were half-starved by hybernating--having remained for days without
food--they were suddenly restored by eating the arum. There is a curious
tradition in Piedmont, that if a hare be sprinkled with the juice of
henbane, all the hares in the neighbourhood will run away as if scared
by some invisible power.
Gerarde also alludes to an old belief that cats, "Are much delighted
with catmint, for the smell of it is so pleasant unto them, that they rub
themselves upon it, and swallow or tumble in it, and also feed on the
branches very greedily." And according to an old proverb they have a
liking for the plant maram:--
"If you set it, the cats will eat it;
If you sow it, the cats won't know it."
Equally fond, too, are cats of valerian, being said to dig up the roots
and gnaw them to pieces, an allusion to which occurs in Topsell's "Four-
footed Beasts" (1658-81):--"The root of the herb valerian (commonly
called Phu) is very like to the eye of a cat, and wheresoever it groweth, if
cats come thereunto they instantly dig it up for the love thereof, as I
myself have seen in mine own garden, for it smelleth moreover like a
cat."
Then there is the moonwort, famous for drawing the nails out of
horses' shoes, and hence known by the rustic name of "unshoe the
horse;" while the mouse-ear was credited with preventing the horses
being hurt when shod.
We have already alluded to the superstitions relating to birds and
plants, but may mention another relating to the celandine. One of the
well-known names of this plant is swallow-wort, so termed, says
Gerarde, not, "because it first springeth at the coming in of the swallows,
or dieth when they go away, for it may be found all the year, but because
some hold opinion that with this herbe the darns restore eyesight to their
young ones, when their eye be put out." Coles strengthens the evidence
in favour of this odd notion by adding: "It is known to such as have skill
of nature, what wonderful care she hath of the smallest creatures, giving
to them a knowledge of medicine to help themselves, if haply diseases
annoy them. The swallow cureth her dim eyes with celandine; the wesell
knoweth well the virtue of herb-grace; the dove the verven; the dogge
dischargeth his mawe with a kind of grasse," &c.
In Italy cumin is given to pigeons for the purpose of taming them,
and a curious superstition is that of the "divining-rod," with "its versatile
sensibility to water, ore, treasure and thieves," and one whose history is
apparently as remote as it is widespread. Francis Lenormant, in his
"Chaldean Magic," mentions the divining-rods used by the Magi,
wherewith they foretold the future by throwing little sticks of tamarisk-