'As Christ healed the issue of blood,
Do thou cut what thou cuttest for good.'
At sundown, the operator, after carefully washing his hands, is to cut
the club-moss kneeling. It is then to be wrapped in a white cloth, and
subsequently boiled in water taken from the spring nearest to its place of
growth. This may be used as a fomentation, or the club-moss may be
made into an ointment with the butter from the milk of a new cow." [5]
Some plants have, from time immemorial, been much in request from
the season or period of their blooming, beyond which fact it is difficult to
account for the virtues ascribed to them. Thus, among the Romans, the
first anemone of the year, when gathered with this form of incantation, "I
gather thee for a remedy against disease," was regarded as a preservative
from fever; a survival of which belief still prevails in our own country:--
"The first spring-blown anemone she in his doublet wove,
To keep him safe from pestilence wherever he should rove."
On the other hand, in some countries there is a very strong prejudice
against the wild anemone, the air being said "to be so tainted by them,
that they who inhale it often incur severe sickness." [6] Similarly we may
compare the notion that flowers blooming out of season have a fatal
significance, as we have noted elsewhere.
The sacred associations attached to many plants have invested them,
at all times, with a scientific repute in the healing art, instances of which
may be traced up to a very early period. Thus, the peony, which, from its
mythical divine origin, was an important flower in the primitive
pharmacopoeia, has even in modern times retained its reputation; and to
this day Sussex mothers put necklaces of beads turned from the peony
root around their children's necks, to prevent convulsions and to assist
them in their teething. When worn on the person, it was long considered,
too, a most effectual remedy for insanity, and Culpepper speaks of its
virtues in the cure of the falling sickness. [7] The thistle, sacred to Thor, is
another plant of this kind, and indeed instances are very numerous. On
the other hand, some plants, from their great virtues as "all-heals," it
would seem, had such names as "Angelica" and "Archangel" bestowed
on them. [8]
In later times many plants became connected with the name of Christ,
and with the events of the crucifixion itself--facts which occasionally
explain their mysterious virtues. Thus the vervain, known as the "holy
herb," and which was one of the sacred plants of the Druids, has long
been held in repute, the subjoined rhyme assigning as the reason:--