A further post in my series republishing The Folklore of Herbs (1946), a book by Katherine Oldmeadow, who was a significant figure in the British pagan revival.

CHAPTER IX.

THE FOLKLORE OF HERBS.

There is a tradition that Adam named the animals and Eve the flowers. An old bishop, who had no doubts about the truth of this legend, wrote in 1846 that it was more than wonderful that our first parent Adam,
“should be able on a sudden, without study or premeditation, to give names to each of these (the animals) so adapted and fitted to their natures that God Himself should approve the nomenclature,” and he added naively: “What Royal Society durst have undertaken it?”

We might say that Eve’s aptness in naming the flowers was even more wonderful!

Botanically, the names of plants are like those of people; a family name and an individual one. But in plant life the family name comes first. This first, or generic name, is usually derived from the Greek and often refers to some peculiar characteristic of the plant or to its history. The second, or specific name, is from the Latin.

It was Linnæus, the Swedish botanist, in the eighteenth century, who simplified and classified the nomenclature of plants, improving on the work of earlier botanists and inventing a simpler form of classification, which, in modern times, has been made simpler still. But for centuries the people of different districts, people with no knowledge of botany or classification, but with the imaginative gifts of country folk living close to nature, named the flowers according to their fancy, so that most of them have their local or country names and often a fairy legend attached to them.

Just as large, important families have grand names for special occasions and pet ones for less important times, so do plants, in the same way, use their botanical names and pet, or country ones, and some of the latter are particularly charming.

We have heard how, for centuries, the gypsies gathered healing herbs and administered them, and yet remained ignorant of their proper names, calling them by their shapes or their healing virtues. Also how in pagan days there were stories about plants dedicated to the gods. One of these is the widely-known legend of Baldur and the mistletoe.

We have mentioned, too, the heathen rites and ceremonies attached to the picking of plants, and how the monks, with the object of making the people forget these heathen customs, dedicated flowers to the saints and taught special little prayers to be said at their gathering. The result of this was that a vast amount of religious folklore grew up round the names of trees and plants.

These tales would be told to the children by parents and nurses, who would teach them, too, to say psalms and paternosters when herbs were pulled from Mother Earth.

Many flowers were dedicated to the Blessed Virgin and these were given tender little caressing names such as Our Lady’s Bedstraw. This little flower, so common on banks and in the fields, was also known as cradlewort, and was said to have cradled Our Lord in the manger. It is often painted in old pictures of the Nativity.

Our Lady’s Slipper, Our Lady’s Pincushion, Our Lady’s Girdle, Our Lady’s Tresses, were other names of this sort; and the Irish christened parsley most charmingly as Our Lady’s Little Vine. Clematis was the Virgin’s Bower, although later Gerard re-christened it with the beautiful name Travellers’ Joy; and St. John’s wort, a particularly blessed plant, was All-holy, or All-heal.

Agrimony, a benevolent plant much used for healing – this was Gerard’s “physic for naughty livers” – was quaintly called Country Nun, and children gave it the appropriate title of Church Steeple.

The lungwort of the gypsies was Our Lady’s Tears; the blue of the flowers the colour of her eyes, the red, the result of her weeping.

Forget-me-nots, too, were the Eyes of Mary, or sometimes the Eyes of the Infant Jesus.

Harebells were Our Lady’s Thimbles, or harvest bells, and ground ivy the Herb of the Madonna, or where God hath Walked.

Cuckoo flowers were Our Lady’s Smocks, because it was said that during the flight into Egypt she spread her linen to bleach on these flowers.

The lovely, frail wood sorrel was called Alleluia, because it flowered round about Easter time when so many Alleluias are heard in the churches.

Cowslips were Our Lady’s Candlestick, or St. Peter’s Keys; or sometimes, with primroses, they shared the name Keys of Heaven. Culpeper tells us the name given to them by the Greeks was Paralysis, because they cured the palsies. Another country name for them is Paigles. Silverweed, its silvery leaves pressed close to the ground, was beautifully called Footsteps of Our Lord.

A rose once found in every garden – of the rich or humble – is the maiden’s blush, or incarnation rose. Its colour, according to the legend, was the same as the lovely tint on the face of the Madonna at the Annunciation.

The Christmas rose was Christ’s Bloom, or Holy Night Rose. Tradition says that when, on the night of the Nativity, the shepherds hurried to the manger, a little shepherd girl followed them and stood outside weeping because she had no gift to offer. Heaven took pity on her and the Angel Gabriel descended and struck the ground, and the Christmas rose appeared in full bloom.

The coltsfoot was given the strange name of filium ante patrem (son before father), a name also bestowed on the meadow saffron. The flowers of both plants come before the leaves and the name filium ante patrum is symbolical of Our Lord’s relationship to St. Joseph.

Holly was “holy.” Its thorns and red berries represented the blood in the crown of thorns. Snowdrops were prettily called candlemas bells, and sometimes Eve’s Tears, shed when she was turned out of Paradise. Linnæus named this flower Galanthus, the milky flower.

Lilies-of-the-valley were Ladders to Heaven, and the bright little sundew, Gideon’s Fleece.

The pagans believed that the lovely, tall Mullein, that grows by the wayside like a fairy lamp post, was the plant Circe used for her sorceries, which perhaps accounts for one of its names, Hag’s Taper. Its yellow flowers, growing up the stem like little flames, made the Romans call it candelaria, and they used the stalks dipped in oil for torches. Its country names are Peter’s staff, candlewick, birds’ candles and hedge torch. Its leaves were once picked by penitents and used for making altar candles; the softness and thickness of the leaves have also given it the name Adam’s flannel.

Only a few days ago a gypsy woman came to the house and told us she had been in the forest picking blanket leaf to make cough mixture; and, following Sir Walter Scott’s excellent custom of always rewarding the person who told him a new word, we gave her a shilling for this new name for mullein. In spite of its holy uses and healing virtues, this plant was always strangely looked upon as one of the witches’ herbs and was under the dominion of Saturn.

The lovely little blue borage, favourite flower of the bees, was called the joyful herb, because it had the power to dispel melancholy and give courage to the despondent. Its motto was I, Borage, give courage. Because of this virtue the stillroom maid, when serving her cordials, would float in the cup a few of its tiny blue blossoms, a charming idea which would cheer up most people’s depression.

In some parts of Ireland and Brittany the blackberry is unpopular and the peasants would never eat the berries. They call the plant accursed because it grows among the thorns that crowned Our Lord. Even in England some country people will not gather the berries after Michaelmas, and they say on that day the devil spits on them.

Another plant held in superstitious horror is the broom. Perhaps this is due to the legend that when the Holy Family sheltered under a broom bush they were disturbed by the bursting of its pods, and it became an accursed plant:

“Bring broom in the house in May,

It’s sure to sweep one of the family away;”

and the evil was usually directed towards the master of the house.

The herb angelica, which is so much used in confectionery, is said to have been called after the Angel who came down from heaven especially to give the plant to a monk to stay the raging of the plague.

Another story is that it earned its name through its many healing virtues, and because it was a certain charm against witchcraft. Rosemary, the sweet herb of the sun, is rich in beautiful legends.

A rosemary bush was said to have sheltered the Holy family, and the swaddling clothes of the Christ child were strewn upon it. It was the Blessed Virgin’s mantle which, thrown upon it, turned the flowers into such an exquisite blue. Because of this legend mothers used to put a sprig of rosemary into their babies’ cradles to give them safety and peaceful dreams. In mediaeval times, the beautiful, grey-green foliage, aromatically scented, was used as a strewing herb in churches and houses on festival days, and it was sometimes even used instead of incense. Sprigs of it were sold in the streets of London in times of pestilence, and most people wore it as a charm against black magic. At funerals every mourner carried a sprig and cast it into the grave, and at weddings the bridesmaids carried bunches of gilded rosemary.

Miss Eleanour Sinclair Rohde, in her beautiful book, A Garden of Herbs, mentions a little known legend, and this is that rosemary seldom grows higher than the height of Christ when he was a man upon earth.
Sir Thomas More loved this herb and grew it in his garden because it attracted bees. Last, but not least, it has its place in fairy tale, for it was with rosemary that they tried to waken the sleeping beauty.

In Hampshire I heard an old woman call the early purple orchis Babes in the Cradle because, she said, the tiny florets looked like cradles, and, although she did not know it, this name must have been a relic of the past and the flower named for the Holy Child.

The common little white daisy, too, was symbolical of the innocence of the Holy Babe.

In the past all plants, with trefoil leaves like the shamrock and clover, were considered holy, because St. Patrick had taught from them the doctrine of the Trinity. Later, these were merely considered “lucky,” and used in charms against witches and demons.

After the Reformation, our Puritan forefathers looked upon these country names and legends as Popish nonsense, and the flowers were gradually re-christened and their legends forgotten.

Our Lady’s petticoat became thrift – a good puritan word. Our Lady’s fingers were fingers and thumbs, pattens and clogs, eggs and bacon and were even degraded into pigs’ petticoats.

In monkish days the scarlet berries of the wood briony that we see thrown over the hedges in strings, were known as rosaries, because they looked like rosary beads, but after the reformation they were called derisively “Cats’ Rosaries.”

There was a strange superstition, held by the ancient Greeks, that the seeds of the herb basil must be sown with curses if the plant were to flourish, and although it was used as a love charm it was looked upon as one of the devil’s plants.

Culpeper says it will draw out poison and that the most holy herb, rue, will never grow near it.

Samphire, mentioned by Shakespeare as growing on the cliffs near Dover, was a favourite herb for pickling and spicing: “Buy a barrel of samphire!” was a London street cry, and it was heard at country fairs. It was sometimes called St. Peter’s herb, because it grew on rocks.

Southernwood, or old man, or lad’s love, one of mercury’s sweet, healing herbs, was never absent from cottage gardens. It was – and still is – planted near the threshold of the house to bring good luck.

Wild thyme was considered by the Romans to be a charm against melancholy. It is a sweetly-scented herb which grows on the downs and in places where the air is pure and sweet. It is one of the herbs one associates with bees, butterflies, flowers and fairies. From an old sixteenth century manuscript Miss Eleanour Rohde quotes, perhaps, the most charming recipe in the world: “To enable one to see the Fairies:” Waters of marigolds and roses (flowers gathered to the east), flowers and tops of wild thyme gathered near the side of a hill where the fairies dance. All to be mixed with “the grasse of a fairy throne,” and set in oyle in a glasse in the sunne to dissolve.

This herb was so much esteemed by the ancient Greeks that, if they wished to praise a poet, they said his verses “smelt of wild thyme.”

After all this we are not surprised to find old Culpeper recommending thyme tea as a cure for that troublesome complaint the nightmare.

Balm was much used as a physic herb and for its sweet scent, and it was useful for rubbing the furniture to give a pleasant perfume to the house.

It seems to be another fairy herb, for in The Merry Wives of Windsor Anne Page bids the elves:

“The several chairs of order look you scour
With juice of balm and every precious flower.”

Woodruff was a strewing herb and used at weddings. During the Coronation festivities of George VI and Queen Elizabeth several pictures appeared in the papers of an old Coronation custom revived at the crowning of George IV, when a lady of quality acted as ceremonial herb woman and, with six attendant maidens, strewed sweet herbs before the new King. The country name of Woodruff, “sweetest when crushed,” was given to it because the scent comes from the dried plant, which smells like new-mown hay.

Sweet marjoram means “Joy of the Mountain,” and any one who has wandered over the hills of Southern France where this herb and wild lavender and other scented herbs abound, will realize how fitting is its name. The scent is exhilarating and seems to breathe health and joy into one’s spirit.

The French peasants say a healing spirit wanders over the Estérel; but the spirit is surely the fragrance given forth by the flowers, the perfume which is the soul of the flower and comforts physically and spiritually. St. Francis de Sales, one of the sweetest of the saints and a great lover of nature, described meditation as a person who smells a pink, a rose, rosemary, thyme, jessamine and orange blossoms one after another and separately. But the joy of contemplation is gained by smelling a perfume made of all the flowers.

The Greeks believed that when marjoram sprang up on graves it was a sign that the dead were happy and at peace.

When Ulysses was on his travels, his companions fell under the enchantments of Circe, the sorceress, and Ulysses set out to rescue them. On the way he met Mercury, who gave him a charm that would counteract the baleful spells of the enchantress, a sprig of the herb, rue. This is why rue is sometimes called a magic herb. It was always used in times of plague, and was said to be an antidote against poison.

Clary, a very decorative herb for the garden, has a sweet strong scent and a blue-purple flower. It was used in the middle ages for clearing the vision and was given the name Christ’s eye.

Every one knows the little buttony, blue scabious, which grows wild nearly everywhere and is called Devil’s Bit. When the root of this plant is examined, we find it ends abruptly as if bitten off. This root was once much used to cure plague and it is said that the devil (who organized all plague epidemics), was so much annoyed that the virtues of this root should be beneficial to mankind that he bit a piece off it.

Meadowsweet, once beautifully called Our Lady’s Girdle, or bridewort, was strewn before a bride at weddings. Its scent was a great favourite with Queen Elizabeth, who was an expert in fragrances. Its botanical name is spirea, meaning garland flower.

Mint, called in France Menthe de notre dame, has a homely fragrance and is found in every garden. It is a relation of catmint, a decorative herb bearing a lovely blue flower, and, like valerian, it is supposed to be beloved by cats.

Valerian, or allheal, speaks for itself as a physic herb. The wild variety has a strong, unpleasant scent, which caused the Welsh sometimes to refer to it as Pooh! Its roots attract rats, as well as cats, and there is a legend that this was the herb the pied piper carried in his wallet.

The little Shepherd’s Purse, always in flower, has been associated with the shepherds of Bethlehem. It has several country names, and perhaps the most honourable one is poor man’s pharmecetie, which bears witness to its value as a physic herb. George Herbert mentions it as yielding good medicines “easy for the parson’s purse.” Another of its names is pick-your-mother’s-heart-out, the heart being the little heart-shaped pod.

The cheerful scarlet pimpernel, known as the poor man’s weather glass, had other uses as well as that of acting as shepherd’s barometer. It would heal sore eyes, and was used for the stings and bites of venomous animals. It was a charm against witches and is even important enough to have a proverb of its own:

“No ear hath heard, no tongue can tell
The virtues of the pimpernel.”

In Cheshire this plant is sometimes strangely called father die, and in that county, too, cow parsley is known as mother die.

A lovely plant and a comforting herb is elecampane, with tall, golden flowers and roots full of healing virtues. Its botanical name is inula helenium, and the story is that it was named after Helen of Troy, who was gathering its blossoms when Paris carried her away. Its country name is elfwort.

Wild succory, or chicory, found in garden, field and waste places, is sometimes called keeper of the ways. Its flowers are of an exquisite and heavenly blue and its legend is a sad one. Once upon a time there was a lady with eyes of the same lovely blue, and the sun fell in love with her and begged her to marry him. The lady scorned him, and he immediately changed her into succory, and charged her to gaze up at him with her starry, blue eyes for ever and ever.

The little blue milkwort growing over the downs is known as the hermits’ flower, because it grows in lovely places peculiar to shepherds and hermits.

There is a good deal of folk-lore connected with parsley. It is said to go to the devil seven times before it consents to thrive in the kitchen garden; and even then it will grow only if the seeds are planted by an honest man. No old-fashioned gardener will transplant its roots from one garden to another, for this brings disaster to the new owners.

Although parsley has many medicinal virtues it is looked upon by most people as only a pot herb and the Greeks treated it with more respect than we do, for while we use it to garnish our cold meats, they wove it into crowns for heroes.

The house leek, so often seen on cottage roofs, is left there because it brings good luck to the house; probably this belief is a relic of the days when it was thought to be owned by the fortunate Jupiter.

Mandrake, even in Biblical times, was looked upon as a magic charm. This plant has long, glossy leaves, small whitish flowers and yellow, tomato-like fruits. These are poisonous eaten in quantities and produce great sleepiness and nausea but, in spite of this, Eastern people eat them.

The roots go very deep into the earth and are from four to five feet long. It is these roots that are credited with magical powers, and in the middle ages the supply of charms and amulets made from them did not equal the demand. Such a charm was not only a universal specific for every human ill; but it was said that the possessor of mandragora would be prosperous, discover ancient treasures and be safe from evil spirits and witches, and also that he would possess a love charm without equal.

The root of the mandrake is shaped like a little man or puppet, and it was believed to be half human and possessed by a living spirit, whose cries were so terrible when it was torn from the earth that mortals, hearing it, went mad. It had to be a brave person who would root up a mandrake, and the event was attended by elaborate precautions. After digging deeply round the root the digger would stand with his back to the wind and draw three circles round the plant with his sword. This would weaken the demoniac powers of the mandrake, and now was the time for the mighty pulling.

The daring operator would fill his ears with wax so that he should not hear the demoniacal shrieks. Then he would attach the tail of a hungry dog to the root of the plant and induce him to jump for food. As the root came from the earth, the mandrake shrieked and the dog – according to tradition – died with horror.

These rites made mandrake roots precious, and pedlars and witches, unable to supply enough of them for their clients, had happy ideas of using briony roots for the charms – and no one was any the wiser.

Marigolds were once tenderly called Mary golds, and were named for Our Lady. They were specially loved as one of the herbs of the sun, to whom they always turn. The flowers, like violets, primroses and nasturtiums, were used to decorate salads and the petals were dried to colour and flavour confectionery. Only a short time ago we were served with “marigold pudding” in an old Wiltshire inn. This was a favourite sweet in Queen Anne’s days.

The pansy, called “paunces” by the Elizabethans, owed its religious name, Herb Trinity, to its three faces. Its country names are jump-up-and-kiss-me or three-faces-under-a-hood. Shakespeare calls it Cupid’s flower.

Herb Bennet was once “blessed herb” and was much revered.

Creeping Jenny, with its gay little gold blossoms, has always been a country favourite and has many pet names. Herb twopence is one, but string of sovereigns is the prettiest.

Solomon’s seal was known as David’s harp, and Star of Bethlehem as eleven o’clock lady, the time of the flower’s opening.

The handsome striped ribbon grass is called by children match-me-if-you-can.

Muschatel, a woodland plant with insignificant green flowers which give to it the botanical name of adoxa (without glory), has a country name which exactly suits it – Town Hall Clock; because four of its flowers face different ways.

London pride is not the pride of London gardens, but is called after the man who brought it into this country, Mr. London. Old-fashioned people like to give its old-fashioned name, Queen Anne’s Lace.

Another loved inhabitant of cottage gardens is honesty, named for its transparency. This was once considered a magical herb under the influence of the moon. Chaucer calls it “lunarie,” and its other names are penny flower, moon flower, silver plate or Pope’s money.

The lovely, decorative seed vessels of this plant might well be cut out of the moon’s own substance; softly luminous, and its dark seeds looking like a face behind silvery mist.

The empty seed case of the greater knapweed is almost more beautiful, and opens to the sun like a tessellated silver shield. Sometimes, on a hot afternoon in the hay field, these seed cases shine on the fallen swathes of hay as if some fairy host had fled and left their shields behind them. The flower called Venus’s looking-glass has a charming legend. The goddess let her mirror fall to earth and it was picked up by a poor shepherd. He discovered that the pastime of gazing at his own reflection was so pleasant that he shamefully neglected his young wife, and Cupid, angry, snatched the glass and broke it into pieces, which all turned into flowers.

Mother Elder has the most legends attached to her. Modern farmers and gardeners make war on the elder bush; but in the old days it was encouraged to grow because of its power to protect against evil spirits. Mother Elder, however, would stand no nonsense and a polite request had to be made to her if you wished to despoil her of any of her limbs. She had a great dislike to seeing any of her wood made into furniture, and if it was ever used for cradles she came and stole the babies.

Thousands of years ago the Greeks made musical instruments of the wood of the elder, and flutes and pipes from the hollow stem, which little boys still use for whistles and popguns without asking Mother Elder’s permission.

To make a magic charm from the elder the soft pith must be taken from the stems and cut into rounds, dipped in oil and put to float in a bowl of water on Christmas Eve. At mediaeval parties this custom was useful because by such a light the presence of unwanted black witches at the feast could be detected.

On Midsummer Eve Mother Elder’s glance was benevolent, for if you stood beneath her boughs she would, perhaps, show you the fairies. On the same night it was usual to make a magic circle and stand inside it holding elderberries just picked, which might induce the dryad of the tree to give you the power of finding the magic fern seed, which would make you invisible on this night of nights for fairy revels.

It was not surprising that people wanted Mother Elder to provide this mystic seed for them without the trouble of finding it for themselves; which could be done only by placing twelve pewter plates at midnight on St. John’s Eve under the fern fronds.

Most wonderful of flower legends is that of the Passion flower. When this flower was introduced into Europe it was thought to be an invention of the Jesuits and not a real flower at all. In Mexico it is called the flower of the five wounds and its parts are said to tell the story of the Crucifixion:

The triple style signifies the three nails.

The centre of the flower, the column when Our Lord was scourged.

The filaments, the crown of thorns.

The calyx, the nimbus.

The leaf, the spear head.

The tendrils, the whips and cords.

The colour, Heaven.

The duration of the flower’s life – three days – is the symbol of the resurrection.

A strange story is told of Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice in Wonderland. He knew the Passion flower by name, but not the legend; and when he wrote Alice through the Looking Glass, he introduced it as a flower in a passion.

The legend of the Crown Imperial, a garden flower mentioned by Shakespeare, and one that grows in his garden at Stratford still, is also a peculiar one. It is said that when Our Lord walked in the Garden of Gethsemane, all the flowers bowed their heads except the regal Crown Imperial, which then bore white flowers. Our Lord rebuked the flower and it blushed with shame and its tears gathered, but never fell. Since then the flower has never bloomed an innocent white. It is always red or yellow; the flower cups hang down instead of standing proudly aloft, and the tears can still be seen inside them.

An ugly and mystifying country name for this imperial plant is drooping young man.

There is much country lore attached to logs. The slow burners, so economical to the housewife’s purse, are oak, birch, beech, hickory, holly and ash.

These not only burn slowly but do not spit and cackle like the quick-burning woods, which makes them safe company.

Cedar, crab-apple, cherry and pine are sweetly scented and aromatic. Pine is a dangerous, crackly wood, but a cheerful, merry fireside companion:

WOOD LORE.
OLD JINGLE.

Beech wood fires are bright and clear
If the logs are kept a year.
Chestnut’s only good they say,
If for long it’s laid away.
But ash wood new or ash wood old
Is fit for a queen with a crown of gold.
Birch and fir logs burn too fast,
Blaze up bright and do not last;
It is by the Irish said,
Hawthorn bakes the sweetest bread.
Elm wood burns like churchyard mould,
E’en the very flames are cold:
But ash wood green or ash wood brown
Is fit for a queen with a golden crown.
Poplar gives a bitter smoke
Fills your eyes and makes you choke.
Apple wood will scent your room
With an incense-like perfume.
Oaken logs of dry and old,
Keep away the winter cold.
But ash wood wet or ash wood dry
A king shall warm his slippers by.