Ultimate Grimoire and Spellbook

CHAPTER XVII. PLANTS AND THE CALENDAR. A goodly array of plants have cast their attractions round the festivals of the year, giv ...

At Candlemas it was customary, writes Herrick, to replace the Christmas evergreens with sprigs of box, which were kept up till E ...

extensive note:--"Trifolium repens, Dutch clover, shamrock.--This is the plant still worn as shamrock on St. Patrick's Day, thou ...

while in Wales it is popularly known as "Flowering Sunday," because persons assemble in the churchyard and spread fresh flowers ...

this purpose being the amaranth, which, like the former, is considered an emblem of immortality. In our own country may be menti ...

But one plant was carefully avoided--the cuckoo flower.[3] As in other floral rites, the selection of plants varies on the Conti ...

St. Barnabas' thistle (Centaurea solstitialis) derived its name from flowering at the time of the saint's festival, and we are t ...

of the Franco-German War, he saw sprigs of pine stuck on the railway carriages bearing the German soldiers into France. In East ...

"Poppies a sanguine mantle spread For the blood of the dragon that Margaret shed." Archdeacon Hare says the Sweet-William, desig ...

The passion-flower has been termed Holy Rood flower, and it is the ecclesiastical emblem of Holy Cross Day, for, according to th ...

Conway remarks that, "it was to the ancient races of the north a sign of the life which preserved nature through the desolation ...

CHAPTER XVIII. CHILDREN'S RHYMES AND GAMES. Children are more or less observers of nature, and frequently far more so than their ...

cherries.'" In the North of England the broad-dock (Rumex obtusifolius), when in seed, is known by children as curly-cows, who m ...

Being in all probability a mode of divination for insuring good luck. Another name for the same plant is "cocks," from children ...

by putting them in the fire and singeing them brown, repeating verses at the same time. One of the names of the heath-pea (Lathy ...

An old rhyme often in years past used by country children when the daffodils made their annual appearance in early spring, was a ...

The children of Galloway play at hide-and-seek with a little black- topped flower which is known by them as the Davie-drap, mean ...

CHAPTER XIX. SACRED PLANTS. Closely allied with plant-worship is the sacred and superstitious reverence which, from time immemor ...

flowers assigned to Juno may be mentioned the lily, crocus, and asphodel. Passing on to other countries, we find among the plant ...

And all the gods have known. What mortal can now harm, Or foeman vex us more? Through thee beyond alarm, Immortal God! we soar." ...