brother. In Hesse, it is said that with knots tied in willow one may slay a
distant enemy; and the Bohemians have a belief that seven-year-old
children will become beautiful by dancing in the flax. But many
superstitions have clustered round the latter plant, it having in years
gone by been a popular notion that it will only flower at the time of day
on which it was originally sown. To spin on Saturday is said in Germany
to bring ill fortune, and as a warning the following legend is among the
household tales of the peasantry:--"Two old women, good friends, were
the most industrious spinners in their village, Saturday finding them as
engrossed in their work as on the other days of the week. At length one
of them died, but on the Saturday evening following she appeared to the
other, who, as usual, was busy at her wheel, and showing her burning
hand, said:--
'See what I in hell have won,
Because on Saturday eve I spun.'"
Flax, nevertheless, is a lucky plant, for in Thuringia, when a young
woman gets married, she places flax in her shoes as a charm against
poverty. It is supposed, also, to have health-giving virtues; for in
Germany, when an infant seems weakly and thrives slowly, it is placed
naked upon the turf on Midsummer day, and flax-seed is sprinkled over
it; the idea being that as the flax-seed grows so the infant will gradually
grow stronger. Of the many beliefs attached to the ash-tree, we are told
in the North of England that if the first parings of a child's nails be
buried beneath its roots, it will eventually turn out, to use the local
phrase, a "top-singer," and there is a popular superstition that wherever
the purple honesty (Lunaria biennis) flourishes, the cultivators of the
garden are noted for their honesty. The snapdragon, which in years gone
by was much cultivated for its showy blossoms, was said to have a
supernatural influence, and amongst other qualities to possess the power
of destroying charms. Many further illustrations of this class of
superstition might easily be added, so thickly interwoven are they with
the history of most of our familiar wild-flowers. One further superstition
may be noticed, an allusion to which occurs in "Henry V." (Act i. sc. i):--
"The strawberry grows underneath the nettle,
And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best
Neighbour'd by fruit of baser quality;"
It having been the common notion that plants were affected by the
neighbourhood of other plants to such an extent that they imbibed each
other's virtues and faults. Accordingly sweet flowers were planted near
fruit-trees, with the idea of improving the flavour of the fruit; and, on the