces in a hood ; in heathen days, it was Jove's flower; with Christianity, it became the flower of Saint Valentine; heart's ease is another title; and of the accepted name of pansy — which is our way of saying pensee, a thought — there are quaint spellings, such as pauses, penses, paunces, pancyes, and pawnees, these versions occurring in old poetry. Other odd names for it are ladies ' flower, bird's eye, pink of my John, Kit run in the street, flamy, cull me, call me, stepmother, sister in law, the longer the dearer, kiss me quick, kiss me at the garden gate, cuddle me, jump up and kiss me, and kiss me ere I rise. 210 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. PASSION FLOWER In an old Spanish tradition it was the psission flower that climbed the cross and fastened about the scars in the wood where the nails had been driven through the hands and feet of the Sufferer. The early fathers saw in its bud the eucharist, in its half -open flower the star in the East, and in the full bloom the five wounds, the nails, the ham- mer, the spear, the pillar of scourging, and the crown of thorns, in its leaves the spear-head and thirty pieces of silver, in its tendrils the cords that bound the Lord. This growth upon the cross was not remembered by the people of Jerusalem, but was revealed to St. Francis of Assisi in one of his starving visions. It had turned in his sight from Lady Poverty, the object of his worship, to the flowering plant. When the Spaniards found the flower growing in the jungles of South America they regarded it as a promise that the natives should be converted, and a curious drawing made by one of the priests shows not only a likeness to the implements of the crucifixion, but the objects themselves in miniature: the column, nails, crown, and cup. In allusion to the habit of the flower in half closing to a bell form, a churchman wrote, ^'It may be well that in His infinite wisdom it pleased Him to create it thus shut up and protected, as though to indicate that the wonderful mysteries of the cross and of His Passion were to remain hidden from the heathen people of those countries until the time preordained by His Highest Maj- esty." Naturally, so marvellous a plant was sought and acclaimed by clerics of all degrees, and by the sick and crippled, and so eager is the eye of faith that after the vine was naturalized in Europe the people long continued to see in it those signs and wonders that we do not. When the Jesuits announced, in 1600, that the objects of the passion 211 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. were disclosed in the flower, an indignant botanist, an early Huxley, exclaimed, ''I dare say God never willed His priests to instruct His people with lies; for they come from the Devill, the author of them." PAULO WNIA Centuries ago there stood in the dragon gorge of Honan an imperial paulownia, or kiri, that ruled the forest by reason of its height, its symmetry, and the profusion of its flowers. And so it stood for ages, singing to the wind in its own voice. A wizard wandering that way listened, and at a touch of his wand he changed the tree into a harp, which, however, was to yield its music only to the greatest of musicians. The emperor summoned the masters and ordered them to strike its chords, but always when they did so the notes were harsh. Then Peiwoh came, and, instead of smiting its strings with command, as the others had done, he touched the harp lovingly, asking it to speak in its own voice, and not in the music of men. There was no vanity in the man, hence the kiri sang once more, sound- ing like the breath of a storm across the woods, recalling the carol of birds, and suggesting the sound of rain, of dis- tant thunder, of waterfalls, of falling timber — all the sounds of the wilderness it knew and loved in its life. The emperor, delighted, asked an explanation of the mas- tery and mystery. "It is that I encouraged the kiri to choose its own themes," answered Peiwoh. In which allegory the art spirit stands confessed. PEA This delicate and nourishing vegetable was a food of hearty old Thor, the thunderer, in whose honor, on Thor's day (Thursday) it is still eaten in Germany, The pea 212 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. came by an ill reputation, because, when the fires which were kindled on St. John's eve drove away the dragons that had been soaring roundabout, dripping pestilence from their wings, those canny brutes, not daring to descend to the hills where the flames appeared, carried up stores of peas and dropped them into the wells and springs, where, rotting, they raised a doleful stench and created miseries in the inwards of the public. Peas are used in divination, and ancient ceremonies testify to a regard that in our day of good cooking should be no less. Scottish and English lads and lassies are rubbed with pea straws by way of consolation when they have been jilted. When an eligible miss in shelling peas discovers nine in a pod, she puts the pod on the lintel and holds her breath, for the first male person who enters thereafter will marry her — if he is not already married, and is not related. PEACH y •V A popular folk-tale of Japan recites that an old woman . ^ washing clothes at a river was startled by a rolling and ^ splashing in the water, and presently there came to her feet a large, round object of pink color. She drew it with difficulty to the ^ank, where she discovered that it was a' peach, containing food enough to serve her and her hus- band for several days. On breaking it open, they were amazed to discover, cuddled inside the peach stone, a tiny child. The little fellow was cared for by his foster parents, who gave to him the best training and schooling that their means afforded. When he attained his growth he invaded the Island of Devils, defeated its inhabitants, and seized their treasure, which he poured at the feet of the aged £13 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. couple in reward for their love and their service in deliver- ing him from the peach. Collectors of porcelains and other works of Chinese art have observed the peach as a decorative figure, but have not always known that in presenting a vase or dish so ornamented the giver implies a hope of long life for the recipient. For in China the peach is the emblem of longevity, the bowls and plates on which it appears in picture being intended as birthday gifts. PEEPUL The peepul, pippala, or asvattha of India, which botan- ists insist should be called ficus religiosa, is sacred to Bud- dha, and shades many of his shrines and temples. It is the tree of wisdom, for Buddha sat beneath it in that long trance of acquired merit, when he stripped his memory of earthly things and enlarged his mind to the understand- ing of heaven. The sacred fires are fed with peepul wood and wood of the acacia sumi, the peepul symbolizing the male principle, the acacia the female, and the flame being created by rubbing sticks of the two. Priests drink the divine soma from vessels of peepul, and they who eat of its fruit when they reach paradise become enlightened, for this fruit is ambrosia, food of gods. The Hindus, who have almost as much regard for this tree as have the Buddhists, represent Vishnu seated on its leaves ; but they share in the preservation of the peepul, or bo, at Anuradhapura, Ceylon, which is held to be a scion of the veritable tree under which Buddha received illumina- tion. In Thibet, the Buddhists declare that the peepul is the bridge whereon all worthy souls pass from earth to heaven. 214 MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF FLOWERS, ETC. PEONY The peony, or paeony, is cited by Pliny as the earliest known of medicinal plants. In his very remarkable nat- ural history we learn that the woodpecker is especially fond of it, and that if he sees you picking the flower, he will fly at you and pick your eyes out. The name of the plant perpetuates that of Apollo in his character of physi- cian, for as Paeon he healed the wounds the gods received in the Trojan war. From that fact, the early doctors of medicine were known as pceoni, and medicinal plants were paeoniae. To this day, it is a practice among the peasantry of Sussex to put strings of beads carved from peony roots about the necks of their children, not merely that they may cut their teeth upon them, but that the beads may avert illness of all sorts, as well as the machinations of evil spirits. Apollo, being the healer and giver of light, heat, and other blessings, was praised in the hymn which took his name, and which we still call the pasan. Thus in nomen- clature the peony has a more than aristocratic lineage; it is divine. Yet it was a cause of strife and sorrow even on Olympus, for .