CHAPTER VII.
PLANTS IN FAIRY-LORE.
Many plants have gained a notoriety from their connection with
fairyland, and although the belief in this romantic source of superstition
has almost died out, yet it has left its traces in the numerous legends
which have survived amongst us. Thus the delicate white flowers of the
wood-sorrel are known in Wales as "fairy bells," from a belief once
current that these tiny beings were summoned to their moonlight revels
and gambols by these bells. In Ireland they were supposed to ride to
their scenes of merrymaking on the ragwort, hence known as the "fairies'
horse." Cabbage-stalks, too, served them for steeds, and a story is told of
a certain farmer who resided at Dundaniel, near Cork, and was
considered to be under fairy control. For a long time he suffered from
"the falling sickness," owing to the long journeys which he was forced to
make, night by night, with the fairy folk on one of his own cabbage
stumps. Sometimes the good people made use of a straw, a blade of
grass, or a fern, a further illustration of which is furnished by "The Witch
of Fife:"
"The first leet night, quhan the new moon set,
Quhan all was douffe and mirk,
We saddled our naigis wi' the moon-fern leif,
And rode fra Kilmerrin kirk.
Some horses were of the brume-cow framit,
And some of the greine bay tree;
But mine was made of ane humloke schaw,
And a stour stallion was he." [1]
In some folk-tales fairies are represented as employing nuts for their
mode of conveyance, in allusion to which Shakespeare, in "Romeo and
Juliet," makes Mercutio speak of Queen Mab's arrival in a nut-shell.
Similarly the fairies selected certain plants for their attire. Although
green seems to have been their popular colour, yet the fairies of the
moon were often clad in heath-brown or lichen-dyed garments, whence
the epithet of "Elfin-grey." Their petticoats, for instance, were composed
of the fox-glove, a flower in demand among Irish fairies for their gloves,
and in some parts of that country for their caps, where it is nicknamed
"Lusmore," while the Cuscuta epithymum is known in Jersey as "fairies'
hair." Their raiment was made of the fairy flax, and the wood-anemone,