extensive note:--"Trifolium repens, Dutch clover, shamrock.--This is the
plant still worn as shamrock on St. Patrick's Day, though Medicago
lupulina is also sold in Dublin as the shamrock. Edward Lhwyd, the
celebrated antiquary, writing in 1699 to Tancred Robinson, says, after a
recent visit to Ireland: 'Their shamrug is our common clover' (Phil.
Trans., No. 335). Threkeld, the earliest writer on the wild plants of
Ireland, gives Seamar-oge (young trefoil) as the Gaelic name for
Trifolium pratense album, and expressly says this is the plant worn by
the people in their hats on St. Patrick's Day." Some, again, have
advocated the claims of the wood-sorrel, and others those of the
speedwell, whereas a correspondent of Notes and Queries (4th Ser. iii.
235) says the Trifolium filiforme is generally worn in Cork, the Trifolium
minus also being in demand. It has been urged that the watercress was
the plant gathered by the saint, but this plant has been objected to on the
ground that its leaf is not trifoliate, and could not have been used by St.
Patrick to illustrate the doctrine of the Trinity. On the other hand, it has
been argued that the story is of modern date, and not to be found in any
of the lives of that saint. St. Patrick's cabbage also is a name for "London
Pride," from its growing in the West of Ireland, where the Saint lived.
Few flowers have been more popular than the daffodil or lent-lily, or,
as it is sometimes called, the lent-rose. There are various corruptions of
this name to be found in the West of England, such as lentils, lent-a-lily,
lents, and lent-cocks; the last name doubtless referring to the custom of
cock-throwing, which was allowed in Lent, boys, in the absence of live
cocks, having thrown sticks at the flower. According also to the old
rhyme:--
"Then comes the daffodil beside
Our Lady's smock at our Lady's tide."
In Catholic countries Lent cakes were flavoured with the herb-tansy,
a plant dedicated to St. Athanasius.
In Silesia, on Mid-Lent Sunday, pine boughs, bound with variegated
paper and spangles, are carried about by children singing songs, and are
hung over the stable doors to keep the animals from evil influences.
Palm Sunday receives its English and the greater part of its foreign
names from the old practice of bearing palm-branches, in place of which
the early catkins of the willow or yew have been substituted, sprigs of
box being used in Brittany.
Stow, in his "Survey of London," tells us that:--"In the weeke before
Easter had ye great shows made for the fetching in of a twisted tree or
with, as they termed it, out of the wodes into the king's house, and the
like into every man's house of honour of worship." This anniversary has
also been nicknamed "Fig Sunday," from the old custom of eating figs;